“It ends this night,” Montrovant said softly. He turned to the huge stone doors and moved closer, gaze sliding quickly over the surface of the door. Jeanne watched carefully. There was no evidence of a latch, or a lock, but it was obvious that this huge stone slab was the door. The question was how to get past it.
“It is a puzzle,” Montrovant said at last. He pointed quickly at several spots on the stone surface, and as Jeanne looked more closely, he could see small smudges where the dust had been disturbed.
“It is a code. There are so many combinations it would take years to try them one by one…and they know this. We have to figure out what sequence would be chosen.”
Jeanne’s eyes widened. “And how do we do that?”
Montrovant thought hard. His fingers shot out and pressed in a certain sequence. Nothing. Frowning, he tried again. Jeanne watched, wondering how many attempts it would take before the futility of it struck home.
Then, with a soft cry, the dark one pressed a third sequence, and without a sound, the huge stone began to slide to the side. Jeanne stepped back, crying out. “What,” he started, “what in hell’s name did you press?”
Grinning, Montrovant moved through the open portal into the shadows beyond. “There were more than five depressions,” he said softly. “There were twenty-two, as in the Hebrew alphabet. It was just a matter of figuring which name would be the code…Kli Kodesh is too fond of games to make it more difficult than that.”
Jeanne still stared.
“I tried Gustav first,” he explained. “Nothing. Then I tried Gustav backward to be certain. Next it hit me. Who guards the treasures here, or who is the guardian?”
“Santos?” Jeanne breathed the name with sudden distaste, but then started to laugh softly. “He still guarded it all then, even beyond his destruction.”
Montrovant nodded, turning toward the interior and scanning the room beyond carefully. It was empty, a stone floor leading to another door, this one of wood, and not so large. There was a large, open expanse of stone floor between where they stood and that door, and the very barren nature of the room stopped Montrovant in his tracks.
He glanced down and cursed softly. He could just make out the footprints they’d been following down the passage beyond the door. They minced back and forth, first here, then three feet to the right, then back the left, an odd, dancing pattern.
“Don’t move,” he said softly. He placed his feet directly on the first of the prints, then dodged left, meeting the floor where the next smudge showed itself and leaping to the right suddenly. Jeanne watched carefully, and when Montrovant was safely ahead, followed the same motions.
It was slow going, but there was no way to hurry it. Any wrong step would set off whatever security was in place, and both knew that it would be designed for both human and vampiric intruders. The short span seemed to stretch on forever, but it was actually only a few moments before they stood, side by side, in front of the second door. This one had a large, ornate brass handle, and Jeanne reached for it, ready to press the portal inward and move on. Montrovant grabbed his wrist suddenly and very hard.
“No,” the dark one hissed. He pointed to the handle. It was glistening, shining and smooth, and seconds later, Jeanne understood. There were no smudges. The handle had never been touched, or not recently, and yet someone had entered the vault ahead of them.
Scanning the door, Jeanne saw a small square indentation. Leaning in closer he noted the small smudge in the center of it, and he pressed it softly. The door swung open easily. They both stood very still, waiting to see what would lie beyond before moving inward.
The second chamber was smaller and narrower. There was a single short passage leading to the door beyond. No wide floor for dancing cryptic steps, and yet, something about it sent a tingle down Jeanne’s spine.
Montrovant looked carefully at the floor. He examined each stone, but found nothing. There was no dust this far in; the sealed doors had kept the floors and walls smooth and clean. He glanced at each wall. There were shadowy alcoves all along the short passage, but it was impossible to make out what lay inside each from where he stood. The stone corners blocked his view effectively.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled free a pouch full of gold coins. Glancing back at Jeanne for a second, Montrovant shrugged and turned to the passage, tossing the pouch ahead of him and ducking back against the frame of the door. The pouch landed on the stone floor directly between two of the alcoves. Nothing. They waited only seconds, then Montrovant took a step into the hall and another.
Jeanne somehow heard the sound first and, taking Montrovant roughly by the hair, dragged him back. The dark one cried out, spinning and slashing at Jeanne as if he were being attacked, but in that instant a long, razor-thin blade sliced the air where his neck had been moments before, disappearing into the stone alcove on the far side, directly over the pouch. A delay.
Rising quickly, Montrovant grinned at Jeanne, who returned it. They stepped into the hall, moving toward the pouch, and the first set of alcoves…and Montrovant glanced up. Handles had been imbedded in the stone and cleverly disguised as cracks and niches. He smiled and leaped, moving across the ceiling like a huge bat. Jeanne, feeling a bit more cautious, waited until his sire had crossed the passage and dropped before the next door before he leaped, following after. No traps were set off, and they reached the door unhindered.
This one had a plain brass push-plate, and a hand print was clearly visible. With a shrug, Montrovant pushed it inward and stepped through.
They both stopped still, gazing into the room, silent, and overwhelmed. Chests lined the walls. There were tarpaulins thrown over each, and none were open, but both knew they had reached their goal. This was it, the vault. One of those chests, if they had not been chasing fool’s gold all these years, contained what they sought.
