Scott Mariani - Uprising

‘What are you hiding there for?’ Stone yelled at him in fury. ‘You’re supposed to protect me, not go skulking off like a rat. Get back there and kill the human.’

Lonsdale swallowed and looked blank. ‘How?’

‘Zachary has a gun,’ Stone snapped. ‘Even you can work a gun, can’t you?’

They rushed into a hallway to find Zachary thundering down the grand staircase towards them, clutching the gun he’d been keeping in his quarters. The shiny, long-barrelled.357 magnum revolver was dwarfed in his fist. Stone grabbed it from him.

That was when Lillith appeared in the doorway behind them. Her eyes were ringed with black and she was unsteady on her feet. Her chest heaved with the effort to breathe.

‘He’s coming. He’s right behind me.’

Zachary’s eyes opened wide with horror, and he ran over to a window overlooking the outer wall.

‘I’m outta here,’ he rasped. He drew back his massive fist and smashed it through the glass, piled himself through the jagged hole and disappeared into the night.

Stone and Lillith were about to follow, when they both simultaneously felt the crippling power of the cross wash over them once more. Lillith fell back from the window, clutching herself and crying out in fear. Stone whirled round to see the human Joel Solomon limping towards them. Seizing Lillith’s arm, Stone took off at a staggering run, knocking over a table and shattering a vase in his haste to get away.

‘Help me, ghoul!’ he roared, tossing the gun to Lonsdale. But Lonsdale stared in terror at Joel, and fled in his master’s wake. The vampires crashed through a doorway and emerged on the castle’s upper battlement. A narrow walkway ran along the rim of the wall, leading to a round turret that had once been used to spot approaching enemy armies. Beyond the battlement wall, the sheer cliff face dropped away into the night.

Lillith screamed. The human had appeared on the battlement behind them.

Joel didn’t know how much longer he could go on. A black mist was rising up to cloud his vision, but he could still see the vampires frantically trying to escape along the battlement wall. Only one of them seemed unaffected, the haggard, wild-eyed man whom Gabriel Stone was clutching tightly behind him like a shield. His face looked familiar, but through the fog of his pain and nausea Joel couldn’t place it. He barely even registered the large, heavy handgun in the man’s fist.

As he staggered out onto the battlement after them, the biting wind almost knocked him off his feet. He steadied himself and took another step towards them.

They were backing away towards the tall round turret, and he had them cornered.

‘You’re finished, Stone!’ he shouted through the roar of the wind, blinking the driving snowflakes out of his eyes. ‘It’s over!’

He took two more steps forward and heard the leather-clad woman vampire let out another tortured wail as she pressed herself desperately against the far wall of the turret.

Gabriel Stone seemed to have shrivelled with terror. He shoved his servant roughly onto the battlement.

‘Kill him! Shoot him! Don’t just stand there, Lonsdale!’

Lonsdale moved cautiously along the wall. Raised the pistol and took an unsteady aim at Joel.

‘Kill him!’ Stone roared.

Alex had lost all sense of where she was when she suddenly smelled the night air. She ran out of the winding passage to find herself standing on the high outer castle wall. The howling gale ripped at her hair.

Fifty yards away through the blizzard she could see Gabriel Stone and Lillith.

They were cowering, cringing in terror and fury at the top of a tower at the very far corner of the opposite battlement wall. Running her eye along, she spotted Joel’s ragged, bloody figure, dragging himself along the walkway with the cross in his fist. She was out of its range, but Stone and Lillith were dangerously close to it and had nowhere left to run. A few more steps, and it was over for them.

Standing halfway between Joel and the two vampires was Stone’s ghoul, Lonsdale. In his hand was a big revolver. Alex watched helplessly as Lonsdale aimed it at Joel. Stone’s screaming commands to shoot were being snatched away by the wind.

Joel must have seen the gun, but he was behaving as if he no longer cared. He took another limping step and raised the cross higher.

There was nothing Alex could do to stop what was about to happen.

Lonsdale seemed to hesitate, then, half-turning his face away, he squeezed the trigger. The revolver recoiled up in his hand, a halo of white flame bursting from its muzzle.

Joel kept coming. Lonsdale fired again, and this time his bullet found its mark.

Blood spattered on the snowy battlements. Joel flailed with his arms and went down on his back, still clutching the cross.

‘Joel!’ Alex screamed. But she was powerless to do anything — as long as he held the cross she couldn’t go near him. His body lay slumped on the battlement. Snowflakes were settling rapidly over him, turning red as they melted in his blood. He wasn’t moving.

Jeremy Lonsdale lowered the heavy pistol. He stared at the fallen man he’d just shot. Turned to look at Gabriel Stone in the tower behind him. The vampire was gesticulating wildly at him through the blizzard.

‘Pick up the cross, you cretin. Get it away from us! Throw it over the cliff!’

Stone’s voice was cracked with pain. Lillith was on her hands and knees beside him in the tower, her black hair plastered over her face as she clutched her head and her body shook violently.

Lonsdale nodded. He understood what he had to do. Still holding the gun, he walked slowly over to the body in the snow and bent down to pick up the cross from the limp fingers of his victim. Blood was seeping across the battlement, dripping down the wall; red on white under the black sky.

Lonsdale turned away, the cross still in his grasp. It seemed to thrum in his hand, and was warm to the touch. He looked out over the craggy castle wall, at the swirling snow and the distant mountains. The wind whipped at his clothes. He raised his arm to hurl it far over the battlement, where it would go spinning and tumbling a thousand feet before it smashed into a million pieces against the rocks below. His master would be saved. The war would be won — thanks to him, Jeremy Lonsdale. The power was his.

He grunted with effort as he hurled the heavy object in his fist. It sailed high up in an arc over the battlements and then dropped away into the night. Then, slowly, he turned to face Gabriel Stone.

Still holding the cross. It was the big revolver that he’d thrown away. He had no further need for it. But the cross…

He looked down at it. Its thrumming warmth spread up his arm.

‘No,’ he said softly. And took a step towards the two vampires.

‘Throw it, ghoul!’ Stone’s scream of desperation cut through the howling wind.

‘No,’ Lonsdale repeated, loudly this time, and took another step. ‘You’ve come into my life and poisoned everything. You’ve taken everything from me, taken away the one person I loved. Look at what I’ve become. And now you’ve made me a murderer for you.’

‘Jeremy, stay away from us. I’m commanding you—’

‘I’ve taken enough of your orders, vampire.’ Lonsdale stood straighten There was a glow in his eyes and his face was contorted as he slowly approached the turret. His knuckles were white on the shaft of the cross. ‘I don’t give a damn what happens to me any more,’ he shouted. ‘But by God I’m going to destroy you!’

Stone was frantically trying to shield Lillith with his body, absorbing the energy blast in a bid to save her. But the power of the cross, now just a few yards away, was too much for him. As Lonsdale came closer, Stone collapsed inside the turret beside Lillith. He cried out. Smoking blisters burst out across his skin. Lillith was writhing and shrieking. In one last desperate surge of energy she raised herself to her knees, drew out her sabre and hurled it with all the strength she had left.