Jeanne said softly.

"No," Montrovant said, laughing suddenly, "no, they have not. But there has always been this at the root of it all. The Grail has been fixed in my mind for so long that I feel it with me, even though I've never set eyes on it. I can sense it, calling to me, mocking me, and that eats at me constantly. I was a rational man in life, a bit impulsive, but a good leader. I was destined for great things, I believe.

That ended, and even after death, I was cautious, learning, seeking knowledge if I did not possess it."

"Then Eugenio told me the story of Kli Kodesh, and of the Grail. I still dreamed of the sunlight then...did you know that? I still thought of the times I walked carefree with women, stealing away with them, not to drain their life and continue my own, but to share hot, sweaty moments and secrets by moonlight. When he told me the legends about the Grail, it was the beginning of a dream.

"I believed it might bring some of that back to me. I believed that, with the Grail, I might be able to free myself from the shadows, return to that light. Certainly all those I knew would be dead and buried, but what did that matter to one who was eternally young, and handsome? I saw myself as a king in the world of the living, and that intoxicated me.

"Over the years," his voice lowered, and his gaze shifted back to the window, "I have come to a different perspective, though the fire to possess the Grail is no less intense. I know now that there is no going back to what has been. I would no more fit into the world of the living than I would wish to join it. My Embrace did not lessen me, Jeanne, it fulfilled me. This is who I am, what I am.

"That is why I will go to that mountain. I know, as well as you do, that in a true test, we have no chance to wrest the Grail from Kli Kodesh. There is no power on Earth I would wager on pitted against him. But he is a mad old fool, and he will give us a chance. I will take that chance. I have taken it before, and it has done nothing but extend the chase, but somehow I feel this is different. He grows weary of the game as I do. He will not play it any longer, but will work the pattern to a close."

"Do not be comfortable with that," Jeanne said, leaning forward suddenly. "He has always woven the patterns, and we have always done just as he knew we would, have always woven ourselves into the tapestry of his little games without considering options that might have changed the outcome.

"You are not a chess piece. You do not have a set move that you cannot deviate from. You need to antic.i.p.ate the pattern. Probably more than once.

He will expect us to try something new, and we must do that, but perhaps there are several things we can do to change the pattern.

Maybe there are ways to alter it altogether.

"The goal will remain, and that part of the puzzle is his to command, but the pathway to that goal, that depends entirely on you."

Montrovant continued to stare out the window, but Jeanne could tell that his words were getting through.

"The trick," Jeanne added softly, "is to know just what would amuse the old one the most. That will be the pattern, and once we know it, we can work to upset it."

Montrovant spoke then, voice low and thoughtful.

"If we can find a way to disrupt his pleasure, a way to make things swerve toward an end that will not satisfy him, we might tip his hand.

He might move too swiftly, trying to rectify that which we shift, trying to fill what would be a horrible void in his existence, a dull ending to a long, drawn-out game. It is possible that if he believes he is winning too easily that he will tip the scales on our side to balance things, and we might take advantage of that moment.

"One thing I do believe. If we win, he will let us go. He will see the Grail in my hand, and he will smile, and he will begin to scheme with that new knowledge and image in his mind. The changes that could be possible if even half of what I've learned of the Grail are true would be enormous.

The entertainment value of it all cannot have been lost on him.

"If not me, he must plan to unleash those artifacts one day. I have to believe that his design for the game includes both possible endings. He certainly did not seem concerned whether I killed Santos, or Santos ended my existence, so long as we met and clashed. Neither does he care so much about his own followers, since he has pitted them against powers they cannot possibly face more times than I can count, only to pull them out at the last moment."

"Well, whatever we do must wait for nightfall," Jeanne said, rising slowly, "and the dawn is growing too close for my comfort."

He moved slowly to the closet, pulling the door wide and making his way inside. Montrovant watched, then turned to the window again before he rose as well.

"There is something else," he said softly. "I sensed it as I hunted this evening, a presence, a power. Not Kodesh, I would recognize that. Something different, dangerous. I wonder if it is a part of the old one's puzzle that we haven't seen, or a new piece yet to be fitted, one that we can work to our advantage."

Jeanne smiled. "If there is a way, we will find it.

I have grown quite fond of the notion of holding the Grail myself. I would hate to be disappointed so near the end."

Montrovant laughed softly. "We will drink from that cup together then, my friend. You have been with me longer than any, been more supportive even than my own sire, and his 'family.' When the time comes, we will end our existence, or begin anew, together."

Then they closed the door quietly behind them.

