AUTHOR'S NOTE: if you have read Love in the Time of Science you will notice that this is what happened behind the scenes. It is the answer as to how Helen Magnus became immortal and the initial fall of the Sanctuary of the Moon.

32

THE GRYPHON AND HIS GOLD

OXFORD UNIVERSITY, 1864

"My research has merit!" Doctor Gregory Magnus insisted, passionately striding around the oval table which took pride at the centre of the library. He was nervous, beads of sweat congregating around his receding brow. Gregory wiped them away with his frayed sleeve, trying to focus on anything but the rising fear in his chest.

It was late.

Oxford University lay in slumber alight with candles and dying oil lamps. Their fragrant smoke lingered in the air as another Autumn gust crashed a wave of leaves over the windows. They swirled, crunching against the ancient stone then fell away into the mist which had come to settle on the lawn. Scaffolding clawed at one end where the partially constructed shell of the university's new wing was silhouetted against the evening sky looking eerily like a corpse.

The Gothic wing of the library was locked. Its aging room had taken on a hint of ire, walled in by dusty manuscripts and gargoyles which were sunken against the shelves as festered wounds. Perhaps the library had seen too much – or not enough.

The world was changing again and Oxford lurked at the heart, tailoring a fresh generation of monsters.

Gregory lifted his gaze to the shelves. He heard them creak under their hoard and yet offered him no solace. History was an observer to the world, nothing more.

Half a dozen dispassionate gazes awaited him. The gentleman were sat around the opposite end of the table, flanking Samuel Griffin like a storm front. Griffin – Director of the University's Medical Advisory Board, chairman of Specialist Adaptations Advisory, founder of Oxford's Cabal branch and Gregory's oldest friend from college – was the only one to offer a smile as Gregory collected himself. Their youthful years had died and Samuel Griffin had suffered each one of them. His frail figure used a series of props for support – cup in one hand, pile of books beneath the other to disguise a tremor. A year shy of forty and he already looked old.

"Gregory," Griffin continued, letting his gaze wander over the board members. They stared back like statues, alien to his friend's distress. "You know how it is. The world is not as our dreams demand. To wager the funds of this board you must also offer a return of profit."

"That is not our code," Gregory glared at the well-dressed men with their cotton waistcoats and silk cravats. He resented their wealth but not as much as he despised their talentless success. His shirt sleeves scuffed over the table leaving trails of sweat as he leaned close, both hands on the wood. "Please, to throw me out will end my research. It will ruin me. We had the same dream, Sam."

Samuel Griffin flinched at the informal use of his name.

"My work has meaning," Gregory all but whispered. "If we don't save these creatures we will never understand why they exist or by extension, the diversity of our own species. Abnormality is a gift to science. It's -" he fished for the words, lifting a hand to the forest of books, "the smoking gun of evolution. Nature's experiments. One day I will have enough evidence to publish and the world will know the truth – that we are part of a vast -" he was cut short.

"Gregory," Griffin's voice shifted, softer. "I do not want to banish you from our organisation. Your heart is in the right place – it always has been and heaven knows we need that in this modern age. Not only that, I have heard that your wife is finally with child."

"That is correct," Gregory admitted. A miracle. "It's a delicate time – financially."

"Let us meet you halfway. We have word from the new continent," word from Percy Fawcett, who shifted beside Griffin, "of a valuable abnormal hiding in the mountains, buried in the new world. An old friend of ours..."

Gregory's eyes darkened. "The vampire. I thought you and I decided not to pursue that line of-"

"I have changed my mind," Gregory was cut off again, Griffin clasping at a nearby quill. He penned his signature on a few pages, passing them to his left.

"May I at least wait until my wife has our child?"

Griffin nodded, setting it back in the ink well. "It will take months to organise an expedition. You can wait. In the meantime we will continue your allowance as before. We expect you to submit your findings and offer any further notes you have regarding the study of the vampire species. You are right, old friend. Hunting monsters is your speciality and I would rather have you with us in some capacity, even if it is only in an advisory position."

"Thank you..." Gregory nodded.

"Fawcett will gather a team and lead the expedition at the start of Spring. Now if you would leave us, I have matters to discuss with the other board members."

Gregory made his farewells and left, flitting back out into Oxford's night. The house he and his wife shared was tucked away down a side alley where a faint glow came from the gas-lights strung out like deep-sea pearls along the main street. The roads themselves were filthy, partially dirt and gravel rather than stone. The day's rain had made them smell of horse manure and rat.

