"What can be worse than a vampire?" Carl demanded for the fourth time in as many hours. He'd been muttering the question to himself for so long that his voice no longer squeaked on the last word.
"I tell you Carl, I don't know!" cried Van Helsing, his patience run ragged.
After separating late the night before, the three men had returned to their quarters, ostensibly to get some sleep. Judging from Carl's jittery state and his preoccupation in finding a creature that surpassed the wickedness of the nosferatu, Van Helsing thought the friar had gotten about the same amount of rest he himself received.
Retreating to his fortified, hidden quarters, Gabriel had locked himself away to try to sleep. His nightmares had returned, with a vengeance that made up for his short respite. His mind was filled with images of violence and anguish, robbing him of any type of rest. He had been locked in sleep, locked into the terrible dreams, until he had finally, six hours ago, been able to rip himself from unconsciousness.
Running his hands tiredly down his face, the hunter took a deep breath and sighed, grasping the last of his composure with a grim will.
Carl, surprised by the outburst, had irritably thrown himself into a chair and was staring off into space. He gazed out the window, and Van Helsing himself had to admit that the stark difference of the weather in Rome was startling after a month in and around Transylvania. There, the constant clouds and storms were eerily reflective of the mood of oppression, fear and despair.
Yet somehow, the sunshine was more awful in that respect. Carl had commented, not half an hour ago, that he felt the weather should reflect the horror of their situation. The juxtaposition of sunlight and warmth against the stout spiritual chill that pervaded Vatican City was not lost on Gabriel, either.
But they had more important things to do than muse over the state of the sky. Van Helsing pulled his coat off the back of the chair as he stood. "Where are you going?" asked Carl.
"The creature is here in the City," Van Helsing said, gazing toward the window. His voice was soft. "I want to see if I can find anything out while you research."
"Alone?" asked the friar with a gulp.
"Carl, you're in the depths of the Vatican, practically the heart of the Order-"
"And it wasn't enough to protect Michael."
Van Helsing sighed once more. He keenly felt his part in the boy's injury. Father Taddeo had managed to keep Michael alive thus far, but his healing would be a long and delicate process. The stab wound had penetrated several of the boy's vital organs, and infection now raged through his body.
He shook his head. "You'll be safer here than anywhere else, notwithstanding," he responded. Van Helsing had made it clear earlier that morning that he hated the idea of his friend being a target of the creature. Yet he had also made it clear that the closer Carl was to him, the greater the danger would be.
"That's comforting." The friar was snidely concerned.
Gabriel stood and made for the door. "Van Helsing? You're not really going to chase this thing down, meet him on his ground, are you?" Carl's worry, and a shade of memory of the last time they had done so, colored his tone.
"Not unless I have no other choice," Gabriel replied, trying to comfort without lying. He left, making his way through the twisting turns of the Vatican's depths.
When he finally entered the sunshine, he felt displaced in his dark clothing. The inhabitants of Rome were cheerfully flamboyant, their city mirroring their joyous attitude. He felt, before he shook the thought away, something like a smudge of soot on a colorful painting.
Van Helsing walked quickly through the back alleys of the city, his hat pulled low over his face. He made no noise as he tread the cobblestones underfoot, tracing his way to the very outskirts of the city, toward the small parish in which Father Williams had been murdered.
The road he was taking deteriorated into a slightly overgrown dirt path not far from where the last stone buildings clustered, leaning towards the center of Rome. Following the road, Van Helsing sighted the small church in the distance. What was so special about this place, about the one member of the Order in place here, that attracted the creature's attention? It certainly wasn't wealth. The small building had been lovingly constructed, but showed many signs of wear. Ivy scrambled up one side, and there were many flowers growing out of cracks in the stone walls, lending a beautiful, somewhat ethereal quality to the pale building.
Taking in the appearance of the church, and the serenity that gently cloaked it, Gabriel could not help but think that this should be a place with its doors perpetually open. In contrast to that musing, the dark doors were shut, ostensibly barred from the inside.
Climbing the few steps, Van Helsing pushed at the door. It was indeed locked. Moving around to a side entrance, he had little luck. He pushed more forcefully at the door, and heard movement behind him. Turning, he encountered a middle-aged deacon staring at him thoughtfully. "May I help you?" he asked.
