The Cross vf-2

by Scott G. Mariani

  ‘He’s right,’ Lillith said to Ash as she cut the air with a couple more vicious practice slashes. ‘You don’t stand a chance, bloodbag.’

  Ash hefted the executioner’s sword, spat on the ground and he and Lillith approached one another in the middle of the moonlit ruins as the rest of the vampires crowded around at a safe distance.

  ‘Slice him and dice him, Lillith,’ Elspeth called out, and licked her lips. ‘We all fancy a feed.’

  ‘Take off her head, Ash,’ Kali joked, drawing a jewelled finger across her throat. She flashed an alluring smile at Gabriel that Lillith noticed, and gave Kali a warning snarl.

  ‘En garde,’ Gabriel said. The fight had formally begun.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The two opponents circled each other. Lillith was quick and agile on her feet, the tip of her blade flicking up, down, left, right, keeping Ash guessing where her first attack would strike. He clutched the executioner’s sword tightly with his right hand just behind the guard and his left on the pommel, his feet wide apart, knees bent, watching her every move. He’d seen what she could do.

  But then, he thought, she hadn’t seen what he could do. With all the explosive power he could summon up, he drew the sword back over his shoulder and slashed the blade ferociously downwards at her head.

  Lillith saw the strike coming a mile away. Skipping lightly back out of its path, she immediately closed in again with a yell of aggression and a lunge-thrust to the chest that Ash had to move fast to block.

  The bright clash of steel on steel echoed off the stone ruins as the fight began to step up in pace. The speed and power of Lillith’s attack was terrifying. Wildly parrying strike after strike, Ash knew that if she kept him on the defensive she would control the fight. With an angry scream he rushed her, sweeping his heavy blade in a wide scything motion that made her retreat back a few dancing paces. The vampire spectators broke their ring to let them through.

  But Ash didn’t have the offensive for long. Seeing her eyes fix suddenly on his chest, he drew up his blade ready to block a centre thrust to his torso. By the time he realised she’d tricked him into opening up his outside line of defence, he’d already felt the impact to his right forearm and she was skipping away out of range with a grunt of triumph, blood flicking from the tip of her sabre. He looked down and saw the bleeding razor-straight gash in the right sleeve of his kimono.

  ‘Yum yum!’ she sang to Ash. ‘A taste of what’s to come.’

  Nothing showed in Ash’s eyes. He felt no pain. This was the fight of his life. Not that he feared death particularly. What he feared most was losing an opportunity that he’d dreamed of, night and day, for years. A one-in-a-trillion chance that had never been more than a fantasy. But now it was real, and he wasn’t about to let it pass him by.

  Lillith moved in again, feinted right, caught him off balance, cut around his defences and stabbed left. He gasped as he felt the cold steel puncture his left side, the cold air on opened flesh, and his knees weakened momentarily. Now she came in for the kill, raising the sabre high and bringing it down in a vicious cut aimed at slicing his skull clean down the middle …

  … If it had found its mark. At the very last instant Ash threw up his blade to intercept hers with a double-handed block that had every shred of straining muscle and sinew in his body behind it. The two swords met just inches above the crown of his skull. One forged-steel razor edge crashing violently against the other, thousands of foot pounds of energy concentrated into a few microns of metal.

  Too much for the slender curved blade of Lillith’s sabre. The brute chopping force of the executioner’s sword cleaved right through it, shattering it into fragments. She staggered back, her grip on the broken sword loosening just a fraction of a second long enough for Ash to recover his attack, leap forward with a shout of fury and hammer the heavy pommel of his weapon into her chest.

  The vampires let out a collective gasp. All except Gabriel, who only raised an eyebrow.

  The savage blow knocked Lillith onto her back. The broken sabre twisted out of her fingers and slid across the floor. Before she could writhe back up to her feet, Ash was standing astride her with the point of his sword pressing down hard against her throat. He looked across at Gabriel. ‘I’ll take her head off,’ he said calmly.

  And now, finally, after all these centuries of absolute confidence in her superiority as a vampire, here was a human who could best her. Lillith let out a strangled cry of rage and grasped the blade with both hands, trying to wrench it away from her — but Ash’s grip was iron and his determination to win was absolute.