Du Puy was already asleep, half drunk and snoring, along the wall beside the closet door. As it was closed, the knight stirred, scanning the room in silence without rising, then resumed his slumber.

His rest was deceptive. Even a few flagons of wine would not be enough to prevent instinct from taking over if any opened the outer door to their room.

It was locked, and there were strict orders to prevent any entering, even the others who traveled with them. If that door stirred (and it would not give easily, since one of the stout wooden chairs had been propped at an angle beneath the handle) du Puy would be on his feet and ready before any could gain access.

It was probably an unnecessary precaution. There was no reason for the villagers to suspect anything, and the innkeeper was certainly going to be loath to do anything to end the steady flow of gold that had been flowing into his purse since they entered his establishment.

Montrovant was not one to take chances, and du Puy needed a place to sleep it off in any case. The room fell to soft shadows and the only sound was the tall knight's heavy breathing. From the closet, nothing.

_.

On the mountain, deep within the earth, Noirceuil's body rested, but his mind roamed. He could not find the rest the light should have brought, though he was beyond its reach. He could not find peace in any form, but only endure until the night fell once more and the hunt could begin anew. It was the only time the ache would stop, the only way he could reconcile his existence in any way that did not lead to madness.He tried to pray. Where he'd once felt his G.o.d very close to his heart, holding him up and supporting his mind and heart, he felt a void.

Where his voice had seemed to take wings each morning and night, his thoughts and dreams making their way to realms beyond his understanding, where answers had always been waiting to fill his mind with peace, there were no answers now. The words, prayers, and dreams shot off into a deep, dark pit from which there was no return.

He remembered the church so vividly. He could still remember the feel of the sun, warm in the morning, shining in through stained-gla.s.s windows to fall over the altar as he prayed. It had been a small church, a parish of so few that there were Sundays he shared the Ma.s.s with no more than one other, but it had been so precious, so complete.

Now nothing was complete.

Every thought brought the anger. Every memory brought the rage.

He knew what he was, and he knew he was d.a.m.ned. He knew the void would never be warm, or filled, or complete, but he did not lose sight of his G.o.d, for all that. If he could not serve and be redeemed, he could serve and save the souls of others. With his own soul forfeit, the means justified the ends. He would put them all to rest, one by one. He would kill them finally and completely, preventing them from stealing the lives and souls and afterlives of others. He would not rest until they all crumbled in the sunlight, or until he himself ceased, at last, to exist. His prayers were no longer for a place in Heaven, but for the nonexistence of h.e.l.l.

Lacroix did not understand. He saw the raw edge of Noirceuil's anger, his rage, but he did not see the pain at its base. He saw the dark hunter, but he did not see the angry young priest, robbed of salvation.

He saw the obsession, and the growing lack of concern for the Church, and these things angered and frightened him. Lacroix was a man with his mind and heart set on a very worldly future. A nice, soft job in Rome, and a long, opulent retirement.

He had been so vibrant when Noirceuil first met him, so full of fire and the love of the hunt. Lacroix would have been a knight instead of a priest, if it had not been for the hunt. The notion that darkness existed, and was powerful and loose in the world fascinated and intrigued him.

When Noirceuil had shown him how it could be hunted, ferreted out, and exterminated, the seeds were sown. Rome had known for years, possibly centuries, of the d.a.m.ned.

There were legends and stories to frighten children, had been since the beginnings of time. There were no stories without some sort of basis in reality.

Noirceuil had heard those words; now he lived them.

Lacroix had never questioned his partner's idiosyncrasies, though others in the Church had certainly cast some odd glances in his direction. It was the results that had kept things moving and relatively safe. Some suspected Noirceuil's secret- how could they not? Rumors were rampant.

Though he had what seemed a logical explanation for his odd actions, the lack of deviance in his routine had been noted more than once. It was unnatural, to say the least, to never see the light of day, even if one were obsessed with the night.

To exist as the d.a.m.ned existed. To walk only when they walked, see only what they saw, and to end their foul existence at every opportunity, all in the name of G.o.d. That was his story, his tainted afterlife, all that remained of his dreams, and the glory of the love he'd felt for a G.o.d who had long abandoned him.

If there was hope for him, he would seek it in revenge. If there were truly "many rooms in his father's house," he would seek his through the hearts of as many of the filthy, bloodsucking demons as he could bring along for the journey. They were d.a.m.ned, as he, and they should not be walking the earth. They should not be borrowing the lives and souls of others to continue their own unclean existence. They should, in fact, not be at all. That was his goal, to make that a reality.

