The Cross (22 page)
Authors: Scott G. Mariani
Bal Mawr Manor
The day’s anti-vampire weaponry training session with Knightly had been due to start five minutes ago. As he waited for him to show up, Dec wandered about the armoury room. It was a converted private chapel, partially demolished at some point in its history, but still retaining its original stained-glass windows through which the bright morning sun cast colourful reflections across the flagstones. Where the old walls had crumbled and been rebuilt – not so long ago, judging by the bits of scaffolding still propped up in one corner – a modern extension had been constructed to house an adjoining indoor archery range complete with big straw target bosses for crossbow practice. The weapons themselves were hung on the racks that took up two entire walls of the old chapel.
Dec paused to admire them and to gaze at the silver-tipped bolts in their quivers, before moving on down the line to examine some of the other devices intended for defence against the Undead. A huge spray gun with a butt like a rifle was attached by a pipe to a clear plastic canister marked ‘HOLY WATER’; beside it, another canister was labelled ‘CAUTION IRRITANT: CONCENTRATION OF GARLIC’. There was a whole variety of crucifixes, mallets and stakes. Finally, a horizontal rack housed a collection of Samurai swords in ornate scabbards.
Dec liked the look of the crossbows best. He glanced back at the huge riveted iron door of the armoury to check nobody was coming, then reached up and took one down from the wall. Holding the bow end down with the foot stirrup, he grasped the thick, taut bowstring and heaved it back with a grunt until it clicked into place. He gingerly fitted one of the silver-tipped bolts, then carried the weapon over to the adjoining practice range, stood on the firing line, raised the stock to his shoulder and peered through the telescopic sight.
Twenty yards away, the circular straw archery target looked huge in the scope. Dec squeezed the trigger and the bow fired with a sharp
crack
and a satisfying kick to the shoulder. The deadly bolt whistled off downrange and embedded itself deep into the outer edge of the target, sending bits of straw flying.
Dec walked up to the target with a fire burning in his heart. In his mind’s eye, the vampire now lay writhing helplessly on the floor with the bolt protruding from its shoulder. The next shot would be the
coup de grâce
– right through the heart. He yanked the bolt out of the target and returned to the firing line. He was just about to re-cock the bow when he heard the armoury door grate open on its massive iron hinges and turned, expecting to see Knightly.
It was Griffin. The bent old man shuffled into the range, threw a sour look at the bits of straw on the floor and another at Dec, and then disappeared and returned a moment later carrying a broom taller than he was. As Griffin muttered and cursed and began to sweep up the mess, Dec somewhat resentfully replaced the crossbow on the rack. ‘Mr Knightly said I could practise here, so he did. I’m going to help him kill vampires,’ he added.
‘Said that, did he?’ Griffin made a harsh crackling sound that Dec realised was laughter, ending with something that sounded like ‘Bollocks.’
‘Mr Knightly’s a hero,’ Dec said defensively, but the old man just went on chuckling to himself. Just a bit strange in his ways, Dec thought. Probably not such a bad old fucker once you get to know him. ‘So you’ve been with the Knightly family a long time, yeah?’ Dec said out loud, in an attempt at polite conversation.
Griffin shook his head and muttered something in Welsh.
‘Say again?’ Dec said.
‘Knightly this, Knightly that. Knightly my arse,’ Griffin muttered with an evil look as he finished gathering up the bits of straw.
Dec stared at him. ‘But—’
‘Dibble,’ Griffin croaked.
‘Beg your pardon?’
‘Reg Dibble. That’s his name. Had this draughty mouldy old place less than a year. Bought it with the money from that book.’
‘Look, mister,’ Dec protested. ‘That can’t be right. This house has been in the Knightly family for generations. Yer man in armour, on the horse there, he was his ancestor, so he was.’
Griffin leaned on the broom handle as his thin old shoulders quaked with mirth. ‘Sir Useless Knightly. Aye. That pile of old tin came from a secondhand shop.’
Dec boggled. ‘No, no! He was the first vampire hunter in the family, so he was. First in a long line.’
‘Vampires!’ Griffin wiped a tear of laughter from his wrinkly cheek. ‘Never more killed a vampire than you or I have. Shit in his pants if he ever saw one, I reckon.
Duw, duw
.’
A bewildered Dec was lost for words when the armoury door opened again and Knightly strolled into the range. ‘There you are, Declan. Good, good. Sorry I’m a bit late for our session. Been on the phone to my agent. Just the usual business matters I won’t bore you with. A day in the life of a bestselling author, you know.’ He sighed and gazed importantly out of the window at the view across the bay.
‘Did you upload the video clip, then?’ Dec asked, still reeling from what the old man had just told him.
