The box
sat in the centre of the floor, oblong and
uncompromising and very, very dusty. The oak
was chipped and blackened in places, as
though it had survived its fair share of
wars, but the iron hasps held tight, the
great lock still bound lid to side as
strongly as the day it was made.
Dr
Hilary Jones sat back on her haunches, wiped
a drip of perspiration off her tilted nose
with one hand and dusted the worst of the
grime onto the seat of her jeans. Then she
remembered to breathe. This was fantastic -
so much better than she'd ever dared to hope.
The brief description in the archives hadn't
prepared her for this, had been so unspecific
in fact that the best she'd hoped for was a
straightforward coffin. But this... this was
beyond her wildest dreams. Cautiously,
reverentially, she took the heavy key from
the belt at her waist and fitted it into the
lock. It sank home and turned with a precise
snick that belied the centuries since it had
last been used - centuries since the box had
been moved from the monastery at Mount Sinai
and had lain, undisturbed, in the deepest
darkest vault the Vatican possessed, unmarked
and unnoticed by all but the rats. Four
hundred years, according to the fragmentary
register she'd translated only yesterday -
and if she was right, the contents were even
older than that.
Breathing
deep, she dug her fingernails underneath the
lid and began to lift, grunting with the
strain. Six foot by two foot and at least
three inches thick represented an awful lot
of wood, and besides, she didn't want to flip
it open too quickly and damage whatever was
inside. The hinges squealed in protest,
piercing echoes reverberating from the walls,
but finally she had the heavy boards off and
could peer inside.
And
there it was. Exactly as the records had
suggested, better preserved than she could
ever have expected: the ancient, bundled
shape of a mummified human body. The
sarcophagus was bare of burial goods and
there were no shrouds or wrappings, just the
body. It was sere and shrivelled, shrunken by
the centuries, skin sunk taut against the
bones, yet the hair and nails were
miraculously preserved and even the penis was
still attached. Six hundred years of dust and
dehydration and it looked almost - almost -
as perfect as the day it was buried.
Scientific
principles abandoned in her excitement, she
leaned forward for a closer look, breathing
on the parchment skin and stroking a hand
over the delicate strands of yellowish hair.
And then she screamed. Screamed and screamed
until her throat was raw and her lungs ached,
and slammed the coffin shut, and leaped
backwards to the safety of the wall. Shaking,
and clinging to the rough brick, she closed
her eyes and prayed to God and Jesus and the
Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, and every
saint she could remember from her childhood,
to deliver her from the horror. Because the
mummy, that had lain here untouched for over
half a millennium, that had been locked
inside a box without food or water or air,
that had been dead for all that time, the
corpse had opened its eyes and stared at her.
~~~~~
In the
hotel bathroom Dave Slater turned off the
shower, shook the last drops of water from
his limbs and reached for a towel, rubbing.
It was nearly ten o'clock in the morning and
he really ought to be working on something,
but heck, even journalists were allowed the
occasional day off. Besides, he'd promised
Giles a trip to the British Museum, which his
mate had been pestering him about for months.
Some damned exhibition or other, that they'd
first seen advertised on that devil's
invention, the television; the first mention
of Ancient Greece and the normally laid- back
Giles had sat up, golden eyes pleading like a
puppy begging for a walk.
So here
they were in London, in the middle of a damp
and foggy February. He'd never been all that
fond of British winters and would have liked
nothing better than to decamp to the Canaries
or the south of France for a weekend break.
Still, he'd promised, and it was Giles's
treat, something to cheer the guy up. Lately
he'd seemed so depressed.
Dave
would do anything for Giles Rayne. They might
not be lovers - yet - but that didn't mean he
didn't love the guy to distraction. Loved -
and wanted. The few times he was really
honest with himself he knew he wanted Giles's
body in his bed, or in his shower or across
his desk or even propped against the wall. He
lusted for the long slender limbs and the
narrow shoulders and waist, for the tiny bum
and the neat package between his legs, which
he tended to display in skin-tight jeans.
Hell, he even lusted after Giles's distinctly
patrician nose. If only Giles would give some
sign that he returned that love, or indeed
that he was anything other than a red-
blooded heterosexual male. It hadn't happened
yet, but Dave never fully gave up hope.
Yanking
his wet hair back behind his ears and
slinging on a robe he mooched into the
bedroom. In his absence room service had
called and Giles was slouched in his twin
bed, thoroughly at ease with a silver tray of
breakfast balanced on his lap.
"Morning," he mumbled, waving a
half-eaten slice of toast in Dave's
direction.
"Morning
yourself." Dave concentrated on stifling
his disappointment before it showed. Giles
might be irritating but he wasn't stupid, and
their friendship was too important to risk.
