Scott Mariani - The Cross

‘I’ve never seen anything like this before,’ Alex said.

‘Zachary and I have,’ Lillith said. ‘At the Uber citadel in Siberia. Their answer to a ghoul, I thought.’

‘This thing’s never been a human. Look at it.’

‘It is a Zargoyuk ,’ Gabriel said. ‘The nearest translation of the ancient word would be “goblin”.’

Lillith looked at him. ‘You knew about these things?’

‘They are drones, hunters, the slave workforce of the citadel, hatched deep in its bowels from mutated Ubervampyr spawn. I told you before, sister, of the secrets and wisdom of the Masters.’

‘I wouldn’t say it was wise to create something like this,’ Lillith said, pointing at the dead creature.

‘The question is,’ Alex cut in, ‘how many more are there?’

Zachary gazed up the mountainside to where the goblin had disappeared among the rocks. ‘She’s right. There could be dozens of the little mothers hiding up there.’

‘What do we do, Gabriel?’ Tiberius said. ‘Go up there and hunt for th—’

Before he could finish, something came whistling out of the darkness and thwacked into the wooden support next to them. A dark liquid spatter caught Tiberius across the face as he was speaking. He clapped his hand to his lips, spitting and choking. A second arrow whooshed out from somewhere in the rocks, narrowly missing Alex.

‘Get inside,’ Gabriel said. ‘Quickly.’

Within instants of the strange black fluid spattering his face, Tiberius couldn’t walk properly. He fell on his knees and would have collapsed on his face if Gabriel and Zachary hadn’t caught his limp arms. As they dragged him across the snow to the chalet, more incoming fire came whistling in from the mountainside. A shaft juddered into the wall inches from Joel. Another plunged into Tiberius’s calf and yet another embedded itself deep in his back.

Alex booted open a back door, shouting ‘Everyone in!’ It was a storeroom filled with junk, tools, gas cylinders and old ski equipment. Gabriel and Zachary dragged Tiberius inside and laid him down on the floor. The remaining vampires piled in behind them and Alex slammed the door shut just as another arrow thunked into it.

By now, Tiberius was completely paralysed.

‘We saw this too,’ Lillith said, pointing at the black fluid that was dribbling from his arrow wounds.

‘We sure did,’ Zachary muttered. ‘Some kinda ugly poison.’

‘An Ubervampyr neurotoxin,’ Gabriel said grimly. ‘Akin to the venom with which a spider paralyses its prey. It is less effective on our kind than on humans. But even for us, only in the tiniest quantities are the effects temporary. I fear that Tiberius has suffered far too great a dose.’

‘You mean he’ll be paralysed like this—’

Gabriel gave a solemn nod. ‘For the rest of time. We must deliver him. Sister, hand me that blade.’

Lillith hesitated, aghast, then passed him the machete she’d taken from the dead goblin.

‘My very old friend,’ Gabriel said, bending over Tiberius’s prone body. ‘Forgive me.’

Joel had to look away as the blade came down.

‘Poor Tiberius,’ Lillith breathed.

‘In such circumstances, I would expect any of my brethren to show me the same mercy,’ Gabriel said, stepping up from the decapitated body and handing the machete back to her.

‘I don’t want it,’ she was about to say — when they suddenly heard an urgent shout from upstairs.

The voice was Yuri’s. They found him standing at the living room window, joined by Dec and Chloe. ‘Look!’ he shouted again as everyone raced into the room.

While they’d been distracted by the goblin attack, the cable car had started moving again. They watched, helpless, as the gleaming aluminium and glass cube glided smoothly back down towards the boarding station across the valley.

There was a woody thunk behind them as another arrow hit the chalet from the mountainside. Zachary grabbed hold of the living room door and ripped it off its hinges. ‘Someone run down to that storeroom and bring me up a hammer and nails, quick. We don’t board up the windows and outside doors, those little fuckers’re gonna be swarming all over this place.’

Joel left the room and crossed the hallway behind it to peer out of the rear window, across the balcony to the rocky slope behind the house. There was no sign of movement out there, no running figures flitting across the snow. No telling how many of these goblin things could be out there, either: and by now they should be pressing their attack, storming every weak point, swarming up the walls, jumping up on the roof, smashing windows. It would be tough to stop them getting inside.

So why wasn’t it happening?

‘I wouldn’t bother boarding the place up,’ he called through the open doorway to the vampires in the living room.

‘Say what ?’ Zachary rumbled.

‘This is no invasion,’ Joel told him. ‘It’s a containment strategy. They’ve no intention of coming in; they only want to prevent us from leaving. Don’t you see? They want to trap us in here.’

‘Guys! The cable car!’ Alex shouted from the living room window. ‘It’s coming back!’

Lillith turned to Gabriel. ‘Can’t we stop it?’

‘I’m afraid it is too late for that,’ Gabriel replied.

The solitary figure of Ash was unmistakable behind the glass front of the cable car. At one hip hung the executioner’s sword in its scabbard; at the other, attached to a strap around his shoulders, was the lead-lined case. As in a trance of horror, the assembled vampires watched the man reach inside and slowly draw out the horribly familiar shape of the cross.

Standing by the window with Yuri and Makiko, Alex cried out at the jet of agony crackling through her body. All three recoiled violently away from the glass, their bodies spasming as the awful pain took hold. Alex’s fingers loosened on the grip of the pistol and it dropped out of her hand and bounced away from her. To go back for it now would be suicide. She staggered away in the opposite direction, desperately trying to reach the door and widen the distance between herself and the approaching cross.

Makiko was attempting to do exactly the same. In her frenzied haste to escape she cannoned into Chloe, stumbled over the edge of the rug and sprawled on the floor. Makiko struggled to get to her feet, but the crippling power of the weapon was too much to overcome.

Chloe was standing just a few feet away as, with a final shriek that rose up in a horrible tortured wail, Makiko turned black and then cracked and peeled apart and crumbled into a puff of cinders.

It wasn’t the first time Dec had seen the effects of the cross, but even he gaped in appalled horror at the sight. Chloe covered her face with her hands.

Alex had reached the door, just inches ahead of the lethal energy field, and was racing across the hallway outside towards the back of the house along with Lillith, Kali, Gabriel and Zachary. Joel had no choice but to flee along with them. He could scarcely believe what was happening to him. Only days ago, wielding the cross himself, he’d been the predator. Now he was the prey, just one of the pressing melee of vampires all desperate to get beyond its reach.

Yuri hadn’t been as fast as Alex to the door. A shockwave of agony arched his back to breaking point and slammed him down to the floorboards at Dec’s feet.

‘Help me!’ Yuri croaked, reaching out a trembling hand.

For an instant that seemed to last minutes, Dec stood frozen. This was a vampire. It sucked the blood of humans. It deserved to fry.

Yet in that moment, all he could see was a man suffering horribly, screaming in pain, red-rimmed agonised eyes imploring him for help. Dec thought of Joel, and a powerful surge of pity made him reach out to grasp Yuri’s wrist and drag him towards the door fractions of a second before the cross’s power would have blown him apart.