The Basilica, heart of Vatican City.
Gabriel only rarely went into the ornate construction. Far from humbling him before the might of God, as it was no doubt intended, he was instead awed by the contradiction between mortal skill and shortcoming. The lifelike, yet larger-than-life statues of biblical figures provoked more contemplation than reverence within him. He was always taken by the skillful imaginings of Michelangelo playing out on the ceiling above him, the images of God and all that was most decidedly beyond humanity rendered alive as mortals understood it. The artist's vision was a thing of wonder and the end result was elaborate magnificence in honor of the Father.
But as for the Basilica, Gabriel seldom entered the building that the four were rushing towards. Occasionally, when he returned from a mission, he would contact Jinette and enter the catacombs from the Basilica's confessional entrance, but more often he would use a more discreet entryway.
Wrenched out of his contemplations, the slight smile disappeared from his lips. There was something in the air – a familiar taint that made all his senses hyper-alert. His face twisted, and he sucked in a silent breath as his legs froze, for only a moment, before resuming their quick pace.
"What? What is it?" asked Gaspar warily. The man had been following the hunter, and was the first to notice that something was wrong. Gabriel immediately wiped all expression from his face, though the taint riding the air inside the hall had been like a slap in the face.
Carl, walking ahead with Michael, looked over his shoulder and saw the delay.
"Van Helsing?" The friar was clearly impatient. Gabriel continued to walk at a brisk pace, but he was concentrated more on stealth than haste now.
"There's something -" Michael's uneasy expression caught Gabriel's eye. "Michael?"
The boy shrugged, flushing as all three men looked at him.
Gaspar, not understanding the significance, asked somewhat tersely, "Well?"
Only just resisting rolling his eyes, Gabriel responded, "It's nothing. Let's go."
Carl understood, however, and their speed slowed in favor of caution.
The feeling grew stronger as they wound their way through the Apostolic Palace toward the Sistine Chapel, and the Basilica.
Gabriel, however, was the only one affected. Michael looked somewhat disconcerted, and the hunter noted that the boy had probably sensed, on a subconscious level, the evil layering the air around them. It was so thick that they could not avoid breathing it, and Gabriel coughed.
"Van Helsing?" Carl asked once more.
The hunter wrinkled his nose in disgust and said grimly, "Let's go, Carl."
The stigmata of evil only increased in strength as they walked on, and turning the final corridor leading out to the chapel entrance was a trial of endurance for the hunter. He rounded the stone and took a deep breath as it hit him full-force. "Stop a moment," he called to the two rushing ahead. His focus on the chapel doors ahead, he disregarded the others as Carl's voice, and that of Gaspar, floated past him, a world away.
Michael's eyes were huge, and the boy was fidgeting, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to be able to run in the opposite direction.
But they had to go straight through the storm to reach the Basilica, and Gabriel knew that in the meantime, he had to seal off the source before it overtook the many protections of the Holy City.
Striding to the chapel, ignoring Carl's nervous comments and Gaspar's demands to know what was going on, the hunter moved straight to the double-doors where the taint was strongest. He steeled himself for what lay on the other side, and then quickly threw open the doors. The only sign of the overpowering menace that permeated the very air was seen in the pallor of his shuttered features.
He froze for a long moment, and then slowly walked into the church. The empty room was overcome, drenched in the puissant force of evil. He took his time, assessing the room.
"Gabriel?" The friar reached out, clamping a hand on his shoulder. Immediately he shuddered back, and Gabriel shrugged, aware of their audience. "What is it?"
"Nothing Father Anthony can't fix," Gabriel returned slowly. There was nothing to be done, at least not now, but he could bind the influence from spreading beyond this room, if he worked quickly.
The hunter turned back to the doors and closed them, resting his hand on the wood for a moment.
In that moment, he reached both within and without to find the true essence of himself, something he had been striving for since he had first seen the creature. His eyes focused on something far distant as he stretched, grasping for a moment his own ultimate nature.
