The Cross

Chapter Fifty-Three

A blood-red dawn was breaking as the Jag XKR crossed the Severn Bridge from Wales into England and blasted eastwards down the M4 motorway, speeding along the outside lane past lines of traffic that grew thicker with every passing mile towards London. Alex was silent at the wheel, eyes on the road, sucking on a fresh Solazal. The address she’d entered on the satnav was a street in Camden Town. She’d been evasive about the identity of the person she insisted might be able to help them find Gabriel Stone. Joel had given up asking even before they’d left Bal Mawr early that morning.

He threw her a glance every so often from the passenger seat. Even after the busy last few hours they’d spent together while the humans slept, disposing of Knightly’s body and the remains of the three destroyed vampires, he still found it hard to believe this woman sitting next to him was the same Alex he’d known in what now seemed to him like another lifetime. The same Alex he’d been so consumed with hate for — or had believed he was. His mind was crowded with things he wanted to say, but his thoughts were too confused and contradictory to form them into coherent shape, and he was acutely aware of Dec and Chloe right behind them, crammed together in the tiny rear seats. He gazed at the road ahead and stayed quiet.

Dec was occupied with thoughts of his own as he leant against the window, staring numbly out at the zipping road. Whenever he pictured Errol, he felt a stab of sadness for what had happened to him. But his feelings quickly intensified to a confusion of disbelief and horror and black grief as his thoughts turned to Joel — his friend Joel, sitting within arm’s length — now one of them. A vampire. Dec was facing the void now, w ith no way of knowing where all this would lead, no idea if he or Chloe would make it out alive.

Or human.

But somewhere behind all the horror and the traumatic shock of all that had happened over the last few hours, Dec’s heart thumped at the thrill of the crazy adventure he was embarking on. He thought about Bal Mawr, about what Errol had said about him taking over his operation. He was resolved to go back there one day, if he could — and soon. For the first time in his life, he had a sense of who he really wanted to be, and that filled him with a glow that not even his grief could completely stifle. He found himself wondering, a little guiltily, how much money there was in that wooden chest Errol had shown him. Could it be five thousand pounds? Surely not as much as ten thousand? Dec found it hard to imagine being in possession of such wealth.

‘Anybody notice anything?’ Chloe said loudly next to him, cutting into his thoughts.

Alex’s eyes flicked her a glance in the rearview mirror. ‘Like?’

‘Like it’s, uh, dawn?’

‘So?’

‘Maybe I’m getting it all wrong,’ Chloe said, ‘but it seems to me that if you two were really vampires, we’d be looking at a couple of frazzled little green spots where you’re sitting right now. Must be the twenty-million-factor sunblock you’re wearing, I guess?’

Alex smiled. ‘Spent the last few decades trying to pretend to humans I wasn’t a vampire, now I have to persuade you that I am?’

‘Some proof would be nice,’ Chloe said with a shrug.

‘Fact is, Chloe, Joel and I have something called Solazal that allows us to go out in daytime.’

‘Sola-what?’

Alex showed her the tube. Chloe reached forward and snatched it from her fingers. ‘Look like peppermints to me. Hmm. Smell like it too. Come on. These are peppermints.’

‘Much as I would love to prove you wrong,’ Alex said, ‘the only way I could do that is to stop taking them. It wouldn’t do much for my complexion, put it that way. Now give them back.’

Chloe grunted suspiciously.

‘You saw the fangs on them friggers that attacked us last night, didn’t you?’ Dec said. ‘How can you not believe in vampires when you’ve seen one?’

‘Is my dad’s killer a vampire?’ Chloe retorted. ‘No, he isn’t. He’s as human as you or me. Any wacko can go to work on his own teeth with a file. As for these two here, I haven’t seen any evidence of anything. Do you people really think you’re fooling anyone? It’s pathetic. I actually feel sorry for you.’

‘Give back the Solazal, Chloe,’ Joel said. ‘We don’t have a lot left.’

‘What if I don’t? What if I just toss them out of the window?’

‘Give them back, Chloe,’ Dec implored.

Alex’s fists tightened on the steering wheel as a junction came speeding up on the left. ‘I’ve had enough of this crap,’ she said suddenly, and swerved the Jaguar hard across two lanes of traffic. She took the exit at ninety, barely slowed for a roundabout and roared through an intersection in a chorus of honking horns. A few hundred yards further on was a little layby partly screened off from the road by trees, behind it a picnic area with tables and benches. Alex screeched to a halt in the layby, threw open her door and jumped out. ‘Get out of the car,’ she commanded Chloe.