Van Helsing removed his hat. "Yes," he said simply. "I'm sent from the Vatican. I'm here to inquire into the death of Father Williams."
"The murder, more like," the deacon returned sadly. "Allow me." He moved past Van Helsing and inserted a key into the lock, pushing the door open gently. "I suppose you'll need to see where it happened. We've already cleaned."
"Thank you," Gabriel returned, his voice equally soft. He followed the deacon through a small vestibule, and into the main area of the church.
"Here," the man said, pointing to the stone floor in front of the altar. The floor had been scrubbed clean, but the air was thick with a familiar taint.
"When was he found?" Van Helsing asked, crouching to run his fingers lightly over the cream-colored stone.
"Dawn, when the boy came in to ring the bells," the deacon replied. "Poor Mark - he's quite beside himself."
Gabriel nodded, walking around the area carefully. He noted deep holes in the stone, roughly six feet apart. "Is this where -"
"Yes," said the deacon abruptly, seemingly unwilling to hear the atrocity spelled out in detail.
Van Helsing continued to inspect the area. "Are you still in possession of the nails?"
"Spikes," the deacon corrected. "They were spikes. Yes. I have them. Do you need them for the investigation?"
Van Helsing nodded, and the deacon left him alone in the church. Prowling the perimeter of the church, searching for something, anything, Gabriel's eye was caught by a plain glass case sitting to the right of the tabernacle, behind the altar. He moved closer to it, puzzling over its purpose.
It was a plain, oak case with a single glass panel in the front. It was no more than two feet long, with a width and height of about half a foot. It sat on a simple stone ledge, concealed from the worshippers by the altar.
Turning towards the deacon's approach, Van Helsing saw the man note his position and smile tiredly. "So you've discovered our church's one claim to popularity," he said.
"I beg your pardon?" asked Van Helsing as the man approached. The deacon dropped three long, heavy spikes into his outstretched hand and stood next to him, staring at the case.
"Many years ago, the head of the Spear rested here, in this very case," the deacon said. "Before my time, of course. But it was here, if legend can be trusted."
"The Spear?" asked Van Helsing, unsure of the reference.
"The Spear of Longinus," the deacon replied softly. "The Holy Lance."
" 'Not one bone of His will be broken'," Gabriel replied, softly quoting scripture.
The deacon smiled at him, and nodded. "So it is written," he said. The two men stood in an amiable silence for a moment or two more, before Van Helsing took his leave of the church.
Walking back to the Vatican, he turned the spikes over and over in his hands. They were filled with the same sense of evil that had permeated the church, and he abhorred touching them. He dropped them into his pocket as he entered the archives nearly an hour later, arriving in Vatican City just as the sun left.
"Well, did you discover anything useful?" asked Carl, glancing up from the scrolls.
"No. Not really." Gabriel sat down heavily, lost in thought. Several moments passed in silence.
"What is it? What did you find out?" asked Carl, interest piqued.
"It's nothing," said Van Helsing. "Just something the deacon and I spoke of in passing. It caught my attention, simply because I feel I'm missing an obvious connection somewhere."
Putting his candle aside, Carl firmly rolled up his scroll. "Well, are you going to tell me or not?"
Gabriel grinned. "I went to the church where Father Williams was murdered. While I was there, I happened to comment on an empty glass case near the tabernacle. Apparently, legend has it that at one time, this church was home to the Spear of Longinus."
Carl sat up straight. "The Spear of St. Longinus? The Roman soldier?"
"Yes," said Gabriel, somewhat puzzled by Carl's excited reaction. "Carl, what is it?"
"Here it is! I knew I'd read it somewhere. The Church of St. George, in England. Parish of Father De Luc, the fourth member of the order killed in the north. At one time supposed to be home to the Spear of Longinus, used to -"
"Coincidence?" demanded Van Helsing, standing up and moving to survey the writing for himself.
"Maybe," Carl cautioned. "But it's something to start with."
Barely an hour of frenzied searches and exclamations later, the two had come up with a definite pattern. "That's it, then!" Carl was exuberant. "Every church visited is rumored to at one time have been home to the Spear of Longinus! That's our connection!"
