Before he could make a move, however, or face another attack, soft laughter floated in from the pa.s.sageway beyond, and they all froze. Kli Kodesh appeared in the doorway seconds later, a shock of hair held high in his hand, part of Jeanne's scalp still clinging to it.

"It would appear your hotheaded young protege made a tactical error, Montrovant," the ancient cackled. "Oh, this is too delicious."

He flung the bit of scalp to the side with a shrug and stepped to the center of the room, ignoring them all and turning, taking in the scene with eyes bright. Montrovant had seen the old one in this mood before, and it did not bode well for the events to follow.

"You have led us a long way if your only plan was to end it yourself,"

Montrovant said at last. "I grow weary of the game."

As he spoke the dark one concentrated. He'd considered every possible scenario, or so he'd believed, for this final moment. He'd known there would be conflict, had known, even, who and what that conflict might entail. He'd underestimated Abraham, but the young one was not the danger.

None but Kli Kodesh had ever truly stood in his way.

But it would end. As Kodesh turned to him once more, getting ready to make some inane comment about how entertaining it had all been, or how it would end, Montrovant struck. He lashed out with his mind, focused and powerful, putting every ounce of his will behind that strike, every pent-up frustration, every dream and desire of his long quest.

The effect was one he'd learned from Eugenio long years past, a thing he'd tried, shrugged his shoulders at, and tossed aside, but recently reconsidered.Sometimes the old ways were not wrong.

Sometimes there were things one could learn if one paid attention.

There was a crackle of tension in the air, a sudden stab and draining of energy as it took effect, and Montrovant staggered back. He was blinded himself for a few seconds, but the gasps and cries around him told him that, at least in part, he had succeeded. Even Kli Kodesh let out a sudden, keening wail. For once, the old one had not foreseen everything.

Blinking once, Montrovant opened his eyes and glanced about quickly. The others were staggering blindly, fists pressed to their eyes, lost. With a fierce cry of triumph, he turned, slipping to the side of the chest and taking the hasp in his hand firmly, jerking up and out with incredible strength and flinging the wooden lid back with a crash. He only needed a moment. He had no idea how long the blindness would last.

To blind those within range had never seemed an important skill when he was new to the Blood.

Eugenio had shaken his head, insisting, telling him over and over that there were no weapons one could do without, that there was an instant in time for each bit of knowledge to prove its usefulness.

Cowardly as an attack, this particular bit of learning had finally found its moment.

As he tossed the lid back, he stepped back quickly. A cloud of dust had risen, as if flung, as he pressed the top open, and before he could react it had settled over him. He shook his head in annoyance, stepping closer again, peering inside, his hands tossing the top layers of packing away quickly. He was past the first layer, mostly silk cloth, and pulling packages from the interior, when he noticed that his arms seemed heavier. Blinking, he fought the sudden lethargy, eyes narrowing.

He pulled free a larger package, dragging the silk wrapper from it with a growl. A stone, a simple stone. He pulled free another, and the same thing, this one flat and oblong, but stone. A low cry rose from deep in his chest. He clawed at the box, his knees growing weaker, realizing too late his error in opening the chest so hastily. Cursing, he fought to remain upright, dragging each package free, the stones dropping away to the sides now and his bright, hungry eyes watching in panic as they fell away.

Then he slumped forward, unable to rise, the motion causing another cloud of the odd dust to rise. From far away he heard voices...

heard Kli Kodesh.

"Stay back!" the old one barked. The voices were nearing, and Montrovant's fogged brain realized that the blindness had worn off.

"Don't go near him until he is perfectly still and I can close that chest, or you'll end up the same way."

Montrovant felt his head crash down into the chest...hard...felt the world slipping away beneath him, and managed only a final curse of frustrated rage as his mind emptied and flowed away from him. His final coherent thought was how much he hated Kli Kodesh's cackling, ancient laughter, as it echoed through his mind and chased him into darkness.

TWENTY.

Montrovant awakened slowly, shaking his head to try to clear the odd lethargy that had claimed him. At first he had no recollection of where he was, or what had happened, but as the haze faded and his thoughts returned, he bucked up, trying to rise, eyes wide open very suddenly, twisting from right to left. He could not move. His arms were held tightly, and his legs bound so completely they were held immobile.

The most he could do was to writhe, worm-like, on the cold stone where he lay.

"Ah," a cold, rasping voice said softly, "he has rejoined us."

"You!" Montrovant spat. He tried to move again, actually succeeded in sliding an inch or two across the floor toward Kli Kodesh's boot before lying in place and arching, struggling against whatever bound him.

"You will find the bands quite sufficient to contain you," Kodesh said softly. "They worked well enough on young Abraham here that you should have been convinced long ago."

Montrovant shook again, screaming in rage.

Helpless.

His gaze shifted about the room, and he realized he was no longer in the vault. It was a large chamber, richly hung with tapestries and luxuriously furnished. There were others, many others, gathered around, but only four stood near him. Kodesh, Gustav, Abraham, and the girl he'd seen, the girl who'd killed Jeanne.

"It was not in that chest," Kodesh said softly. "I never underestimated you after our first meeting, dark one. You would have found it and taken it if I'd made it that easy. Those other treasures were very real, and there were forces within that room that, if you knew their secrets, could undo the world as we know it. The Grail, beyond all that, is special. It is safe.