Chloe got out, cheeks flushed, followed by Dec. Joel climbed out of the front passenger seat. Alex was already opening the boot of the Jaguar and taking out one of the katanas from the Bal Mawr armoury.

‘Leave it alone, Alex,’ Joel said.

‘She’s going to learn,’ Alex replied. She slammed the boot and started marching towards the picnic area. ‘Chloe, follow me.’

When they were out of sight of the traffic rolling past, Alex unsheathed the katana and handed it hilt-first to Chloe.

‘What’s this for?’

‘Stick it in me.’

‘Say again?’

‘Stab me. Hard as you can. Right here in the stomach.’ Alex untucked the hem of her blouse from her jeans and pulled it up to expose her toned midriff.

Chloe blanched. ‘Are you nuts?’

‘Do it,’ Alex said, smiling. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

‘I’m not doing it,’ Chloe said with a nervous laugh. ‘No way.’

Dec gently took the sword from her hand. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘You’re all insane!’

‘I believe her,’ Dec said. He got a good grip on the hilt, swallowed hard, took a deep breath and then rammed the point of the blade into Alex’s stomach. A terrible, heart-stopping doubt seized him just as the tip speared into her flesh — but it was too late to stop the katana driving itself all the way through her body and out the other side.

Alex let out a gasp. Chloe shrieked and covered her eyes. Dec let go of the sword and backed off, babbling, ‘I’m sorry! Jesus, I’m sorry!’

Joel just stood and watched. During their short but eventful time together in Venice, he’d seen a paid gunman with a.45 automatic unload a full magazine on Alex and not leave a mark.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve been run through like that,’ Alex said, wincing as she yanked out the blade. ‘Forgotten how much it hurts.’ She tossed it back to Dec. ‘Nice stroke. Well done.’

‘That was freaky,’ Dec said, his heart still hammering like a road drill.

A very pale-faced Chloe peeked through her fingers at Alex’s stomach, where the gaping wound was healing with unbelievable speed before her eyes.

‘Believe me now?’ Alex asked her, and tucked her blouse back into her jeans. ‘Or do you want me to drain a pint or two of your blood as well?’

‘I believe you,’ Chloe said in a small voice. ‘You’re a vampire. Oh, my God, you really are a vampire.’

‘You want to try it on him, too?’ Alex asked, pointing at Joel.

‘No thanks,’ Joel said.

Chloe shook her head vigorously.

‘Good,’ Alex said. ‘Now, please, give me back my fucking Solazal.’

Nobody said much for a long time as they got back in the car and rejoined the motorway. Chloe sat silent and pale, staring at Joel’s head restraint in front of her, seeing nothing. Dec gently laid his hand on her arm and gave her a weak smile. She didn’t pull her arm away. He closed his eyes, and the next time he opened them the sun was higher in the clear sky and they were in heavy traffic that even Alex couldn’t slice through. The massive city seemed to stretch out for endless miles ahead.

‘So this is the Big Smoke,’ Dec said, leaning forward to peer between the front seats.

‘You’ve never been to London before?’ Chloe asked him.

‘Nearest I’ve been was Heathrow, when I went to Torremolinos with me ma and da in the summer,’ Dec said. ‘Jesus, look at the size of this frigging place!’

‘Home sweet home to over a hundred thousand vampires,’ Alex said.

‘How is that possible?’ Chloe said. ‘How can all those vampires be out there drinking people’s blood and nobody even seems to know about it?’

Alex glanced at her in the rearview mirror. ‘We’ve been getting along just fine together, your kind and ours, since before you were born. Call it a symbiotic relationship. Nice and discreet — that’s what the Federation was meant to be all about. You want to see some carnage and horror, just wait until Gabriel Stone’s gang get started on the world now that the good guys aren’t here to protect you any more.’

Alex was pretty handy in the London traffic, but even so it took a while before the satnav finally announced that they’d reached their destination and they rolled up in the quiet street in Camden Town. ‘This is the place, folks,’ she said, turning off the engine. ‘Best if you wait here and I go in alone, okay?’

‘So now are you going to tell me who lives here?’ Joel asked.

‘I already did. Someone who can help us.’ Alex flipped open the glove compartment, took out the Desert Eagle and stuffed it in her handbag before opening the door.

‘Someone you need a gun for?’ he asked, but she just slammed the door and he watched as she walked around the front of the Jaguar and trotted up to the front door of one of the neat little homes.

‘Is she always like this?’ Dec asked.

Joel nodded. ‘She seems to know what she’s doing, guys,’ was all he could reply as he watched Alex disappear around the corner of the house and head round the back.