Scott Mariani - Uprising

Stone shook his head. ‘At a mere eighty years of age, you’re far too young to know these things, Anastasia. I can assure you that the legend of what the humans came to call the cross of Ardaich is very real indeed.’

‘Then we have to hunt this human down and kill him,’ Lillith said. ‘The simple ways are the best.’

‘And how do you think we can do that?’ Zachary rumbled. ‘If the motherfucker has the cross, we can’t touch him.’

Stone stared at him coldly. He didn’t approve of human profanities being used in his presence, unless it was by his own choice.

‘Do you really think he has it, Gabriel?’ Anton asked.

Stone clicked his tongue. ‘He may be bluffing; then again, he may not. But even if he doesn’t have possession of the cross, the mere fact that he knows of its existence makes him a grave threat to all of us. We cannot afford to take risks.’

‘I agree with Lillith,’ Anastasia said. ‘If this human is with their police, he should be easy to find. We can make him disappear, along with whatever it is he may know or may have found.’

Stone was silent for a moment, thinking hard. Then he stood up, walked over to the door and tugged twice on a thin cord.

Far away through the twisting passages of the mansion, the bell rang to summon Seymour Finch.

Their assistant arrived in minutes. Lillith eyed Finch with distaste as he grovelled and scraped his way to the table like a beaten dog looking for scraps, his eyes bright with adoration and terror.

‘My loyal servant,’ Stone said. ‘I have another task for you.’

Finch nodded eagerly. ‘It will be a pleasure to serve you, Mr Stone. Whatever you wish.’

‘A human has become a problem for us. We believe him to be a police officer, and he may be in possession of an item that is very important to us. Your task is to find out who he is, where he lives, what he knows, and with whom he might have shared this knowledge.’

‘And then cut his fucking throat,’ Lillith purred, drawing her finger abruptly across her neck. Zachary and Anton chuckled.

Stone glowered sternly at her. ‘No. No harm must come to him — not until we can be absolutely certain that he’s the only one involved.’ Turning back to Finch, he went on, ‘This is a delicate matter. Depending on how much he knows about us, it may be necessary to isolate him from his colleagues, prevent him from talking. Do you understand?’

Finch nodded. ‘Yes, master.’

‘Good. I leave it to you. You’ll report back to me on my return.’

Lillith looked across at him. ‘Your return? From where?’

‘I have one more small item of business to attend to. Then I need to make a journey. East,’ Stone said. He paused a beat before adding, ‘To them.’

Greg opened his eyes, ready to spring up to his feet and engage his attacker.

But something was different. He wasn’t lying on the cold stone floor of the underground chamber beneath the house. He was lying on damp grass.

He blinked and raised his head, trying to make sense of where he was. A cool breeze caressed the wetness on his cheek. He struggled up into a crouch and his head connected with something hard. He reached up to feel it. Solid metal. Running his hand downwards, he felt the steel bars a foot away from his face, cold and slippery with dew.

He was in a cage. Around him, the long grass rustled gently in the breeze. The chorus of the birds in the trees heralded the dawn.

He gripped the bars in his fists and tried to bend them apart, but the steel was thick. They didn’t give a millimetre. He fell back on his haunches, beginning to breathe hard.

Then he noticed the object on the other side of the bars. The compact notebook computer whirred away quietly in the grass. Its screen was flipped open to face him, and the fixed black eye of a webcam was trained on the cage.

The screen was dark except for a shadowy face in its centre, watching him intently. It was Stone. Greg stared back at him, and saw the vampire smile.

‘Good morning, Greg. Or should I say good night? I’m staying up late to watch this. It’s well past my bedtime.’

Greg tore his gaze away from the screen. The red glow of dawn was breaking over the treeline. He tried to speak, but no sound came out.

‘I believe the word you’re looking for is “predicament”,’ Stone said. His smile widened. ‘That’s certainly what you’re in, my friend. Now, remember I said you were going to deliver a message for me? That’s exactly what’s going to happen.’ He paused, and his hand appeared on the screen holding a slim object that Greg recognised instantly. It was the tube of Solazal tablets they’d taken from him the night before.

‘I can see what you’re thinking, Greg,’ Stone said. ‘You’re asking yourself, “Did I take my Solazal?“’ He shook the tube. ‘Dear me. Still a lot of pills left. I do believe you forgot, didn’t you? Time will tell. And I think you may be running out.’

Greg was beginning to tremble as he struggled to remember. Alex’s warning rang round and round in his head, and his stomach flipped as the truth hit him.

Stone was right.

Greg looked up at the red glow in the sky, just as the first shimmering golden edge of sun broke over the treetops. He flinched away from the light, but not before he felt the terrible pain lance through his eyes. Rays of sun speared between the bars of the cage. One passed across his hand, and the flesh instantly sizzled and blistered. He let out a sharp cry and jerked his hand away.

‘Looks like you forgot, all right,’ Stone chuckled. ‘How wonderfully entertaining this promises to be.’

There was nowhere Greg could crawl to escape the steady rise of the sun. Even curled up in a tight ball with his arms over his face, he could feel its glare on him. He smelled the smoke that was beginning to rise from his clothes and hair, the acrid stench of charring flesh. Saw his hands blackening and curling like singed paper. The first flames licked across his skin.

He was a soldier. If he was going to die, he’d at least die facing his enemy. He turned towards the screen.

‘Damn you, Stone,’ he yelled.

‘I was damned millennia before you were born,’ Stone replied. ‘But I was smarter.’

Greg screamed as he burst alight. He could feel his flesh shrivelling, turning to ash.

The last thing he saw as he burned was Stone’s laughing face.

Lavender Close, Wallingford

The next morning, 8.03 a.m.

‘You again,’ Gillian Hawthorne snapped as she recognised the Detective Inspector’s voice on the other end of the phone.

‘I’m sorry to call so early, Mrs Hawthorne.’ Joel’s voice sounded ragged and weary, as though he hadn’t slept all night. ‘I was checking on Kate.’

‘Kate’s fine. She’s asleep.’

‘Nothing wrong?’

Gillian frowned. ‘I told you, she’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with her at all. Now please go away and stop calling us.’ She put the phone down. Bit her lip and chewed on a fingernail.

She wasn’t about to let that Solomon man know just how anxious she really was about her daughter. It hadn’t taken Gillian a second look at Kate that morning to tell she was very sick. Her sleeping face was drawn and strangely pale. The skin was becoming almost translucent, so that the veins in her temples and her neck were disturbingly visible. Gillian had shuddered. Her daughter looked like a corpse.

Moments after talking to Joel Solomon, Gillian picked the phone back up and dialled Dr Andrews’s number.

Bill Andrews had been the Hawthorne family’s private physician since Kate had been a baby. The kindly old doctor was almost like an uncle to her, and he sounded deeply concerned when Gillian called him at home and described the symptoms.