The sun rose, and kissed the earth, the trees, the wind stirring the gra.s.s and animals slipping from their holes and dens to scamper about the clearings in search of food. Noirceuil waited. No rest, no peace, only the agony of knowing that the time would be wasted until again the sun dropped.

_.

For once, Noirceuil's little jaunt into the forest, from which he never returned before morning, did not upset Lacroix. He still watched the opening in the cliff warily, but he did not believe that, if Abraham and his young one had entered there, that they would be exiting into the bright sun, so he was safe from them.

Sadly, it was the partner with whom he'd spent long years on the road who brought his fear. He was losing trust in Noirceuil fast; and in their work, that could prove fatal very quickly. They had to be able to depend on one another, and without Noirceuil's uncanny ability to spot, flush, and destroy the d.a.m.ned, Lacroix would have been dead, or risen to a darker unlife, a hundred times over. He focused on that as he rolled into his blanket beneath the stone ledge. They had come so far, and this was to be their most important mission. He could not afford to become the weak link over some childish fears.

Surprisingly he felt his eyelids growing heavy, and it was not long before he drifted off, ignoring the dangers that surrounded them. One thing that had characterized his time with Noirceuil was their enemy.

During the daylight, there was no enemy.

They hunted by night, a practice he now thought, at last, to question, but by day it was as if the entire madness of it all slipped away and disappeared.

The sun missed him as the shadow of the stone wrapped around him, and he slept, though dark shadows chased him through his dreams.

SIXTEEN.

Abraham felt the weight of the sun release him with a slow reluctance. He shook Fleurette gently, knowing she would be slower to rise, but needing her to move as quickly as possible. If this was a way into the new stronghold of the Order, two things were fairly certain.

Those inside would know it was there, and they would use it as a way of exiting.

Neither fact was cheering to him as they lay side by side covered by a mountain of earth. It was not a good place from which to negotiate.

As soon as Fleurette stirred against him he urged her forward. There was no going back, and he had no way to be certain that Noirceuil would not find a way to open the portal from the far side. Even less than the Order did he want to meet that one in such a dark, confined s.p.a.ce.

So they moved on and in. It was no more than fifty feet before the pa.s.sage turned, and around that turn they came to another portal. This one was already closed, but Abraham did not panic. He slid forward, gesturing for his companion to stay as she was for a moment. The pa.s.sage had widened considerably, and there was a bit more room over his head as well, so maneuvering was less of a problem.

Abraham examined the stone door carefully, fingers pressing into it here and there, sliding around the edges, then walking across the center, looking for a latch. He found nothing, and as he continued to search, growing a bit more frantic, he felt Fleurette moving up beside him.

She remained quiet for a long moment, then her hands shot out, sliding past his outstretched arms and pressing against the stone. With a quick shrug of her shoulders, she pressed the stone slab to the side hard. It slid easily, sinking into a slot in the tunnel wall. She looked at him again, and he thought for just a second that the smallest flicker of a smile had danced across her eyes, but then it was gone, and she was still as silent and unreadable as she'd been since the morning she awoke to death.

Without a word Abraham slid through the small entrance and she followed. Once they were inside, he carefully pulled the stone slab back across to hide the fact of their entrance as long as possible.

There were those among the Order who would remember Abraham, even those he'd thought he could call friend. Now he was less certain, and it made sense not to rock the boat until one knew how deep the water was.

He slipped along the nearest wall, Fleurette moving easily behind him, and found that they were at the end of a long, narrow pa.s.sage. It curved around to the left, then evened out and opened into a larger pa.s.sage. Along this larger way he could feel air moving. He turned into that slight breeze, still staying as close to one wall as possible, and moved carefully inward. It was only moments later that he caught sight of the stairway ahead. There were torches flickering along the walls, illuminating the pa.s.sageway dimly.

Abraham knew they would be on the lowest level of their stronghold that was feasible.

The core of the Order had been Embraced by Gustav's original band of Nosferatu. Abraham had heard the story over and over again, though it was endlessly fascinating. Upon their being Embraced, the old one, Kli Kodesh, who seemed little more than a legend to Abraham, had shared with them of his own blood, and it had altered them somehow, binding them to him, and changing their makeup.

Gustav had been Nosferatu, and old, at the time of his transformation, and his features still bore the scars of that odd, decayed group.

The others were more fortunate. Their skin fairly glowed. While other d.a.m.ned were pale, even white at times, these were opaque and milky. Even Gustav had lost much of the harshness of his features, his deformities somehow becoming less obvious. There were other changes.