It wanted to burst out of him, wanted to shine through his skin and the implacable power of it was enough to burn away the sight of anyone watching. With a surprised burst of energy, he wrestled it back down, down and away from the mortals around him, conscious of their fragile vulnerability.
But that one moment was enough. He removed his hand from the wood, knowing that mere seconds had passed. Gabriel shook his hand as it fell back to his side, wiggling his fingers slightly. Just as Beelzebul had left his own mark within the chapel, so Gabriel had soaked the entranceway, key to all the binding powers of the room, in his own essence.
"We will have to monitor this place closely," Gabriel murmured, turning from the now sealed doors.
Gaspar frowned. "I felt nothing," he huffed warily, eyeing the doors with an air of cautious curiosity.
Surprisingly, it was Michael who spoke up. "There is something – not right," he stammered. "The iglesia is -" He seemed to struggle for the proper word.
"Tainted," Carl filled in grimly. "The church is tainted."
"What are we going to do about it?" Gaspar demanded, eyes wide under the shock of vibrantly orange hair.
"Nothing," Gabriel cut in stridently, daring his keeper to challenge him. "We have something more important to tend to – this must wait."
The four were frozen in a moment of indecision, individual thoughts and beliefs pulling at them. Reluctantly, Gaspar nodded and they made their way out of the maelstrom of malice that enveloped the chapel, the noise of scuffing feet growing louder as the echoes were thrown back at them in the ever-larger rooms.
The Basilica itself was a decent distance from the chapel, and it was with a silent sigh of relief that Gabriel felt the oppressive wave of evil vanish, as yet unable to come near the heart of Vatican City.
The four men stopped just inside the side entrance to the Basilica, eyeing the uncommonly-empty hall.
Michael looked up at Carl. "How are we going to find it?"
Gabriel could see the younger boy's point. The Basilica was the largest, most elaborate structure dedicated to Christianity in the whole of the world. It was massive, of a scale hundreds of times beyond that of St. Linus', and they had needed a good deal of help just to begin the search of that church.
Gabriel missed Carl's response. He was concentrating on a noise almost outside the range of his hearing. He took several steps forward, and it grew stronger. It was a very high, somewhat melodic hum that buzzed through his thoughts.
Several more steps, and the noise was stronger, a little louder, though not by much.
"Van Helsing," Gaspar snapped ungraciously.
The hunter didn't hear – in fact, he was making his way directly to the altar. It was an elevated dais surmounted by bronze pillars, capped with a small cupola. Carl followed the taller man without question, leaving Gaspar to pull his temper under control and bring up the rear.
Within moments, Gabriel had been unerringly drawn to the altar, moving behind it to the bronze pillar on the right. He ran his hands over the cool metal, the buzzing now vibrating just under his skin, an electrifying hum that tingled over his body.
"Here," he breathed, hands in constant, fluttering motion over the skin of metal that separated them from the object of their search. "It's in the pillar."
"How do you know that?"
"Are you sure?"
Gabriel answered Carl, taking a step back to let the friar get a closer look. "I'm sure."
Gaspar growled his frustration, but Michael was the only one who paid him any heed. Gabriel watched curiously as Carl muttered to himself, touching the pillar absently. He started up as far as he could reach, pressing on the metal, moving meticulously down the bronze, tarnished by the ages.
"There must be – well, I'm sure that there's . . . but of course it wouldn't . . . aha!"
"You've found something?" Gaspar asked skeptically, eyeing the robed form crouched at the base of the bronze column.
"I think so," Carl muttered excitedly. "Look, just here." He indicated several raised, ornamental rivets at the foot of the pillar. "Some of these are functional rivets, but there are others that depress when you touch them. See?"
Demonstrating, Carl pressed three ornamental rivets at once. There was a slight grinding noise, but nothing happened. Gaspar stared at the column. "What happened?" he hissed warily.
"Nothing, so far as I can tell," Carl frowned, but turned as he noted something move in the corner of his vision.