He opened the door and smiled at the warmth of his house. It smelled of leather, ash and dried rose petals. His wife was seated in front of a fireplace surrounded by piles of journals. She was diligently writing up his notes, no doubt improving on them as she went. His wife, his partner – she was a scientist in her own right and beautiful.

"Did you bend them to your will, my dear?" Mrs Magnus asked, eyes alive with mischief. Her stomach had a gentle curve to it where their child grew.

Gregory nodded. "By some grace, we're still afloat in this sinking world."

"I've decided that we are having a girl," his wife whispered, as Gregory sank to his knees in front of her and the fire. He set his head on her lap and let her run cool fingers through his thinning hair.

"Indeed – and what shall we call this child?"

"Helen," she replied, the word firm on her lips. "After your mother; a scientist and adventurer – the best of us both."

"Helen Magnus..." he closed his eyes. "Yes, that suits her very well."

"Are you sure that you're all right?" his wife nudged him gently. "They must have demanded some kind of trade for your employment. Is it...?"

He nodded, then frowned, sinking deeper against her. "A long time ago, I wanted to find this creature more than anything else. Now I'd rather leave it sleeping."

Mrs Magnus cupped her husband's head in her hands, tilting his head up so that he had no choice but to look upon her. "My dear... we need the money."

It was her eyes that stilled Gregory's heart. "Well, Fawcett's the only one mad enough to hunt it out. I guess I should be grateful that he's not making me go."

Percy Fawcett had established himself on the seat to Griffin's left. He was young, roguish and hard; a creature who had weathered the sharpest edges of the world, expertly navigating its treacherous terrain with a mad grin. His cheerfully curved moustache softened his pale blue eyes, a combination which drew quite a bit of attention from Oxford's females. Too much. Against his better judgement Percy had taken a wife.

Every few months, Fawcett strolled into Oxford to present his conquests which boasted creatures from the far reaches of the earth and storehouses of treasure, either real gold or imagined. Today's offering was a rare compound ripped out of mines in the Middle East and sold to the Cabal. It was not as colourful as Magnus's mythical throw-backs but dirt paid well.

"We have been led to believe that you brought another souvenir from your last expedition." Griffin tilted his head in a predatory gaze.

Fawcett, who had been about to fold his six-foot figure back into his chair, hesitated. There was something of the tide about him. He was a strange man with eyes made from faded clouds after a storm. "I have what you asked of me," he relented, reaching into his case. He pulled out a vial of silver liquid and held it close to one of the candles so that they others could see the slight glimmer in the mysterious substance. "Drawn fresh this night."

"And your proof that it is real?"

"You know where to find me if you have any complaints. You won't. I believe firmly in the sanctity of business."

Thirty-nine year old Samuel Butler sat to Griffin's right. He was dashing with thick eyebrows, softly kinked hair and firm limbs from working his father's farm. His dark gaze focussed on Fawcett. There was a time when he'd believed the world to be the creation of a god, of theatrical 'snap' of a deity's fingers. Since then he had seen things that had shaken his soul, creatures that could only be the work of a world unchecked. Monsters at war with each other. One of them sat opposite, well hidden under the guise of humanity. Mr Fawcett was not what he appeared. Butler couldn't help but be dawn to him all the same. Power and fear, they were as fascinating as they were deadly.

"The blood of an Immortal is not easy to happen by..." Butler purred dangerously. The others were not aware of Fawcettt's true nature – except for Griffin. Griffin had a habit of knowing everything about his creatures.

"And for your trouble, you will be paid in full," Griffin was quick to insist, casting a sharp glare at Butler.

"From the Cabal's bank accounts – or the University's?" Butler continued, his lip twisted into a smirk. "I'm no accountant but even to the untrained eye the cash is flowing in a rather steady direction – downhill, towards the cotton mills."

Fawcett was a guest not a member and his allegiances were anybody's guess. Mostly he wanted financial backing for his own projects and couldn't care less as to the source of the funds. "I am certain this is an enterprise to the benefit of both organisations."

"Indeed..." Butler replied. "Tell me, Colonel Fawcett, are you searching for our Vampire – or is it the City of Gold that has your eye? I seem to remember something about the Smithsonian declining your request for an expedition last month."

"Happily for all involved, these two goals are not mutually exclusive." Fawcett gathered up his things and went to leave. He stopped at the last row of shelves, turning back to the table and its disquieted members. "Magnus's loyalty will fail you but his research won't. A cornered lion is many things, honest is not one of them."

"It's not right Griffin," Butler was the last member remaining at the table. The others had skulked off into the evening, leaving them alone with the small vial of Immortal blood. "You have a child on the way, why not test it on your wife instead if you're convinced this is so safe?"