"Yes," murmured Gabriel thoughtfully. "But what does he want with it? Carl, what do we actually know about the Spear?"
"Well," responded the friar, abandoning the laden table in favor of poking through crammed shelves, "Not much." His voice was muffled, travelling through pounds of paper. "Ah. Here it is. Longinus, a centurion, was present at the crucifixion. He pierced the side of Christ to prove that the Lord was dead, and from the wound flowed blood and water. Longinus saw the darkness that descended after Christ's death, and was also healed of his poor sight by the blood that flowed down the shaft of the Spear. He converted to Christianity, and gave up his militant life, and died a martyr's death."
"That's a chronicle of the life of St. Longinus. It tells us nothing about the Holy Lance itself," Gabriel interjected.
"Wait - there's more," Carl said, eagerly scanning the contents of the scroll.
Gabriel moved to pick up a copy of the Bible, and flipped through it quickly. "Ah."
"What is it? What did you find?" asked Carl.
"Here - the Scripture. 'It was the Day of Preparation, and to avoid the bodies' remaining on the cross during the Sabbath -- since that Sabbath was a day of special solemnity -- the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken away. Consequently the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with him and then of the other. When they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and so instead of breaking his legs, one of the soldiers, the centurion named Longinus, pierced his side with a lance; and immediately there came out blood and water.' "
"Hmm. We need factual evidence of the Spear. Let me think . . . . When I was a lad, there was a reclusive monk that was rarely seen by the members of the parish. What was his name? He was researching the Holy Relics - the Grail, the True Cross, other such things of that ilk. He's the one who I believe had me recommended to the Order when I was twelve."
"You were twelve?" asked Van Helsing, incredulous. He knew that Carl was a genius, but somehow he had never thought that he had entered the Order so young. The friar nodded, blushing a little. Van Helsing raised a brow, smiling a little at his friend's bashfulness.
"Anyway, what was his name? Father - Father Gerard! That's it!"
"What good does that do us?" Gabriel asked.
"Because," said the friar, standing and walking towards the door. Van Helsing followed. "I can cross reference his name and the church he was staying at to find his full title and position in the Order. Then, using the indexing system - Good Lord, what has Brother Yakov been doing? Dammit, I can't find a thing in this mess. . . . eventually, I'll be able to find exactly where all of his notes and records were placed."
Throughout this tirade, Van Helsing followed Carl as he poked through the filing system, found what he was searching for, and sped in search of the documents. Jogging after the retreating friar, Gabriel pulled up short and jumped back as Carl abruptly changed directions and scurried down a different aisle, looking up and down as he sidles between stacks of paper.
"Ah!" he cried. "Here we are. It should be -" Carl's enthusiasm dimmed considerably as he looked up to the shelf in question. It was at least five feet above his head, and there was no ladder in sight. "Van Helsing," he called.
Gabriel, having been warily watching in the even another sudden about-face sent him sprawling, peered cautiously between the shelves. "Yes?"
"Come here."
"What for?"
"I need a boost. I'm afraid the shelves will break if I try to climb them."
Rolling his eyes, Gabriel moved carefully toward the friar, skillfully dodging the many errant scrolls poking dangerously from their perches.
He reached the friar and carefully boosted Carl toward the shelves. "No, no, that's not it, no - sorry!" A heavy tome thunked to the floor, just missing Gabriel's head on its way down. "Could you move a little to the right? No, your other right."
"Carl, you may not have Brother Lennox's girth, but I am getting a little tired. Do you think you could possibly -"
"Ah! I've got it!"
"Good," Gabriel sighed, quickly letting go. Carl squeaked, but the hunter grabbed him before he tumbled to the floor.
The notes in his hands, however, suffered for the friar's lack of balance and scattered across the stones. Murmuring an apology, yet unable to keep a mischievous grin from his face, Gabriel helped Carl gather the papers together again.
A series of words underlined on one page caught his attention, and as he read them, his hand froze. "Sweet Jesus," he gasped. "This is it!"
- - - - - - - - - - - -
Yes, to all my knowledge, the italicized text is straight from the Bible. Real research was done in this subject, and I credit the info to this website - I have played with the facts, but only in the realm of dates. J This disclaimer/credit also holds for the following chapter.
