The Cross

Chapter Thirty-Five

The two opponents circled each other. Lillith was quick and agile on her feet, the tip of her blade flicking up, down, left, right, keeping Ash guessing where her first attack would strike. He clutched the executioner’s sword tightly with his right hand just behind the guard and his left on the pommel, his feet wide apart, knees bent, watching her every move. He’d seen what she could do.

But then, he thought, she hadn’t seen what he could do. With all the explosive power he could summon up, he drew the sword back over his shoulder and slashed the blade ferociously downwards at her head.

Lillith saw the strike coming a mile away. Skipping lightly back out of its path, she immediately closed in again with a yell of aggression and a lunge-thrust to the chest that Ash had to move fast to block.

The bright clash of steel on steel echoed off the stone ruins as the fight began to step up in pace. The speed and power of Lillith’s attack was terrifying. Wildly parrying strike after strike, Ash knew that if she kept him on the defensive she would control the fight. With an angry scream he rushed her, sweeping his heavy blade in a wide scything motion that made her retreat back a few dancing paces. The vampire spectators broke their ring to let them through.

But Ash didn’t have the offensive for long. Seeing her eyes fix suddenly on his chest, he drew up his blade ready to block a centre thrust to his torso. By the time he realised she’d tricked him into opening up his outside line of defence, he’d already felt the impact to his right forearm and she was skipping away out of range with a grunt of triumph, blood flicking from the tip of her sabre. He looked down and saw the bleeding razor-straight gash in the right sleeve of his kimono.

‘Yum yum!’ she sang to Ash. ‘A taste of what’s to come.’

Nothing showed in Ash’s eyes. He felt no pain. This was the fight of his life. Not that he feared death particularly. What he feared most was losing an opportunity that he’d dreamed of, night and day, for years. A one-in-a-trillion chance that had never been more than a fantasy. But now it was real, and he wasn’t about to let it pass him by.

Lillith moved in again, feinted right, caught him off balance, cut around his defences and stabbed left. He gasped as he felt the cold steel puncture his left side, the cold air on opened flesh, and his knees weakened momentarily. Now she came in for the kill, raising the sabre high and bringing it down in a vicious cut aimed at slicing his skull clean down the middle …

… If it had found its mark. At the very last instant Ash threw up his blade to intercept hers with a double-handed block that had every shred of straining muscle and sinew in his body behind it. The two swords met just inches above the crown of his skull. One forged-steel razor edge crashing violently against the other, thousands of foot pounds of energy concentrated into a few microns of metal.

Too much for the slender curved blade of Lillith’s sabre. The brute chopping force of the executioner’s sword cleaved right through it, shattering it into fragments. She staggered back, her grip on the broken sword loosening just a fraction of a second long enough for Ash to recover his attack, leap forward with a shout of fury and hammer the heavy pommel of his weapon into her chest.

The vampires let out a collective gasp. All except Gabriel, who only raised an eyebrow.

The savage blow knocked Lillith onto her back. The broken sabre twisted out of her fingers and slid across the floor. Before she could writhe back up to her feet, Ash was standing astride her with the point of his sword pressing down hard against her throat. He looked across at Gabriel. ‘I’ll take her head off,’ he said calmly.

And now, finally, after all these centuries of absolute confidence in her superiority as a vampire, here was a human who could best her. Lillith let out a strangled cry of rage and grasped the blade with both hands, trying to wrench it away from her — but Ash’s grip was iron and his determination to win was absolute.

Gabriel raised a hand. ‘Enough,’ he called out.

Ash instantly stepped away. Lillith gathered herself up, quivering in defeat, touching her fingers to her bleeding throat and avoiding the stares of the other vampires as she slunk away to the shadowy far side of the ruins. Even Kali was looking at her with sympathy.

‘Holy fucking shit, did you see that?’ Baxter Burnett whispered, unable to take his eyes off Ash.

Zachary went over to Lillith, put his arm around her shoulders and spoke softly to her. For a few moments she seemed subdued, as close to tears as it was possible for a vampire to be. Then with a sudden snarl she broke away from Zachary and charged at Ash, fangs extended.

This time, if Gabriel hadn’t been there to intercept her, she would have torn the human’s heart out where he stood and sprayed his blood across the flagstones. ‘Nobody does that to me,’ she hissed. ‘Nobody!’

‘Accept your defeat graciously, sister,’ he said, gripping her arm tightly. His tone was gentle and there was a half-smile on his lips, but the hardness of his eyes was enough to make her back down.

‘You have passed the test,’ Gabriel said to Ash. ‘This weapon is now yours to wield as you carry out your mission. Obey my orders to the letter and return victorious, and we will fulfil our promise to you.’

Ash slipped the sword back in its scabbard. ‘Whatever you want me to do, name it. It’s done.’