Now that he stood within the chamber, he thought again of the Sanitarium. Before him were the same dull grey walls, the same stench of blood and decay, and the same indeterminable sense of horror.
"Are you sure this is the place? Seems kinda deserted."
She kicked at a broken chair, and sent it skittering across the floor.
"Yes, but it looks like a storm hit the place… an, erm, underground storm."
He smiled, amused, and with a flick of his hand the Chirugai had come to life and spun about the room. The light revealed a huge expanse of floor, decorated with the image of a pentagram.
"This is a symbol of the Nephilim…" she realised, "Karel. He had this place, hidden all along."
"Look at this."
She found Kurtis by the wall, pushing at a low wooden door between the bookcases. Inside there was an office.
Guided by the Chirugai light, she walked over to the desk and set it back on its legs. A tattered folder lay at her feet, and, stooping down, she picked it up and turned the pages.
"Expelled from heaven the Watchers walked amongst men, and upon the Earth bred a curse, an abomination of shadow. In the darkest recess of every human soul slumbers the shadow of evil. Cast from darkness and formed of night fears, the horror approaches."
"Uplifting."
"Denied of the paradise, they were cast beneath the sands, and bound with chains to the rocks. Three escaped their bonds, but wandered blind in the desert. By God's wrath, they were encased in stone, and the Order destroyed two before the last was saved. The Black Alchemist's arts can awaken this creature, but the Obscura Paintings are the key… So, there were three Sleepers, not one! And two were destroyed?"
"Pretty much."
"Then all along, the Sleeper was an outcast, and the strongest Nephilim were beneath the desert?"
He took the page from her, and read: "The Cubiculum Nephili is not the last. The rest of that race lies, waiting, in the city. Only the Sleeper may lead you there, and relate to you the prophecy. There exists a tablet, containing records of this knowledge, but of which it is now lost."
"Damn. You think these guys would draw us a treasure map or something."
She took the page from him with a smile.
"I doubt there's going to be some hidden passage activated by a candlestick."
Regardless, he began searching the walls.
She laughed, and went back to rifle through another folder.
"Kurtis? Isn't this the symbol of the Lux Veritatis?"
"Yeah it is."
He knelt beside her, and began to flick through page after page of notes.
"There's stuff here I didn't even know myself." He turned to a page full of archaic letters. "Look. I wish I knew what this said."
She unclipped the parchment, and laid it out on the desktop, using the Chirugai as a reading lamp.
"It looks exactly like the writing on the tablet. It must be some kind of Nephilic language… Am I saying that right? Nephilic?"
He smiled, and took back the page she was handing him.
"My Order has never been able to read it."
"Illiterate?"
He smirked.
"You wish. Take a look around why dontcha? I wanna have a read of this."
XXX
He turned another page, and found a short entry, scrawled in an obviously hasty manner.
"It is my fondest belief that Karel knew I would find this folder. I am not a festering Lux Veritatis maggot!"
She sniggered, and dropped behind the desk, searching its drawers so he wouldn't see her laughing.
"And since when do you dress like a hooker?"
"Give me that!" She marched over, and snatched the folder from his hands. "Hmm…" She ripped out the offending page, and tossed it to the floor like trash. "He obviously knows nothing about women. No wonder his race was extinct."
Laughing, he watched as she walked back to the desk. A few minutes of searching later however, she had found nothing but torn and soiled pages of research.
"Jesus."
"What's wrong?"
"There are photos in here, of my father. It looks like he was being monitored or something."
He became silent again.
"Kurtis?"
There was no answer. She dropped what she was doing and turned to find him sitting, unmoving; a mass of photos on his lap.
"That is fucking sick."
"Kurtis? What's wrong?"
He backed away on his hands and knees, letting the photographs spill across the floor.
"There are photos here… o-of my father. He's dead. Oh god, he's dead."
He didn't cry, or even tear the photos to pieces. They just lay spilled across his lap, and for a moment he simply sat, staring at nothing.
"Kurtis?"
He scrambled back to his feet, kicking at the photos in disgust. In moments the desk was lying broken on its side, and his hand was shaking as he recovered from the blast. Then the Chirugai ripped free of its restraints and tore across the room, slashing through wood and paper and steel before returning to his hand.
Stumbling back, drained of power, he turned and grabbed the first thing he could find to smash.
"KURTIS!"
She tackled him about the waist, and, dropping the chair, they both ended up on the floor, coughing and wincing from the fall.
"Get the hell off me!"
He pushed at her, but she shoved him away, and fumbled at her waist for the gun.
"Stop it!"
He kicked again, but suddenly her legs were pinning him to the floor and the gun was pointing straight at his head.
"You're not going to shoot me Lara."
"No. But I'll still kick your ass. Calm down!"
"Why the fuck should I? Just look at the damn photographs Lara! My father is lying there with his guts spilled across the floor. It's not exactly a beach shot of Acapulco!" He felt like he was going to throw up.
"I know," Her voice softened. "Please, just calm down. Someone is going to hear you."
He ignored her, and tried to get his elbows up to push her off, but then she clicked back the safety and levelled the gun between eyes.
"Don't make me shoot you," she whispered, feeling the tears starting, "I swear to God I won't let the police find you. You're still a wanted man remember? Don't give anyone an excuse to come looking down here."
