The Cross

Chapter Forty-Nine

The armoury door was battered off its top hinge and there was an eight-inch gap between its upper edge and the stone-work. A hand darted through the gap, groping for the lock. Dec quickly aimed the crossbow and fired. The hand withdrew as the bolt whanged harmlessly into the wall. There was no time to reload.

‘We have to go, Dec,’ Joel said. He unsheathed his katana and tossed the scabbard away. He wouldn’t be needing it.

Dec dropped the bow. ‘Fuck it, I think you’re right. This way! Through the archery range. There’s another door.’

Joel grabbed Knightly’s arm and yanked him away from the wall. ‘Move! Move!’

Seconds after they evacuated the armoury, Joel heard the final devastating crash as the iron door gave way to the power of the mace and the vampires came roaring inside.

Dec led the way. Nobody spoke as they hurried onwards. Through another door, along another passage, around another bend.

And suddenly they were facing a fork in the road. The passage divided between two flights of stone steps, one leading up and the other leading down.

‘Where does that go?’ Joel asked Knightly, pointing at the downward staircase.

‘Cellars,’ Knightly mumbled. His whole body was trembling. ‘I think.’

‘No good.’ A cellar was a deathtrap, even if the door held. Down below ground, the vampires could happily besiege them for eternity while all four of them starved.

That was if Joel didn’t find an alternative food source among his human companions that would enable him to outlast them. He couldn’t let that happen.

‘What about that one?’ he asked, pointing at the other stairway. ‘Quickly.’

‘That leads up to the old servants’ quarters,’ Knightly blurted. ‘Right at the top of the house.’

There wasn’t a lot of choice. ‘Okay, that’ll do,’ Joel said. Chloe bounded up the stairs, Dec behind, Knightly following. Running up behind them, Joel could hear the vampires giving chase.

The staircase curled into a tight spiral as it took them higher. It smelled of rats and mould. Plaster was falling off the walls and the only light came from the occasional dim bulb, crusted with dead moths and old spiders’ webs.

The humans were getting tired. So was Joel.

But the vampires racing up behind them weren’t slowing down.

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Dec said suddenly. ‘Get back, Joel.’

‘What are you doing? Keep moving!’

‘I want to give them a dose,’ Dec said. The fierce look Joel had seen in his eyes before was back again. He turned on the stairs and brandished the holy water spray gun.

‘Dec, I told you. That thing’s not—’

But Dec wasn’t listening. As the thundering footsteps of the vampires drew nearer and their shadows appeared on the spiral wall, he squeezed past Joel and trotted down two steps, ready to fire. Elspeth was the first to appear around the corner. She saw Dec standing there and her fangs parted in a grin.

‘Ready to bleed?’

‘You ready for this, bitch?’ Dec let loose with the spray gun. ‘Yaaaaa! Die, you bastards!’ he yelled triumphantly as the strong jet of water shot down the steps, splashing everywhere.

Elspeth screamed and started clawing wildly at her wet skin.

For an instant, even Joel began to think it was working. Until Elspeth threw back her shaven head and began to laugh. ‘Fooled you.’ Moving faster than the human eye could track, she lashed out and tore the spray gun out of Dec’s hands. Crushed it into pieces. Emptied the canister down her throat and tossed it away with a giggle. ‘Refreshing. But that wasn’t what I’m thirsty for.’

She lunged again to grab Dec, but this time Joel got there first. He chopped the blade of his katana through her arm — and this time her scream was for real. The severed limb flopped to the floor, its fingers clawing against the steps. Elspeth toppled backwards in shock, sending the blond vampire and his swarthy companion tumbling down a dozen steps.

‘Go!’ Joel roared, pushing Dec violently upwards. Chloe was screaming, ‘Come on! Come on!’

‘I don’t believe it!’ Dec yelled at Knightly as he ran. ‘Errol! Fucking dissolves them, you said!’

Knightly made a helpless gesture. Chloe kicked him. ‘Keep moving, asshole!’

Then, suddenly, they’d reached the top of the stairs. They found themselves on a narrow dingy landing with ancient creaky floorboards that stretched away into the shadows. A rat scuttled off at their approach. To their left and right were peeling old doors. Joel booted one open and flicked on a light switch, revealing a damp-streaked servant’s bedroom that had obviously been unused for the past several decades.