There was a sound behind them, and Montrovant moved quickly…without thought. He closed the door tightly, and leaped to the first of the chests, that nearest to the door. It was heavy, very heavy, and he pressed it against the door at an angle, tilting it up on end.
“Move,” he cried. “Quickly, search them all.”
Jeanne leaped to obey, knowing they had little time now, and suddenly catching the fire that had held his sire in its sway for so long, the Grail. It was here, he sensed it, so close they could touch it if they could only find the correct crate.
He dove for the first, tearing up the lid and digging into the contents quickly, knocking a small vial to the side carelessly. The glass cracked, but did not break, and the maggot inside began to squirm about in silent rage as the vial rolled against the stone wall, forgotten.
NINETEEN
Gustav had wasted no time in gathering his men and making his way to the lower levels. Montrovant would be finding his way into the keep soon enough, if he hadn’t already, and though the vaults were very secure, this didn’t still the sudden fear in Gustav’s heart that they had not done enough. That vault would have held off an army of men, and most vampires would be shuddering in their final death from the myriad of traps that lined the floor and walls leading to and inside the vault.
Montrovant was not a man, had not been for centuries, and he was certainly not most vampires either. Had that been the case, Kli Kodesh would have tired of the dark one long before this. There were five of them that descended the stairs, the others clustered and spreading out in different directions, searching each level and the walls above. Gustav and his five made straight for the vault.
The tunnel that Abraham and the girl would have taken could still be open. There was really no way to know without crawling in to check, and there was no time for that. If the dark one was in already, he would have gone straight for the thing he sought. If not, that was still where Gustav wanted to be if Montrovant did appear.
They rounded the corner and Gustav growled low in his throat, leaping forward. He saw what remained of the two guards and their severed heads, crumpled on the floor and rotting,
turning to dust. Too late. The door was open, which meant the first code had been broken. Sliding around the corner, he eyed the first room carefully. There was nothing. Somehow, despite the intricate pattern needed to pass through, Montrovant was not there, and not destroyed…and the door beyond was open as well.
Gustav stepped carefully through the doorway, placing his feet and concentrating. This was no time to give in to the temptation to leap and charge. He would die the death he’d intended for Montrovant, and spring the traps in the bargain, making escape that much easier. He took the first steps, leaped to the side, then back, counting slowly to himself and moving like a darker bit of shadow across the floor.
His followers kept back until he’d started, then followed, mimicking his steps carefully. They made little sound, but even so, there was a sudden scuffling sound ahead, and Gustav knew that the dark one had heard them. Cursing, he doubled his speed, taking chances. He’d done this a thousand times, perhaps more…he would make it through, and when he did, he would bring this to an end.
The first time he’d faced the dark one, there had been no chance to test him. The second time they’d met under the gaze of Montrovant’s sire, and Kli Kodesh, and no conflict had been allowed. This time it would be decided once and for all. He was nearing the door when one of his followers missed a step. It wasn’t a large mistake, a single stone on the floor, less than a foot from where he should have stepped.
Gustav cursed and leaped, leaving the ground and stretching toward the doors ahead, leaping too late. The floor gave way, and from where the stone had lain seconds before, sharp wooden stakes shot up viciously. There were not a few scattered spikes to be avoided, but a forest of them. There was one every foot, their wicked points gleaming, polished and hardened by fire.
There were screeches all around him as he pivoted in the air, trying to reach the door frame with his fingers, to drag himself free of that forest of pikes. He was soaring, just beyond the sharp points, the wails of those behind him drowning his thoughts. Then he had it. He touched the frame, extended his hands fully, and drove claws into the door frame. He lifted himself up and over the spikes, twisting and coming to his feet just inside the frame, spinning quickly to scan the room behind.
All were five gone. The one who had misstepped stood still, a spike driven up straight through his body, another through is leg, a third splitting his arm. The first spike protruded from his head, holding him fast, and though he struggled feebly, there was no way to save him…nothing to be done. The mechanism to lower the pikes was on the far side of the room now. There was nowhere to go but forward.
Turning, a low growl starting deep in his chest, Gustav leaped, gripping the handholds in the ceiling easily, swinging across as quickly as his arms could move him. The door at the far end was closed, but that would not stop him for long. If he had to break it from the hinges, he would get through it and he would get to Montrovant. The dark one would not win after so many years, so much effort and pain. Not unless Gustav died in the process.
Gustav dropped and slammed into the door, only to bounce back, nearly falling to the floor behind from the momentum, into the very traps he’d just avoided. Frustrated, he dove forward again, pressing harder into the door. He felt it rattle, felt it bow, but it did not give. It was blocked somehow on the far side, and it was stout. It had been made to withstand a violent assault from an enormously strong being.
Beyond the door he could hear movements, and he knew the dark one was ransacking the room. He also knew the things that would be found, and the impact that could have, not only on himself, but on the world. In at least one thing Kli Kodesh had been correct. There were some secrets it was better that the world forget, and many of those secrets lay just beyond this wooden door.
It would be worse if the dark one were not searching so hard for one item. In that room there were many crates and chests, many treasures and wonders. None would be easy to find without knowledge of where to look, and the fourth protection had still to be broken. Gustav wondered if, after all, his precautions might not prove enough.
