"What, exactly, are we looking for?" Gaspar's tone was a novel blend of skepticism, doubt, and wariness. So far, he had taken his duty of guarding Van Helsing seriously, never allowing himself to be distracted or letting the hunter out of his sight.

Carl and Gabriel exchanged glances, a wealth of emotions passing between them; with irritation and resignation among the foremost. "Anything pertaining to St. Linus and his papacy," Carl started. The friar was laying out the manuscripts they'd already looked through, trying to bring some semblance of order to the chaos which encompassed the entire room. "Or the holy relics."

Gaspar watched him expressionlessly for a few moments, until his attention was drawn elsewhere. There was a soft knock on the door, which creaked open slightly. Carl glanced up as a small figure with a mop of brown hair edged through the door with a smile. Gabriel raised a brow in surprise.

"Michael?" asked Gaspar, recognizing the youth almost immediately. "What are you doing here?"

Michael gave him a small smile. "It comforted the Cardinal to know that I was assisting in your search," he said, peering out from under his thick bangs.

The older men exchanged understanding glances. Taddeo felt that the boy needed to get out of the infirmary, and this was the first step, giving him a sense of purpose.

"Thank you," Van Helsing said before Carl, who looked as if he might object, could respond.

Gaspar spoke quietly with the boy, explaining to him fully what they were doing to make up for being vague on why.

Gabriel smiled on seeing the two heads, one fiery bright and the other chocolate-brown, bent together in conversation. Michael was only recently arrived in Rome from his home in Ecuador, and had no family in Europe. Gaspar was doing his best to make the transition easy for the youth, who had left behind everything he knew at the tender age of nine on the base of his faith.

Pulling his gaze away from the touching scene, Gabriel headed off into the stacks. Moments later Gaspar was behind him, his presence a silent and menacing question. "Carl wants me to retrieve any papers dealing in the slightest with holy relics," he answered the unspoken query. Van Helsing glanced up at a shelf just barely within his reach and the book he needed on it. Quirking a brow, he asked the slightly taller man, "I don't suppose you'd be willing to lend a hand?"

At Gaspar's impassive stare, Gabriel cleared his throat in annoyance and then stretched high, groping for the text. He managed to tip the book out of the shelf and grasped it precariously with three fingers before it fell to the floor.

Upon returning to Carl, he saw a long list in the friar's hands.

"We need all those?" Gabriel asked, trying not to let any hint of wariness enter his tone.

"According to Brother Yakov." Carl did not look pleased. There were nearly fifty items on the list, all of which would have to be painstakingly examined for any reference they could use – the job could take days, and it was doubtful that they had that much time.

"What exactly did he put on the list?" Gabriel asked.

Carl's nose wrinkled in displeasure. "Apparently the good librarian keenly felt his part in Piotr's betrayal, and is seeking to make amends."

Gabriel groaned softly. "So –"

"He listed everything," Carl said wonderingly, but he sounded a bit appalled.

Michael slipped between the two men and peered at the list, before scurrying away into the shelves. Gabriel looked in the direction the boy had disappeared, and smiled a little.

Noting Gaspar's glare, however, he went to search for books in the opposite direction as Michael. Between the three of them, they managed to collect all the books on Brother Yakov's list, and a few more besides, under the space of an hour. Once they had settled, each man – including Gaspar – took a stack and began to work through it.

After nearly two hours of silence, Gabriel heard the noise of someone moving and glanced up. Michael was holding a piece of parchment in his hand, his face a portrait of contrition.

"What happened?" asked Gaspar. His book was upright in his lap, so that he could both peruse the lines and easily look up to check on both his charge and the hunter. Michael held out the paper silently. Gabriel had discovered that the boy rarely spoke, which made his earlier conversation with the young one that much more remarkable.

"I did not tear it," he said quietly. "It fell out of the book I was looking at."

"Which text?" asked Carl, coming to Gaspar's side. Gabriel set aside his own book to stand and move toward the three.

Michael returned to his seat and held up the book. Le Morte d'Arthur.

"The Death of Arthur?" asked Carl, puzzled.

"Arthurian legend mentions a quest for the Holy Grail," Gaspar said unexpectedly. "Brother Yakov probably thought of that when he added it to the list – after all, the Grail is the most well-known holy relic."

"So what is it?" asked Gabriel, gesturing to the piece of paper. Carl took it from Gaspar and carefully opened it. The paper was very old, thin and yellowed with age. "It's a letter from a knight to the Pope. It's written in Latin."

"Which knight?" Gabriel was curious. So too, it seemed, was Gaspar.

Carl scanned the bottom of the letter, trying to make out the signature. "I'm not sure," he said at last. "But the name looks like Parsifal."

