She would never have taken Rudi for a traitor. That made her as furious with herself as she was with him. She drew the Desert Eagle.
Apart from the empty Krug bottle and the two crystal glasses, one with a smear of red lipstick, there was no sign of Rudi and his female companion in the mock Louis XV salon. She booted open one of the doors that radiated off the room, and found herself in a gigantic mirrored bathroom with steps leading down to a sunken Jacuzzi. She slammed the door shut, tried another and stepped into Rudi’s bedroom.
Rudi was alone on the super-kingsize leopardskin four-poster, dwarfed by the bed’s size. He lay propped up against satin pillows wearing a black bathrobe that had ‘R.B.’ in large gold letters over his heart. He gazed idly at Alex as she strode up to the foot of the bed and pointed the gun at him.
She was almost speechless with hurt. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.
Rudi said nothing.
She clicked off the Desert Eagle’s safety. ‘Answers. Now. I want to know why you betrayed me and who put you up to it.’
Still no reply. No movement.
Alex lowered the gun. ‘Rudi?’
He was staring past her, towards the door, as if in some kind of trance. She walked round the side of the bed. Not a flicker of reaction. Reaching a hand out to him, she shook his shoulder.
‘Rudi?’ she said again.
Only then did she spot the thin red line that ran across his throat and around his neck, oozing a tiny trickle of dark vampire blood.
She nudged him. Rudi’s head toppled slowly off his shoulders, bounced off the satin pillow and landed on the bedside rug with a hollow clunk, like a coconut. It rolled over the rug and came to a halt face-up, his sightless eyes staring up at her.
The decapitation had been executed with a razor-sharp blade, leaving his neck stump as smooth as a mirror. Barely any blood. One clean swing, administered by someone very strong and very expert.
Lillith.
It must have happened just minutes ago. Soon, Rudi’s body would start to decompose at a vastly accelerated rate as death, cheated first time round, finally caught up with him.
The other side of the large bedroom, a cool breeze fluttered the curtains. Alex ran over to the open window and peered out over the ledge at the backstreet below. A long way down, but no problem for a vampire.
The slayer was already far away.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Terzi Pharmaceuticals Fabrication Complex, the Italian Alps
3.12 a.m. local time
A chill wind was blowing down off the distant mountains. The sky was clear and the stars were out in their countless millions over the still landscape. Nestling in the foothills, the large modern steel and glass building was the hub of the two-acre site of the fabrication complex. Terzi was one of Europe’s smaller pharmaceutical companies, its manufacturing output almost entirely focused on one specialised type of diuretic drug for the medical industry. It had plants in three other locations across Europe, each chosen for its cleanliness of environment. But this particular facility was different from the others, for a very special reason that very few people knew about.
Enrico, the night security guard posted at the front gates, was numb with cold, and his mind had been drifting from tiredness until he’d spotted the faraway headlights winding their way towards the plant. Looked like two medium-sized trucks. As they came closer, lighting up the steel mesh fence and the concrete compound beyond, Enrico stepped out of his hut and walked towards the vehicles with a hand raised. The company took security pretty seriously, and the Heckler & Koch 9mm machine pistol slung across his body slapped against his side as he walked. It was loaded and he’d been trained to use it.
Not that there was anything necessarily unusual or sinister about the appearance of two trucks in the middle of the night. Enrico had been working at Terzi long enough to know two things: one, that even though there was usually a smattering of late-shift personnel about the fabrication plant and labs, the upper east wing in particular never went to sleep at night; and that two, you didn’t ask too many questions about went on in that part of the building. He’d often seen the labcoats walking about in the third-floor windows. Some of the girls were pretty hot too. But, just like everyone who worked there, they kept themselves to themselves. Word among the maintenance staff and the drivers was that they were involved in some kind of experimental research programme that Terzi was keeping under wraps pending patent. That seemed to explain the strange hours, and the secretive way that unmarked trucks would often turn up to collect unmarked crates of stuff from the delivery bay in the rear.
But Enrico still had to make sure the paperwork was all in order, secrecy or no secrecy. As the lead van pulled up at the gate and its window whirred down, he put out his hand and asked to be shown the documentation authorising him to open up.
‘Cold night,’ the driver said, and Enrico grunted in reply as he scanned the papers.
Wait, this was wrong.
‘This isn’t—’ he started.
But didn’t finish.
Enrico was a young man, fit and strong and at the peak of his physical shape. But he was still just a man, and none of his human senses were honed enough to have picked up the silent approach of the figure that had slipped out from behind the van and moved towards him through the shadows. Less than a second later, Enrico’s neck was broken.
The van driver watched impassively as the dead guard was dragged into the hut. His killer let the body slump to the floor, then turned to the computer console. A few clicks of the keys, and the gate was automatically unlatched and began to open. A few more clicks, and the security cameras throughout the facility were simultaneously deactivated.
The vans growled slowly through the gates and into the dark compound. Their back doors opened, and eight figures in black tactical clothing spilled out. They stole swiftly and silently into the facility, breaking up into pairs and working their way methodically from room to room, floor to floor. First clear the rest of the building, then move on to the east wing. Those were their instructions, and so far the operation was going perfectly according to plan.