‘There for all to see,’ Knightly replied. ‘Did it this morning. Oh, Griffin, there you are. Go and make up one of the other bedrooms, will you, there’s a good chap? We’re expecting another guest shortly.’
‘Aye, aye, aye.’ The old man shot him a begrudging look as he shuffled off, carrying the enormous broom, and slammed the door behind him.
A visitor? Dec thought that was strange. He hadn’t spoken to Joel an hour ago. Could he have got here so fast? Come to think of it, Dec hadn’t even mentioned it to Knightly. ‘Did he phone you, then?’ he asked.
‘
She
,’ Knightly corrected him with a generous smile. ‘Yes, she did, early this morning. A young lady who read my book and is desperate for my expert advice. It seems her father has been attacked by a vampire. I always look after my fans, Declan. And she sounded very nice. Well, she’s certainly coming to the right place.’ Knightly clapped his hands. ‘Now, our training session. Today I’m going to instruct you on the mastery of one of the most vital weapons in our anti-vampire arsenal.’
‘The crossbow?’ Dec asked hopefully.
‘The sword, Declan, the sword. Now these,’ he said, walking over to the rack and taking one down, ‘are something really special. Japanese katanas, specially made for me by a venerable swordsmith in Kyoto. The blades are solid silver. Well, silver
plated
, in point of fact. Here, feel the balance.’
‘Nice,’ said Dec, who’d never held a sword before. ‘Are you really Reg Dibble?’ he wanted to ask – but kept his mouth shut.
‘Formidable tool,’ Knightly went on proudly. ‘Available to order from my website. I offer a ten per cent discount to readers of my book. Of course, we’re not going to fight with these. I wouldn’t like to injure you by accident.’ Opening a large drawer beneath the rack, he lifted out two flexible nylon training swords and tossed one to Dec. ‘Now, let me show you the moves. You go and stand over there. Good. Now, imagine, Declan, that you are the vampire and I am the hunter. I’m going to attack you by surprise and slice off your head. Have no fear, my boy: I’ve done this many times. The blade will stop just short of your neck. Stand very still.’
Hefting the training sword, Knightly limbered up with a few awkward leg-bends and arm-swings. Then he took a couple of deep breaths, let out a sudden roar and rushed at Dec with the sword raised, pirouetted like an ungainly ballet dancer and whooshed the nylon blade through the air, missing Dec by several feet and smashing one of the overhead neons, which rained bits of glass down on his head.
‘Of course,’ he panted, red-faced from the exertion, brushing glass out of his hair and crunching fragments underfoot, ‘that was deliberate. Just to give you an idea of the destructive range and power of this fearsome weapon.’
‘You carry on like that with a real sword, you’re going to slice your own head off,’ said a voice behind them.
The training sword fell out of Knightly’s hand. He and Dec whirled round simultaneously to see a young woman standing there. She was wearing a fleecy denim jacket, faded jeans, and there was a bag hanging off her shoulder. Her thick blond curls were tangled from the wind.
‘W-Who are you?’ Knightly stammered.
‘Old guy let me in here,’ she said, jerking her thumb back over her shoulder. ‘I’m Chloe Dempsey.’
London
Horns blared angrily and headlights flashed as Ash cut up the afternoon traffic. After years of drifting around the countryside on foot it had been a long time since he’d been at the wheel of a car, and the fast BMW Gabriel Stone had provided for him was a thrill to drive. He could get used to this, he thought as he carved aggressively through another narrow gap, forcing a bus to squeal its brakes.
He wasn’t so sure he could get used to the suit and tie, though, or the false teeth he had to wear. He’d ditch them as soon as he could. Till then, they were all part of Stone’s plan and Ash wasn’t about to question the strict, detailed orders he’d been given.
Ash’s blinded eye had stopped suppurating now, but the lids were badly swollen shut and the black bruise had spread from cheekbone to eyebrow. He didn’t care about the pain, any more than he did about his lacerated right forearm. The pain just drove him on harder.
He smiled to himself as he glanced at the slim attaché case on the passenger seat. Inside, surrounded by a thick layer of lead lining, the cross nestled in a bed of soft velvet. He’d listened intently as Stone described exactly what he was to do with it. In order to become what he wanted to be, first he must destroy many of his future kind. Ash wasn’t interested in the reason why. There was nothing he wouldn’t destroy to win his reward. A whole undiscovered dreamworld had opened up in front of him and nothing could possibly stand in his way.
Which made it all the more frustrating when the traffic up ahead suddenly thickened and slowed to a standstill. More horns honked and blared impatiently all around him, but this time they were directed at the snarl-up that seemed to be caused by an accident a couple of hundred yards further up the street. An ambulance and a cop car were pulled up at the side of the road. In the flashing blue of their lights, Ash caught a glimpse of paramedics carting some old guy into the back of the ambulance.
