Scott Mariani - Uprising

On the third attempt, the slab shifted a couple of inches with a grinding of stone on stone. Joel recoiled and almost fell back at the stench that burst out from the dark hole. He used his sleeve to cover his nose and mouth, and kicked wildly at the slab’s edge until he’d moved it far enough to shine the torch down there.

The hole might have been ten feet deep, or it might have been fifty. There was no way to tell how far down the pile of human remains went. In the snatched glimpse Joel caught before he staggered away to empty his guts out all over the floor, he saw dozens of grey, mottled dead faces peering up at him. Homeless people, runaways, illegal immigrants, people lost in the system or whom nobody would report missing.

Whoever they’d been, it would be a hard and terrible job identifying them. Among the dead, severed body parts lay scattered, flesh gnawed from bone.

As Joel stood there bent double, dry-retching and coughing now that his stomach was emptied, he already knew what was going to be the sight most indelibly seared into his memory, destined to haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. It was the shattered and limbless baby skeleton lying on the top of the grisly pile. The bones had been picked clean.

Tears of rage stung his eyes as he kicked the slab back into place over the hole.

He grabbed the cross and moved on.

At the end of a long, winding tunnel leading off the crypt he found a room that he immediately knew was Gabriel Stone’s private study. Clearly a vampire of taste and style, Joel thought as he looked around him at the sumptuous furnishings. But a vampire nonetheless, and this wouldn’t be over until he was sent back to hell where he belonged.

Still seething with anger and disgust and holding the cross of Ardaich out in front of him like a beacon as he stormed room after room, Joel systematically flushed out the rest of the mansion. His fear had completely dispersed. All he wanted was to find these bastards and watch them die. But with every new door he kicked in, half-expecting to see his torch beam land on a huddled cluster of terrified vampires inside, his hope diminished. It took a long time before he could admit it to himself, but in the end he had to face the truth. The unlocked gate, the open front door, the missing portrait, the empty rooms: it all added up to the conclusion that Crowmoor Hall’s occupants had abandoned the place.

How had they known? Could they have sensed the cross coming? Or had one of their contacts somehow tipped them off? Whatever the answer, they were gone. All that remained of them was the gruesome evidence left behind in the crypt.

Back down in Stone’s study, Joel ripped through the enormous antique desk for any possible clue as to where the vampires might have fled. There was nothing. Unless they returned, he’d lost them — and he had a strong feeling that they weren’t coming back, at least not for a long time.

It was raining as he trudged back up the gravel driveway with a heavy heart and the cross dangling limp at his side. So much effort had gone into finding the vampires’

nest, and now they’d simply upped and moved on somewhere else. Dec Maddon’s discovery had ultimately come to nothing.

Joel stopped. Dec Maddon. The kid had been right about everything so far: the spider tattoo on the dead girl’s neck; the sculpted birds on the gateposts; the hidden door to the crypt. Without him, he’d never have come this far. Was there anything else the teenager might have seen or overheard? Even just a tiny clue that could help track Stone and his entourage to their new lair? That thought drove Joel into a run. He leapt into the Mondeo, laid the cross back in its case and skidded away from Crowmoor Hall forever.

As he drove, he dialled Dec’s mobile but got no reply. He looked at his watch, only now realising how late it was. But he couldn’t waste precious hours waiting until morning to make a polite visit to the Maddon home.

On his way to Wallingford he stopped at a village and made an anonymous call to Thames Valley Police to alert them to the stash of dead bodies and human remains at the former residence of Gabriel Stone. Let Carter and the boys sort that out, he thought as he walked back to the car in the rain. He had more pressing business to take care of.

The Ridings, near Guildford, Surrey

Two hours earlier

Jeremy Lonsdale had been nursing a crystal tumbler brimming with malt whisky in the top-floor study of his country home and fretting over his predicament when he’d heard the two Great Danes start up a chorus of frenzied barking and baying down below. He cursed loudly, smacked his tumbler down on the table and threw open the window.

‘Castor! Pollux! Shut your fucking holes!’ he roared out into the cold night air.

The dogs fell silent, as if shocked by their master’s uncharacteristic outburst. Lonsdale slammed the window shut and went back to his brooding contemplation.

A minute later, as he was refilling his glass from the near-empty bottle of Highland Park, the dogs started again. Lonsdale ripped through the door of the study and went thundering down the stairs, ready to kick the hell out of the two animals for interrupting his thoughts. It was a large house, and he was puffing and red by the time he neared the bottom of the last flight of steps.

Then he halted mid-stride and almost stopped breathing when he saw the five people standing in his hallway.

No, not people. It was Gabriel Stone and his entourage. Behind Stone stood the hulking black giant and Anton, the sardonic-looking weaselly one. To his left was the blonde called Anastasia. And to his right, the raven-haired beauty Lillith. Lonsdale hadn’t seen the four since the night of the initiation ceremony. He felt the colour drain from his face all the way down to his shoes. The tumbler slipped out of his fingers, bounced on the stair carpet and shattered on the hallway tiles with an amber spatter of whisky.

‘Surprised to see us, Jeremy?’

Lonsdale opened and closed his mouth soundlessly as he searched for something to say.

‘Are you not going to invite us into your fine home?’ Stone asked.

‘O-of course,’ Lonsdale stammered. ‘Please, forgive my rudeness.’ He ushered them into a drawing room.

‘Hello, Jeremy,’ Lillith said with a seductive smile, gently raking his arm with a fingernail as she walked by.

Lonsdale cleared his throat and tried to smile. The congenial host. ‘Would you, um, like a drink?’

‘That depends on what you’re offering,’ Anastasia said, eyeing his throat.

Stone gestured at an armchair as if he were in his own place. ‘Please, take a seat, Jeremy. As you may have gathered, this is not a mere social call. We’re here to discuss business.’

Lonsdale sat nervously, glancing from one vampire to another. They stood around him in a semicircle. Big Zachary folded his muscular arms across his chest.

Anton wore a deep frown. Anastasia had one eyebrow raised in amusement and Lillith toyed distractedly with the hilt of her sabre. Stone stood in the middle, his eyes narrowed. Lonsdale couldn’t read his expression, and that worried him more than anything.

‘What business would that be, Gabriel?’ he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘Don’t play the innocent with me, Jeremy. You know what this is about.’

Lonsdale swallowed. ‘Venice?’ It came out as a squeak.

‘Venice. Precisely. Did you not receive my package, containing the equipment and full instructions?’

Lonsdale tried to swallow again, but his throat was dry. He wished he had another drink. ‘Yes,’ he managed.

‘And you instructed the men you hired to follow those instructions to the absolute letter?’

‘Use the special bullets to kill the woman, take the man alive, bring back the item and hand it over to me. Exactly as you said. I was very clear.’