"My wife is only weeks away from the birth, it is too late to attempt any such experiment on her."

"Convenient."

"I'm confident both mother and child will live – and who better qualified to watch over proceedings in the years to come than Magnus? We may not be able to breed new Immortals but if we can alter our own biology – tweak it toward longevity... It is safer than vampire blood, you have to at least admit that."

Butler sighed, idly playing with the last candle. "Yet you're still soliciting a sample of that as well."

"That's – a personal matter. I have no intention of using vampire blood on anyone else."

"And what do you hope to get out of this, hmm?" Butler was deeply disturbed by the direction Griffin had taken their board in of late. It was one thing to push the boundaries of science, another completely to run dangerous experiments on humans without their consent. "Some kind of half-breed Immortal that you and your friends at the Cabal can study?"

"Think what we can learn... Immortals are too dangerous and aloof to study first hand but Magnus's daughter – she'd be ours from the start."

"Your own city of gold, biologically speaking."

There was a long pause between the men. It was Griffin that broke it. "Are you still intent on resignation?"

Butler shook his head. He was going to stay. "Someone has to keep an eye on you. Griffin, if Magnus finds out, he'll never forgive you. Your oldest friend..."

"Despite what you may think, Butler, he is my friend – always."

"Then I trust you never extend me the courtesy of friendship." Butler slowly arched his eyebrow and leaned closer to the aging Griffin. The man looked like the beginnings of a skeleton, as though death had started its feast early. "Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat – right up until they are slain."

He walked away, leaving a distinct chill in the air.

Mrs Magnus had forgotten the time. Most of her morning was spent hidden away at the back of a book store, picking around the shelves. She could afford one book a month and this time she was determined to buy a children's story book, a gift for her unborn daughter. She was about to pry, 'A Journey to the Centre of the Earth' from the shelf when something else caught her eye. It was an old, leather-bound book with a single embossed word over the cover.

Panchatantra

She smiled warmly, holding the book in her elegant hands. Mrs Magnus had a sneaking feeling that her husband would appreciate this more than her child.

Clutching the book to her chest, she stepped back out into the street. As businesses closed, people swarmed over the street, a ball of muted gowns with tattered edges, spinning around each other as they bustled their way from door to door.

Mrs Magnus decided on a calmer side street, running her gloved-hand along the granite wall towering beside her. The passage was too small for a cart but she liked the walls and their glistening facades. It reminded her of the caves her husband had taken her to in Greece, chasing down a living fossil.

She turned slightly at the crunch of boots behind her. A wandering vendor perhaps, hoping to sell her trinkets? A swift glance revealed nothing in his arms. Politely, she moved to the side so that he could slip by her – but he didn't. The man pulled even with her and then took her by the arm.

Mrs Magnus reeled in fright. "Excuse me sir, can I help you?"

The man said nothing. He covered her face with a foul smelling rag, holding it there until the light faded from the world and she collapsed to the ground.

When she woke, she found herself in the alley – uninjured much to her relief. The man had taken liberties with her purse, thieving the meagre coinage. As far as muggings went, she had been lucky.

As she picked herself back off the ground, she failed to notice the tiny pinprick in her arm where pure sample of Immortal blood had been injected. Already the silken liquid pulsed around her body, feeding into her womb where it began altering her unborn child.

1867, IQUITOS, SOUTH AMERICA

Percy Fawcett narrowed his eyes. Ahead, the flooded river churned. Mud washed up onto the bow of his canoe and splashed against his face. It was hot – steam rising off the dense tropical forest around them. The world was caught in a sick cycle. It would rain, evaporate and rain again with twice the stench of rotting corpses and bat faeces. Even now he could see dozens of the creatures, their black bodies swinging from the dead branches high above, waiting for night to fall.

It would come too quickly. They had just entered dust and the Indian village was nowhere to be seen.

"We've taken a wrong turn," his navigator muttered, furiously thumbing through the crumpled, damp maps laid over several crates in the next canoe.

"I don't think so," Fawcett replied. "They could have left – or been destroyed. The jungle reclaims civilisation quickly. I've seen whole cities reduced to a tangle of vines. One of their settlements would vanish in weeks is something befell them."

"Then what do we do? Stay on the river through the night?"

Fawcett ducked under the corpse of a fallen tree, laid over the water with ghostly branches twisted in its endless struggle for sunlight. "If that map of yours is accurate, there's a canyon up ahead. We're safer out in the open. How travels our cargo?"

