Uprising

Chapter Eighty-Three

Joel was running as fast as he could, but the knife wound in his side was slowing him badly. Just a few dozen yards to go and he’d have made it to the upper courtyard.

He was sure he could see figures up there, silhouetted against the light from the buildings beyond, and a strange rectangular object that he couldn’t make out properly in the gloom. Something was happening.

He glanced behind him and swore. He was leaving a blood trail over the snow that a blind man could follow. His trousers were slick with it, and the nausea was making him light-headed. But he could tell from the shouts and running footsteps behind him that his pursuers weren’t far behind. He had to keep moving.

A splintering explosion as a bullet smashed into the masonry a foot from his head; a millisecond later, the crash of a rifle shot reverberated over the castle grounds and the boom echoed around the mountains. He ducked down and ran harder into the blinding snow, grinding his teeth, limping badly. There was a bend up ahead, and just below it was a ruined low wall. He dived under cover, threw the rifle out over the craggy stonework and pressed his cheek to the stock. An instant later the racing figures of the three guards he’d seen earlier appeared around the corner and ran right into the Lee Enfield’s sights. He squeezed the trigger. The massive detonation filled his ears and the rifle kicked back viciously against his injured shoulder. He saw one of the men clutch his chest and go down with a cry.

Joel worked the bolt, fired again, and saw a second gypsy pitch sideways into the snow, dropping his weapon. The third man had fallen into a crouch behind a pile of rocks. The gun in his hands was shorter and stubbier than the big bolt-action rifles, with a long stick magazine. In the quarter-second it took for Joel to duck down behind the wall, a roaring blast of submachine-gun fire raked the masonry and showered him with dust and stone fragments. Keeping him pinned down with steady bursts, the guard got to his feet, leapt over the bodies of his comrades and came running at the low wall.

In two seconds he’d have jumped up onto it and his bullets would be raking the ground where Joel lay huddled under cover.

Joel rolled out from behind the wall, frantically working the bolt of the Lee Enfield. Lying on his back, he thrust the rifle up into the air at the same instant that the gypsy appeared on top of the wall. Their gun muzzles were just three feet apart.

In the same split second that Joel felt the Lee Enfield recoil in his hands, the gypsy’s submachine gun spat flame. The.303 tapered round from the rifle caught the man under the chin and he fell soundlessly back over the wall with most of his head blown away.

Joel dropped the rifle. He knew he’d been hit, and badly. His hands went to his thigh and he almost fainted when he felt the ripped material of his trouser leg and the tattered flesh and the hot blood welling up through his fingers.

‘We’re under attack!’ Lillith yelled. ‘It’s the cross!’

Stone’s face was pale. ‘Solomon is here.’

There was chaos in the upper courtyard as the vampires scattered and fled ahead of the approaching danger. In their panic, Stone’s group seemed to forget all about the remaining prisoners. Olympia Angelopolis managed to scurry away unseen and disappeared among the shadows while the guards stood about in horror-stricken confusion.

Alex finally had her chance. Fighting the terrible sensation that was welling up inside her, just the way it had in Venice, she sprinted over to the guillotine and started ripping apart the straps holding Harry Rumble to the blood-soaked plank. He stumbled free.

‘What the hell’s happening?’

‘Joel’s here,’ she gasped. ‘He’s coming. We need to get away.’ She took hold of his wrist, and they ran. Her only priority in that moment was to get away from the deadly energy of the cross. They could worry later about details like how they were going to escape from the castle. ‘This way, Harry,’ she shouted as they flitted through the darkness.

Stone was dragging Lillith away up the steps towards the great hall and yelling frantically at the vampire guards to go and intercept the human when she twisted away from him.

‘Let me go down there. I can take Solomon.’

‘You can’t, Lillith.’

‘I’ve got a gun,’ Zachary said, pointing urgently up at the window of his quarters in the tower above the great hall.

‘Get it now. We have to stop this human at all cost.’

Zachary went lumbering as fast as he could towards the buildings.

Anton stood rooted, his face twisted in hatred. ‘I don’t need a gun,’ he spat. ‘I haven’t lived for four hundred years to be brought down by some human. This isn’t going to happen to us.’

Anastasia tried to stop him. ‘No, Anton, you’ll be destroyed.’ But he pushed her out of the way and staggered off in the direction of the shots. The guards saw him and followed his lead, their agony visibly increasing with every step.

‘Come back, Anton!’ Anastasia screamed, going after him.

‘Let them go,’ Lillith said. ‘They’ll hold Solomon back while Zachary gets the gun.’

But it was too late. Anastasia took off at a sprint.

‘Fools,’ Stone muttered. ‘Come on, sister.’