He couldn't help the feelings that swamped
him every time they were alone but not
together, but he could hide those feelings
and avoid embarrassing his friend. Besides,
he was hungry, and breakfast won hands down
over sex. "Where's mine?" he said,
posing dangerously with his hands on his
hips.
Another
piece of toast waved vaguely in his
direction. "Help yourself. This was all
they brought."
"And
you've eaten most of it, by the looks of
it."
"Well,
I've my strength to-"
He
broke off so suddenly that Dave stopped
pouring coffee mid-stream. "Giles? You
okay?"
"I'm
not... sure." The clever eyes were
veiled and far-away; the forgotten toast
dangling half way to his mouth. "It's as
though.... Stefan? No, that's
impossible." He sat for a moment, lips
parted, brow creased by a worried frown, and
then his gaze returned to the present and
rested, troubled, on Dave. "I have to go
to Italy."
"Italy?
What the hell for?" Dave knew he sounded
rougher than he'd intended but Giles's
behaviour had him baffled. Who the blazes was
Stefan anyway? Old friend? Old lover? Some
character that a newly deranged Giles had
just this minute made up? He banged the
coffee pot down and drank his cupful black.
Giles
merely chucked his uneaten toast back on the
plate and scooted his legs out of bed.
"I don't know, but I have to find out.
Please, Dave. This is important."
Dave
sighed, and did his best not to ogle those
legs. When Giles pleaded like that he was
powerless to resist. "Well, okay, if you
don't mind missing the museum. But there's
one condition."
"Oh?
What's that?"
"We're
both going to Italy."
"No."
"Why
the hell not?"
"It's
not a good idea, Dave. Trust me."
"Oh,
no, you can't get rid of me that easily. I
thought we were friends. Come on, Giles.
Please?"
In the
end Giles had given in, although whether it
was due to his pleading or sheer lack of
time, Dave didn't know. Twenty-four hours
later they were sitting in a cubby-hole
office in the British School in Rome, face to
face with the most famous archaeologist in
the world. Hilary Jones had written a series
of popular books about Egyptian burial
practices and followed that up with a string
of lectures, conferences and tv appearances.
Rumour had it she'd just been awarded a
weekly slot on the UK's prestigious Channel
Four. On screen her manner was brusque and
business-like but in real life Dave thought
she was surprisingly feminine, with an odd
little breathless voice and a habit of
pushing her hair behind one ear. It didn't do
a lot for him but Giles seemed to be lapping
it up.
"Thank
you for agreeing to see us at such short
notice, Dr Jones," Giles said. "I'm
currently studying history and archaeology
and I've done a great deal of research into
early burial practices. I've wanted to meet
you for some time." This was news to
Dave, who often berated his friend for
appearing to have no job or means of support
at all. He kept quiet, though, in the
interests of finding out what was going on.
"The
pleasure's all mine, and please call me
Hilary." The doctor smiled into Giles's
hazel eyes like a lovesick teenager and Dave
winced. He'd always thought he was handsome,
with his long dark hair and spaniel eyes, but
Giles only had to grin and the women flocked
to him. Damned if he knew how the man did it
- but he was uncomfortably aware that
whatever it was, it worked on him, too.
Day-dreaming, he missed the next part of the
conversation; when he came to Giles and
Hilary were discussing mummification. It
seemed a strange way to go about tracing
'Stefan', whoever he was, but presumably
Giles knew what he was doing.
"But
surely all mummies were wrapped in shrouds.
It was an important part of the mummification
process."
"Not
necessarily. That argument may no longer be
valid, Mr Rayne."
"Giles."
"Giles,"
she acknowledged with a smile. "I myself
made a... fascinating discovery only
yesterday. The details will have to be
validated, of course - the circumstances were
a little... unusual, to say the least. But if
I'm right, it could demonstrate that later
civilisations... used a different
technique."
The
scientific mumbo-jumbo washed straight over
Dave's head, but the journalist in him began
to realise that Giles was following a
deliberate thread. The more questions he
asked, the more obvious it became that he was
trying with quiet persistence to get the
doctor to reveal the whereabouts of her
discovery.
Sadly,
she'd spotted it too, and proved adept at
avoiding the issue. "I'm sorry,
Giles," she said for the sixth time.
"I'm sure you understand. This discovery
is... potentially invaluable, and should form
the basis of many years of research. I can't
just... give that away to a potential
rival."
And no
matter how much Giles charmed her, she
refused to budge.
~~~~~
"Well,
that didn't get us very far," Dave
commented later, over a cappuchino at one of
Rome's myriad pavement cafes. "We're no
nearer to finding whatever it is you're
looking for."