The navigator turned around, shifting awkwardly in the canoe which kilted worryingly. Behind them, amidst the other dozen canoes, was a raft. It was saddled with a sizable crate strapped to it with yards of thick leather, sealed and printed with warnings in numerous languages. "No change," he eventually replied. "We did as you asked. No one goes near it save lashing it to the raft."

"Good – keep it that way," Fawcett replied, turning back to the river and its formidable jungle.

The party of canoes pulled into the canyon an hour shy of nightfall. It was a harsh chasm, cut out of the basalt hills by a torrent of ancient water. As long as it didn't pour they'd be safe nestled against the cliffs.

Fawcett took personal responsibility of their cargo, insisting the crate be dragged up over the stones to the edge of his tent. It was deeply unsettling. He knew very well that there was a creature inside it and yet it never made a sound. It was too quiet. Sometimes the men reported that the crate weighed nothing and then without warning, it became too heavy to drag. They heard screams come from it during the night and many swore to have watched it canter dangerously from side to side. Fawcett saw nothing; heard nothing. True Immortals were immune to the powers of Magoi.

Sometimes he wished that he could speak with the creature. He guessed it to be nearly four thousand years old, pulled from it's home in Tibet where it had made nests of ice in the fissures of glaciers. It was a prize too dangerous to keep but Fawcett intended to put it to good use.

A bird screamed. The panicked thing scrambled off the cliff and fell into the air, shedding long, red feathers over the water. Fawcett kept one hand on his rifle, dare anything stir in the night.

When the first light touched the water, Fawcett moved through the tents and picked five of his weakest men. He instructed them to drag the crate back onto its raft and paddle it up stream with him keeping alongside in another canoe.

The water was calm and starting to clear. He could see hints of the carnivorous fish swirling about beneath the currents. Fawcett had to throw a few back into the river when they eagerly leaped into his boat.

"Here, to the left," he pointed his oar at a tributary. Fawcett could not have picked a more ominous mouth of water, half strangled by lashings of reed.

"Sir – I don't think we can make it up there."

"We can," he insisted. "We must -" Screams from down river interrupted him. A wild tribe from deep in the jungle was laying siege to his encampment. Scattered gunfire met with a storm of arrows and rocks thrown from the cliff tops. The gunfire petered out. A colony of bats screeched into the air like a swarm of locusts.

"God almighty," one of the men whispered, turning to see a plume of smoke rise up from the forest. They sky behind it was aflame with the sunrise.

"Keep paddling..."

They went deeper. Their oars pushed against the bank, forcing their canoes forward until the water opened out into a black lake banked on all sides by cliffs. Mist, trapped by the cliffs, wafted ten feet above the water as though they'd entered the spirit world.

"Are we dead?" whispered one of the frightened men, turning to see the archway of rock through which they'd entered. Fragments of forest clung where it could, vines sweeping over the rock erupting in white flowers. Eerie white carvings glowed around them; lines of unreadable text.

"See that?" Fawcett ignored them. "Take the raft over to the gash in the rock. There is a tunnel into the mountains. Latch the crate against the rock and use the wax to seal it there."

"Sir – I mean, are you sure?"

Fawcett levelled his steel eyes on the men – who cowered and did as they were bid. With the crate in place, Fawcett pulled the hatch, opening the side embedded against the tunnel, releasing the Magoi into the depths of the Sanctuary of the Moon.

"Thank you – all," Fawcett whispered, "you've been brave and dutiful. I am sure you are all ready to return home."

"What about the City of Gold?" one of them frowned.

"There is nothing so pitiful as a fool," Fawcett purred, something very slight changing in his countenance.

LONDON, 1868, THE BRITISH MUSEUM

"Where is my specimen? Fawcett, this is not the arrangement that we made!" Griffin coughed into his hand and lowered his voice, moving through to another exhibit. They were surrounded by remnants of the Byzantine, one of Griffin's favourites. He was in too ill a mood to grace the Egyptian section. "Where is the blood?"

"Brewing," Fawcett replied. "He had a sizeable lair buried in the mountains. It takes time to sniff out a creature of the dark. Trust me, my kind have been doing this for a long time."

"Not all of us have time to waste," Griffin snapped, his body more fragile. He used a walking stick to lean on as they strolled over the marble floors. "You're going back to South America and this time, you're going to bring me what I ask – or your funds will dry up. This time, I expect you to bring back your expedition with you."

"I hear your other experiment is going quite well. The little girl fell from a window, did she not?"

"She did."

"And?"

"And nothing. The child lives. So far that is all we know."

"Believe me, you have your gold, Professor Griffin. Now if you would be so gracious as to grant me mine, I have a vampire to visit."