Marta Tucci was sitting at her desk in her ground-floor office, the glare of the laptop shining off her glasses and the front of her labcoat. The screen was covered in technical data, but this late at night she couldn’t deal with it. Two years out of university and she already felt jaded with her biochemistry career. She hated working shifts. She should be at home, close to Franco and baby Renata. Sometimes she just wanted to—
That was when the door of her office crashed in and the two men in black burst inside, waving guns at her. She screamed. One of them strode up to her and grabbed her by her long blond hair. He yanked her brutally out of her seat and sent her tumbling to the floor. He fell on her like an animal. Her screaming became a tortured wail as his teeth crunched into her throat. Blood welled up in thick spurts, soaking the carpet as he sucked and gorged on her torn flesh. With an effort he stepped away from her, wiping his bloody mouth with his sleeve and letting his colleague drink from the dying woman.
Between them, the two intruder vampires drank Marta Tucci dry until her body was a pallid husk. They moved on to rejoin the team.
Eight more chemists and two more security men died the same way, bloodily and in terror, as the team swept the Terzi building. Each member had his fill. It was part of their reward for the night’s work.
In under five minutes, the figures in black had regrouped outside the security doorway leading into the east wing. The leader stepped up to a wall console and punched in a twelve-digit number. The code was changed daily, but their information was good. The steel doors whooshed open. The team slipped through into the corridor that lay beyond.
The east wing was staffed that night by a group of five white-coated chemists, three males and two females. The team of armed intruders came bursting into the complex of glass-walled rooms that comprised the secret Federation laboratory and brought mayhem. As one of the females
ran for cover, a swathe of gunfire punched into the back of her white coat. She fell sprawling on her face, screaming, clawing, dying in agony and bursting apart.
The others stared in horror.
Not just because their colleague had just been gunned down. But because normally, vampires didn’t just fall down dead when you shot them. And the chemists working in the upper east wing were all vampires – vampires who knew all about the effects of Nosferol-tipped ammunition, because the production of the poison was one of their key jobs. Suddenly nobody was trying to escape or resist.
Only one of them, a portly male with a blond ponytail, seemed less scared than his colleagues. Nobody noticed, though – they had other things to worry about.
The tactical team worked fast. With the chemists held at gunpoint, the rest of them swept through the lab and found what they’d been sent to find. At the far end of the wing was a vast storage room with steel shelves from floor to ceiling, stacked with hundreds of crates containing litre-sized Perspex jars. Separated into sections, the crates were labelled ‘Solazal’, ‘Vambloc’ and ‘Nosferol’. It was the latter that the team leader was interested in. He pointed a gloved finger.
‘Load those up,’ he commanded. ‘The rest stays.’
While half the team started grabbing the Nosferol crates and carrying them to the lift in the corridor, others began attaching blocks of C-4 plastic explosive from their tactical vests to the shelving. In minutes, the whole storage room was rigged for destruction.
‘You bastards,’ one of the male vampire chemists spat at them.
The team leader grinned behind his mask. ‘Wait till you see what we’ve got in the van.’ And soon afterwards, when the lift returned from taking down the first batch of crates, two of his team brought in a massive holdall that even vampires struggled to carry. Inside was enough explosive to take out the whole building.
When the lab had been emptied of every drop of Nosferol, the leader signalled to his men to start evacuating the place. It was at that point that the chemist with the ponytail stepped forward, as if he thought he was going with them. The leader hit him hard across the face with the butt of his gun. The blond vampire went sprawling to the floor.
‘I gave you what you wanted,’ he whined in protest. ‘You told me you’d spare me.’
‘You piece of shit, Vernon,’ his surviving female colleague yelled at him, horrified. ‘What the fuck have you done? You gave them Nosferol?’
‘Shut up,’ the team leader said, and shot her.
‘Now it’s your turn, Vernon,’ he said over her dying shrieks. He raised his gun again.
‘But you promised…’
‘I lied.’ The leader shrugged, pointed his weapon in Vernon’s face and pulled the trigger. His team followed suit, opening fire on the two remaining Federation chemists. They were still in their death agonies as the team swept back out of the lab as fast as they’d arrived.
Less than two minutes later the vans stormed out of the gates, their headlights sweeping the empty road. In the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, the team leader took out a small remote. Without pausing a beat, he hit the detonation button.
The gigantic explosion filled the night sky behind them as they sped away with their cargo.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Crowmoor Hall
3.16 a.m.
The vibrations of the silent ringer reverberated against the dull sheen of the long mahogany table. Stone picked up the phone. He’d been expecting the call, knew who it was from – and it was right on time. He said nothing, waited for the vampire on the other end to speak.
‘It’s done,’ the voice said.
Which was all that needed to be said. Stone hung up and smiled down the length of the table at the seated assembly of his inner circle. Lillith was at his right-hand side. She’d dispensed with red leather in exchange for glistening black. The light of the night’s battles and victories still danced in her eyes. She drummed her long, black fingernails impatiently on the polished wood, waiting for him to reveal what the call had been about.
