The Cross. Scott G. Mariani

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СКАЧАТЬ the hem of his long coat, Reverend Perry’s words died in his mouth. Around the man’s waist was a broad leather belt. Dangling from the belt, at his left hip, was an enormous sword. Its basket hilt was lined with scarlet cloth. Its polished scabbard glinted in the church lights.

      Reverend Perry was too shocked to utter a word more. The man said nothing either. In no hurry, he reached his right hand across his body. His fingers wrapped themselves around the sword’s hilt and drew out the weapon with a metallic swishing sound. Its blade was long and straight and broad and had been crudely etched with strange symbols.

      Reverend Perry gaped dumbly at the sight of the weapon in his church. He was only peripherally aware of the gasps and cries of horror that had started breaking out among the choir members.

      The drifter smiled for the first time. But it was no ordinary smile. Reverend Perry almost fainted at the sight.

      The man’s teeth were sharp and pointed. Like the fangs of a monster.

      And then, in a smooth and rapid motion that was over before anyone could react, the intruder swung the sword.

      The chopping impact of the blade was drowned out by Mrs Hudson’s scream. Keith Perry’s severed head bounced up the aisle and came to a rest between the pews. And the choir exploded into screaming panic.

      The drifter held the blade up lovingly in front of his face. He licked the running blood off the steel and swallowed. Began walking slowly up the aisle towards the terrified parishioners.

      ‘The vestry door!’ Lucy Blakely shrieked, pointing. Liz Drinkwater grabbed her son’s arm tightly as she and her husband fled for the exit at the right of the altar. The others quickly followed, tripping over each other and their own feet in their desperation to get away. Rick Souter snatched up a heavy candlestick. With a scowl of rage he ran at the intruder and raised his makeshift weapon to strike.

      The drifter swung the sword again. Rick Souter’s amputated arm fell to the floor still clutching the candlestick. The blade whooshed down and back up, slitting the butcher from groin to chin so that his innards spilled across the flagstones even before he’d collapsed on his face.

      The drifter crouched over the fallen body to dab his fingers into the pool of blood that was spreading rapidly over the church floor. With a look of passionate joy he smeared the blood over his lips, greedily sucked it from his fingers. Bubbles of it frothed out from the serrated gaps between his teeth and trickled down his chin and neck. Then he stood, raised his face to the vaulted ceiling and his laughter echoed through the whole church.

      ‘You think you’re safe in here? Think your God will protect you?’

      The vestry door was bolted from the outside. Lucy Blakely and the Drinkwaters were desperately trying to force it open, but even as the other choir members joined them, they knew the door wouldn’t give. Little Sam howled as his mother clutched him to her. Brian Drinkwater was looking around him in panic for some other way out.

      But there wasn’t one. They were all trapped in here with the monster.

      Charlie Fitch parked his van outside the little church. As he walked briskly down the stone path leading to the door, his mind was still full of his hospital visit to his mother earlier that evening. Thank God she was okay and would be home again soon.

      Then Charlie heard the sounds that froze the blood inside his veins. It wasn’t the singing of his friends in the choir he could hear from inside the church, nor the playing of the organ. They were screaming.

      Screaming in horror and terror. In agony.

      He rattled the door handle. The door was locked. He scrambled up the mossy bank behind him so he could peer in through the leaded panes of the stained-glass window.

      The sight he saw inside was one that would remain with him until his dying day. The church floor littered with corpses and severed body parts. Blood spattered across the altar, on the pews, on everything.

      In the middle of the nightmare stood a man in a long coat. Blood was spattered across his face and his shaven head and the blade of the sword he was swinging wildly at the fleeing, screeching figure of Lucy Blakely. It was surreal. Charlie watched as the girl’s head was separated from her shoulders by the gore-streaked blade. Then the madman turned to little Sam Drinkwater, who was kneeling by the bloody bodies of his parents, too frightened to scream.

      It wasn’t until he witnessed what the man did to the boy that Charlie was able to break out of his trance of horror and run. He ran until his heart was about to burst, fell to his knees and ripped his phone out of his pocket.

      Nineteen minutes later, the police armed response unit broke in the church door and burst onto the scene of the devastation. The first man inside nearly dropped his weapon when he took in the carnage in front of him.

      Nothing remained of the Reverend Keith Perry or his choir members. Nothing except the horrific gobbets of diced human flesh that were scattered across the entire inside of the church.

      The killer was still there. He stood calmly at the altar with his back to the door, stripped naked, bloodied from head to foot. His sword lay across the altar in front of him, gore still dripping from its blade. In his powerful hands he held a blood-filled chalice over his head.

      The squad leader yelled ‘Armed police! Step away from the weapon!’ The man ignored the command and the guns that were aimed at his back. Murmuring softly to himself, he slowly turned his face upwards and tipped the bloody contents of the chalice over his head, drinking and slurping greedily.

      ‘Who the fuck is this person?’ The squad leader hardly realised he’d spoken those words out loud.

      Not until the man at the altar turned round to face him.

      And said: ‘I am a vampire.’

       Chapter One

       Romania

       Five nights later

      Sometime in the dead of night, the whistling wind drove away the snow-clouds to unveil the stars. From among the shadows that the moonlight threw across the deep forested valley below, the towers of the ancient castle of Vâlcanul were a craggy silhouette against the distant mountain peaks. All was silent. All was still. A place of desolation and morbidity.

      The inert body among the trees, half-covered in snow, was that of a man. His clothes were tattered and bloody. Snowflakes clung to his hair and his eyelashes. His face was deathly pale. He had no pulse. Soon, he might be food for the wolves and other wild things in the forest.

      Except that the night creatures knew better than to approach.

      Inside the motionless body of the man, something was stirring. Something was awakening, resurfacing from the depths of a sleep so infinitely profound that only a very few could ever return from it. Gradually, his senses began to reanimate. As consciousness returned, he became dimly aware of the softness of the snow under him, of the weight of his body resting on it. A finger twitched. His frosted eyelids fluttered and then opened briefly to a stab of pain from the bright moon and starlight above him. Slowly, he reopened them, and could see again. A long sigh whistled from his lips.

      Memories flickered through his mind, weakly at first, gradually gaining strength and clarity. He recalled СКАЧАТЬ