They both stopped still, gazing into the room, silent, and overwhelmed. Chests lined the walls.

There were tarpaulins thrown over each, and none were open, but both knew they had reached their goal. This was it, the vault. One of those chests, if they had not been chasing fool's gold all these years, contained what they sought.

There was a sound behind them, and Montrovant moved quickly...without thought. He closed the door tightly, and leaped to the first of the chests, that nearest to the door. It was heavy, very heavy, and he pressed it against the door at an angle, tilting it up on end.

"Move," he cried. "Quickly, search them all."

Jeanne leaped to obey, knowing they had little time now, and suddenly catching the fire that had held his sire in its sway for so long, the Grail. It was here, he sensed it, so close they could touch it if they could only find the correct crate.

He dove for the first, tearing up the lid and digging into the contents quickly, knocking a small vial to the side carelessly. The gla.s.s cracked, but did not break, and the maggot inside began to squirm about in silent rage as the vial rolled against the stone wall, forgotten.

NINETEEN.

Gustav had wasted no time in gathering his men and making his way to the lower levels.

Montrovant would be finding his way into the keep soon enough, if he hadn't already, and though the vaults were very secure, this didn't still the sudden fear in Gustav's heart that they had not done enough.

That vault would have held off an army of men, and most vampires would be shuddering in their final death from the myriad of traps that lined the floor and walls leading to and inside the vault.

Montrovant was not a man, had not been for centuries, and he was certainly not most vampires either. Had that been the case, Kli Kodesh would have tired of the dark one long before this. There were five of them that descended the stairs, the others cl.u.s.tered and spreading out in different directions, searching each level and the walls above.

Gustav and his five made straight for the vault.

The tunnel that Abraham and the girl would have taken could still be open. There was really no way to know without crawling in to check, and there was no time for that. If the dark one was in already, he would have gone straight for the thing he sought. If not, that was still where Gustav wanted to be if Montrovant did appear.

They rounded the corner and Gustav growled low in his throat, leaping forward. He saw what remained of the two guards and their severed heads, crumpled on the floor and rotting, turning to dust.

Too late. The door was open, which meant the first code had been broken. Sliding around the corner, he eyed the first room carefully.

There was nothing.

Somehow, despite the intricate pattern needed to pa.s.s through, Montrovant was not there, and not destroyed...and the door beyond was open as well.

Gustav stepped carefully through the doorway, placing his feet and concentrating. This was no time to give in to the temptation to leap and charge. He would die the death he'd intended for Montrovant, and spring the traps in the bargain, making escape that much easier. He took the first steps, leaped to the side, then back, counting slowly to himself and moving like a darker bit of shadow across the floor.

His followers kept back until he'd started, then followed, mimicking his steps carefully. They made little sound, but even so, there was a sudden scuffling sound ahead, and Gustav knew that the dark one had heard them. Cursing, he doubled his speed, taking chances. He'd done this a thousand times, perhaps more...he would make it through, and when he did, he would bring this to an end.

The first time he'd faced the dark one, there had been no chance to test him. The second time they'd met under the gaze of Montrovant's sire, and Kli Kodesh, and no conflict had been allowed. This time it would be decided once and for all. He was nearing the door when one of his followers missed a step. It wasn't a large mistake, a single stone on the floor, less than a foot from where he should have stepped.

Gustav cursed and leaped, leaving the ground and stretching toward the doors ahead, leaping too late. The floor gave way, and from where the stone had lain seconds before, sharp wooden stakes shot up viciously. There were not a few scattered spikes to be avoided, but a forest of them. There was one every foot, their wicked points gleaming, polished and hardened by fire.

There were screeches all around him as he pivoted in the air, trying to reach the door frame with his fingers, to drag himself free of that forest of pikes. He was soaring, just beyond the sharp points, the wails of those behind him drowning his thoughts. Then he had it. He touched the frame, extended his hands fully, and drove claws into the door frame. He lifted himself up and over the spikes, twisting and coming to his feet just inside the frame, spinning quickly to scan the room behind.

All were five gone. The one who had misstepped stood still, a spike driven up straight through his body, another through is leg, a third splitting his arm. The first spike protruded from his head, holding him fast, and though he struggled feebly, there was no way to save him...

nothing to be done. The mechanism to lower the pikes was on the far side of the room now. There was nowhere to go but forward.

Turning, a low growl starting deep in his chest, Gustav leaped, gripping the handholds in the ceiling easily, swinging across as quickly as his arms could move him. The door at the far end was closed, but that would not stop him for long. If he had to break it from the hinges, he would get through it and he would get to Montrovant. The dark one would not win after so many years, so much effort and pain. Not unless Gustav died in the process.

