The Cross. Scott G. Mariani

who’d escorted them down here and told them to wait.

      Lying inert on his back on a smooth, icy slab between Lillith and Zachary was the body of their leader, the vampire that Lillith called brother: Gabriel Stone. He was tall, slender and dark, and even in his state of deep unconsciousness he managed to look elegant and composed.

      ‘Is he going to make it?’ Zachary asked in his deep bass rumble, peering down worriedly at the still body. He’d asked that question so many times on the journey from Romania, carrying Gabriel’s limp form on his shoulder, that Lillith had stopped replying. She stepped to her brother’s side and ran her fingers down his cold cheek.

      ‘Come back to me, Gabriel,’ she murmured. She’d been there with him on the battlements when he’d been exposed to the force of the weapon the human Joel Solomon had carried into the castle. She remembered the way Gabriel had shielded her body with his, absorbing the lethal energy before they’d both hurled themselves over the edge of the battlements and gone tumbling down hundreds of yards to the rocks below.

      Vampires could take a few knocks. Leaping from the top of a cliff had its risks but, as long as they didn’t smash themselves too irreparably, it was nothing they couldn’t survive. One thing they couldn’t take, though, was the devastating effect of the cross of Ardaich. Of all the ancient myths and legends within vampire folklore, that cross was the most dreaded, the darkest, its name the most quietly whispered. And it was also the most mysterious. Its origins, and the source of its power, had remained an enigma since the time the humans called the Dark Ages.

      ‘So badly hurt,’ she murmured, stroking Gabriel’s motionless arm.

      ‘If he doesn’t make it,’ Zachary said, ‘what are we going to do? I mean, we’ve followed him since . . .’ He frowned as he tried to put a figure on the years their band had been together. ‘Without him, we’re lost.’

      ‘He’ll make it,’ Lillith said. ‘He has to. They’ll help, surely they will.’

      ‘I sure hope you’re right.’ Zachary thought for a moment. ‘Those trips Gabriel made sometimes . . . all he’d say was that he was going east . . . days at a time. He was coming here, wasn’t he? They know him?’

      Lillith nodded. ‘He’s been in contact with them a long time, learned many things from them. Once, years ago, he brought me here. That’s why I know some of their language.’

      ‘Just what are they, Lillith?’

      ‘I once asked Gabriel the same question. He told me it was better I didn’t know.’ She paused. ‘Our kind call them the Übervampyr. Many of us don’t believe they really exist.’

      As the two of them stood there over Gabriel, strange forms became visible through the thick, rippled walls that had been sculpted in the ice. The figures were tall. Hooded and robed. Watching them.

      ‘They’re here,’ Lillith said. ‘Now listen, Zachary. These Übers aren’t like us. They’re not . . . humanoid.’

      ‘I ain’t either,’ Zachary said, not understanding.

      Lillith shook her head. ‘You were human once, remember. They never were. Just be ready for what you’re about to see. And be careful. Don’t look them in the eye. It offends them.’

      A portal opened in the icy wall, and several of the tall, strange figures entered the chamber. One drew close. Towering several inches above Zachary’s head, over seven feet in height, it reached up with its clawed, long-fingered hands and drew back the hood of its robe to reveal its face. The skull was tapered and bald, the ears long and pointed. Its skin was the colour of a washed-out winter sky, and so translucently thin that thousands of dark veins could be seen under its wrinkled surface.

      Only a thing this hideous could have made Zachary turn pale and back off a step.

      Lillith found it hard to tell the Übervampyr apart from their strange, horrible facial features – but she knew from his robes that this was one of the Masters that Gabriel had told her about.

      When he spoke, his voice made Zachary back off another step. The ancient language was rasping and guttural. ‘My name is Master Xenrai-Ÿazh.’

      ‘That is one ugly mother,’ Zachary muttered.

      Lillith shot him a furious glare, then turned to address the Übervampyr, bowing her head and avoiding eye contact. ‘It’s an honour, Master. Gabriel has often spoken of you.’

      ‘I have known Gabriel a very long time,’ the Master said. ‘In our language we call him Krajzok: “the young one”.’

      ‘I’m afraid for him. He’s been very badly hurt. The cross—’

      The Master raised his long, thin hand, silencing her. ‘Yes. Our servants have already informed us of what happened. Of course, you fear for Gabriel. But you must leave him now. He is to be taken from here.’

      ‘What’s he say?’ Zachary asked, keeping his eyes low.

      Lillith ignored him. ‘Taken where?’ she asked, frowning.

      ‘To the heart of the citadel,’ the Master said, ‘to a place where none of your kind may normally enter.’

      ‘Are you going to help him? We brought him here in the hope that you could save him.’

      ‘We have the means to restore him. The cross’s power was not fully expended on him.’

      ‘Then you have to make him better.’

      The Master was quiet for a moment. ‘It is not so simple. The Grand Council is convening.’

      Lillith didn’t want to show her irritation, but it was hard to disguise. ‘Gabriel is slipping away and all you can do is hold a meeting?’

      ‘It is about Gabriel that we must talk,’ he said. ‘Only once the Council has made its decision can we act.’

      ‘I don’t understand. What decision?’

      ‘Gabriel is to be placed on trial. If found innocent, he will be spared. If guilty, then according to our custom, he will be executed. I am sorry.’

      Lillith was unable to avoid staring straight into the Master’s dark, inscrutable eyes. ‘Guilty of what?’ she demanded. ‘How can this be? What trial?’

      The Übervampyr made no reply. At a wave of his clawed hand, six vampire servants marched into the chamber. Four of them lifted up the ice slab on which Gabriel lay. The other two drew long, curved swords from their belts and pointed them at Lillith and Zachary.

      ‘Something tells me this ain’t going too well,’ Zachary rumbled.

      The Master motioned to the four slab-bearers. ‘To the Hall of Judgement,’ he ordered.

       Chapter Twelve

       Romania

      The sleet had given way to a mist of icy drizzle that blanketed the hills and forests as Joel drove the stolen pickup truck through the night. With every mile that passed, he kept glancing at the sinking fuel gauge. The only thing that terrified him more than being stranded in the middle of nowhere, lost, penniless and alone, was the horror of being caught in the open by the rising sun. He kept thinking he could see the first red glow of dawn on the dark eastern horizon.

      ‘Relax,’ he muttered out loud over the beat of the windscreen wipers. ‘You’ve got hours yet. Everything’s fine.’

      Yeah, he thought bitterly. You’re a vampire now, and everything’s just fucking fine.

      After the endless empty roads, a sweeping stretch of lights in the distance told him he was approaching a town. He was suddenly gripped with terror at the thought of entering such a dangerous alien environment. Humans would be everywhere. But he fought the urge to shy away