  Gabriel raised a hand. ‘Enough,’ he called out.

  Ash instantly stepped away. Lillith gathered herself up, quivering in defeat, touching her fingers to her bleeding throat and avoiding the stares of the other vampires as she slunk away to the shadowy far side of the ruins. Even Kali was looking at her with sympathy.

  ‘Holy fucking shit, did you see that?’ Baxter Burnett whispered, unable to take his eyes off Ash.

  Zachary went over to Lillith, put his arm around her shoulders and spoke softly to her. For a few moments she seemed subdued, as close to tears as it was possible for a vampire to be. Then with a sudden snarl she broke away from Zachary and charged at Ash, fangs extended.

  This time, if Gabriel hadn’t been there to intercept her, she would have torn the human’s heart out where he stood and sprayed his blood across the flagstones. ‘Nobody does that to me,’ she hissed. ‘Nobody!’

  ‘Accept your defeat graciously, sister,’ he said, gripping her arm tightly. His tone was gentle and there was a half-smile on his lips, but the hardness of his eyes was enough to make her back down.

  ‘You have passed the test,’ Gabriel said to Ash. ‘This weapon is now yours to wield as you carry out your mission. Obey my orders to the letter and return victorious, and we will fulfil our promise to you.’

  Ash slipped the sword back in its scabbard. ‘Whatever you want me to do, name it. It’s done.’

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Oxford

  The following evening

  Night had already fallen by the time Chloe arrived at her father’s place with a bottle of his favourite Bordeaux to celebrate the fact that his discovery was making the news.

  ‘You mean your discovery, honey,’ Matt Dempsey said, uncorking the bottle in the kitchen and setting it aside to breathe. The smell of tomato and basil and minced steak and garlic was filling the whole downstairs, and his apron was covered with cooking splashes.

  ‘I still can’t believe it’s from outer space, Dad,’ Chloe said, crossing the hallway to peer in through the open study door. The cross was in its new home, a glass tank perched on his desk.

  ‘Neither could Fred, at first. You should have seen his face, honey. He ran it through the spectroscope three times.’

  ‘So the spectroscope gives you …’

  ‘A complete mineralogical analysis of the material,’ Matt said. ‘And it certainly looks like we’re right. Whatever kind of rock your cross is made from, it didn’t come from this planet.’

  ‘Amazing. So where’d it come from?’

  Matt chuckled and shook his head. ‘It’s still early days. It’ll take a lot more verification before anything can be officially confirmed. That means showing our findings to a bunch of people. So for starters, I’m taking it to London next week to show it to some of the guys at the Royal Astronomical Society.’

  ‘Exciting times.’

  ‘A little too exciting,’ Matt said. ‘I kind of wish I hadn’t let Fred talk me into calling the media in on it so soon. I hate seeing my name splashed all over the papers.’

  ‘You can’t be a recluse forever, Dad.’

  ‘Hey, I am not a recluse.’

  The discussion carried them through until they were sitting down to a plate of Matt’s home-cooked meatballs with rice, which Chloe knew was the only dish he could produce.

  ‘The thing is, of course,’ Matt said as he po
ured the wine, ‘the lump of rock could have been here for tens of thousands, even millions of years, almost certainly after a prehistoric meteor shower, before it just happened to be picked up. Its finder probably just liked the look of it. Maybe he was the stonemason who sculpted it into a cross. In short, its extra terrestrial origin can’t be anything other than pure coincidence.’

  ‘That’s a relief. I thought you were going to tell me that it landed here like that.’

  Matt laughed. ‘Now that would be something, wouldn’t it? Sorry to disappoint you. It wasn’t sculpted into that shape until the fifth century or so. But, you know, it would still have been a highly unusual find, even if it had been any ordinary bit of rock.’ He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded sketch he’d made of the cross. ‘I’ve arrived at a rough translation of the inscriptions. Wrote it down here to show you. Makes interesting reading.’

