33

CITY OF SILVER

PRESENT DAY, KASHMIR, PENSI LA MOUNTAIN PASS

A holographic display erupted out of the ice-laden ground, unfurling across the ancient door, setting it alight with a blue and white. It glowed out of the darkness like a gateway to another universe – or an underworld.

Nikola fell back in surprise, gasping at the sight. The hologram was interlaced with the door's surface, allowing the ancient thing to bleed through like a ghost. Nikola stuttered at the creation of light, unable to coax a suitable litany of awe from his throat.

"Is – that?" Helen began in a whisper.

Nikola nodded slowly. "Remind you of something? It's just like the interface for Hollow Earth," he replied, staggering to his feet. "Remarkably so."

"I don't understand – what is this trickery?" Apries hissed, pointing a claw at the display. His polished extension slipped right through finding nothing but the solid stone door behind. "It is witchery!"

"Calm, brother. I have seen this before but never on quite such an impressive scale," Amasis tugged his brother away.

Nikola and Helen shared a worried look.

"I think it's a map," Helen added, staying close to Nikola as they edged forward together.

Nikola tilted his head, lifting his hand to the vision without quite touching it. The holographic projection wasn't just using the doors as a screen, it was made to fit against its contours. The innocuous lacerations in the stone now formed part of the holographic pattern. Everything was deliberate, purposely designed to remain hidden over the millennia but to what end, or for whom?

"A map – and a lock," Tesla frowned. "Your friends in Hollow Earth appear to have stolen this technology. This is beautiful, more complex – clearly the parent."

"I'm not sure I like, 'complex'," she whispered. "Can you open it?"

"If I was not looking at it with my own eyes, I would not believe in its existence. It's – it's miles ahead of our current technology. There's a reason we don't have true holographics, Helen. Projecting light onto turbulent air is a nightmare – interacting the the projections, harder still. I mean, the people who built this door are pre-civilisation. Fire should be a challenge to them. I don't know what to make of this. Give me a moment..."

"I warned you the ancient ones were gods." Having escaped his brother, Apries leaned against the door, lounging in the middle of the projection. He was a bit like a cat trying to smother the unknown technology with his presence if only to dominate it.

"Do you mind?" Nikola waved the vampire off. "I need to think. If these gods of yours have the same pension for traps as the Pharaohs, the wrong move could bring the entire cave network down on top of us."

"Suspicious little creature, aren't you?" Helen elbowed him playfully.

"Did you or did you not find yourself sealed in a tomb?"

Helen rolled her eyes. "That was once and it was your fault!"

"I got you out..."

"I had the car keys!"

Nikola shrugged. "Yeah but – I would have missed you."

"Whoa – the hell you doin' in here, Biggie?" Henry stepped back as an unhappy Sasquatch stormed out of the wine cellar. After a moment of surprise, Henry gave chase, following the furry man up out of the cellar and straight into the command room. He watched him fiddle with the satellite feed, trying in vain to call Magnus. "Nah mate – they've been out of range for ages. They went into the caves with the vamps. We won't be hearin' anything for a while."

"That bastard vampire!" Bigfoot whacked his paw down on the table making everything electronic jump.

"...uh, which one?" Henry pried carefully, nudging the keyboard back from the edge.

Bigfoot turned, his golden eyes practically on fire. "Tesla..." he growled.

Henry wasn't sure why but the utter ire that Tesla could create in fellow creatures was definitely a talent. "Let me guess, Tesla locked you in the cellar when you wouldn't let him steal your wine?"

"He locked me in the cellar to stop me warnin' Magnus. He's gonna create another bloody vampire race!"

Henry's mouth fell open dramatically.

"Dude – you gotta give the half-breed credit, that's some serious ambition. And – that was my keyboard..." Henry sighed in dismay, as Bigfoot pounded the innocent plastic board until all the keys leapt out and scattered over the floor.

"Computer's broken," Bigfoot muttered, nodding at the shattered carcass of Henry's keyboard.

"Are you sure – I mean – vampire empire – it sounds like a bad teen novel..." Declan folded his arms, the black T-shirt barely large enough to support the added bulk he'd put in during the months spent fighting the Cabal. He led an elite special unit now, not just a pack of kids fumbling blindly through forests and cities in search of dangerous abnormals.

