Scott Mariani - The Cross

‘Just that you’d better do a damn good job of it,’ Lillith said. ‘Because if you don’t, I promise you that Zachary and I will fuck every single one of you ugly pieces of shit and bury what’s left of you inside this ice tomb.’

‘I think not,’ Tarcz-koi said. For an instant, his mandibles quivered and the tendrils around them curled into slimy little hooks.

And then the horrible face split apart.

From between the fleshy folds of the parted mandibles snaked a tentacle-like tongue, grey and glistening. Its tip peeled open to reveal a set of sharp fangs. Sticky threads of ooze stretched and snapped as the fangs gaped wide open. The tentacle coiled back, gathering itself to strike — and then lashed out with blinding speed straight at Lillith’s face.

Zachary grabbed the guard leader off his feet and thrust him in front of her as the tentacle struck. The fangs sank deep into the guard’s chest and there was a crackling and splintering of bone. A scream filled the chamber as his heart and lungs and part of his spine were ripped out of his body. The tentacle hurled the guard’s organs away and fired a powerful jet of black oily liquid that spattered over his face and into his screaming mouth. Instantly, he slumped to the floor, paralysed by the vampire nerve toxin stored in glands at the base of the Ubervampyr tongue.

The tentacle flailed towards Zachary as he backed away. Lillith reached into the front of her jumpsuit and pulled out the concealed ice dagger she’d cut from the ceiling of their chamber earlier. The blade was as hard and sharp as glass. Faster than Tarcz-koi could withdraw it, she slashed the knife at his tongue. Dark blood and venom spattered. The severed tentacle-tip fell writhing to the floor, the fangs snapping wildly. The Ubervampyr recoiled with a wail of agony and fury and his tongue slithered back inside his mandibles.

‘Get them!’ he shrieked to the guards, pointing his claw at Lillith and Zachary.

The pair were already sprinting for the door. Zachary broke the neck of a guard who tried to block his way — it couldn’t kill him, but it would slow him down — and grabbed his halberd, swinging it at another guard and slicing his head clean off. Then, with a blow that shattered the steel blade and shaft, Zachary used the weapon to crash open the door of the chamber. He and Lillith ran out into the maze of ice passages.

‘This way!’ she yelled, tugging his sleeve.

The screams of the enraged Tarcz-koi echoed up the corridor as they ran. Zachary glanced back and saw the guards giving chase. He dipped his hand inside his jacket and came out with a disc of ice with glass-sharp teeth like a circular saw blade’s. He spun it towards the guards. One managed to duck the flying disc, but two behind him weren’t so fast and their heads hit the floor before their running legs crumpled and collapsed under them.

‘Told you they were up to something,’ Zachary said to Lillith as they ran. ‘Didn’t I?’

‘They’re going to murder Gabriel,’ Lillith gasped. ‘They’re sending Ash after him with the cross.’ She’d barely spoken before a jet of black venom spattered against a pillar just inches away. She jumped back with a cry of fear and saw the blobs of thick liquid clinging to the leather sleeve of her jumpsuit.

‘Don’t touch it,’ Zachary yelled. ‘It’ll paralyse your ass.’ Lillith scraped her arm hard against the ice wall and glanced behind them to see five more Ubervampyr bounding after them, moving horribly fast on their muscular legs, surrounded by sprinting guards with weapons raised. There was no time to be frightened. The two vampires ran faster than they’d ever run before, tearing down ice passages that they no longer recognised.

Suddenly, a fork up ahead.

‘Which way?’ Lillith gasped.

‘No idea,’ Zachary said. They took the left turn, dashing past entrances that could fly open at any moment and release hordes of pursuers to block them off. The twisting passage suddenly opened and they emerged into a huge, high, echoing space.

Then skidded to a halt as they caught sight of the ring of tall Ubervampyr figures that surrounded them.

Zachary grabbed Lillith’s arm and was about to push in front of her to protect her from the flying venom, when he realised.

‘They’re statues,’ Lillith said, staring at the terrifyingly realistic ice sculptures. And she remembered now — she’d seen them before.

‘What is this place?’ Zachary muttered, looking around him. ‘Looks like some kind of a garden.’

Lillith suddenly knew just where she was.’It is a garden.

‘ Craning her neck upwards, she spotted the window of Gabriel’s chamber, from which the two of them had looked out. Fifty yards away beyond the ring of statues was the giant, tower-like shape of the astronomical telescope that Gabriel had pointed out to her — and above it, dizzyingly high up in the domed roof above the subterranean garden, the Ecliptic Portal.

The yells and footsteps of their pursuers weren’t far behind.

‘We can get out that way,’ Lillith said excitedly. ‘It’s a window to the outside. There’s a mechanism somewhere that can open the hatches. Look.’ An ice gangway spiralled around the base of the enormous telescope. Midway up its height was what looked like an observation platform, and attached to a strange and complex arrangement of mechanical arms was a huge lever. ‘Come on!’ she shouted to Zachary, leading him towards it.

But as the Portal came into view, her face fell in despair.

They were too late. The Portal’s dull mirrors were lighten ing with the glow of the rising sun.

‘We’re trapped!’ she screamed.

A whooshing pike-blade tore through Zachary’s shoulder and crashed into a pillar with a shower of splinters. He swore and clutched at the wound, turning to see the guards that were pouring into the garden, cutting off their exit. Five, six Ubervampyr were bounding along behind them. Their cries echoed up to the vast ceiling.

Lillith knew how it felt to face certain destruction. She’d felt it that day on the castle battlements in Romania when it had seemed all was lost for her and Gabriel — and she could taste the same grim certainty now. They weren’t getting out of here. She swallowed hard.

Zachary’s eyes suddenly brightened. ‘What are you doing?’ Lillith said as he dug something out of his pocket and pressed it into her hand. ‘What are these?’ she asked, staring at the little white pill.

‘Federation shit,’ Zachary said. ‘Solazal. Had them all along.’

‘Do they work?’

‘Only one way to find out,’ he said, and tossed one in his mouth. Lillith hesitated, then did the same.

By this time the guards and their Masters were past the ring of statues and rapidly approaching. Another flying spear crashed against the base of the telescope.

‘Let’s move!’ Zachary yelled, hauling Lillith up the ice gangway towards the observation platform. Lillith screamed as a jet of venom splashed off the hand rail right next to her. Zachary reached the lever and gripped it with both hands. ‘I sure hope that Solazal stuff works fast, ‘cause here goes.’

He gave the lever a yank.

It didn’t budge.

The Ubervampyr and their guards had reached the bottom of the gangway. The tall creatures parted their mandibles. The extended tongues came slithering out, fangs bared, poised to squirt the paralysing venom. They were well within range now.

Zachary threw all his weight and muscle against the lever. His face contorted with the strain, teeth clenched, tendons sticking out from his neck.

And the lever rotated on its axis with a grinding clunk that echoed all the way up to the Ecliptic Portal.