The Cross

Chapter Nine

London

Just after midnight, Alex screeched the Jaguar to a halt in the parking lot of the imposing steel and glass building. Using her special night pass, she let herself in the main entrance, under the granite nameplate that said SCHUESSLER & SCHUESSLER LTD, and crossed the empty foyer to the lift. The bottom three floors were the domain of the large legal firm whose senior partners had no idea of the real nature of the company, Keiller Vyse Investments, that occupied the upper two levels. By definition, the world headquarters of VIA, the Federation’s Vampire Intelligence Agency, needed to keep itself strictly secret.

After passing through the security doors, Alex was greeted by the unsmiling, austere presence of Miss Queck in the reception area. Going through the routine retinal security scan, she felt — as she always did, but even more so tonight — that Queck was secretly dying to squeeze the trigger of the Nosferol-loaded pistol that was concealed beneath her desk in case of emergencies. A mean one, that Queck.

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. Flank ing 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.

Only a few seconds passed before Olympia raised her head and gave a little cough to announce the silence was over. ‘By now I am sure that every Federation vampire is familiar with the terrible details of recent events,’ she said. ‘It was a horrendous moment for us all. I am not ashamed to admit that even I’ — the Supremo clapped a manicured hand to her bosom — ‘was frightened. Only my deep faith in the unshakable strength of the Federation sustained me through those hours.’

Alex smiled at the memory of the panic-stricken Olympia desperately trying to bribe her way out of trouble at any price as she and the helpless Supremos were being led away at swordpoint by their captors.

‘But we cannot afford to dwell on the past,’ Olympia went on firmly. ‘Let us now look to the future, to rebuilding our Federation into the veritable New World Order for our kind that it is destined to become.’ She paused, drawing breath as if the power of her own words had stunned even her into silence. A few awed murmurs rippled up and down the table. Alex’s lips remained tight.

‘We may have sustained some minor damage,’ Olympia continued, ‘but we are more resilient than our enemies suppose. Such contingencies, unthinkable as they may be, were foreseen from the very foundation of our organisation. I assure you, my friends, everything is under control.’

‘That’s the same line she spun us in Brussels,’ Alex whispered to Kelby, leaning close to his ear, ‘a couple of minutes before Stone’s helicopter blew the shit out of the place.’

The whisper might have been a fraction too loud. Petronella Scragg swivelled her long neck in Alex’s direction and gave her an icy stare. Olympia glowered momentarily from the screen, and then went on, waving a magnanimous hand in the direction of Doug Slade. ‘As we all know, our pharmaceutical plant in Italy was also destroyed by these cowardly terrorists. But thanks to the tireless efforts of Mr Slade, whom I am now promoting to the position of Director of Pharmaceuticals, the production of Solazal and Vambloc is expected to reach normal operating levels very shortly.’

‘One of our technicians came up with a new formula that halves the time it takes to complete the Solazal creation process,’ Slade explained laconically. ‘As for the new plant in Andorra, we have construction teams working night and day.’

Olympia smiled benevolently. ‘Excellent.’

‘But stocks are still dangerously low,’ Slade went on. ‘My department’s drafted a memo to all registered Federation members, recommending that everyone needs to ration their consumption and limit activities to after dark whenever possible. Of course, that means some vampires with day jobs may have to take time off work. Not much we can do about that, I’m afraid.’

‘The Federal Treasury is looking into reserving a special fund to compensate loss of income,’ Petronella Scragg said importantly.

‘Synergy,’ Olympia sighed, and linked her hands together. ‘Friends, this is what makes our Federation so special, so indomitable. We truly are a family.’

Everybody applauded again, except Alex, who was leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed.

‘The immediate threat is gone,’ Olympia said, motioning for silence. ‘Gabriel Stone and his followers have been defeated. But we must not be complacent. Moving forward, a major part of our reconstruction is to ensure that this never happens again. I therefore propose the creation of a special new task force, whose purpose will be to compile intelligence records on every single vampire suspected of having been linked, however loosely, to this rebellion. The task force will have unlimited powers of arrest and surveillance — putting cameras in their homes, if necessary — as a means of cleaning up any pockets of terrorist insurgents that may remain. Only by digging up the roots can we ensure that the weed never regrows.’

She turned to Alex. ‘Agent Bishop, apart from myself you are the sole survivor of the tragic recent events in Romania — making you the most senior VIA operative with direct experience of dealing with these Traditionalist rebels. For that reason, I am appointing you in charge of the new task force, with the rank of commander.’

All eyes turned towards Alex. Not everyone was smiling. Kelby nudged her elbow and flashed her a wink, as if to say, ‘See? Told you so.’

Alex said nothing.

