Scott Mariani - The Cross

‘This way,’ he called back over his shoulder. Kali had kicked off her shoes and was running barefoot over the snow. Lillith followed.

Zachary brought up the rear, glancing warily in all directions. A flitting movement caught his eye. Something scurrying behind a crevice above them. Then, almost immediately after, he heard the twang of the bowstring and the whistle of the flying arrow. ‘Incoming!’ he yelled. ‘Ten o’clock!’

The arrow cracked on the rocks inches from Gabriel and stained the snow with venom.

‘Everyone down!’ Lillith shouted.

An instant later, a rain of arrows and glass missiles was showering down on them from a dozen hidden vantage points in the crags above. Gabriel hauled Kali behind the shelter of a snowy boulder to the right of the path, shielding her as best he could with his own body and steeling himself to feel the bite of a poisoned barb in his flesh. Zachary had hurled himself away to the right, rolling through the snow to press his bulk tightly into the angle of two big rocks.

Gabriel ducked as a glass missile whizzed overhead, then risked a glance around him. Something was wrong.

‘Lillith?’ he called out. ‘Where are you?’

Joel sprinted out of the chalet and hollered Alex’s name. The only reply was the echo of his own voice ringing off the mountainside. To his right, he could see the distant figures of Gabriel Stone and his three companions winding their way up the slope.

‘Alex!’ he shouted again. He was sure he could smell burning. Glancing back at the chalet, he saw thick smoke drifting in the wind.

Then, out of the darkness, a running figure streaked towards him. Joel’s first panicked thought was that it might be one of the goblins, and his grip tightened on his sword; but no, it was a tall female figure. With a mixture of extreme relief and bitter disappointment, he recognised her as one of the sexy she-vampires that had turned up with Baxter Burnett.

‘Quick!’ Sonia hissed, half-demented with terror. ‘We have to run! The cross … the man … he’s coming! ‘ The fight-or-flight instinct had made her fangs extend — Joel could see them behind her lips as she spoke. He instinctively felt for his own, still holding on to some vain hope that they might not be there. They were. But there was no time for those kinds of concerns now.

‘Have you seen Alex?’ he asked as they ran.

‘Who?’

‘My friend who was with me before,’ he explained frantically.

‘I don’t know,’ Sonia babbled. ‘I don’t know. I think she was destroyed.’

Joel was still reeling from her words when the attack came out of nowhere. A leaping dark shape beat him down violently against the rocks, twisting the sword out of his grip, pinning him with its weight. He felt little clawed hands grasping at his ankles, stopping him from kicking out.

Sonia screamed as they took her down. For a moment she disappeared under a scrum of little bodies. When Joel caught sight of her again she was spread-eagled among the rocks, a goblin hanging tightly to each wrist and ankle. One reached into the folds of its habit and took out a little round glass ball, the size of a large marble. It jerked Sonia’s head back by the hair, forcing her mouth open with its thumbs. She bit savagely. The goblins twittered in mirth.

These things are just playing with us , Joel thought. He twisted and fought, but the goblin sitting on his chest was holding him tightly down. All he could do was watch as the creature with the hollow glass marble forced it very deliberately between Sonia’s fangs and shoved it down her throat with the handle of its knife. It watched intently as she swallowed it with a choking splutter, then lashed out with the knife handle, crushing the glass while it was still inside her throat.

Vampire blood and black poison bubbled out of her mouth and spilled down her cheeks. Sonia struggled wildly for a few seconds and then went limp as the paralysing agent took effect.

Then, tugging her in opposite directions, the goblins unhurriedly tore her apart. The left arm was first to rip from its shoulder joint, trailing sinews and muscle. Then the right leg. The goblin clutching the ankle hurled the limb away and it flopped across the rocks and landed next to Joel. The most horrific thing wasn’t seeing Sonia being torn apart — it was that she couldn’t make a sound or lift a finger in resistance.

And now, from the way the little bastards were turning towards him, Joel got the feeling it was going to be his turn next.

As he twisted his head from side to side in desperation, something caught his eye: the little silver dagger that Sonia wore in her garter belt, still attached to her severed thigh.

Finally, with a desperate heave, Joel managed to dislodge the dead weight of the goblin from off his chest. He threw out his arm. Plucked the dagger from Sonia’s garter belt. Slashing the throat of the nearest goblin, he brought the silver hilt down with a vicious skull-cracking blow on the head of another. Then he was free and springing up onto his feet, and his fallen katana was back in his hand, the long curved blade hissing through the air. Blood hit the snow. Five goblins were reduced to twitching body parts before the rest went fleeing over the rocks.

Joel stepped towards the dismembered trunk that had been the beautiful Sonia. He couldn’t leave her like this, doomed to the worst possible fate a vampire could face.

He raised the sword. The last look in her eyes was one of profound gratitude.

When it was done, Joel bent double, retching and wheezing up the few drops of Errol Knightly’s blood that were still in his system.

At that moment, he thought he heard a voice call his name.

The smoke was pouring thickly out of the boarding station now and through it the flicker of flames was getting brighter. Chloe could feel the heat of the spreading fire and hear its crackle as she tried to gain a handhold on the slippery rocks and pull herself up to the platform.

‘Dec! Where are you?’

No reply. As she called his name again, a gust of wind enveloped her in thick hot smoke and she fell into a fit of coughing. She couldn’t see the cable car any more.

Suddenly there was a figure standing next to her on the ledge. Chloe backed away in dread, reaching for her pistol — but as the figure stepped towards her through the swirling smoke, she saw it wasn’t Ash, but the vampire called Yuri.

‘Come with me,’ he croaked in his thick accent. ‘Quickly!’ Yuri let out a cry as pain racked his body. Chloe took his hand, and felt herself being lifted up towards the platform as though she weighed nothing. The smoke was blinding. The fire was everywhere, its heat unbearable. Then Yuri’s hand was guiding her firmly through the middle of the leaping flames.

‘Why are you doing this?’ she gasped.

‘Your friend save me. Now I save you. Move, move. There is no time.’

‘Dec!’ Chloe yelled. There he was, dragged free of the fire, sitting propped against the wall, groggy but alive, his face blackened by the smoke. His eyes widened as he saw Chloe. He swayed up to his feet, staggered towards her and held her by the arms. ‘Where’s Ash?’ he coughed.

Yuri glanced back in terror in the direction of the cable car. His body suddenly twisted into a violent agonised convulsion. He screwed his eyes shut, opened his mouth to scream … and blackened and burst apart into charred nothingness.

‘Ash is here,’ Chloe breathed.

They turned to see him striding towards them through the fire. The flames flickered in his eyes and gleamed on his teeth. In his right hand he clutched the cross. The left arm hung limply, blood still dripping from the stump where his hand had been. His face twisted in hate as his eyes locked on Chloe and Dec.