Gabriel shrugged. The name meant nothing to him. But Gaspar, on the other hand, sat up straight. "Really?" he asked, appearing interested for the first time.

"I'm almost certain," Carl admitted. "But why? Does that mean something to you?"

Gaspar straightened up in his chair, deep voice speaking meditatively. "When I was a lad, my mother would tell stories to me and my brothers. Tales of Logres, of Camelot and Uther Pendragon, its noble king. She also told us the stories of the Grail, and Galahad. But there was another knight who was deemed worthy in the eyes of God – his name was Parsifal. I thought it was only stories."

"You were born in Britain?" asked Carl, curious. Gaspar nodded.

"'Deemed worthy'?" Gabriel hinged on the phrase.

Gaspar's voice cooled noticeably when speaking to the hunter, but he knew the seriousness of the situation. "To be a keeper of the Holy Relics of Logres."

Gabriel raised a brow. "What can we find out about Parsifal?" he asked. There was no harm in checking.

Carl shrugged. "There's probably a reference in here somewhere," he said, and the hunter nodded. For now, knowing that there was another possible connection to search for had fired them with hope, and they searched with renewed vigor.

Carl came across a connected piece of information not half an hour later. "Ah!"

Everyone in the room started. "Carl?" asked Gaspar.

The friar stood, excitement overflowing from him. "The works of Chretien de Troyes! 'Parsifal, an honorable and sinless knight, undertook a trial to determine his worthiness to succeed a godly king who was then dying.'"

"Arthur?" Gabriel interrupted.

Carl shrugged and kept going. "'Parsifal seated himself on the magic chair, which was a perilous undertaking; for anyone unworthy to be seated therein was immediately put to death. But Parsifal passed the test, and so was selected by God to be king and act as guardian for both the Holy Grail and the Spear of Longinus until his death'."

Carl's elated gaze met Gabriel's considering one. "Carl," the hunter began, "When would this have happened?"

The friar looked uneasy. "The dates for the existence of Logres are very subjective, when the entire idea is not all dismissed as just a myth," he said. "I don't know. But there's got to be some -"

Gaspar spoke up once more, surprising them all. "Here." He held up a text that he had gone to as soon as Uther Pendragon had been mentioned. "This is . . ." here his face twisted a little in humor, ". . . something of an analysis of the existence of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. It gives the dates around 450 to 700 AD."

"You seem to know quite a lot about this," Carl suddenly commented.

Gabriel shot him a surprised glance, and saw how Carl struggled to bury his suspicion. Piotr's betrayal had many unexpected consequences.

Gaspar's face remained impassive. "It's something of a hobby," he offered. Gabriel could see that Carl was not reassured by this pronouncement.

The hunter suddenly thought of something, and strode quickly to the table. The amount of books had been deemed too much for even this expansive surface, and the parchments and papers had spilled over to the floor under and around the table. "Van Helsing?"

The hunter squirmed out from under the table, coughing from the dust he had kicked up under layers of books.

"An Encyclopedia of Roman Rulers?" Carl managed to make the title of the book into a question. Gabriel got to his feet, ignoring Carl, Michael and Gaspar's questions.

Gabriel opened the cover and flipped quickly through until he came to the pertinent entry. "It fits," he said, somewhat surprised. He showed Carl.

Justinian 527-565 AD

"What else?" The friar was very excited.

Gabriel read on, and was silent for a long time. He frowned.

"Well?" Carl pressed.

When he raised his eyes, Van Helsing said quietly, "Apparently after the Spear was lost by Justinian, it somehow made its way to Logres."

Carl studied the hunter's closed face. "Was there a clue in there as to how the Spear became tainted?"

Gabriel didn't respond, which was answer enough in itself. At last he said lowly, "Justinian's rule was a time rife with war, when he tried to revive the glory of the old Rome. Much happened in the end of his reign that was beyond his control, for he was distracted and loosing his grip on both health and sanity. Suffice to say, I have my suspicions about what may have occurred."

Carl, noting the frozen mask of Gabriel's features, tabled that argument for later.

Gaspar spoke, and Carl and Gabriel started. They had quite forgotten his presence. "How does this help us find the Spear?"

Gabriel turned to his guard and said, "I don't know."

Carl picked up the letter once more. "I'll translate this," he offered. "It may tell us something useful."

It took half an hour, as the letter was both the front and back of a delicate paper. While Carl recopied the letter, and then translated it, Gabriel, Michael and Gaspar continued to look through their respective piles of books. When the soft scratching of Carl's pencil ceased it drew the attention of the three others in the room.

