The Cross

Chapter Seventeen

Siberia

A mile beneath the frozen wastes, far beyond the reach of the pale sun, Gabriel Stone stood at the window of his small quarters adjoining the Chamber of Whispers, wearing a long velvet tunic that brushed the ice floor. He was deep in contemplation as he gazed out at the crystalline sculptures of one of the citadel’s many subterranean gardens. Cut into the towering domed ice ceiling high above was the ornately-carved, ice-shuttered oval window that the Ubervampyr Masters called the Ecliptic Portal. The thousand-year-old astronomical device allowed the dwellers in the citadel to gauge the path of the sun, using dully polished mirrors to reflect only the tiniest degree of sunlight, unharmful to vampire eyes, thus telling them when it was safe to venture to the surface.

The sound of his chamber door opening disturbed him from his thoughts, and he looked round to see Lillith crossing the room towards him with a happy smile. She threw her arms around him. ‘You’re back, brother. I can hardly believe you’re on your feet again so soon.’

Gabriel smiled and stroked her raven hair. ‘The Masters are custodians of many secrets and much wisdom,’ he told her. ‘Thanks to their powers, I feel my strength quite restored.’

‘Zachary’s going to be so happy. He was worried about you. We both were.’

‘Master Xenrai tells me that I have much to be grateful to you both for,’ Gabriel said. ‘You saved me. I won’t forget.’

‘You did the same for me,’ Lillith said. ‘Now you need to rest a while. We have to be sure that you’re fully recovered before we make our next move.’

He shook his head. ‘Celerity is of the utmost importance in this situation. Now that our mission is renewed, I intend to see it through. There will be no one to stop us this time.’ He pointed out of the window at the dim glow of the Ecliptic Portal. ‘It is still light out there. As soon as darkness falls, we can leave.’

‘Gabriel, we have none of the human money. It’ll be hard to travel without it.’

‘Our friends here are not without resources, sister. The gold and diamonds we can carry with us, irresistible as they are to the humans, will see us a long way. As for hard currency itself, we still have millions in our Swiss bank account that our dear, departed and rather hapless ghoul, Jeremy Lonsdale, kindly donated to our cause. The moment we reach our destination, we can liberate all the funds we require.’

‘What destination did you have in mind?’

‘We will journey to England,’ he told her.

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Back to England? Are you sure that’s wise? It’s not long since we had to flee from there.’

‘Our mission takes priority, Lillith. If we want to strike back at the heart of the Federation, we must crack the hard nut that is VIA. In order to be close to our enemy, we will establish our base in the former home of our beloved ex-ghoul.’

‘Lonsdale’s estate in Surrey,’ Lillith said, her doubt giving way to a smile of pleasure. ‘The Ridings. Nice. I like it.’

‘The last place our enemies would look for us,’ he said. ‘As for the human police, we have little to fear from such benighted halfwits.’

‘We have little to fear from anything,’ Lillith said. ‘Now that the cross is gone.’

Gabriel said nothing in reply, and for a few moments the two of them stood in silence gazing out of the window.

‘Gabriel, what is that thing?’ Lillith asked, pointing across the subterranean garden, beyond the ring of sculptures, at an enormous cylindrical tower that rose up high towards the ceiling.

‘The Masters have long been astronomers,’ he told her. ‘That is their form of what the humans would call a telescope. This garden, with its portal above, is what the Masters use as their observatory. Look, sister — you see the mechanisms that allow the segments of ice to be slid apart, allowing a full view of the night sky? They have a passion for viewing the stars and planets of this galaxy and the countless others that surround it.’

She frowned. ‘I love the night too. But the stars? What can be so fascinating about those tiny pricks of light?’

‘There is much you do not know, sister.’ Gabriel moved away from the window and began to pace the length of the chamber, looking pensively at his feet.

‘Something wrong, Gabriel? You seem very serious all of a sudden.’

‘It’s nothing,’ he replied.

‘I know you better than anyone. I can see something is troubling you.’

He seemed unwilling to say; then sighed and came out with it. ‘Since I awoke, I’ve been aware of … I find it hard to explain. Little more than a sensation, but one that fills me with unease.’

‘A sensation of what?’

He stopped pacing and fixed her with a piercing look. ‘It has become part of me now,’ he said. ‘The cross. As if somehow it were burned into my soul.’

‘Gabriel, you know you don’t have a soul. What are you talking about?’

‘I can only tell you what I feel. I feel it with a growing certainty.’

She laughed nervously. ‘Gabriel, you’re scaring me. Come, now. You’ve been very ill. That thing almost destroyed you. It’s like nothing we’ve ever encountered before. But these feelings will pass. The cross is broken, gone. Its powers are lost, and it’ll never harm us again.’

He stared at her for a moment longer, then slowly shook his head. ‘I fear you are wrong, Lillith. It is the cross’s presence I can sense. It was broken, but now it has been remade.’

‘Gabriel—’

‘Please don’t ask me how I know this. But there is no doubt in my mind. We have not seen the end of this cross.’