  Chloe laid down her knife and fork, unfolded the paper, and read his translation out loud. ‘“He who wields this cross of power shall gain protection from the dark revenants of Deamhan, drinkers and plunderers of the life of Man. May the Divine Virtue of our Lord descend upon thee and hold thee safe.”’

  She looked up. ‘Whoa. Freaky. Who are the revenants of Deamhan?’

  ‘Deamhan sounds like …?’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Demon?’

  ‘You got it. Ancient Gaelic for Auld Nick himself. Aka, the Devil. For whatever reason, this particular cross must have been regarded as a special sort of talisman to ward off evil spirits.’

  ‘Drinkers of human life? Like, vampires?’ She chuckled.

  Her father shrugged. ‘Those were deeply superstitious times, Chloe. Our scientific age has rightly taught us to disregard a lot of things, but certain phenomena must have seemed very real to the folks of that era. They looked to the early Christian church for protection, just as their pagan ancestors had looked to their gods and idols. One religion growing out of the previous one.’

  ‘Well, here’s to our strange and wonderful cross,’ she said, raising her glass.

  ‘To the cross.’ They clinked.

  When the meatballs were finished, Matt disappeared into the kitchen to prepare dessert and turned on some loud opera music. ‘What are we having?’ Chloe yelled through the door over the din.

  ‘Ice cream,’ he called back. ‘Chocolate, your favourite.’

  Leaving her father to potter about and sing along tune-lessly with the opera, Chloe ran up to the first floor to use the bathroom. As an afterthought, she trotted up the winding stairs to the spare loft bedroom she slept in when she was visiting. From up here, right at the top of the house, you couldn’t hear the operatic din from downstairs. Chloe walked over to the bed and unzipped the bag she’d dumped on the duvet. Inside was the air pistol she’d wanted to show her dad, to alleviate his concerns about her shooting.

  She removed the long, futuristic-looking pistol from its pouch. With its plastic anatomical grip and counter-balance, bright blue anodised aluminium body and electronic trigger attachment, the thing was more like a fantasy toy or a ray gun out of Star Trek than any sort of threatening firearm. He’d soon see that there was nothing to be concerned about. She twirled it around her finger and started heading back down the stairs to rejoin him.

  As he opened the kitchen cupboard and fetched out a couple of bowls, Matt Dempsey was feeling more contented than he had in years, and without touching more than a glass or two of wine. It was just so good to be able to spend time like this with his daughter, and he was so proud to see her doing well and pursuing what she—

  The dreamy smile fell from his face as a loud crash came from behind him. At first he thought a shelf had come down.

  It hadn’t.

  He stared, petrified, as a man came smashing through the back door into the kitchen. A man with a shaven head. A long, dirty coat. And, in his gloved fist, a massive sword whose blade he was using to chop and slice his way through the remains of the door.

  Matt barely had time to yell ‘Who are you?’ before the man strode into the house, grabbed him tightly around the neck and slammed him with incredible strength against the wall.

  ‘Where is it?’ His voice was a hissing rasp and his breath stank like rotten meat. Matt gaped in horror at the man’s teeth. Sharpened to points. Like fangs. Like the teeth of a monster.

  ‘Where is what? I don’t know what you’re—’

  The terrible mouth opened again to rasp at him. ‘The cross. Where is the cross?’

  Matt had read once that you should never confront a home invader. Let them have what they wanted. Even if it was an artifact of inestimable historic value. Even if you had no possible understanding of why they should want to take it from you. Just let them have it, so they’d leave you alone.

  He thought of his daughter. Pointed towards the study door. ‘There. In the glass case on the desk. Take it and go!’

  An iron fist closed around his collar. Still clutching the enormous sword, the man dragged Matt bodily out of the kitchen and across the hallway to the study door, kicking it open with a violent crash. The jagged smile widened as he spotted the glass case on the desk with the cross inside. He hurled Matt to the floor, knocking the wind out of him. Raised the sword to the height of his left shoulder and sliced the broad blade diagonally down to shatter the glass case into a million spinning shards. Reaching greedily inside, he grabbed the cross and thrust it into the pocket of his coat.

  Then turned back towards Matt and raised the sword again.

