The Cross

Chapter Twenty-Five

Just after 4 a.m., and the black Rolls Royce Phantom was streaking through the lanes of rural Kent at over a hundred and twenty miles an hour. A relaxed Gabriel Stone was at the wheel, idly listening to a Mendelssohn string quartet as he hurtled the big car through the night. Beside him in the luxurious passenger seat, Lillith was pouring more of the 1993 Dom Perignon champagne into a crystal flute.

Zachary lounged stretched out in the back, a bottle in one giant fist and a full glass in the other. ‘One thing you gotta say about Lonsdale — that human-ass motherfucker certainly liked to do things in style.’

Gabriel’s hands tightened a little on the wheel in disapproval of Zachary’s language, but he said nothing.

‘What a fun evening this has turned out to be,’ Lillith said, glancing over her shoulder at the bundle of antique sabres, rapiers and broadswords propped up against the back seat next to Zachary. She could still taste the blood from the social call they’d just made to the secluded house a few miles from Rochester. It had been easy enough to find the antiquities collector via an auction catalogue.

‘All in the line of duty,’ Gabriel said.

‘This mission is becoming more and more fun,’ Lillith laughed. ‘I feel quite refreshed, and it’s so nice to be properly armed again. Come on, brother,’ she said, passing the brimming champagne glass to Gabriel, ‘step on it. We barely seem to be moving. What’s wrong with you? I miss my Lotus,’ she added with a sigh.

Gabriel put his foot down as he quaffed the champagne, and the car surged forward. ‘That’s more like it,’ Lillith said, pouring him another glass.

As the car sped along with uncanny smoothness, flashing blue lights appeared in the rearview mirror.

‘Looks like we got some company, guys,’ Zachary rumbled from the back seat.

For a while, Gabriel amused himself speeding along the lanes, skidding round icy bends and leaving the police car floundering in his wake as Lillith and Zachary craned their necks to look back and laugh at the antics of the humans. When the game began to bore him, he slowed the Rolls to a crawl, letting the police car catch up, and then pulled up alongside the grassy verge on a lonely stretch of wooded country road.

The police car’s tyres crunched to a halt on the road a few yards behind them. Its doors opened and two officers climbed out, shining torches at the Rolls. One cop rapped on Gabriel’s window while his younger colleague stood officiously by with his arms folded.

‘Oh, boy,’ Zachary muttered into his champagne, his shoulders quaking with mirth.

‘Shush,’ Lillith giggled, bright-eyed. ‘Try to look nervous.’

Gabriel calmly whirred down his window. ‘Can I be of some assistance to you, orifice? That is to say, officer.’

‘Do you realise that you’re driving without registration plates, sir?’

‘Certainly,’ Gabriel told him. ‘I refuse to be reduced to a number.’

The older cop narrowed his eyes. ‘Have you been drinking, sir?’

‘Why yes,’ Gabriel told him. ‘We all have, in copious quantity. Would you care for a glass? There’s plenty for everyone.’

Zachary fished another bottle out of the icebox to show them.

‘Any idea how fast you were driving back there, sir?’

‘I believe we peaked at just over a hundred and thirty?’ Gabriel said. ‘I could have gone faster, but the roads are a little slippery tonight.’

‘See your licence, please,’ the older one snapped. His officious-looking colleague was having a hard time taking his eyes off Lillith.

‘I’m afraid you have me there, officer,’ Gabriel said with a smile. ‘I never quite got around to taking the driving test.’

The officer stared at him. ‘Name?’

‘The name is Schreck. Maxwell Schreck.’

Meanwhile, the younger cop had managed to tear his gaze away from the beauty in the passenger seat and was shining his torch beam around the rest of the car’s interior. The light glinted off the steel blades in the back. ‘What are those?’ he asked, pointing.

‘I believe those are technically known as swords,’ Gabriel explained slowly and patiently.

‘They belong to you?’

‘Well, until this evening, they were the property of a collector chap who lives a few miles from here. He, ah, well, you might say he has loaned them to us. Indefinitely.’

‘We may want to verify that, Mr Schh— uh, sir,’ the older officer said.

‘You could try calling him,’ Lillith purred from the passenger seat. ‘But I think the poor man’s feeling a little drained right now.’

The younger officer was beginning to lose his cool. ‘You do realise it’s illegal to carry those weapons in public?’