Gustav dropped and slammed into the door, only to bounce back, nearly falling to the floor behind from the momentum, into the very traps he'd just avoided. Frustrated, he dove forward again, pressing harder into the door. He felt it rattle, felt it bow, but it did not give. It was blocked somehow on the far side, and it was stout. It had been made to withstand a violent a.s.sault from an enormously strong being.

Beyond the door he could hear movements, and he knew the dark one was ransacking the room. He also knew the things that would be found, and the impact that could have, not only on himself, but on the world. In at least one thing Kli Kodesh had been correct. There were some secrets it was better that the world forget, and many of those secrets lay just beyond this wooden door.

It would be worse if the dark one were not searching so hard for one item. In that room there were many crates and chests, many treasures and wonders.

None would be easy to find without knowledge of where to look, and the fourth protection had still to be broken. Gustav wondered if, after all, his precautions might not prove enough.

_.

Abraham limped through the door with Fleurette's help, and they turned right down the pa.s.sageway. There were enough recent scuff marks on the floor to indicate which direction the others had all gone, and they wasted no time. There was probably little the two of them could do if Montrovant had won through to his objective, but Abraham intended to be there at the end. His arm was still healing slowly. There had been no good opportunity to feed before they entered the tunnel, not without wasting valuable time, but he found that the blood he'd taken from Kli Kodesh had other properties.

He didn't have full use of the arm, but it was close, and he found he didn't need to lean so hard on Fleurette for balance. The crawl through the tunnel had been taxing, but not in a way that he couldn't handle.

Abraham didn't need his arm so much to slither through the darkness, and Fleurette had come behind, pressing him when he lagged. It had taken a remarkably short amount of time to return to the lower levels of the keep.

Still, it was obvious as they moved down the pa.s.sage that things had begun to happen without them. They could see that several sets of footsteps led inward along a way that had shown no sign of any moving along it when they'd pa.s.sed the first time.

"The vault," Abraham said simply.

Fleurette nodded. They moved quickly, keeping to the wall, not wanting to present any more of a target than they had to, and having no idea what they would be breaking in on when they reached their goal.

They rounded the first corner and stopped. Inhuman cries met their ears, sounds of utter torment, and the bodies of the guards caught their eyes first, then the open door. Moving slowly, they slipped around the corner of the pa.s.sage, along the wall, and peered carefully around the doorframe.

Abraham staggered back, and Fleurette could only stare, transfixed by the sight that met her eyes.

The closest of those impaled was only a few yards from the door, and his head was turned back toward them, his face contorted, a wooden pike protruding from his temple at a lewd, disturbing angle, and his eyes, still moving, watching them, beseeching them.

Finally Fleurette wrenched away from the scene, and for the first time since she'd carried him on her shoulder through the forest, Abraham felt her collapsing into his arms. He held her for a long moment, then lifted her to her feet.

"We have to get past it," he said softly. "There has to be a way to lower those pikes, and we have to find it. Montrovant is in there, possibly the Grail as well. It can't end this way."

Fleurette's eyes had a glazed expression, and he shook her roughly.

She moved then, drawing back a bit and staring at him.

"Now!" he cried.

Moving to the doorway, he began to work his hands over the frame, seeking, searching. Fleurette just watched him for a long time, her expression deep and unreadable. Then she moved to the far side of the door from where he stood, and began a search of her own.

They moved methodically and quickly, but the door frame yielded nothing. Frowning, Abraham moved to the wall beside the door frame.

Here he found, after only moments, a series of indentations.

Two of them were smudged, and without thought, he pressed them both at once.

The stone door began to slide slowly and inexorably closed, and he saw that as it moved, the pikes retreated slowly into the floor as well.

Whoever died that way was meant to be trapped within as well.

Fleurette saw the door closing, and she moved quickly, before Abraham knew what she was doing.

She grabbed a sword that had been dropped by one of the dead guards, moving to the door as swiftly as she could. Turning the blade sideways, she slid it between the closing halves of stone.

There was a horrible grinding, and Abraham dragged her back. The blade held, then bowed in the center, impossibly, and it looked as though it would snap. The pikes had not disappeared, but they were nearly at floor level now, and the bodies of those impaled had dropped to lie flat over the hideous spikes, none of them moving and the horrid cries thankfully silent as the throats that had emitted them turned slowly to dust.

They stood and watched. The stone had grown silent, and the pressure seemed, if not to dissipate, to grow no more powerful. The doors were stopped.