To Gabriel’s left was the blonde, Anastasia. Down the table was the hulking shape of Zachary. Anton’s beady gaze was fixed on their leader.
‘Well, brother?’ Lillith finally asked him.
‘Our plans progress,’ he replied. ‘The demise of the Federation is now an inevitability. We control their weapons. The tiger’s teeth have been pulled.’
‘Then we move on to the next phase,’ Anastasia said with a delicious laugh. ‘And the real fun begins.’
‘All in good time,’ Stone replied calmly.
‘First I want to massacre the rest of the bastards who did for Petra and Kenji tonight,’ Lillith said through bared teeth, fists clenched on the tabletop. ‘I’m going to find Alex Bishop. I’ll find her. And I will make her suffer.’
Stone pursed his lips. ‘There are more pressing issues to deal with than mere revenge,’ he said. ‘Leave such crude impulses to the humans.’
‘What issues do you mean, Gabriel?’ Anton said, intently watching every flicker of Stone’s face. ‘The Federation—’
‘The Federation are less of a concern,’ Stone interrupted him. ‘They will be dealt with according to plan. No, I refer to another matter. While you were in London, I was…elsewhere.’
Lillith crossed her arms and looked at her brother. Her expression was clear: she knew perfectly well where he’d been that night, and she disapproved of his dalliance with his new plaything. She’d wanted Kate Hawthorne dead that first night. But she said nothing.
‘I encountered a human there,’ Stone went on. ‘An officer of their police. He told me something that disturbs me greatly.’ He paused. ‘He told me that he was in possession of a certain artefact. I speak of the cross of Ardaich.’
His words caused a sharp silence to fall in the room. Lillith scowled and kept staring at him. ‘The cross? The cross of legend?’
‘That old story,’ Anastasia snorted. ‘Vampires don’t need to worry about crosses. We all know that.’ She looked round and saw their serious expressions. ‘Don’t we?’
Stone shook his head. ‘At a mere eighty years of age, you’re far too young to know these things, Anastasia. I can assure you that the legend of what the humans came to call the cross of Ardaich is very real indeed.’
‘Then we have to hunt this human down and kill him,’ Lillith said. ‘The simple ways are the best.’
‘And how do you think we can do that?’ Zachary rumbled. ‘If the motherfucker has the cross, we can’t touch him.’
Stone stared at him coldly. He didn’t approve of human profanities being used in his presence, unless it was by his own choice.
‘Do you really think he has it, Gabriel?’ Anton asked.
Stone clicked his tongue. ‘He may be bluffing; then again, he may not. But even if he doesn’t have possession of the cross, the mere fact that he knows of its existence makes him a grave threat to all of us. We cannot afford to take risks.’
‘I agree with Lillith,’ Anastasia said. ‘If this human is with their police, he should be easy to find. We can make him disappear, along with whatever it is he may know or may have found.’
Stone was silent for a moment, thinking hard. Then he stood up, walked over to the door and tugged twice on a thin cord.
Far away through the twisting passages of the mansion, the bell rang to summon Seymour Finch.
Their assistant arrived in minutes. Lillith eyed Finch with distaste as he grovelled and scraped his way to the table like a beaten dog looking for scraps, his eyes bright with adoration and terror.
‘My loyal servant,’ Stone said. ‘I have another task for you.’
Finch nodded eagerly. ‘It will be a pleasure to serve you, Mr Stone. Whatever you wish.’
‘A human has become a problem for us. We believe him to be a police officer, and he may be in possession of an item that is very important to us. Your task is to find out who he is, where he lives, what he knows, and wit
h whom he might have shared this knowledge.’
‘And then cut his fucking throat,’ Lillith purred, drawing her finger abruptly across her neck. Zachary and Anton chuckled.
Stone glowered sternly at her. ‘No. No harm must come to him – not until we can be absolutely certain that he’s the only one involved.’ Turning back to Finch, he went on, ‘This is a delicate matter. Depending on how much he knows about us, it may be necessary to isolate him from his colleagues, prevent him from talking. Do you understand?’
Finch nodded. ‘Yes, master.’
‘Good. I leave it to you. You’ll report back to me on my return.’
Lillith looked across at him. ‘Your return? From where?’
‘I have one more small item of business to attend to. Then I need to make a journey. East,’ Stone said. He paused a beat before adding, ‘To them.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Greg opened his eyes, ready to spring up to his feet and engage his attacker. But something was different. He wasn’t lying on the cold stone floor of the underground chamber beneath the house. He was lying on damp grass.
He blinked and raised his head, trying to make sense of where he was. A cool breeze caressed the wetness on his cheek. He struggled up into a crouch and his head connected with something hard. He reached up to feel it. Solid metal. Running his hand downwards, he felt the steel bars a foot away from his face, cold and slippery with dew.
He was in a cage. Around him, the long grass rustled gently in the breeze. The chorus of the birds in the trees heralded the dawn.
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