Gabriel made a gesture of mock amazement. ‘Speeding, consumption of a little wine, driving without a licence or registration, unauthorised transportation of a few inoffensive swords: my list of crimes grows with each passing moment, it seems. Tell me, officer, is anything still legal in this strange, frightened little nation in subjugation? It was great once. I remember those days well, and cannot for the life of me imagine what has become of them.’

The cops were both doing their best not to look flustered. It wasn’t a convincing act. ‘Step out of the vehicle, sir.’

‘Happy to.’ As Gabriel opened the door and climbed out, Lillith couldn’t hold back her fits of giggles any longer and was rocking back and forth in her seat. Glowering at her, the older officer asked, ‘Something amusing you, madam?’

‘It will,’ she said. ‘Just wait and see.’

The officer turned the glower on Gabriel. ‘How much would you say you’ve had to drink tonight, sir?’

‘Oh, three, perhaps four,’ Gabriel said. ‘Glasses?’

‘Bottles. A very good vintage, too.’

‘You are aware of the drink-driving limit?’

‘Why yes, officer. That’s why I was drinking. I consider it my civic duty. You see, I read that three out of ten accidents are caused by drunken drivers. In which case, should you not be more concerned about the seventy per cent of sober drivers who are the true culprits behind the carnage on our roads?’

‘Sir, I think you’re in a good deal of trouble,’ the officer said, producing a breathalyser.

‘Not nearly as much as you are,’ Lillith muttered.

‘Don’t you want to know what else I had to drink tonight?’ Gabriel asked him.

‘Four bottles of champagne not enough for us, then? Blow into this, please.’

‘The champagne was merely the chaser. Before that, I drank …’ Gabriel turned to Lillith. ‘How much would you say we drank tonight, sister?’

‘Hard to tell exactly,’ Lillith said. ‘He was a biggish guy.’

‘She’s right — he was a large fellow,’ Gabriel said. ‘Not quite as substantial as my friend Zachary here, but fairly hefty nonetheless. Say seven of your standard British pints? Divided three ways, I calculate that would come to approximately 2.333 pints each. As I note from your rather blank expressions that neither you nor your colleague has the wits to fully grasp my meaning, let it be clear that I am, in fact, referring to his blood.’

‘… You’ve been drinking blood,’ the older cop said numbly. ‘Well done. Correct. And I will soon be drinking more.’

‘And whose blood do you think you’ll be drinking, sir?’ smirked the officious-looking one.

Gabriel smiled at them both. ‘Care to hazard a guess? Either of you?’

The officers looked at each other in bewilderment. Just for a second, because in the next, Gabriel reached out and grabbed the older one by the shoulder, jerked him off his feet and sank his fangs deep into the man’s neck.

The tortured, burbling, hysterical screaming began. Lillith and Zachary stepped casually out of the Rolls as the other human tried to make a run for it back to his patrol car. He was less than halfway there when Zachary knocked him to the ground, took one ankle in his large fist and dragged the struggling, wailing human over to the verge.

‘Ladies first,’ Zachary said, holding him down with one hand and motioning politely to Lillith. ‘Careful, Lil. This one’s a kicker.’

‘Such a gentleman, Zach.’ Lillith’s eyes twinkled with anticipation as she knocked back the last drop of champagne from her glass, fell on the human, shoved his head back and ripped into his throat with her teeth. She laughed for joy as she felt the warm pleasure jetting out of his severed artery onto her parted lips. She drank, swallowed, laughed again and drank some more, until she was breathless and heady with it — then wiped her mouth, leaving a red smear across her perfect cheek.

‘Blood and champagne,’ she gasped in ecstasy. ‘Does it for me every time. But darling, I’m being selfish.’ Jerking the human upright, she held the champagne glass under his torn throat, watched as the spray of luscious red juice quickly filled it to the brim, and gave it to Zachary to knock back in a single gulp.

‘Always tastes better from crystal,’ he rumbled, smacking his lips. ‘Why is that, you think?’

Gabriel had finished with his human. As he approached, leaving the exsanguinated corpse by the roadside, Lillith handed him the refilled glass. Gabriel sipped from it, then passed it back to her.

‘To victory,’ she smiled, raising it in a toast.

‘To eternity,’ Gabriel said.