You pulled away the lid, but you did not look beneath the chest, where the second vault's security begins."

"You lie," Montrovant spat, eyes blazing, and arching again from the floor. "You lie again as if it is easier to you than any other speech. If I am a fool, it is for believing you ever had the Grail in the first place."

"I will tell you truly," Kodesh said, laughing with a brittle, harsh tone that removed all trace of humor from the sound, "I have never been able to separate myself from it. You are d.a.m.ned, dark one, but I am doubly cursed. My existence, such as it is, is not mine to end, even should I want to. I am bound in ways you could never understand, and the Grail is very real. You were right to covet it, to seek it. You were wrong to believe you could succeed. I am not the only power standing between you and such a holy relic."

"You will not keep it from me," Montrovant raged.

"You are correct in that, Montrovant," Abraham cut in, stepping forward and leaning close. "We will keep you from it instead. I think you will appreciate what is in store for you; perhaps better than any other, you will see the irony."

He stood aside then, and Montrovant caught sight of a coffin-length wooden box. It was not quite as large as the one in which he'd imprisoned Abraham, but it looked very solid, and there were metal bands along the length of it and across the sides, waiting to be bolted in place.

Montrovant struggled wildly then, and the others did not hesitate longer. Abraham moved to his feet, and Gustav to his shoulders, and he was lifted and carried quickly to the box, writhing in their grip, and lowered inside without ceremony. He tensed his muscles, screaming loudly and tearing the skin, snapping bone, gritting his teeth as he struggled against the binding steel, in vain. The pain cleared his thoughts for a bright moment of agony, and that became the last sight, the image that stuck in his mind; the four of them, staring down at him. Each face was etched in a different expression.

Kli Kodesh, grinning as always, watched and enjoyed the play of emotion over Montrovant's face, and the thought of the dark one's fate.

Gustav, eyes still angry, watched sullenly. Abraham, torn between memories of his own shorter imprisonment and near destruction, and a satisfied smile of revenge. The girl-Montrovant didn't even know her name, but she watched him with the only hint of real emotion in the group.

Then Montrovant knew only darkness as the lid was shoved into place, and he struggled harder still, hearing the metal bands wrapped tightly over the wooden lid, and the sc.r.a.ping of the bolts being pressed into place and cinched tight. His mind slipped slowly into that darkness, and he screamed. Over and over, louder, louder still, until it seemed the box, and the world beyond it, must crumble and fall away from the force of his voice alone. There were no answers, and the bolts were tightened quickly and with finality.

Outside the crate, the screams were only soft, m.u.f.fled echoes, easily forgotten. As Gustav's men completed the securing of the crate, and carted it down to the lower level to be loaded into a wagon, the others turned away, moving to a table near the wall. Kli Kodesh sat at one end, Gustav at the other, and Abraham pulled a chair out for Fleurette to join him along the outer edge.

At first, all were silent, lost in their own thoughts.

Then at last Abraham spoke."We will leave tomorrow at sunset. I want to get back to Santorini and Rome before too many days and nights pa.s.s away. I have a keep to claim, and a lot of questions to get answered before I know how I stand there. I'm not too happy about being chased by Noirceuil, and Lacroix is on his way back there now, as well as Montrovant's men. There will be a lot of questions on all sides, and too few answers."

"They will be happy enough to see you when you bring back both word of our new location, and that crate. I believe there are very deep vaults in the bas.e.m.e.nts of the Vatican. Montrovant will not be searching for any Grails in the near future, and it will be quite the coup for your bishop as well."

Abraham only nodded. "That crate will not see the light of another day, unless the Church falls. If that happens," he added, shrugging, "he will likely be stolen, or burned, along with all the other secrets the Church hides."

Kli Kodesh laughed again then, and there was a bit more of real mirth in the sound. "Now that is a show I will not want to miss. I only wish, in a way, that if it were to happen, that Santos would be around to share it. Remind me one night, when I visit you again, to tell you the story of how Montrovant and I met."

Fleurette watched, and listened, her eyes dark.

Turning at last, she watched Abraham closely. "I will go with you, because there is no other choice left."

Abraham stiffened. "That is the only reason? I did what I did to keep you from Noirceuil and Lacroix. I did not think of what it would mean until I held you, and realized I would lose the one being in life and death who'd taken a moment to care what happened to me. I am sorry."

She watched him still, not moving. Finally, she spoke again. "I am not sorry. Not yet. I had nothing, and that is why I left it behind so easily. I expected nothing, and was offered this. I will not decide so quickly that I hate it, or you. Too much has happened, and not all of it bad." Her face softened a bit at this.

"I wanted adventure, and that you have given me, and plenty."

Gustav rose then, voice devoid of emotion. "I have much to do here.

The vaults must be cleaned and repaired before Rome gets it in their head to send someone to investigate security. The artifacts must be re- packed and inventoried. It will take time, but that is never a problem for me."

"You have always guarded your secrets well, Gustav," Kli Kodesh said softly. "Even Santos was not better in that respect, and he was very powerful."

Gustav walked away and did not look back. The others fell silent, splitting off slowly as the dawn approached.EPILOGUE Deep within the vault, which had been temporarily sealed, a vial lay cracked and forgotten against one stone wall. One gla.s.s side had broken, leaving a tiny opening. The vial was empty.

The End