Gabriel squatted on his haunches, reaching down to run his fingers carefully over the rivets in the foot of another column. "Carl," he called. "Some of these move as well."
Carl stared at him, and then looked at each one of the columns in turn. "It's a lock!" he howled triumphantly. "A combination lock. The Spear may be inside one of these pillars, but it would be impossible for any one person to reach it. It would need to be a group."
"And therein lies the trap," Gabriel nodded in agreement as he rose to his feet.
"What?" the friar was somewhat puzzled as to the logic behind the last reasoning.
"The Spear is a tainted relic," the hunter explained, looking at each one of them in turn. "Unless the one who claimed it was of the cloth, or otherwise dedicated to God, any group that tried to retrieve it would be overcome by the 'dark evil quality' the scholars spoke of. Greed, mistrust and perfidy would prevent them from being able to work together and remove it from its resting place."
Gaspar frowned at that last. "Should we really remove it?" he finally ventured. "If it is as dangerous as you say, is it not better protected here, at the most sacred heart of the Vatican?"
Gabriel shook his head. "Sooner or later, the creature will come." The hunter's face was drawn and grim. "When he does, when he finally is able to enter the Basilica, there will be no safe harbor for good in this world. He will rip the Spear from its long sleep and turn it on the unknowing innocents outside the gates of Vatican City. If we remove it, he must come for it, to a time and place of our choosing."
The four looked at one another. Michael's eyes were wide with fear, and Carl smiled tightly at him. Gabriel glanced toward the altar, his expression forbidding, and Gaspar forced his face into something resembling a smile. It looked more like a grimace of pain. "I guess we have no choice," he said at last.
"Alright then," Carl said briskly. "Each of you take a column, and see how many of the rivets are needed for each. We'll try them all at once, and in sequence, to see if we can come up with something."
The four scattered, each to a different pillar. "Ten here," Carl called.
"Ten!" Gaspar added.
"Diez," Michael responded. "Ten."
"Ten." Gabriel was the last. "Forty total, then." The significance was lost on no one in the room – forty was a symbolic number, appearing in the Bible many times.
"All at once, then. On three!" Carl raised his voice, to be certain they could all hear him. He counted, and they pressed all the rivets. There was a grinding noise of gears shifting above them, seeming to come from within the pillars and cupola, but nothing happened. "Check!" Carl called. "Make sure all the rivets are down completely."
Gaspar glanced over and noticed that Michael, with his smaller hands, was having trouble reaching and fully depressing each rivet. "Let's try again?" he offered, flicking his eyes to from Carl to the boy to be certain the friar understood him. "Perhaps the gears are just old and need to be oiled."
"Again, then. One, two, three!"
There was no noise this time, no indication of anything having happened – yet in the pillar above Gabriel, a small panel, seamlessly blended into the column, slipped sideways, revealing a small cubbyhole within the bronze construction. Standing, the hunter found himself looking within, at the object that had caused them so much grief.
He carefully reached in, grasped the Spear, and pulled it out. The panel slid back into place with a small snikt, just as he withdrew his hand.
He eyed the pillar, searching for the compartment he knew was there, running his fingers over the metal, searching for the tell-tale outlines of the panel's edges. Anything to keep his mind off the dark, siren call of the object in his hand.
He found nothing, and finally forced his attention to the Spear as the others slowly approached.
Despite the elaborate description some deemed worthy of a holy relic, the spear was plain. Longinus had been one centurion from many, his equipment serviceable, rather than ornate. The spearhead was old, rusted iron, with a nail of the same dangling from a hole at the base of the spearhead. The shaft had long since rotted to dust.
"That's it?" Carl asked, overcome with disappointment.
Gabriel's lips twitched in amusement. "That's it."
- - - - - - - - - -
Ok, so, to kick off the new semester, here's a fat chap for you. It may be a while until the next one, but as always, see my bio for further (and sometimes more updated) info.
