Scott Mariani - The Cross

Alex’s legs were unsteady under her as she staggered to her feet. Even vampires could get mild concussion from a severe blow to the head. She inched away in the shadow of the house, terrified of being spotted by the goblins.

But in her dazed state she didn’t notice the chopping block behind her, next to a stack of firewood logs and a precarious pile of old varnish cans. She bumped into the handle of the axe that was propped against the block and it fell and hit the varnish cans, which clattered noisily to the ground.

The nearest of the goblins started at the sound, whipped round and saw her standing there not twenty yards away. Suddenly they were all jumping up from what was left of Albrecht and charging towards her.

Alex broke into a run, heading for the cliff edge. One time, she’d jumped off the London Eye — and she was still around to tell the tale.

Shit , she thought as she neared the edge. It was a long way down. She didn’t much fancy spending eternity as a smear of mincemeat spread across the rocks below, although even that was preferable to being paralysed and chopped into dog food by these things.

But then she realised that three of the goblins, darting around her flank with awful speed, were heading her off. One took out a slingshot as it bounded along, and fired something at her that smacked off a rock. It splintered into pieces and Alex saw what the missile was: a hollow glass ball filled with the black paralysing fluid.

Terrified, she veered away from the cliff edge, willing herself to run faster. She headed in the only direction she could — up the mountainside. Something whizzed past her ear and another poison ball shattered just a yard away. She felt the splash of poison hit her sleeve, tore it away in repulsion and kept running up the steepening slope, the goblins — maybe a dozen of them, maybe more — converging behind her in pursuit. The white peak of the mountain loomed high up above, as if threatening to topple over on top of her. She hauled herself over a ledge and found herself in a dip in the rocks. A glance back over her shoulder told her that the chalet was out of sight now.

She thought of Joel. Run, Joel, run.

Half a second’s distraction was too long. Alex barely had time to react as the goblin launched itself from a hidden crevice up ahead and came lunging at her with a crooked black knife. She threw herself out of the path of the slicing blow and the blade struck sparks off the rock next to her. She grabbed the goblin’s wrist and yanked it hard towards her, straight into the knee that she drove into its ribs. The foul-smelling breath burst out of its lungs and it doubled up in pain. She smashed its head against the rocks, once, twice, three times, grappling with its little muscular body with all her strength until the writhing death struggles had stopped and it lay still, oozing blood onto the trampled snow.

Then Alex heard a twittering sound behind her and turned.

Fifteen more of the creatures were gathering round her in a circle, and now there was nowhere to run at all.

‘ Chloe! ’

Dec’s scream filled the boarding station as he saw her topple over the edge of the platform. The goblin’s powerful little claws were around his throat. Its hood fell away; the hideous jaws opened wide and came snapping towards him. Before it could rip his face off, he headbutted it so hard that he saw stars. The thing chittered angrily and fell back. Dec twisted away towards the fallen sword. The goblin was back on its feet, muscles coiling for another pounce.

‘Come on then, you fucker,’ he said as he grasped the katana with both hands. The creature hurled itself at him, jaws distended …

And hit the floor in two pieces.

Dec spat goblin blood. ‘Chloe!’ he yelled, rushing to the edge of the platform and staring down in anguish at the sheer drop down the cliff. His heart almost burst with relief when he saw her just a few feet below him, crouching dazedly on a little rocky lip that protruded from the cliff face.

The crash of the pistol shot was still ringing in Chloe’s ears. Her mind clearing suddenly, she looked up at the cable car and saw Ash. The shot she’d aimed at his chest had gone wide when Dec had knocked her clear of the goblin’s attack — though not too wide.

Ash’s left hand was still clutching the cross. But it was no longer attached to his arm. Blown away by the expanding hollowpoint bullet, the severed hand had bounced away over the cable car roof and entangled itself in the wire. Fingers curled around the cross’s shaft like the legs of a dying spider, it slid down the cable tracks a distance, then stopped and hung precariously over the valley.

As Chloe watched, Ash crawled across the roof and tried desperately to work his way down the cable tracks to retrieve the cross — but the vibrations through the wire were only making it slide further away; too much movement risked shaking it free altogether.

The gun. Chloe scrabbled about the rocky ledge and for a terrible moment she thought it must have fallen off the cliff. No! There it was, half-covered in snow and dirt. Ash was suspended directly over the abyss now, his handless arm hooked over the cable, reaching out with the other towards the cross. Chloe grabbed the pistol to take another shot, but just as she got him in her sights another cloud passed over the moon and Ash was lost in shadows.

Dec was calling down to her. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m not hurt. Help me up.’

‘Hang on,’ Dec yelled back. ‘I’ve had an idea.’ If he could get the cable car to travel back downwards, he could scrape Ash off the wire and send him to his death, or else maybe mash him up in the pulleys. Seeing a big electrical switch lever that looked to him like a main fuse control, Dec yanked it. The lights went off.

‘Dec, what’s happening?’ Chloe called out.

‘Hold on, I’m coming.’ Working frantically, Dec groped about in the dark for a handful of the electrical wires he’d cut earlier and started tearing at the insulation so that he could twist them back together and feed juice back to the control box.

He scarcely had time to think Shit, wrong fusebox before the electric shock jolted through him from head to toe, making him almost bite his tongue off and flinging him unconscious against the wall.

The wires fell in a heap and instantly began to smoulder and sparkle. A flame leaped up from the control box and quickly gained a purchase on the wooden panel it was mounted on. In just moments, the fire was spreading in a pool a few feet from where Dec lay inert.

‘Dec!’ Chloe called up. ‘Dec, hurry!’

Ash had crawled down the swaying cable almost as far as the cross. One slip, one excessive movement, and it would fall, and so might he. He inched his way just a little further, gritting his teeth, the case dangling from the strap around his shoulders. He was almost there. He reached out. One more inch … and his fingers clamped tightly around the knuckles of his own severed hand.

He laughed in triumph. The cross was his once more.

Gripping Kali’s arm, Gabriel led the way, Lillith and Zachary stumbling along behind as the four of them burst out of the chalet and into the night. Every running step took them further from the source of the terrible agony. For the moment it seemed to have stopped advancing on them, but Gabriel was intent on taking them as far from the cross’s power as he could.

Dashing under cover of shadow as the gathering clouds obscured the moonlight, they found a twisting fissure in the rocks that led steeply away and up towards the eastern face of the mountain.

The only weapon they carried between them was the machete Lillith had taken from the goblin. The enemy were numerous and well-armed, and Gabriel knew he could ill afford to meet them head on. Cursing himself for having ever put his trust in the Masters, he considered the only strategy open to them: escape. Attempting the vertical cliff face to their right was perilous, even for a vampire — the risk of irreparable damage, whether dashed to pieces on the rocks or impaled on a tree far below in the valley, was enough to persuade Gabriel to skirt around the mountainside in the hope of finding a less risky descent.