Scott G. Mariani - The Cross

Walking inside the open-plan office space of the VIA nerve centre, Alex could almost taste the fear that hung so thickly in the air. Nervous faces turned from their computer terminals and wall-mounted screens. Utz McCarthy would have been quick to notify his superiors that Harry Rumble hadn’t made it back from Romania. These kinds of things spread pretty fast.

At the far end of the upper floor was a row of doors. The first led through to Alex’s own office; as she went to open it, she noticed the half-open door marked CHIEF OF OPERATIONS and walked inside with a twinge of sadness. Rumble’s cluttered desk hadn’t been cleared. Alex gazed at his empty chair, the leather of its seat worn to a polish by countless hours spent at his desk running VIA’s worldwide activities. Mounted on the wall above the desk was the crystal plaque engraved with the three principal laws of the Vampire Federation:

1. A vampire must never harm a human

2. A vampire must never turn a human

3. A vampire must never love a human

‘Yeah, and I know someone who’s broken all three,’ Alex murmured under her breath. If her superiors ever found out what she’d done, they’d waste no time. The rules were strict, and Alex knew all too well from her own experience how rigorously enforced they were. Somewhere inside the Federation main database, locked down under a mass of access codes, were the official statistics on exactly how many vampires had taken the one-way trip from the Federal detention centre to the infamous execution block. There, transgressors against Federation law were strapped in a titanium chair and given the lethal injection of Nosferol that exploded their blood vessels and ripped their bodies virtually inside out. VIA agents sometimes indulged in a little black humour about the place: Termination Row: where we make Undead things deader.

Alex had known the risk. And taken her chances willingly. If that made her a heretic, then so be it. She wondered where Joel was at that moment. It was hard to keep him out of her thoughts.

As she left Rumble’s office, Alex saw Jen Minto, Harry’s secretary, rushing over to talk to her. Her short blond hair was a mess and her face looked drawn. If she’d been a human, there would have been tears in her eyes. Alex had often suspected that Minto’s affections for Harry ran deeper than she’d admit.

‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ Minto said in a tight voice.

Alex shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Jen. Harry’s not coming back.’

Minto’s shoulders sagged and she put her hand over her face. ‘Was it quick?’ she murmured.

‘He never saw it coming,’ Alex said. It was no lie. For an instant she was reliving the scene again in her mind: the rapid whoosh of the sabre blade coming up behind him faster than Rumble could react, slicing horizontally through flesh and bone. The glint of animal triumph in Lillith’s eyes. The innocent surprise on Harry’s face as his head toppled to the floor and rolled towards Alex’s feet.

‘And Xavier Garrett?’ Minto asked urgently. ‘He was one of them?’

‘He was Stone’s inside guy all along,’ Alex told her.

‘Working right alongside Harry,’ Minto muttered in disgust. ‘The lousy bastard. To think we trusted him, all these years.’

Alex was about to reply when she heard a familiar voice and turned to see the tall, dark-haired figure of Cornelius Kelby, one of the VIA senior managerial officers, striding rapidly over in their direction. His tie was crooked, and like everyone else in the place he looked tired, strained and unfed.

‘So the rumours were right,’ Kelby said. ‘You made it. I’m so glad, Alex.’ He gave her a weary pat on the shoulder. ‘We’ve been waiting for you. We all have so many questions.’

‘It’s all in the report I emailed to Supremo Angelopolis earlier tonight,’ Alex said. ‘Eyes only. Special orders.’

‘Wow. Must be a hell of a report.’

‘Who’s in charge around here now?’ Alex asked.

‘I am,’ Kelby said. ‘I think.’ He took her elbow, guiding her away from the office doors and back down the corridor. ‘Come on. It’s just about to start.’

‘What’s just about to start?’

‘Emergency conference. We’re hooked up live to Brussels. The Vampress wants you to be a part of it.’

‘Me?’

‘You and she are the only survivors. Could be a big promotion in it for you, Alex.’

She gave a grim laugh. ‘I wouldn’t bet on it.’

As they headed towards the conference room, Kelby dug in his pocket and came out with a tube of Solazal pills. ‘In case you were getting low,’ he said, handing them to her. Alex took them gratefully.

Kelby showed her into the conference room. It was only the third or fourth time she’d ever been inside the place – lowly field agents were seldom granted the privilege of attending high-level meetings. There were a lot of empty seats at the long conference table, vacated by the members of the London VIA office who’d perished in Gabriel Stone’s recent helicopter attack.

The same sense of doom Alex had felt among the office staff hung over the remnants of the VIA top brass. She recognised most of the faces: there was Doug Slade, looking scruffier and more dissolute than ever. Despite his appearance, he was one of the most important vampires in the Federation, overseeing the Pharmaceutical Division’s global distribution of Solazal and Vambloc. Ironically, it had been the destruction of the Federation’s pharma plant in Italy that had kept him too busy to attend the ill-fated conference in Brussels. Other officials around the table included Nathaniel Creasy, Jarvis Jackson and the stern-looking, monocled Petronella Scragg, one of the directors of the Federation Treasury.

Another face Alex recognised, to her surprise, was that of Cecil Gibson. The gingery, rodent-like vampire was a field agent like her, somewhat further down the ranks and not too popular among the VIA personnel. Their paths had crossed a few times over the years. What he lacked in imagination and dynamism, he made up for with his plodding, by-the-book methodology and a particularly cloying way of brown-nosing his superiors. He’d just returned from a diplomatic mission to Athens, evidently managing to sit out the whole recent crisis in the safety of a hotel room.

Alex gave him a polite nod and wondered what an agent of his status could possibly be doing at this meeting. As Kelby showed her to a chair and sat down beside her, she hoped this wouldn’t take long. Her relationship with bureaucracy was about as healthy as that of a vampire with a speeding Nosferol bullet.

At the head of the room, overlooking the end of the long table, was a large flatscreen monitor. All eyes were turned expectantly towards it. Moments later, it flashed into life and Alex found herself faced, in pin-sharp high-definition, with the impressive white-robed, iron-haired figure she’d last seen fleeing from Gabriel Stone’s castle in Romania.

Olympia Angelopolis was regally poised on a large red velvet throne, deep in the safety of her Brussels HQ. Flanking her in the background, a pair of machine-gun-wielding vampire goons wore the crisp black uniforms of the Federal Armed National Guard, with the F.A.N.G. emblem on the breast pocket.

Everyone but Alex greeted their Supremo with enthusiastic applause. Olympia’s steely face melted for an instant. As the applause faded, she wiped away an imaginary tear.

‘My friends,’ she began. ‘Once again I must ask you all to offer a few moments’ silence in remembrance of those dear colleagues recently taken from us by the forces of evil.’ She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Everyone around the conference table immediately followed her example. After a beat, Alex impatiently did the same.