"I thought you said you'd read Tesla's file?" Henry held up his electronic clipboard.

"'said he was some kinda old, vampire, genius scientist," Declan shrugged. "Rather run of the mill when you've fought off a dragon and half the Cabal underworld."

"Try genius mental case," Henry tapped the screen. "Dude's a half-breed vampire thinks he's de-facto king of the world."

"Nah really, Mr Foss," Declan waited for a real answer but Mr Foss's head just started to shake slowly. The wolf wasn't kidding. "Come on, 'king of the world'? It's a tad Disney, yeah?"

"Totally, Disney with lots of wine and blood sucking – oh no wait," he pointed his clipboard theatrically at Declan, "that's HBO. Lots of things die on that network, I don't want to be a smear on someone's TV screen."

"Well," Declan turned more serious, a few frown lines deepening in his well-worn face. "How viable is Tesla's plan?"

"Yeah, that's where the 'genius' part kicks in. The dude built the modern world, ruling it is his pet project. We gotta go send re-enforcements for Magnus. She's up there all alone with three vampires and an immortal. Secretly I bet they're all set on tearing each other apart over what's buried in that mountain."

"I'll put a team together," Declan agreed. "But you're on it, Mr Foss. Zimmerman can keep watch over the Sanctuary."

"Great, just because I got bitten once you're going to leave me house sitting for the rest of time," Will rolled his eyes and fought the urge to scratch his ankle. It didn't matter how how much time passed, there was still a bit of sand creature venom stuck under his skin. Officially the last time he'd follow Helen Magnus into a tomb.

"Yeah, that's how this works," Declan eyed the protege. "If anything happens to Magnus, you're the only one even partially trained to keep this place running."

"Fine, fine!" Will backed toward the corridor. "Just, heads up yeah, if you unleash a vampire plague on the world."

"I'm coming too," Ashley announced, lurking by the door on the far side of the room. She leaned against the wooden frame, disguising the pain she still felt in her leg from the sand creature's bite when this whole mess had started. Her grandfather had done his best to patch her up but there were angry purple scars all over her skin. She'd never forget that world – the smell of rose oil in the air and London's smog swollen against the sandstone buildings.

"Not a chance," Declan replied sternly. "You're injured."

"And yet I'm still your best. That's my mum, Declan. I'm going."

"No no no no... don't touch it. Claws off!" Nikola fussed, shooing away the two vampires. They were growing restless, circling Helen and Nikola. Maybe they were hungry, beady eyes cast down on Helen. She was a delicacy – a deadly one but that didn't make her any less alluring.

"And I thought you had a lecherous eye," she murmured against Nikola's ear.

Her soft hair tickled Nikola's cheek, making him smile a little. "It was adoration," he insisted. "But I catch your point. They've been feeding on too much fresh blood. It's an addiction. Hey – if we wait here long enough they might even consider me a snack."

"Nikola, stop enjoying this. You have a puzzle to solve."

He rolled his eyes. "Helen, I can't even read the interface." They both looked up at the towering wall of lights. It was beautiful, glowing letters rippling around a maze-like design, at its centre the two door handles. "You're thinking it too – aren't you?" he purred.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Thinking what, precisely?"

He waved his hand at the mirage. "This can't be our ancient past. You know it – I know it. What's more probable, Helen – that this world has lost an entire, advanced civilisation from the face to the earth – one that has influenced nothing or, or this is something else? An isolated occurrence. Ow! What the-"

Helen slapped Nikola hard over the back of the head. "If you start that bloody 'I can hear men from Jupiter talking' thing again I swear I'll kick your arse out of his cave. It was cute back in the twenties, not when I'm freezing to death!"

"For the record, I was right – it was the radio signature of the planet Ju-"

"I DON'T CARE!"

"I can read this..." a voice slithered onto the air several hours later. It was Amasis, prowling around the cavern on the opposite side to the door.

"What are you doing over there?" Nikola called out, turning around. He couldn't see Amasis but he sensed him, like he sensed Apries brooding over to their left, perched on a boulder. Archaeology wasn't his strong suit. He was much better at warmongering and empire building.

"Come, young half-ling and find out," Amasis purred back.

Helen gave Nikola a distinct, 'be careful' look as Nikola extracted himself from the floor and picked his way over the frozen innards of the tunnel. Amasis was high up the pile of rubble, his black, beady eyes watching the holographic display intently. A pair of long, pearl fangs picked up the light from the hologram, their sharp edges glowing.