Giles
blew some of the froth off the top of his
cup. "Really, fluffy coffee. What will
they think of next?" he muttered, then
appeared to hear what Dave had said. "Oh
yes, we are," he contradicted.
"Oh
yeah? How d'you work that one out?" A
small dog sniffed with interest round his
ankles and he resisted the urge to kick it.
The dog's owner, a young woman in a scarlet
beret and a short fur coat, glared at him
before sweeping the ball of hair into her
arms. He eyed it - and her - with dislike,
then turned back to his friend. "She
wouldn't tell you what she'd found or where
she'd found it."
Giles's
only reply was an impatient shake of the
head. "Never mind that. Come on, drink
up. We have to go and find the library."
"We
do? Why?"
"Because
that's where Hilary found the reference to
her discovery. She let that slip while she
was talking to me."
"I
hadn't noticed."
Just
for a second Giles's mischievous grin
appeared. "Dave, the state you were in
back there you wouldn't have noticed if a
herd of elephants had driven past in a
Sherman tank."
Dave
was so pleased to see his friend smiling
again, he decided to let that one go.
~~~~~
Midnight
found them marching down an endless
underground corridor with a bewildering array
of locked doors leading off it. If he hadn't
already pinched himself, twice, Dave might
have thought he was dreaming, but he supposed
it did make sense in a weird kind of way. In
the library Giles had checked the signing-out
register and requested the exact same
documents Hilary Jones had been working on
the previous day. He'd spent the next four
hours leafing through a collection of torn
and faded parchment sheets while Dave tried
to stay awake.
The
boredom had been worth it, though, because at
six o'clock Giles grunted, shuffled the
papers together and scraped back his chair.
"Got it! If only I'm in time...."
Dave
still had no idea what he was talking about,
and the rest of the evening did nothing to
enlighten him. Giles turned into a whirlwind,
requesting meetings with what seemed like
half the senior officials of the Vatican -
meetings during which he spoke fluent
Italian, much to Dave's surprise. Those
meetings had left them with a great many
slapped backs and shaken hands, and a key,
which Dave was still convinced they weren't
supposed to have. It had simply appeared in
Giles's coat pocket after the final meeting
and despite a great deal of badgering, his
friend flatly refused to say how it had got
there.
But a
key was just a key, and they still had to
find whatever it unlocked. Which was
presumably what they were doing down here, in
the bowels of the earth, in a series of
tunnels far beneath the Vatican's treasuries.
They'd already walked for several miles when
Giles paused in front of a door. "This
is it."
"It
is? How can you tell?" All the doors
looked identical; even the numbering wasn't
logically arranged.
"Let's
just say I'm following my-"
"Nose?"
He couldn't resist.
"I
was going to say instincts," Giles
replied with a rueful grin. "But I guess
nose will do just as well." He produced
the key, unlocked the door with a flourish,
and led them inside.
The
first thing Dave noticed was the dust.
"Aaaa-chooo!"
"Bless
you," said Giles, absently, poking about
in a stack of crates. The room was piled high
with boxes of all shapes and sizes, together
with wrapped paintings, shrouded sculptures
and what looked like a crucifix, but placed
upside-down.
"What
is this place?" said Dave, staring about
with his eyes open wide.
"Hmm?
Oh, the Italian name translates roughly as
'Repository of Evil'. It's where the Vatican
store their occult collection."
"I
didn't know the Catholics were into
witchcraft."
Giles
sighed, raising a cloud of dust motes that
danced in the still air. "They're
not," he said with great patience.
"They study the ways of their enemy in
the hope it will give them greater strength
in the fight against him. When they've
finished studying an object they can hardly
unleash its evil on the world, so they lock
everything away down here. I'm surprised you
can't feel it."
"All
I can feel is the dust getting up my
nose," said Dave, wiping the streaming
organ in question on his sleeve. "The
whole place is inches deep in the stuff.
There can't have been anyone down here for
years. "
"Ah,
but that's where you're wrong. I'm almost
certain this is where Dr Jones made her
discovery yesterday. Now all we have to do is
find whatever she found...."
"Easier
said than done. There's a ton of boxes down
here."
"Then
the sooner we start, the sooner we'll find
it," said Giles, and vanished behind a
crate.