He thought about the blood-encrusted sword that lay wrapped up in his old greatcoat in the BMW’s boot. The old Ash, the one who hadn’t given a fuck about anything except killing people, would have got out of the car right now, popped the boot open and taken the sword out. These people who dared block his progress would soon have got out of the way when he started chopping a path through them. Police?
Bring ’em on
, he’d have thought to himself.
Fuck ’em
.
But that had been then, and this was now. Now things were different. Now he had something to lose by being reckless. And something to gain – an unimaginably huge amount to gain – by being smart.
As he watched, he saw a policewoman threading her way back down the line of waiting traffic, pausing to speak to the drivers. He sat impassively with his hands resting on the wheel until she reached his BMW, then rolled his window down and gave her a smile. It had been years since Ash had been able to smile without scaring a fellow human being half to death.
‘There’s been an accident up ahead, sir,’ the policewoman said, with a discreet glance at his bad eye. ‘Afraid there’s going to be a bit of a hold-up.’
‘Rotten luck. I hope nobody was hurt.’ Ash thought his put-on middle-class accent was pretty good. ‘Problem is, I’m in a bit of a hurry, officer.’ He reached across to the passenger seat and flipped open the catches of the attaché case to show her what was inside. ‘I’ve been restoring this old cross for St Mary’s. The bishop is attending a service there in just a few minutes’ time, and was going to bless it. I’ve been working on it day and night.’ He pointed at his eye. ‘Which as you can see is hard for me to do, with my illness. Still, my faith keeps me going.’
He worried that he might have overdone it with that last part, but the policewoman cocked her head sympathetically and tutted. ‘Oh, dear.’
‘They’re going to be so disappointed,’ Ash said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t suppose there’s another route I could take?’
The WPC thought for a moment. ‘Tell you what we’ll do,’ she said.
Two minutes later, Ash was driving the wrong way up a one-way sidestreet guided by the kindly female officer, think ing about the blood-crusted sword he was carrying in the boot and how much he’d like to run its point through the bitch’s throat. As he reached the end of the street, he paused to call out ‘God bless you’, waved and accelerated off on his new route. Taking out the phone he’d been given, he called up the only number in its memory and said, ‘I’m almost there.’
The irritated voice on the other end was Gabriel Stone’s. ‘Drive quickly,’ Gabriel commanded him. ‘And remember above all to keep the cross inside the case until the very last minute. They must not sense its presence while they still have any possibility of escape.’
‘Trust me,’ Ash said, and ended the call. He pressed harder on the accelerator. The engine note climbed. Green lights all the way, and every rotation of his wheels was carrying him a little closer to his own personal heaven.
Less than a mile away across London, Gabriel Stone’s double agent inside VIA was pacing nervously in the locked office, glancing every few seconds at the time. It was getting late. Soon, many of the VIA staff would be leaving for home. The man must surely be almost here by now. Carrying
it
. Just to think of
it
was enough to make any vampire shudder.
A growl of an engine from outside, and a squeal of tyres: far below, down in the car park, the headlights of Alex Bishop’s black Jaguar were blazing into life. It roared out of its space and skidded off, leaving a twin trail of rubber.
Shit.
That hadn’t been supposed to happen. Where was she going?
The double agent burst out into the corridor and ran to Bishop’s office. The door was slightly ajar, and there was nobody inside. At Bishop’s desk were the telltale signs of someone leaving in a hurry: the laptop still whirring quietly, the swivel chair rolled back across the carpet, the desk lamp still lit, the polystyrene cup of VIA vending-machine blood still pleasingly lukewarm to the touch.
‘Now then, Bishop, where are you running off to in such a rush?’ Flicking a key on the laptop made its screen pop into life. It showed a Google Maps close-up satellite image. Green fields, white beach, rocky cliffs and, perched up high on top of them overlooking the sea, a big house that from overhead looked like a castle with its turrets and courtyard.
‘Bal Mawr Manor,’ the double agent read from the screen, then pressed the ‘back’ key to bring up the previous website that Bishop had been looking at: www.theylurkamongstus. com.
The double agent took out the mobile phone and hurriedly redialled the secret number. ‘It’s me again. We’re too late. Bishop’s gone. She just left in her car, heading for some place in west Wales called Bal Mawr Manor, Newgale, Pembrokeshire.’
‘A minor setback,’ Gabriel Stone said on the other end of the line. ‘We will deal with her separately.’ He seemed in much lighter spirits now, which only made his insider vampire more nervous. ‘I was just on the verge of calling you myself,’ he chuckled.
‘What for?’ the double agent asked worriedly, gripping the phone tightly.
‘To suggest that you leave the building immediately, if you value your hide,’ Gabriel said. ‘Ash is downstairs.’