"Do you see it?" he asked, extending a claw forwards.

It took Nikola's eyes a moment to adjust. He was sure his mouth fell open, "But that's..."

The constant stream of illegible data, impossible to decode, was purely decorative. Just like the notes in music, it was the sound that they'd been missing – the big picture which in this case was a glowing set of ancient hieroglyphs.

"They don't say anything," Amasis frowned.

"Oh yes they do!" Nikola all but bounced. "You can't see the forest for the trees..."

"Pardon?"

"Nevermind..." Nikola muttered. "Read them out – letter by letter..." Amasis scowled but did so, the letters forming a single world.

"This is a tomb."

Nikola leapt off the rocky outcrop and scampered over the tunnel. He stopped short of the door, hovering his hand over the last collection of symbols. At their heart was a star and around that, a nest of brightly burning points of light.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Helen asked cautiously. "And what does the damn door say?"

"Helen, do you trust me?" he purred. Nikola reached out and prodded the points of light. Unlike the rest of the map, they moved, allowing Nikola to rearrange them into the correct positions of the planets orbiting the sun. Twenty-five in all. When he was finished, Nikola pressed against the fifth planet from the star, which if you allowed for a few dwarf planets to be counted, it nudged Earth back to fifth position. It turned blue and then the hologram vanished replacing the entire door with a Trefoil knot, seething with energy. "Get back!" Nikola shouted, quickly retreating into the cave as the great door began to unlock. The Trefoil knot sank into the doors as they started to move.

"It was a test," Nikola growled, tugging Helen back behind one of the rocks. "There are things about our solar system that you can only know if you've left the planet. Whoever built this tomb wants to be found but only by suitably advanced civilisations."

"I thought there were only nine planets in the solar system," she frowned.

"There were only six last time I checked," Apries shrugged.

"So clearly I'm the only suitably advanced life form here." Nikola had to duck out of reach as Helen went to slap him again. "Visitor..." Nikola whispered. "It's a tomb of the visitor."

The door screeched, split down the middle, its two sides bowing open. Granite ground against basalt leaving charred gouges in the ground. They all stood back, huddled behind a large boulder for protection as debris rained down from the roof. The entire cavern shook as if it had been mortally wounded.

Finally it stopped, the two slabs of rock sitting flush against the walls over the cavern. In their wake was a void, half-hidden in the veil of falling dust and rock.

"This place is unstable now," Amasis whispered. "Feel it?"

"It's trembling," his brother agreed. Apries placed his palm against the floor of the cavern. "I'm not sure if it'll hold."

"Maybe it's not meant to hold," Nikola agreed with a worried look. "If the lock was a test, this could be a time tr-" he was interrupted by the air next to them cracking apart in a flare of violent purple. The debris falling from the ceiling glowed in sympathy, like dying embers of a fire or the remnants of a dying star.

The Immortal Professor appeared, dressed in gowns of charcoal silk. All his efforts to camouflage with the modern world were discarded. Instead, he stood at his full height of six-foot-nine, long limbs and bony form padded out by his ornately embroidered cloak. His eyes were violet, piercing through the three vampires and Immortal woman in front of him. In this light, Helen's eyes had a flicker of violet in them too. It almost made him smile.

"You should not have opened that door," he said, voice like silk. Slowly, he climbed the steps to the block of marble in front of the open door. The pillars of flame either side burned fiercely.

"Where is John?" Helen was the first to speak, stepping out toward the Immortal. She was his kin – sort of – the last part of his race.

The Immortal scowled. "I do not know the whereabouts of your pet murderer," he replied. "I tried to warn you away from here. For thousands of years I've chased off vampires too curious for their own good and misguided humans – usually Romans," he had to admit, "from finding this place. Now we have no choice. Come..."

"Wait," Nikola stood beside Helen. "You're not going to kill us?"

A sickening laugh echoed off the walls. "We are all dead now, Dr Tesla."

"Oh man, I hope you're right about this."

The helicopter swayed in the stiff currents of air wrapping themselves around the pass. The mountains were tall and their edges sheer. Gales rippled along them, knocking sheets of ice free, sending them crashing into the valley below.