Dave
gave a little grunt of annoyance and followed
suit. The smaller items of the collection
were laid out on a series of racks, which ran
across the room from floor to ceiling and
were packed so full he couldn't see anything
of the room beyond. The first set of shelves
were stacked high with boxes of daggers,
handles carved with contorted creatures with
rubies for eyes. He was pretty sure Giles was
looking for something larger than those, and
moved on. As he examined the next bank of
shelves he felt an odd sensation between his
shoulder-blades, as though something with
eyes was watching him. He shrugged, trying to
ignore it, but the further he went, the
stronger it grew, and the less friendly he
thought it was. But that was ridiculous -
apart from Dr Jones, he and Giles were
probably the first people down here in fifty
years. He shrugged again and did his best to
shake off the feeling of doom.
For the
next half hour he inspected shelf after
shelf, finding boxes of skulls and hundreds
of arcane books and a quite astonishing
quantity of dust. Alternately sneezing and
wiping his nose on his sleeve, he sniffed his
way to the back of the room. There, finally,
he came to the end of the shelves, and beyond
them discovered an open space with a single
large box sitting in it - a box that bore an
uncanny resemblence to a coffin. "Hey,
over here," he called. "Is this
what you're looking for?"
"That's
it," said a voice just behind his
shoulder, and he jumped. "Sorry,"
Giles added. "I was already heading this
way. Following my... nose again."
They
studied the wooden sarcophagus and Dave made
a discovery. "Look - it's
unlocked," he said, pointing to the
dangling hasps.
"Just
how our friend Hilary left it, I hope. Help
me?" Giles took hold of the lid and
began to lever it up; when Dave added his
weight it lifted easily out of the way, and
they peered eagerly inside. But there was
nothing to be seen, except the faintest
sifting of dust and one small cobweb clinging
to the side.
"Shit,"
said Giles, sitting back on his heels, and
Dave thought he'd seldom heard his friend
sound so desolate.
"Hey,
come on," he said. "Whatever was in
here was big - too big to carry very far.
Maybe it's still around here somewhere."
The prickling sensation was back, more
uncomfortable than ever, making his scalp
writhe. There was an odd smell, too, of must
and ancient clothes and even more ancient
skin - and a sudden faint surge of cool air
at his back. It was almost as though someone
was standing right behind him and breathing
down his neck. But that was so silly he
should be laughing at himself. The atmosphere
of this place had clearly affected his mind.
"Are
you looking for me?" said a soft,
musical voice down his ear, and he jumped so
hard he bit his tongue. Swallowing blood, he
whirled around, but at first he could see
nothing. Then he glanced upwards, without
quite knowing why. There, dangling above him
- from what, he couldn't see - was the figure
of a man. A slender young man with a boyish
face and long golden hair which swept down
from his head and almost reached the floor.
The fine threads of a cobweb glistened on the
ends of that hair. Dave swallowed, felt the
blood leave his face, and grabbed a
candlestick from a nearby shelf.
"Oh,
put that away - I am not strong enough to
fight anyone," the young man said.
"Hello, Gilles. I see you have cut your
hair. Are you going to introduce your
companion?"
The
effect on Giles was extraordinary. He took
one look at the young man and turned as white
as chalk. "Stefan!" he gasped.
"Then it was.... But... How did you... I
mean, when.... I thought you were dead!"
The
young man shook his head, dislodging a shower
of dust, and scowled. "It takes more
than a locked box to kill me, Gilles my dear.
Or four years of torture before that.
Although it has been lonely. I would not
recommend it to anyone. Do either of you have
any water, by any chance? I am rather
thirsty."
Dave
shook his head, not quite liking the
predatory glint that had lit up in Stefan's
eyes. If he was thirsty he could well be
hungry too, and if he really had been locked
away all this time he might decide to satisfy
the pangs by eating them. "Shouldn't we
be, er, going?" he said, directing an
urgent glance at his friend.
But
Giles was still transfixed. Eyes wide, mouth
agape, he stood staring at the sweep of
Stefan's hair, until finally the cement
binding his legs seemed to break. He strode
across the floor, reached above his head to
where Stefan's waist must be, and half-
pulled, half-carried the young man to the
ground. Then he swept him into an embrace.
Dave
felt his heart strings ping one by one as the
embrace became a kiss, and then a passionate
full-on snog. The two figures had melded into
one, their arms wrapped tightly round each
other's shoulders and waists, Stefan's head
in the curve of Giles's throat, Giles's cheek
resting on Stefan's hair. So much for
tempting Giles into a relationship with him -
whoever this guy Stefan was, it was obvious
they'd been close. Were still close - close
enough to have a bond that could travel for
hundreds of miles. How else had Giles know
that Stefan was newly awake?
Not
even that bond could explain what Stefan was,
though. No human could possibly survive being
locked away without food or air, and no human
could come alive again as rapidly as this. As
Dave watched the colour seemed to be
returning to Stefan's cheeks and his gaunt
limbs to be plumping out, filling the space
inside the ragged velvet coat he wore. It was
almost as though he was taking new life from
Giles, but surely a kiss couldn't have that
much effect?