He sobered a little.
"You weren't there Lara." His voice broke, and he turned away in shame. "You never saw his face. He was in agony through it all."
She bowed her head, and then lowered the gun with a sigh.
"I'm sorry Kurtis. I know you're hurt, and you have every right to be. Just try and save it for another battle. It's not worth destroying yourself like this."
"Please," he whispered, "Just get off me."
It took a moment, but she clambered off him and let him stand. Without turning back, he had walked out and slammed the door behind him.
The folder still lay open on the floor.
XXX
His eyes were red, and the tears were streaming down his face, but inside there was nothing left, and he just wanted to crawl into a corner and die.
But above him a roll of thunder shook the sky, and he could see the quiet little street where he had learnt to ride his bike, or the streetlamp by the park where he'd kissed his first girl, or the lonely figure of his father, standing shunted in the moonlight.
And as soon as they appeared, the memories were gone, and the rain was falling harder than ever. With a scowl, he wiped at his face with his sleeve, and searched in his pockets for the keys to his bike. Soon enough his hand came across the gun.
Pausing a moment, he let the rain drip down into his eyes, and gently opened the chamber. It closed again with a click.
By now the doubts were gone, and all he could feel was the gun resting against his mouth, and the soaked fingers which trembled upon the trigger. And if he screwed his eyes hard enough he might block out the pain, but he knew it was going to hurt all the more, and soon the gun was clattering at his feet, and he put his head in his hands and cried until there were no more tears left to fall.
Above him the rain stopped, and dawn began to lighten the skies. Slowly he got back to his feet, and gathered his things once more, standing a moment, and thinking back to his childhood, and the memories of that very house. A lot of them were bad, but he still managed to smile at the rest.
"Goodbye dad."
He was sitting on the steps which led up and out of this place, and although the years had grown heavily upon him, he refused to let himself cry.
"Are you okay?"
She was leant on the doorframe.
"Guess so. What d'ya want?" He didn't sound mad; just tired.
"I found something," she explained, handing him a photograph. "It was inside the folder… I think Karel might have stolen this, from your father."
He took the picture from her, and carefully unfolded it. For years, whenever he had asked questions about his mother, Konstantin had walked over and taken this down from the mantelpiece. Looking now, and seeing his parents so beautiful and full of life… It broke his heart.
"I never knew my mother," he told her, "She died a few months after I was born. My father met her whilst stationed in Europe, but my grandfather wouldn't let them marry. We had to swear to secrecy, and apparently she was not worthy of the Order. In the end they eloped, and came to the States. A few years later she was pregnant with me."
She took this in, silent.
"You have her eyes."
He smiled.
It was a rare moment of peace, and something they would cling to a long time.
Silent, she stood up, and awkwardly brushed the dirt from her trousers.
"We better get going. The warehouses are nearby."
Frowning, he put away the picture, and the Chirugai shot past his shoulder and highlighted something in the darkness.
"What is that?"
There was blood staining the floor.
"If I never see another dead body in my life I will die happy."
It was Luther Rouzic, lying face-down in a pool of his own blood.
She squatted down and put her fingers to his neck.
"He's cold - been dead for days."
"I thought he had skipped town?"
"Apparently not." She touched a hand to his eyes, and gently slid them closed.
For a moment they were both silent.
"How did this happen?"
"Maybe he took something?" She checked his pockets. "Nothing. Whoever killed him must have known about this place, or else he was already here, waiting."
They both looked about, suddenly uneasy, as though something was about to jump from the shadows.
After a minute, she spoke: "There's something on his hand."
It was a symbol like an Egyptian eye, alighted by three points of black, resembling a broken crown.
"Kurtis, do you know what this means?"
He slid down beside her, and traced his fingers over the mark.
"I remember it - from my training. I had to study hundreds of books on the Cabal and the Lux Veritatis. We were at war for centuries. This symbol appeared at every massacre of our Order."
She nodded.
"I recognise it now, from the books I took from the Archives." She searched through her backpack, and pulled out a dusty volume. "Here. The caption says 'The three entombed: Arakiel, Semjâzâ and the most powerful, Azazel.'"
"The Nephilim."
She rested the book on her lap, and gazed at the image in wonder. "It's no surprise I missed this earlier. Without knowing of the three beforehand, this text could have meant anything."
"And the eye?"
"It has many different meanings," she told him, searching the page, "but the basic translation is 'apocalypse'."
"Fitting."
She sighed, and watched as he stood again, rubbing at his temples.
"Did your Order know this was going to happen?"
He shrugged.
"I was taught about the Nephilim in the desert, but then my father was always a little sketchy on the details. The prospect frightened him. I think he always knew it was a matter of time before someone got them out."
She nodded, and then stood up beside him, gazing at the blood which now stained her hands. Snow was swirling in on the night breeze.
"Lara?"
There were a dozen policemen staring down at them from the steps, and covering their mouths at the stench of blood.
"Oh no."
XXX
Umm yeah, so my muse decided to go on an extended vacation, and when she did get back she had severe jet lag for a couple of weeks… I hope you appreciate that this chapter gave me hell to write, but I finally wrestled a decent outcome from my muse's scrawny hands! And I also sorted out a plot hole which was really annoying me. Enjoy!