Henry gripped the railing above him and peered down as the helicopter swooped low. He was met with a face full of snow, blowing through dusting everyone inside.

"Still nothing from Magnus," Declan shouted into his microphone. "A nearby Geology station has picked up some small quakes in the area. They're telling us to watch for avalanches."

"Like that one?" Henry pointed at the cliffs ahead, where a huge crack had snapped across a snow-drift. As they approached, an enormous swathe of the mountain slipped away. "Man that's brutal." Ashley tapped him on the shoulder. "Wha?"

"Up ahead," she pointed to another bank of peaks, twice as tall as the ones they were flying through. They were blacker, steeper and consequently had less snow to obscure their dark skin.

They were swallowed by the doors. Three vampires and two immortals entered as a front, walking shoulder to shoulder into the passage.

"I've seen that symbol before," Helen said. "The knot on the door."

"That would not surprise me," Nikola replied, shaking his torch when its light flickered. "The Trefoil Knot is scattered throughout human civilisation. Norse, Egyptian, Indian – mathematically it is a symbol for Immortality – two identical but opposite strings joined in a union that cannot be untied." As if to prove his point he shined his light onto the Immortal's cloak. There was a very faint design of the knot etched into the billowing surface.

"It's been staring us in the face all this time, littered through humanity."

"We're really in trouble now," Nikola whispered. They were only a few minutes into the tunnel when the surface beneath their feet changed from rock to metal. Nikols scraped his boot into it, scuffing away thousands of years of dirt to reveal the dull sheen of silver beneath. It didn't just look like silver, it was silver. He lifted his gaze to Helen. "Naturally occurring?"

She shook her head.

Apries brushed his arm against the wall – it too was silver. He shied away from it. Fear of the metal was in his blood.

"There's an electric current running through it. This whole thing is like a circuit board – or a computer..." Nikola whispered.

"This isn't my first tomb raid," Helen started, shining her torch at the wall. "Aren't they meant to have writing along the walls, detailing the life of whoever is entombed? There's nothing here. Not even a scratch. Are you sure this is a tomb, Amasis?"

"Vault – technically."

Another holographic wall erupted in front of them, blocking their path. Everyone stopped, eyeing the veil of light with suspicion. It was the Immortal that stepped through it first. It shimmered around him, a soft electronic note reverberating in the air – then the whole display went blue, as if in approval before waiting for its next guest.

"Blood marker?" Helen whispered to Nikola.

"Probably... let's just hope it likes vampire as much as immortal – or it'll just be you and the prof."

"The Half-ling should go next," Amasis insisted. "It might not have such a violent reaction."

Nikola steeled himself, gazing at the wall of light. He passed through with only a soft flicker in the light and another reassuring tinge of blue. "Hey... finally, something not prejudiced against vampires."

"I'm not sure it's a good sign, Nikola," Helen had to admit, as the other vampires came through. "Don't you think this is creepy? This whole place – it feels like we're walking into a lair."

"Aren't you the least bit curious though? This is the answer – to what we are, to who we are," Nikola closed his eyes for a moment, letting the faint currents beneath his feet and in the air run over his senses. "This is the heart of our blood, Helen."

The air chimed again and again as the vampires slipped through. Far behind them, he cave was beginning to collapse. Boulders slipped out of the roof and crashed into the tunnel. They barely heard the steady destruction as they pressed deeper into the silver tunnel.

John fell back into the forest, vanishing amongst the succulent leaves and marsh beneath his feet. A thick world of mist swirled up to his waist. If he ducked down, he could escape entirely beneath its cold swirls of moisture.

There wasn't any great need to hide. His prey was slicing fearlessly through the forest ahead, swinging a bloodied machete at the undergrowth. In the three weeks that he'd been following Colonel Percy Fawcett, he'd seen him cut down creature, plant and human alike. In polite society he was an explorer – a gentleman. In the wild he was an Immortal with all the violence that came with it. Sometimes John wondered if he was more like these creatures than the vampires. If, somehow the two races were connected and he'd ended up with this pure form of violence.

Fawcett stopped ahead and John lingered out of sight, watching through the mist. The Colonel was standing in front of a sheer wall of black cliffs that had been torn from the earth. Etched into the wall were tiny symbols that glowed faintly like jewels set against the brutal rock. The Immortal lingered, as though reading them – then smiled, vanishing into the caves like a dark spirit.