Scott Mariani - The Cross

Before he knew it, he’d wolfed down the entire contents of the pack. He let the empty polystyrene tray fall to his feet, coughing and spluttering through the awful cold, congealed blood that coated the inside of his mouth. An intense surge of self-loathing made him want to put his head through the windscreen. He pounded the steering wheel and moaned and cursed until he’d exhausted himself; then, finally settling down, he numbly put the truck back into gear and drove on.

Hours passed, and Joel was frantic with worry about running out of night by the time he found the stream of lorries heading for the seaport. He followed the heavy freight vehicles through tall gates. Nobody stopped him.

He abandoned the pickup truck in a dark corner of the docks, between two enormous steel containers. His agility, as he sneaked through the shadows, stunned him. He was like a cat, rapidly learning to make use of his new powers of stealth and physical poise. The raw livers seemed to have given him enough energy to keep moving for now, but the hunger still gnawed deep inside and some terrible instinct told him that he couldn’t survive on a diet of animal flesh.

Fine. Then he’d starve. The other option was just too awful to contemplate.

Joel ducked around the corner of a crumbling building and crouched behind a stationary fork-lift truck as he heard steps approaching. He saw a cigarette glow in the dark. The shapes of two men ambling through the dockyards, a hundred yards away. They were talking in low voices, sharing some anecdote that made one of them laugh. As they came nearer, Joel’s acute hearing picked up words of English, and he strained to listen to what they were saying. Once he’d caught enough to realise they were part of a British crew on board a freight vessel setting sail for the Port of Southampton that same night, he slipped out from his hiding place and followed them.

The sailors never once sensed what was pacing along behind them. They cut a path between dockyard buildings, past mounds of scrap and stacks of crates, giant coils of chain and cabling. Finally, they emerged onto a quay and Joel caught sight of the vessel they were heading for.

The container ship was a hulking black mass, the gently swelling tide slapping and sucking at her sides, rocking her almost imperceptibly on her moorings. Light streamed from an open hatch. The two sailors climbed up the gangway and disappeared inside.

Cautiously, glancing left and right, Joel followed. Nobody saw him as he slipped on board and started looking for a place to hide.

Siberia

The thousand-year-old ice cavern had a domed ceiling higher than that of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Like the glittering white pillars that stretched up to it from the mirror-smooth floor, it was adorned with ornate carvings depicting venerated mythic scenes from the ancient Uber culture. Solemnly gathered at one side of the great Hall of Judgement were the Council members for the prosecution; on the other side were the representatives for the defence, far fewer in number. Seated high above them, his ceremonial robes draped majestically across the wings of his gleaming ice throne and surveying the assembly with a cold eye, was the venerable Elder Xakaveok, the Grand Judge. To his left, still unconscious on his stone slab that was now encased within a cage of razor-sharp icicles, lay the accused, Gabriel Stone.

Master Tarcz-koi, the speaker for the prosecution, was in mid flow and the great hall resonated to the rasp of his voice as he hurled charges against the humanoid vampire whose presence in their midst was so distasteful to many of the assembly.

‘The traitorous tendencies of the accused are established fact, and have been for an age,’ he insisted yet again. ‘Long has he harboured an unhealthy interest in the vile culture of the humans; long has he immersed himself in the study of their degenerate history, their primitive and unspeakable so-called art and music. Are we to permit him to continually dishonour us in this way?’

Master Xenrai-Yazh got to his feet and raised a claw for permission to address the court. ‘With respect to Master Tarcz-koi, as the accused is one of our most valued envoys, sent into the human world to carry out tasks at our behest, I regard it as only correct that he be granted a degree of freedom in order to integrate into their society. May I remind my learned friend that this is why we created these creatures in the first place? While we ourselves could neither adapt to, nor exist in, the human world, Gabriel and his kind have made it possible for our culture to thrive, albeit in attenuated form, at the heart of human civilisation these many centuries past. To this end, the accused is no mere student of their history. Has he not personally lived it?’

‘No matter,’ Tarcz-koi said with a dismissive wave. ‘He cannot be trusted.’

Master Xenrai shook his head. ‘I would suggest that my learned friend’s antagonism towards the accused appears more a matter of subjective bias than of reasoned debate. Our Hall of Judgement is no arena for illogical opinion-mongering.’

‘Do not attempt to cloud this discussion,’ Tarcz-koi insisted angrily, his ears angling back and specks of foam appearing at the corners of his mandibles. ‘The charge remains one of the utmost severity. Why did he keep the rediscovery of the Zcrokczak a secret from us? We maintain that he intended to use this fearful weapon against this citadel. Against us. We, who nurtured him, who gave him his powers and his immortality. We misguidedly entrusted him with the task of aiding our plans, beginning with the overthrow of the scourge of the Federation. He has failed us, and in doing so has provided ample evidence that our faith in his ability was grievously misplaced. Of course, if the Council had listened to me …’ he added archly, pausing to cast a long, sweeping, severe glare at the rest of the assembly before going on. Drawing himself up to his full height, he pointed a claw at the accused in his ice cage. ‘The gathering for the prosecution therefore calls for immediate sanctions against this traitor. I call for an immediate execution.’

‘Whatever’s happening in there, it isn’t good,’ Lillith said to Zachary in a low voice. The blades of the vampire guards were still pointed at their throats.

‘Guys,’ Zachary rumbled at the guards. ‘How about you lower those things before someone gets hurt? ‘Cause it ain’t gonna be me.’ When the guards’ faces remained blank, he said to Lillith, ‘I don’t think these assholes understand what we’re saying.’

‘Either that, or they’re well trained.’

Zachary smiled. ‘Say, you remember that time, way back, in … where was it again?’

‘It was in Istanbul,’ Lillith said. She’d been thinking the same thing.

‘Worked then,’ Zachary said. ‘Those were humans.’

‘Still.’

She nodded. ‘On three, then. One … two …’

‘Three.’ Zachary’s massive arm shot out and his fist closed on the tip of the sword blade nearest him. Before the surprised guard could do anything about it, he’d used the leverage to swing the blade up in the air and push back hard to spin the guard round on his feet while arcing the weapon over the top of his head. Lillith did the same, and their mirror-image movements synchronised perfectly. Up and over; then step in fast and bring the blades round on themselves in a scissoring action that slammed the guards violently to gether, twisted their sword hilts out of their hands and forced them hard against the ice wall with the sharp steel edges against their throats.

‘Still works pretty good,’ Zachary said. ‘Now let’s go get Gabriel.’

Lillith’s guard yelped in fright at she pressed the sword blade just hard enough into his neck to split the skin and let out a stream of dark vampire blood. ‘One more sound and I’ll take off your head,’ she said in the old Uber language. When he looked even more frightened, she smiled. ‘Understood that all right, didn’t you? The Hall of Judgement. Lead the way.’