"We can't walk on that," Fleurette said softly.

"The floor did not close."

He nodded, thinking. Then his eyes fell on the bodies of the guards, dried and withered, and swal- lowing hard, he knew he had the answer.

He didn't speak, and he didn't ask what she thought. If she'd fought him, he didn't know if he could do what had to be done. He hefted the crumbling remains of the first body, moved to the door, and carefully heaved it, tossing it just far enough into the room beyond that he could leap the distance with no trouble. The bones and skin-sack impaled themselves quickly and came to rest.Fleurette's eyes had gone wide as he lifted the corpse, but he saw that they had gone cold again as he turned to her. She moved to the second guard, dragged the body closer, and between the two of them they lifted it and tossed it toward the first.

Gritting his teeth and trying not to think about it, Abraham leaped into the room, coming to rest on the first body as lightly as he could, and reached for the second before he could truly think about it. It was far enough to the second door that they would need to use each twice.

As he tossed the second body again, Fleurette alighted behind him, grabbing his shoulders for support. He moved as soon as she was stable, allowing her to slide around him.

One of those that had been impaled lay near him, and he reached out, taking the corpse by the hand, and dragging hard toward himself.

The body split with a wet sound, like a ripe melon being pulped, and he shuddered but held fast, tossing the torso toward Fleurette, who watched it smack onto the stakes, then reached for it and tossed it ahead of herself.

They continued across the room, using the grisly stepping stones and eventually both were near enough to the second doorway to leap to the threshold. Here they stopped. They could see the length of the short pa.s.sage, and at the other end stood Gustav. The old vampire was tearing at the wooden door in front of him like a mad beast.

"Gustav!" Abraham cried. "Gustav, wait! How do we pa.s.s?"

The old Nosferatu turned, eyes glazed with anger and madness, barely seeing the two who stood across from him. He watched them for a moment, stopping his scrabbling against the stone door, then turned away with a grunt.

"You do not," he called back. "You stay there. I will stop him. It is my destiny to stop him. The treasures have been in my custody. When it is over, if I do not survive, that job will be yours."

He returned to the door and with a sudden ma.s.sive crash he slammed his fists into the door and staggered into the room. The chest that had been angled against the door spun crazily into the room, and the two inside turned, twin snarls and glittering eyes as Gustav fell headlong, staggering and forcing himself by the power of his will alone to rise and to face those within.

Montrovant spun as the door gave way at last, watching as Gustav fell forward into the room, then diverted his eyes for just an instant.

One chest remained. They had ransacked the room, digging through each chest, tossing the contents about the room, but no sign of anything that resembled a cup.

No Grail. One chest between Montrovant and his fate, his destiny.

One chest and Gustav, who was rolling back to his feet.

Jeanne moved. Le Duc was not as old as Gustav, who was nearly as old to the Blood as the dark one himself, but he had other advantages. The moment the door had begun to buckle, he'd moved for his weapon.

Montrovant had moved toward the chests, but Jeanne was ready for something more, something certain.

As Gustav came back to his feet, Le Duc was on him, pouncing with amazing agility. A low, guttural growl roared up from deep in Jeanne's throat as he moved, and as he swung his blade in a glittering arc at the older vampire's neck, he cried out loudly, his sight clouded by the red haze of battle, and the room slowing, nearly stopping, around him.

Gustav heard him at just the last second, rolling down and away again with a grunt, Le Duc's blade tearing away a hunk of his cloak as it pa.s.sed. There was no hesitation after the miss-the blade did a quick figure eight in the air and drove down to where Gustav rolled, following, slicing sideways and this time finding the old Nosferatu's thigh.

Screeching, Gustav changed tactics, sliding into the stroke, taking the damage to his leg and swip- ing his arm at Jeanne's leg. Jeanne saw the motion, moved with it, leaping into the air and whirling.

He came to rest, feet spread wide, balanced, and raised the sword again. Though Gustav moved with incredible speed, the battle haze had settled firmly, and to Jeanne, the entire scene seemed one of slow motion, blurred images. He saw his opponent lunge toward him, saw a long, wicked dagger slip from the folds of his cloak, all as if it were happening one image at a time, and he avoided the thrust easily, sliding to one side, feeling Gustav glance past, and driving his fist, which still gripped the pommel tightly, into the side of Gustav's head, sending him reeling toward Montrovant.

The dark one looked up with a growl. He had his hands on the lock of the final chest, preparing to rip the lid away, but there was no time.

Gustav, seeing that the momentum of his stumble would take him to his goal, moved with it, dagger and hand extended, eyes deep with hate.

