"Kurtis," I whispered, staring in horror at the figure on the platform. If there was any life in his battered body then it was only just clinging on. The only part of his face visible to me was stained red with blood, and his chest was marked with a terrible horizontal gash that had cut through his shirt and deep into the flesh beneath. There was no sign of movement in his chest.
"Is he alive?" I asked, voice shaking with the effort of containing my fear and sorrow.
Karel stepped unharmed through the wall of flames that circled the platform and stood close to the ravaged body. "Yes," he replied. He grabbed Kurtis' hair and pulled his head up so I could see his face more clearly. His eyes were closed, and he was barely recognisable through the blood and bruising. "Barely. I'm not ready to finish him off just yet." He knelt down on the floor beside a large wooden crate and reached inside.
"Do you know what this is, Lara?" he asked, and held something up for me to see. It was some kind of ceramic jar, reminiscent of the canopic jars used by the ancient Egyptians for storing body parts after death.
"No," I replied bitterly.
He smiled again. "This container holds the heart of Matthieu de l'Arnay, the first Lux Veritatis elder ever to die at my hand. Preserved for many hundreds of years. This"- he reached for another jar – "is Vladimir Koschenka's heart. He was the Grand Master of the entire order for a short time in the 19th century. Until I encountered him, of course."
More jars were removed carefully and set in a line on the platform. Selecting yet another specimen from the crate, Karel held it in both hands and eyed it appreciatively for a moment as though it contained a rare and fine wine. "And this," he said more quietly, "is the heart of Konstantin Boranovich. The most recent Lux Veritatis leader, killed last year, the mantle then passing to his only son." I swallowed hard. He didn't have to explain any further. Although the surname was different, I knew for certain that the man had been Kurtis' father, supposedly murdered by the Monstrum. Karel set the jar down and stood up.
"I thought Eckhardt killed all those men," I managed to say despite the churning feelings inside me.
Karel nodded. "He killed many of them. But he kept body parts. Some of them he used for his own alchemical needs, but I was able to procure the hearts. Arrogant fool, he never suspected my intentions. But that is why it was so easy to use him. He was a thug, granted a long life that he did not deserve, unable to comprehend the true meaning of the Great Work. It was a pleasure to watch him die." He paced slowly along the line of jars. "Some of the hearts that I have here belonged to members of the Turkish order, the Light of Truth; I believe you befriended one of them. I would have liked to take the heart of that old fool Ozan too, but unfortunately he foresaw my arrival. He shot himself right through it. Of course, it was no use after that." He looked at me, seeing the hatred spilling from my eyes.
"So this is what the Monstrum killings were all about?" I asked with barely disguised revulsion. "Is that what you did with Von Croy?"
"No, no," Karel replied. "You misunderstand. Von Croy was merely a loose end, no use to a work as important as this. Only the remains of those who were marked to protect against my kind can be used to restore us." He looked back at Kurtis, and lifted his bloody face again with a gloved hand, more gently this time. He looked at Kurtis curiously. "His heart will be the last I need. Kurtis Boranovich, last of the Lux Veritatis."
I scrambled to my feet and drew my pistols, unable to bear it any more. I pointed both guns at Karel's head and fired off a stream of bullets. I knew it wouldn't hurt him, not really, but I had nothing better, and his talk sickened me to my core. He turned and flung a hand out towards me. One or two of the bullets hit home, although they failed to distract him, while others were vapourised in mid-air by the wave of energy he unleashed. Another bullet stopped short, then flew back towards me and pierced my upper arm. I grunted at the pain, but I no longer really cared what he did to me. As my empty pistols began clicking uselessly, Karel kept his arm outstretched and sent another blast at me, catching me in the chest and flinging me backwards several feet. The guns flew from my hands, and I landed on my back, scraping my arms and legs as I skidded along the rough ground. Pain gripped me tight across the ribs, and I fought to breathe for several long, torturous moments. When he decided I had been punished enough, Karel lowered his arm. I struggled back to my hands and knees, gasping. Kurtis had said something a few days earlier about Karel still being weak from his temporary defeat in Prague. He didn't seem remotely weak now. Either he had more power at his disposal when he was in his true form, or he had boosted his strength somehow in the meantime. Perhaps just being here, in the vault of his own kind, gave him greater vigour.