  ‘You have what you wanted,’ Matt gasped, tasting blood on his lips. ‘Now go. For the love of God, go and leave us in peace!’

  The man bared his teeth.

  Matt realised he was smiling.

  ‘Us?’ the man said.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chloe had reached the first-floor landing on her way downstairs by the time she heard the horrible scream from below and her heart stopped and her legs turned to jelly.

  DAD??!!

  The cry died soundlessly on her lips as she heard it again. A terrible, tortured wail of agony cut short by a sickening butcher-shop crunch of tempered steel slicing through flesh and bone. Every muscle in Chloe’s body tightened like a bowstring. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. She swayed on her feet. It wasn’t happening. Wasn’t—

  She barely even felt herself stagger down the rest of the stairs. She looked in through the open study door … and saw her father lying there on the rug.

  Or what remained of him. Bloodied, torn, twitching, dying. The horrible gashed slice that had almost severed his upper torso diagonally from the rest of him. The study wall, the fireplace, the floor, all were sprayed in livid spatters of blood.

  And the man standing over her father’s body. The huge sword in his fist streaked with red, the long broad blade dripping with it. For an instant, all she could do was stare. Her gaze dropped to the cross protruding from his coat pocket, then back up to meet his eyes as he slowly turned to look at her and bared his teeth. Chloe stood paralysed with terror.

  The man bent and reached out a bloody fist. He grasped her father by the tatters of his shirt collar and hauled him up like a bundle of dead meat. Drew him close, and then, with a suddenness and ferocity that seemed unreal, he opened wide his jagged mouth and sank his teeth into his neck. Ripping. Sucking. Gnawing and slobbering and gargling in his blood.

  That was when the shriek finally burst from Chloe’s lips. The man instantly released his grip on her father, and the body slumped down to hit the floor with a wet crunch. Blood bubbled crimson between the man’s bared teeth as he snarled at her.

  Then he snatched up the huge, gory sword and charged.

  For a millisecond, Chloe stood rooted and staring at the maniac coming at her with the swinging blade. All at once, her senses suddenly came rushing back and she bolted for the stairs. Still clutching the empty air pistol she leaped up towards the first landing. The sword blade whooshed in the narrow stairwell and cras
hed into the wall just inches behind her, bringing down a white shower of plaster dust. Chloe raced desperately on. She reached the first landing and made it to the bathroom door just ahead of him. She rushed inside and slammed the door behind her. The door was solid oak, like all the doors in the old house, with a proper iron lock and a large key. She fumbled for it with shaking fingers, twisted it, felt the mechanism slide home with a clunk.

  Safe, for a short moment. Something crashed into the door with enormous force from the other side. Chloe saw the oak bend and the dust explode from the joints around the frame. She swallowed and stared around her, fighting back the panic and the horror and the grief that made her want to scream. It was only a small, simple bathroom. The only window was a narrow rectangle above the sink. Outside the window, gently waving, silhouetted in a dark blur in the amber glow of the street light outside, was the gnarled old tree that her father refused to have taken down even though its roots were working their way into the drains.

  Another massive crash at the door, the thud of tempered steel chopping through wood. Plaster dust and white flakes of paint rained down onto the bathroom tiles. A ripping sound as the killer twisted and wrenched the broad tip of the blade out of the door for another swing. He was going to hack his way through to her, and it wasn’t going to take him long.

  Chloe stared at the little window and tried to marshal her thoughts. Was she slim enough to wriggle through, or would she be trapped halfway through with her legs kicking helplessly inside the room, waiting to be sliced off by the maniac’s sword?

  She gaped at the empty air pistol in her hand. As a weapon, it was hopelessly ineffective. It threw its tiny lead pellet, smaller than a grape seed, with barely enough energy to penetrate anything more resistant than a floppy card target ten yards away. But it was all she had. She dug feverishly in her jeans pocket, and among the small change and crumpled till receipts her fingers closed on the small, hard shape of a pellet. One or two always got lost in the folds of the cloth, to remain there for weeks or end up rattling around inside the drum of the washing machine. She took it out and held it between trembling fingertips.