The Cross

Chapter Sixty-Five

On his way across the valley moments earlier, Ash clutched the cross tightly to his chest, smiled and his reflection in the glass front of the cable car smiled handsomely back at him. He liked this new Ash he’d become: he was stronger, more dangerous, and more determined than ever. So far, his new Masters had done everything they’d promised they’d do. And there was more to come, when he returned victorious to the citadel after this final mission. The new Ash would be renewed again, with capabilities far beyond anything a mere vampire could offer him. Tarcz-koi had shown him things that even Gabriel Stone had no conception of.

The smile dropped from his lips as he felt the cable car’s smooth forward momentum die away without warning and it juddered to a stop, swaying in the mountain breeze. He looked out of the window at the empty space all around him, the drop below. Then gazed back towards the girl he could see standing on the platform. He knew her face — where had he seen her before?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was his plan. He mustn’t fail.

And the powers that his Masters had given him would see to it that he didn’t. They hadn’t just restored his eye and made him prettier.

It was time for a change of tactics. Inside his head, Ash gave his soldiers the silent command to press forward the attack. Then, tossing the cross into the lead-lined case that hung from his shoulder, he drew out his executioner’s sword. With a powerful upward thrust he punched the blade through the aluminium roof of the cable car. He yanked it out with a metallic shriek, punched it through again. In seconds he’d cut a ragged hole. He sheathed the sword, jumped up and hauled himself bodily through onto the swaying roof, between the parallel cable tracks.

The girl was still standing there, twenty-five yards away on the edge of the platform, nothing below her except the thick wooden support struts of the chalet and a snowy rock ledge. Clinging on to the steel cables with his right hand, Ash ripped the cross back out of its case with his left and thrust it out towards her. He frowned. Why didn’t she fly into cinders? Everyone else did. Raising it higher, he hauled himself over the pulley apparatus towards her.

By the time he saw the gun in her hand, it was too late to react — but even as Ash tensed at the sight of the weapon, he knew that his soldiers had answered the call to attack.

Standing on the edge of the platform overlooking the dizzy drop to the valley below, Chloe squared the Desert Eagle’s sights firmly on her target’s chest. She saw her father’s face in her mind. She nodded to herself and squeezed the trigger.

At the same instant that the pistol bucked wildly in her hands and its huge flat report filled the air, she heard a muffled cry from Dec and a staggering impact knocked the world sideways. For a dazed moment or two as she rolled across the platform, she thought that it was the gun’s recoil that had sent her flying.

Then she saw the demonic-looking hooded goblin creature coming in for another cut with the chopping blade in its fist. It was Dec who’d knocked her over as he leaped in between them. His face twisted in fear, he managed to parry the blow with his sword and knock the chopper out of the thing’s clawed, muscular hand. It came on. He backed away, shielding Chloe with his body.

‘Get away from her, you wee skitter!’

The goblin gazed at them for a second or two, making a strange twittering sound. Then, with terrifying speed, it pounced.

The force of the impact knocked the sword out of Dec’s hand and cannoned him into Chloe. She staggered backwards towards the edge of the platform. Her arms flailed for something to grab—

And then she was falling into empty space, nothing but the black sky above her and the valley far, far below.