Montrovant dove to meet Gustav's charge, glaring in fury. He was there, and Gustav stabbed, but the blade cut only air and what had seemed to be the dark one proved only a wisp of shadow, as its owner stood high behind Gustav, arms raised and crashing down hard over the Nosferatu's back, driving him to the floor. Montrovant moved forward as if to finish what he'd started, but Gustav rolled away, and then there was another distraction, voices, from the door, and Abraham, followed closely by a girl who stank of Kli Kodesh's blood, swung through the portal from the hand holds on the ceiling beyond.

Crying out in frustrated rage, Montrovant slammed his boot down where Gustav's skull had been seconds before. Gustav, however, had ignored the newcomers, already expecting them, and taken those few seconds to slide away and rise once more.

Le Duc turned to where Abraham now approached, crying out sharply and lunging. He would have taken the younger vampire out in the first charge, but Fleurette was too quick. She shoved Abraham ahead, and as he cried out, falling at the unexpected thrust from behind, Fleurette dropped.

Jeanne had not been expecting this. His momentum was gauged to slam him into Abraham full force, and Abraham had been in the doorway. He tried to stop...to fling his arms out and catch himself, but as he moved forward the last foot, his boots met Fleurette where she'd dropped, tripping him and sending him in a long sprawl.

Arms pinwheeling madly, crying out in surprise and sudden fear he careened into the pa.s.sage beyond the door. There was a loud, whooshing sound as he pa.s.sed the first alcove, a sharp, empty cry, and Fleurette, who was just rising to her feet, watched in horrified amazement as the huge blades shot out from the alcove...four of them, dicing Le Duc's body into quarters. He flew on past, and the bits of what he had been pa.s.sed the second alcove, setting off three more blades, one of which caught his head, which had begun to drop down, sending it up again, skittering away.

Fleurette saw his eyes then, hollow and empty, the anger on his lips in no way diminished by the finality of his mis-step. His blade dropped, crashing and grinding, glancing off the others as they pa.s.sed through the pa.s.sage, clattering off the wall and setting off the last set of blades.

As they slid through the pa.s.sage, she saw his head a final time, and the blade, as they met. The blade lodged in Le Duc's skull solidly, swinging the remnant of him around and smacking into the wall, cleaving his skull with a soft, wet shwuk!

Fleurette wrenched her eyes from the image, twisting back to the room. Abraham was circling slowly to where Montrovant and Gustav were facing off again. Fleurette slid around the opposite side, knowing she was next to useless in a pitched battle with two so old, but that spreading their forces, and Montrovant's attention, changed those odds. As a diversion she was more than adequate.

"You aren't going to get it, dark one," Abraham said softly. His eyes shifted to the side, gaze lighting on the last chest. "There are too many of us, and you have no chance. How does it feel to have everything come down to this? How do you like the idea of your failure brought to you by the hands of the one you decided it was more interesting to have alive and chasing you?"

Montrovant's eyes glittered, and his lips curved into a smile. A momentary shadow pa.s.sed across his face as he stared out through the doorway to where Le Duc had disappeared. Another ending.

Another part of what he had been slipping away.

"Don't flatter yourself," Montrovant replied at last, his eyes intent on Gustav, who circled slowly.

The dark one kept pace with his opponent. "I will drink your blood from the Grail this day, boy, and you will be nothing more than the memory you should have been when last we met."

Gustav lunged. Montrovant, ready and just a fraction of a second quicker, slid to one side, grabbing the arm that thrust the dagger to his throat and dragging it past him, tossing his opponent hard to the wall, where he landed with a crash that stunned him for just a second.

Montrovant turned then to Abraham, lunging, but at that second,Fleurette dove in from the side, sending a quick kick toward his head.

Montrovant dodged the kick, barely, but it slowed his forward momentum enough that Abraham was able to move safely out of the way and aim a kick of his own, which the dark one did not manage to dodge. It connected solidly, and Montrovant rolled away, a flash of shadow, and was suddenly across the room, glaring back, bent slightly where his ribs had absorbed the blow. "It will take a great deal more than that, Abraham, to bring an end to the nightmare I have become to you. Do not make the mistake of believing for even an instant that I won't walk on the ground that covers you when your brief stay here is done."

Gustav was on his feet again, and Montrovant spun so that his back was to the chest. Regardless of the disadvantage it put him at, he wasn't moving away from his goal. His three antagonists moved forward together once more, and he squatted slightly, taking a defensive stance and watching warily. He knew he was faster and stronger than any of them, but he would not underestimate a foe at such a crucial moment.

He had done so in the past, and he had paid the price.