‘In the wake of the annihilation of Gabriel Stone and his band of criminals, other misguided vampires may seek to follow in his footsteps. Your job from now on will be to make any renewed attack on the Federation an utter impossibility. To assist you in this role, I propose appointing Agent Gibson as your lieutenant.’

Alex fired a glance at Gibson across the table. Gibson must have seen her expression, as the broad smile at the news of his promotion quickly dropped off his face.

‘Do you accept this enormous responsibility we are entrusting you with?’

Alex maintained steady eye contact with the Vampress. ‘Before we go any further,’ she said, ‘I think it would be a mistake to assume that Gabriel Stone has been “annihilated”.’

Shocked silence reverberated around the table.

Olympia frowned darkly. ‘But in your report you state …’

‘My report states simply that I saw Stone and his second-in-command, Lillith, go over the castle battlements,’ Alex said. ‘It’s true, they’d taken a bad hit from the cross, especially Stone himself. But annihilated? I wouldn’t assume that they didn’t survive. Which means they still could be out there — and I don’t think Stone would give up his plans to bring down what’s left of us. I met him. I talked to him, face to face, and I can tell you that no vampire was ever more dedicated to their cause than him.’

She gazed steadily at each vampire around the table in turn. ‘And there’s something more. Supremo Angelopolis knows about it, because I included it in my report. But I wanted to make sure everyone here is aware of it.’ She gave a dry smile. ‘Just in case any information got accidentally overlooked.’

Olympia’s expression had hardened into granite. She raised a warning eyebrow. ‘That will be enough for now, Commander Bishop.’

‘They need to know,’ Alex said.

‘Need to know what, Alex?’ Kelby asked, frowning.

‘We all talk about Gabriel Stone’s rebellion,’ Alex said, ‘as if the whole thing had been his idea. It wasn’t. He was working for someone else. The uprising against the Federation was just the first step in a much greater plan, and that plan wasn’t devised by ordinary vampires.’

Olympia’s face loomed large onscreen as she stepped closer to her webcam with a look of thunder. ‘I am warning you, Commander.’

‘Gabriel Stone’s superiors, and the masterminds behind this whole thing, are the Ubervampyr,’ Alex said.

The words seemed to suck all the air out of the room. There was a long, bewildered silence.

Nathaniel Creasy gasped. ‘But they don’t … really …’

‘… exist?’ Jarvis Jackson finished uncertainly.

‘The Uber-what?‘ Gibson said, looking confused.

Olympia slammed her fist on her desk, making the webcam shake. ‘Hearsay!’ she shouted. ‘You foolish child. Stone was just playing games with you, in order to frighten you. You will not believe these dangerous lies, nor will I allow you to promulgate them among your colleagues. Did you even see any of these alleged superiors of his?’

‘No,’ Alex said. ‘You know I didn’t. You were there in Romania.’

The Supremo’s face was quickly darkening to a shade of deep crimson. ‘Of course you didn’t,’ she screeched, the power of her voice overloading the monitor’s speakers. ‘Because the Ubervampyr are a figment of myth and folklore. Hocuspocus and bogeyman tales from an age of superstition that has thankfully long since been abandoned in our modern, enlightened era.’

‘Like the myth of the cross of Ardaich?’ Alex said.

‘The cross that is now destroyed,’ Olympia spat. ‘It has been consigned to history where it belongs. As if it had never existed.’

‘If it had never existed,’ Alex replied, ‘your head would be in a basket about now, alongside the heads of the other Supremos Stone guillotined on the battlements. Or have you forgotten already?’

‘Enough!’ Olympia shrieked. ‘One more word from you, Bishop, and I will have you incarcerated and terminated as a traitor to the Federation.’

‘Ma’am,’ Kelby protested, getting to his feet. ‘With all due respect, Alex Bishop is no traitor. I believe she’s proved that enough times.’

Olympia glowered from the screen. She raised a finger. ‘This discussion is over,’ she seethed. ‘What you have heard today is not to leave this room. On pain of extermination. Is that absolutely clear to every single one of you?’

A rapid round of nods and ‘Yes, Ma’am’s around the table. Several of the vampires rose from their seats, looking disapprovingly at Alex.

‘And as for you, Bishop,’ Olympia said, ‘you are hereby demoted back to your former rank of field agent.’

Kelby rolled his eyes. Here we go again, his expression said.

‘I can’t be demoted,’ Alex said, ‘because I never accepted the position in the first place. I won’t have anything to do with putting spy cameras in the homes of Federation members. It isn’t right.’

‘Silence!’ Olympia shrieked even more loudly. ‘Count yourself lucky that I do not — for now — sanction your immediate termination.’ She turned to Gibson. ‘Commander Gibson, you are henceforth placed in charge of the special task force.’

Gibson’s face lit up.

Olympia clapped her hands sharply. ‘This conference is now officially concluded.’

The screen went dark.