After my short-lived interruption Karel was back at work on the platform, setting out the jars in a circle within the ring of flames. There must have been twenty or thirty of them in total. Not every member of the Orders, then, but many of their strongest initiates. When he had finished he stood still, facing towards Kurtis. He began to speak, his voice low and barely audible over the crackling flames. I crawled slowly forwards, trying to get within earshot. I stopped a few feet from the fire, feeling its heat harsh against the bullet wound on my arm. Karel's voice grew steadily louder, and I recognised the tongue as Hebrew. It was not a language I was terribly familiar with, and I could make out only fragments of it. His voice rose triumphantly as he spoke the word Nephilim. Was he making contact with the Nephilim that had been sealed in this great pit beneath the earth? He carried on speaking, chanting almost, as he took off his black gloves and bent down to pick up the first of the jars. I saw that it was now open, and I watched in disgust as he reached his scarred hand in and pull out the ancient heart. A wave of nausea threatened to overwhelm me as he lifted the oddly discoloured meat to his face and took a deep bite from it. He placed what remained of the heart in the fire, where it hissed and began to pour out vile smoke. He continued around the circle, doing the same with each of the hearts in turn, although I turned away in revulsion every time he put them to his mouth. If he noticed my proximity during all this then he was unconcerned.
As he progressed around the circle I started to notice a change in the room around me, distracted until now by Karel's appalling ritual. The air was dank and cold this deep underground, but with Karel's chanting it seemed to start to whisper and tremble around me. Shadows in the corners of my eyes kept shifting, but every time I turned to peer into the dark I saw nothing. My eyes stung from the fire's noxious emissions, not helping matters. I looked back at Karel, who by now had covered almost half of the circle. His eyes were closed as he performed much of the task, and he seemed to be changing also. The symbols that marked the flesh around his face were pulsing steadily with a vague white glow.
As I looked around again I had the impression that the restless shadows were moving to the same silent rhythm, ragged ribbons moved by an invisible wind. Sure enough, the shadows were becoming more tangible, threads of black and grey weaving in the air. Still Karel continued, and I realised that the smoke billowing from the fire was meeting with the ghostly strands and giving them more substance. I watched in horrified fascination as the threads of shadow began almost imperceptibly to knit together, forming skeletal grey shapes that seemed at once cobweb-light and solidly fleshy in the flickering light from the fire. I could hear the whispering growing louder around me.
On the platform, Karel looked almost hypnotised, his expression blankly calm as he chanted, lips and chin dripping with the vile juices of his offerings. I heard a sound like the rustling of gigantic wings unfolding, and a chill breeze fell against my cheek, but I kept staring back at Karel. He had finished with the hearts at last and was waiting for my attention to return to him. I was shaking with anger and regret, knowing that this was the end, certainly for myself and Kurtis, and possibly for mankind as we knew it. And I had been unable to prevent it. Karel reached into his coat and withdrew a long dagger, which he held up for me to see more clearly. The blade curved slightly towards its tip and looked lethally sharp.
"I wish you had accepted my offer, Lara. I could have made you very powerful, and I believe that somehow you could have made me more powerful also. I would have liked to have someone beside me to help me rule the Nephilim." He began to turn back towards Kurtis' dangling form, knife raised.
"NO!" I cried in desperation, above the screaming pain in my heart and the menacing whispers from all around. Karel looked down at me as I struggled to my feet. "Please," I gasped. "Don't kill him. I'll do whatever you want. You can have me, I'll join you, I'll help you get whatever you want, just please don't kill him."
He gave me a curious, sorrowful look. Slowly he walked towards me, back through the flames, and stopped in front of me. The faint figures around us bristled at this interruption, but Karel approached nevertheless. He reached out and put his bare palm to my cheek, and looked into my eyes. The contact of his skin with mine burned and stung, but I struggled not to show it. Angry and uneasy whispers trembled in the air, joined by a scraping sound like long talons scratching at the stone floor.
"Your eyes remind me of someone from long ago," Karel said almost softly, looking into my face, streaked with dirt and tears. He removed his hand, shaking his head regretfully.
"I have offered you greatness twice, now. Both times you have refused me. I know what you are willing to sacrifice for this man, but that is why I cannot let you join me. If I spared him, you would only try to be with him. You could never be loyal to me when you are so attached to another mortal." His mouth twisted in faint disgust.
He started to move away, but I grabbed for his arm. "Don't," I breathed. He touched my arm, sending a painful jolt through it, forcing me to let go. I knew that he could have hurt me far more grievously than that, but I could see something else in his eyes now – pity.
"Even if you did join me, Lara, the fact remains that I still have to sacrifice him to complete my work here. The Great Work is everything now." He stepped back onto the platform.
"I'm sorry," he said simply, his face blank, and thrust the dagger deep into Kurtis' chest.