Scott Mariani - Uprising

Stone turned off the DVD. ‘That just about sums it up. It’s taken us a little while to get everyone’s confessions down on film, but I must say I’m very pleased with the results.’

‘They made me say it,’ Olympia protested.

‘Of course we did,’ Stone said. ‘Everyone had their own script.’

‘Written by me and Lillith,’ Anastasia cut in proudly.

‘The finest hour of the Federation,’ Stone went on. ‘This is how they will be remembered. Confessing their sins, laying bare their consciences, asking forgiveness of the citizens as they release them from the yoke of oppression. Magnificent.’ He beamed. ‘And now, thanks to our friend Xavier Garrett, who kindly provided us with access to the Federation register, word will be sent out to each and every vampire in the database, summoning them to gather en masse at prearranged venues across the world, where these confessions will be screened. The Federation will be officially disbanded. The beginning of a new era is upon us.’ He turned to Alex with a flourish.

‘Which brings me neatly back to you, Alexandra. Have you decided to accept my offer?’

Lillith’s eyes narrowed into slits and she uncoiled herself from the divan. ‘Your offer, Gabriel? You said you were going to film her with the others. You never mentioned anything to me about an offer.’

Stone ignored her and went on smiling at Alex. ‘Well? What is it to be? Will you join us? Or do you choose to be executed along with your illustrious Vampress and her acolytes?’

A mutter of horror rippled through the little crowd of prisoners. ‘Executed?’

Lerouge burst out, his eyes darting wildly from side to side. ‘But you told us we’d just be sent into exile—’

Stone made an apologetic gesture. ‘A slight deception on my part, I concede. But how else could I have drawn such wonderful performances from you all?’

Lerouge started struggling and screaming. ‘You’ll never get away with this!’

Stone gestured to one of the guards. A quick stroke of a sword, and Lerouge’s head was swiped clean off his shoulders. The head bounced into the fireplace and lay there sizzling. The remaining Supremos cringed and sobbed. Harry Rumble stared hard at Stone but remained silent.

‘Now, what was I saying? Oh yes. My offer, Alexandra. I’m waiting. Don’t disappoint me.’

‘Here’s my answer, Gabriel,’ Alex said, glancing at Olympia. ‘You were right. I’ve been working for tyrants. There isn’t a decent vampire on the Ruling Council. As an agent for VIA, I’ve been the instrument of their corruption. I suspected it all along.

There were things I noticed, but chose to keep quiet about. Now I see differently.’

Stone walked up to Alex and laid a hand on her shoulder. ‘You make me very happy.’

‘You can’t be fucking serious, Gabriel,’ Lillith said.

‘You didn’t let me finish, Gabriel,’ Alex went on. ‘I may have seen through them, but that doesn’t make me want to come over to your side. Not after the things you told me. Yes, I’m a vampire — but I could never be like you.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘So my answer is no. I still believe in what the Federation could have been. What it could be.

What it will be one day.’

There was a silence in the room. A smile had spread over Lillith’s face. Stone raised his eyebrows and let out a regretful sigh.

‘Then on your own head be it,’ he said. ‘Let the executions begin.’

The mountain wind stripped Joel like a knife as he struggled up the cliff. His hands were raw, every muscle in his body screaming at him to stop. But there was nowhere to stop when you were clinging to a steep rock face with only a few narrow ledges and the occasional clump of protruding vegetation between you and the valley floor a thousand feet below. Risking a glance downwards, he could see how far he’d come. A few more minutes, and he’d reach the base of the wall.

He climbed on, glued like a spider to the sheer slope, relying more on feel than the dim moonlight as he worked his painstaking way from handhold to handhold, foothold to foothold. Climbing was a game of strategy. Beating the mountain was all about planning your route; pick the wrong one, and the mountain beat you.

So far, Joel was winning. But then a small ledge of rock that had looked like a good left foothold suddenly gave way with a crack. The sudden weight transfer tore Joel’s left hand from its grip, and he felt himself going. Faster and faster, scrabbling desperately for a hold. He didn’t scream or cry out — everything happened too fast in that moment of eerie silence, as surprise gave way to denial and then to shock. By then it was too late and the long drop was inevitable. Joel felt himself spinning downwards.

Something raked the side of his face. With a terrible splintering and crackling, his fall was arrested. A lancing pain in his right shoulder, and he felt the flesh rip. Then the waist girth of his rucksack was yanked brutally against his lower ribs, squeezing the air out of his chest. His legs kicked in open air as he hung helplessly from whatever it was that had broken his descent. The pine-studded valley was a very long way down below him.

He twisted his head painfully upwards and saw that a protruding dead tree, growing out of an overhang that he’d avoided on the way up, had speared through the right strap of his rucksack, tearing away some of his shoulder with it. Blood was already spreading through his sweatshirt. He was caught like a fish on a hook.

He tried swinging his legs to move his body so that he could regain a hold on the rock face. The dead tree gave an ominous crack and he felt himself lurch half an inch.

Bad idea, he thought as he dangled there in space. The tree cracked again, then a long creaking groan became a ripping, splintering crackle.

And a second later, it gave. This time Joel had time to cry out ‘Shiiiit!’ as he felt himself going. Falling, he closed his eyes.

He hit the rocks face down with a grunt of pain.

Slowly, he dared to open his eyes again. He wasn’t spread out in a quivering pool of spattered flesh and burst entrails over the valley floor. He was still remarkably alive, and a reassuringly long way up with the mountain wind still whistling over him.

Even more reassuring was the solid slab of rock he was lying on. Wincing at the pain in his torn shoulder, he scrabbled to his feet and whacked his head painfully against something hard above him.

At that moment, he understood what had happened. When the dead tree had broken, it hadn’t snapped clean off but had lowered him into what seemed to be a cave entrance that he’d missed in the darkness. He rubbed his bruised head and felt his way around inside the mouth of the cave. There must be some way to clamber back out to the rock face and continue his climb.

Something crunched underfoot. He reached down and felt brittle fragments –

then his groping fingers found the rest of the skull and he fell backwards.

He sat there panting against the wall of the cave. The empty eye sockets of the human skull seemed to watch him. They weren’t alone. As his vision adjusted to the darkness he could see dozens of other skulls heaped in piles. No, not dozens, hundreds.

And he realised fully where he was. At one time this must have been an escape tunnel leading out of the castle — or maybe an invasion tunnel leading in. Whatever steps or bridge had been built there had long since eroded or rotted away. In the centuries since, the tunnel had been used for another purpose.

He was standing in the dump where the vampires threw away the remains of their victims.

It wasn’t hundreds of skulls that Joel passed on his stumbling way through the dark passage. It was thousands. After a while he stopped trying to even count. The tunnel led sharply upwards, with crude steps cut into the rock. He followed them up and up to the sound of the steady drip of water and the rasping echo of his own breathing. The steps kept spiralling upwards until his legs felt ready to collapse under him. More skulls littered the ground, and ribcages and scattered limbs. He soon became as numb to them as he was to the pain in his shoulder and the blood still seeping through his shirt.