During his stay with the Order, Abraham had not once seen one of them feed. It was possible that their rituals forbade public blood- taking, but Abraham was certain it was more than that. They did not feed because they needed much less blood than other d.a.m.ned. They felt the hunger, but it was more of a nagging itch than a consuming fire.

There was also an uncanny ability to be remain awake in the morning, before dawn, and to rise before it seemed possible. Never had Abraham seen one of them retire for the evening, and every time he'd risen, they had been there, alert and busy, moving about their business as though they'd been there all along.

They spent their nights, when not moving about on business that had never included Abraham, in study. In the mountain where they'd abandoned him the libraries and laboratories had been extensive, even astonishing. The wisdom of many ages had been contained within those walls, and Abraham was willing to wager it had come along with them as well, or been moved slowly, a bit at a time, the entire time they'd been under that mountain.

Now he was pitting himself against this group of powerful Cainites, with a newly Embraced companion at his side, and to remain behind with a monster like Noirceuil about was an even more certain destruction than that which they faced.

Not for the first time Abraham wondered why, when Santorini had given him the letters and the gold and sent him on his way, he had not turned toward some faraway land and never looked back.

Abraham cared nothing for the Church. He'd given up on that form of salvation when his life was taken, then handed back to him warped and darkened.

When he'd walked about as a man it had seemed well and good to offer his life to G.o.d and his trust to salvation. d.a.m.ned as he now knew himself, it mattered little and seemed nothing short of frivolous to worry over it at all.

But the Order promised something more. Their existence, their odd powers, their secrets and knowledge, these were goals worth latching onto and following. These were things worth believing in.

Moving more slowly, he came to the bottom of the stone stairs that led up into the shadows above.

There was still no sound, no sign that any save himself and Fleurette inhabited the huge building. For the first time since coming up the trail he wondered if he'd been wrong. Was this where they'd come, or was it an elaborate hoax? It was not beyond the Order to raise this huge stronghold, fill it with nothing for years, then slip in and back out of it, escaping down the far side of the mountain and into oblivion.

These thoughts brought a hint of desperation to his movements, and he began to climb the stairs, moving more rapidly. Fleurette reached out, placing a hand on his shoulder, slowing him. He turned to bat her arm away, but her eyes stayed his hand.

She was right. He could not go barreling up those stairs without regard to what might be waiting. Not that he had a plan in any case. So close to his goal, and yet still so far from any resolution.

They made the top of the stairs, and here the pa.s.sageway branched in both directions, with another stair leading further up directly opposite where they stood. Abraham glanced down the pa.s.sage in either direction. There were doors lining this pa.s.sage, and by the s.p.a.cing he determined that they were probably the private chambers. It was a lower level still, completely cut off from the sun during the day.

"We have to go higher," he said softly. "They won't be here by night."

Fleurette nodded, and as he moved across the pa.s.sage, taking the second set of stairs upward, she followed closely. He had not bothered to explain to her exactly what they were doing, or what sort of danger they now faced. It would have taken far too long to make her understand, and her silence had begun to wear on his nerves. He was half con- vinced she'd lost her faculties during her Embrace.

He moved even more slowly than before. There was no way to know how far down into the mountain the structure reached, or how far they would have to climb to be near the top. He climbed steadily, pressing to the shadows along the wall, watching and listening for even the tiniest breath of motion, the softest pa.s.sage of air.

Ahead, he saw that the stairs ended in another wide pa.s.sage, and he stepped up to the frame of the doorway, glancing to the right, then turning left, and stopping. Gustav stood not ten feet from him, watching him intently. The old Nosferatu did not move to attack him, nor did he seem particularly disturbed or surprised to see his young would-be follower.

"h.e.l.lo, Abraham," Gustav said softly. "It has been a long time."

Abraham froze in place, and Fleurette, who had moved up beside him at the sound of a voice, watched Gustav in silence.

"Not so long," Abraham said at last. "Not long enough to forget my name at least. Why did you leave me, Gustav? Why abandon me after so many months of my company? Am I that contemptible?"

"You are not of the Order," Gustav replied simply.

"I did not form the Order, and it is not my place, though I oversee the actions of those here, to add to that number. I did as I had to do, as do you. It is good to see you again."

"Who are you?" Fleurette spoke, and Abraham turned as if he'd been bitten.

Gustav watched the childe in amus.e.m.e.nt. "If you have a few hundred years, girl, I would be happy to sit back and tell you.

Unfortunately, however, none of us can afford too much time for idle banter at this juncture."