But instead of elation, Carl's face was indicative of bemusement. "I've finished," he said unnecessarily. Without needing any prompting, he cleared his throat and began. "'To the Holy Roman Emperor, Tiberius II Constantine, in the Year of Our Lord 582.' Then he goes on to offer his best wishes for health, and comments some on the occurrences in Britain, and news he has received from the doings in the South. Ah – here – 'I am sending this missive in regards to a matter of great importance. In my time as ruler, I have come into the possession of several most holy objects. I believe you know that of which I speak – the Chalice and the Spear. I fear my life is drawing to a close, and as yet no successor has appeared who is able to pass the divine ordeal. There is none worthy in my kingdom to take up guardianship of these sacred items, and I fear that they will fall into the hands of those unworthy of their care. I write to beg you to take these items into your possession, and offer them such protection as you are able, in that most holy and protected place on God's earth. Should you allow me, I shall bring these to you myself to ensure their safety, and see the last of my days pass in the stronghold of my faith.'"

Carl stopped, and Gabriel shifted slightly as he rifled through the pages in the Encyclopedia. "It's dated late in the year 582," the hunter commented. "By the time this letter reached Rome, Tiberius had succumbed to his own ill-health and Maurice had come to power. It was a turbulent time." Van Helsing's mind was far away as he read, memories coming thick and fast. "The empire was threatened on three fronts, despite Maurice's successful campaigns against the Persians. The state was bankrupt, as well. Tiberius didn't manage much in the four years he ruled – he only came into power after Justin II suffered a breakdown over the Persian invasion of Syria. Justinian's influence stretched for many years after his death." Gabriel's voice was grim.

Carl coughed, and Gabriel blinked, pulling himself from his fugue. "Maurice managed to keep the Empire together, but there was considerable confusion and conflict. It would be a dangerous time to travel such a distance."

Carl's eyes returned to the map he had marked roughly a week and a half ago, when their search had first begun. Gabriel and Gaspar's eyes followed his movements. "What are the odds that the Spear even made it to Rome?" Gabriel asked, eyeing the many locations the creature had visited in pursuit of the Spear.

Carl, understanding his meaning, paled slightly.

Gaspar frowned. "But the letter –"

"If Parsifal died during the journey, the Spear might have been brought to any of these locations by the knights in his escort," Gabriel sighed, leaning against the edge of the table. "Several of these places only held the Spear in myth, certainly, but it's near-impossible to determine how long it took for the Spear to return to Rome." The hunter shrugged. "Even if Parsifal made it alive to the Vatican, with the Spear and Chalice still in his possession, there's no telling what happened to it then, and no chance that such a dangerous object was even spoken of. The risks that lay in actually writing down where it rested . . . " Piotr's betrayal was fresh in everyone's minds.

Carl heaved a sigh. "So there's no chance of tracing the Spear's journey back to Rome through Parsifal," he said morosely.

Gabriel shook his head, scowling. "Even if it looked promising, we don't have the time."

"What about that symbol?" came an unexpected voice in the grim silence following this statement.

Gaspar frowned, thinking. "Which one?" he asked Michael.

Carl answered instead. "The sigil of St. Linus." The friar rubbed his head. "There are so many threads on this trail, it's near-impossible to determine which lead where, and how."

Gabriel shrugged. "The history of the Spear of Destiny is a convoluted enigma." He shook his head, returning to the matter at hand. "What do we actually know about Linus?"

Carl grunted. "Well, not much I'm afraid. The records fall just short of the beginning of the papacy in Rome, and all I can tell is that he began using the sigil as a signature and seal in 67 AD, which is assumed to be the very beginning of his time as pope. It started showing up in letters and formal documents about April of that year, and -"

"67 AD?" Gabriel asked, mind racing to compute the numbers.

"Yes. Why, is something wrong?"

"The date," Gabriel responded, feeling his confidence surge as the memories became clearer. "The date is wrong. Linus didn't come into the papacy until October of 68. He would have still be serving as adjutant to -"

"How do you know that?" asked Gaspar warily.

The two friends ignored him. Carl's eyes widened. "That would mean the sigil hearkened back to Peter's papacy, not that of his student."

"Carl, is it possible that we're looking in the wrong place?" The friar nodded, eyes sparking with the thrill of discovery. "Where would be the most protected place to put the most dangerous holy relic on Earth, even within Vatican City itself?"

Understanding hit the two of them at nearly the same time. Carl whispered, "St. Peter's Basilica."

- - - - - - - - -

Right, I said I wouldn't be posting for a bit. I did some research, and got on a roll, and then . . .couldn't stop. Thanks to all my caring reviewers for their comments, encouragement and well-wishing for my exams; this is early because of you! Enjoy!