Abraham limped through the door with Fleurette’s help, and they turned right down the passageway. There were enough recent scuff marks on the floor to indicate which direction the others had all gone, and they wasted no time. There was probably little the two of them could do if Montrovant had won through to his objective, but Abraham intended to be there at the end. His arm was still healing slowly. There had been no good opportunity to feed before they entered the tunnel, not without wasting valuable time, but he found that the blood he’d taken from Kli Kodesh had other properties.
He didn’t have full use of the arm, but it was close, and he found he didn’t need to lean so hard on Fleurette for balance. The crawl through the tunnel had been taxing, but not in a way that he couldn’t handle. Abraham didn’t need his arm so much to slither through the darkness, and Fleurette had come behind, pressing him when he lagged. It had taken a remarkably short amount of time to return to the lower levels of the keep.
Still, it was obvious as they moved down the passage that things had begun to happen without them. They could see that several sets of footsteps led inward along a way that had shown no sign of any moving along it when they’d passed the first time.
“The vault,” Abraham said simply.
Fleurette nodded. They moved quickly, keeping to the wall, not wanting to present any more of a target than they had to, and having no idea what they would be breaking in on when they reached their goal.
They rounded the first corner and stopped. Inhuman cries met their ears, sounds of utter torment, and the bodies of the guards caught their eyes first, then the open door. Moving slowly, they slipped around the corner of the passage, along the wall, and peered carefully around the doorframe.
Abraham staggered back, and Fleurette could only stare, transfixed by the sight that met her eyes. The closest of those impaled was only a few yards from the door, and his head was turned back toward them, his face contorted, a wooden pike protruding from his temple at a lewd, disturbing angle, and his eyes, still moving, watching them, beseeching them.
Finally Fleurette wrenched away from the scene, and for the first time since she’d carried him on her shoulder through the forest, Abraham felt her collapsing into his arms. He held her for a long moment, then lifted her to her feet.
“We have to get past it,” he said softly. “There has to be a way to lower those pikes, and we have to find it. Montrovant is in there, possibly the Grail as well. It can’t end this way.”
Fleurette’s eyes had a glazed expression, and he shook her roughly. She moved then, drawing back a bit and staring at him.
“Now!” he cried.
Moving to the doorway, he began to work his hands over the frame, seeking, searching. Fleurette just watched him for a long time, her expression deep and unreadable. Then she moved to the far side of the door from where he stood, and began a search of her own.
They moved methodically and quickly, but the door frame yielded nothing. Frowning, Abraham moved to the wall beside the door frame. Here he found, after only moments, a series of indentations. Two of them were smudged, and without thought, he pressed them both at once.
The stone door began to slide slowly and inexorably closed, and he saw that as it moved, the pikes retreated slowly into the floor as well. Whoever died that way was meant to be trapped within as well.
Fleurette saw the door closing, and she moved quickly, before Abraham knew what she was doing. She grabbed a sword that had been dropped by one of the dead guards, moving to the door as swiftly as she could. Turning the blade sideways, she slid it between the closing halves of stone.
There was a horrible grinding, and Abraham dragged her back. The blade held, then bowed in the center, impossibly, and it looked as though it would snap. The pikes had not disappeared, but they were nearly at floor level now, and the bodies of those impaled had dropped to lie flat over the hideous spikes, none of them moving and the horri
d cries thankfully silent as the throats that had emitted them turned slowly to dust.
They stood and watched. The stone had grown silent, and the pressure seemed, if not to dissipate, to grow no more powerful. The doors were stopped.
“We can’t walk on that,” Fleurette said softly. “The floor did not close.”
He nodded, thinking. Then his eyes fell on the bodies of the guards, dried and withered, and swallowing hard, he knew he had the answer.
He didn’t speak, and he didn’t ask what she thought. If she’d fought him, he didn’t know if he could do what had to be done. He hefted the crumbling remains of the first body, moved to the door, and carefully heaved it, tossing it just far enough into the room beyond that he could leap the distance with no trouble. The bones and skin-sack impaled themselves quickly and came to rest.
Fleurette’s eyes had gone wide as he lifted the corpse, but he saw that they had gone cold again as he turned to her. She moved to the second guard, dragged the body closer, and between the two of them they lifted it and tossed it toward the first. Gritting his teeth and trying not to think about it, Abraham leaped into the room, coming to rest on the first body as lightly as he could, and reached for the second before he could truly think about it. It was far enough to the second door that they would need to use each twice.
As he tossed the second body again, Fleurette alighted behind him, grabbing his shoulders for support. He moved as soon as she was stable, allowing her to slide around him.
One of those that had been impaled lay near him, and he reached out, taking the corpse by the hand, and dragging hard toward himself.
The body split with a wet sound, like a ripe melon being pulped, and he shuddered but held fast, tossing the torso toward Fleurette, who watched it smack onto the stakes, then reached for it and tossed it ahead of herself.
To Dream of Dreamers Lost: Book 3 of The Grails Covenant Trilogy Page 21