‘Great,’ Chloe said. ‘Where to now?’

‘That way,’ Knightly said, pointing to a rusty metal ladder leading to a cobwebbed hatchway in the ceiling. ‘The roof. You three can jump into the moat.’

Joel pointed at Dec and Chloe. ‘You’re crazy, Knightly. There’s no way a h—’ He’d almost said ‘human can jump that height’. ‘There’s no way a height like that can be jumped.’

He could hear the footsteps on the stairs. The vampires were approaching. Taking their time. They must have sensed that their victims were cornered.

Dec stared at Knightly. ‘What do you mean, “you three”? What about you?’

Knightly seemed suddenly, strangely composed. ‘I’m staying here,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll hold them off while you escape.’ Reaching behind his neck, he slipped the chain of the big silver crucifix he wore over his head, gripping the stem of the cross with a determined set to his jaw.

‘I’m going to make you suffer soooo badly,’ Elspeth’s voice echoed softly across the landing. The vampires had reached the top of the stairs and stood silhouetted in the dim light. Elspeth was still clutching her cutlass in her remaining hand.

Joel wearily raised his katana. He’d been lucky a moment ago. He knew he wouldn’t be lucky again. This would be the final standoff.

‘They’ll kill you,’ Dec said to Knightly, looking at the crucifix and understanding what the man intended to do.

‘It doesn’t matter any more.’ Knightly gripped Dec’s shoulder tightly. ‘Listen to me. I have to tell you something. Jill — you saw her picture, Declan — Jill left me. Because …

because I can’t have children. There. I said it. I’ve never told anyone else before.’

Chloe wasn’t listening. She quietly unsheathed her katana and held her breath as she watched the three vampires step closer. She closed her eyes. Saw her dad’s face in her mind. Thought one last time about the man who had murdered him.

‘I so much wanted a child of my own,’ Knightly went on, blurting it all out while he still had time. His eyes were filling with tears. ‘A son, who could be everything I could have been. A real vampire hunter. Not a pathetic phoney like his father. Yes, yes, I admit it.’

The vampires were approaching slowly down the hallway. The scrape of a blade being dragged along the damp plaster. A low chuckle. A glimmer of fangs and the glint of a blade.

Chloe opened her eyes and tightened her grip on the katana’s hilt. She was ready now.

‘Take the money in the chest, Declan,’ Knightly hissed. ‘Everything. The house. It’s yours. Use it. Be what I could never be. Now go, while you still can.’

‘Don’t talk crazy,’ Dec said. ‘Come on. We can all make it.’

‘Take care of Griffin,’ Knightly whispered. With a last wild stare at Dec, before Joel could stop him, he took off down the landing towards the three vampires with his crucifix raised.

‘Errol, you stupid eejit!’ Dec yelled. ‘Get away from them!’ But Knightly was beyond recall. His voice echoed down the stairs as he cried out ‘Get back, ye foul creatures of darkness! Back to the shadow whence ye came. Return to your coffins. Begone, I say!’

‘Shut your stinking hole, human,’ Elspeth said, and with a stroke of her cutlass Knightly’s head toppled from his shoulders, went bouncing back across the landing and bumped into Chloe’s feet. She screamed. Knightly’s decapitated body staggered backwards a few steps, still clutching the crucifix; then his knees buckled under him and he collapsed twitching to the bare floorboards.

‘That’s shut him up,’ the swarthy-looking vampire said. ‘We haven’t seen one like that for a long while,’ said the blond one.

‘Got to give him credit for trying,’ Elspeth chuckled. She pointed the bloodied cutlass at Joel. ‘Enough amusement. Now it’s payback time.’

‘Come and get us,’ Dec said through gritted teeth. ‘Let them go,’ Joel said, stepping in front of him and Chloe. ‘You can do what you want with me. You’ll be doing me a favour.’

The three vampires burst out laughing. ‘Not quite what we had in mind,’ the blond one said. ‘First the humans die,’ said Elspeth. ‘Then we deal with you. Then we wait for the other one. Gabriel’s orders.’

Dec stared confusedly at Joel. ‘What does she mean, “the humans, then you”?’

Joel ignored him. ‘Which other one?’ he asked Elspeth. That was when a familiar voice spoke from the head of the stairs.

‘This other one.’