Dave
cleared his throat. "I, er, look, I
don't want to interrupt the reunion of two
such old friends, but we really should be
going. The people at the Vatican are going to
want their key back, and we might get thrown
out of the hotel...." The reaction to
his words was not what he expected at all. At
first he thought they were going to ignore
him altogether, but then Stefan swung round
and Giles's head snapped up. Both had a
curious feral yellow light in their eyes, and
blood lined Stefan's mouth. At the base of
Giles's throat two neat little round holes
had been punched, healing already but still
oozing a thin red trail of blood.
"Wh-what
are you?" Dave gasped, taking a couple
of steps back towards the shelves and the
safety of the door. "Not... not a
vampire? Vampires don't exist."
"Tell
that to Gilles," said Stefan, slowly
licking his lips. He opened his mouth in a
wide but mirthless smile and showed his
pointed teeth.
"Oh
God," said Dave and took another step
back. "Giles? Come on, run, while you
still have the chance."
Giles
stayed exactly where he was, one arm still
laying claim to Stefan's waist. His eyes
seemed to glow in the gloomy light and when
he opened his mouth, it was to reveal two
sharply pointed fangs of his own. "And
why would I want to leave?" he said, and
it was as if a stranger had spoken to Dave.
"Oh,
God," said Dave again. "What's he
done to you? Why are you looking at me like
that? And why does he keep called you Gilles?"
"Because
that's my name, Dave. Gilles de Rais - at
your very disobedient service." He gave
an ironic bow, sweeping an imaginary hat
across the floor. "And I'm looking at
you like that because I need to feed, too,
and I can scent the rich fresh blood pumping
through your veins."
Dave's
knees began to sag. "No. No, that's not
possible. I've heard of him and he died
centuries ago."
"Did
he, Dave? Did he really?"
Both
men were advancing on him now, the hunger
clear in their eyes. Dave's feet were glued
to the floor but he dragged them free and
began to creep backwards, never daring to
turn his back. If he once let them out of his
sight they might rush him, or fly, or
whatever it was that vampires did, and he'd
be dead for sure. Panic ate into his brain,
but then he remembered the daggers on the
first set of shelves and knew if could reach
them first he stood a chance. He realised,
too, that he still had the key - he could
feel it weighting his pocket and jabbing into
his leg. Maybe he could trick them somehow,
and slam the door and lock them both in here
for another fifty years. It would be tough on
whoever came down here next, of course, but
perhaps he could warn somebody in the Vatican
far above his head, and they could perform an
exorcism or whatever it was they did.
He
continued to retreat in the face of their
combined stalk. It was hard to see where he
was going without turning his head, and he
backed into the shelves and cut his hand.
Instinctively he put it in his mouth, tasting
iron as he sucked the scratch, and felt the
waves of hunger and - arousal? - climb a
notch as they caught the scent. They pressed
forward more urgently now and if he wasn't
careful he'd be trapped against the shelves.
Risking a quick glance to left and right he
judged the best way to run - but even as he
braced himself he knew it was too late.
Yessss... he heard in his mind, and then they
were on him, one either side, cutting off his
escape routes and crowding into his space.
He
tensed, but knew without trying that fighting
was no good. There were two of them to one of
him and they possessed an unearthly strength
that belied slender build or (in Stefan's
case), wasted limbs. Their faces bore down on
him, mouths already open and fangs
glistening, and he felt despair settle in his
bones. Shaking off the grasping fingers for a
few valuable seconds, he appealed directly to
his friend.
"Giles?
Or Gilles, or whoever the hell you are. Don't
do this, please. I thought we were
friends." Friends but never lovers,
now....
It
worked, at least in part. Giles drew back
just a little and smiled. "You're right.
We are friends and you've been good to me the
last few years. Because of that, I'll let you
live. Because of that we'll drain you and
make you one of us. We'll be together for all
time after that."
"But...."
Oh, God, there was so much he wanted to say,
and so little time. He didn't want Giles if
it meant sharing him; didn't want this
so-called gift. But it was too late, and the
time for protest had gone. He felt the warm
stir of their breath on his cheeks, and the
twin jab of agony at his neck, and the
strange exciting pressure as they began to
drink their fill. "Noooo," he
cried, but it was only in his mind, and he
was floating now on a dark and tossing sea.
Feeling fled from his limbs and a grey mist
descended in front of his eyes, and for one
terrible moment he thought Giles had broken
his promise and killed him after all.
But
sensation of a different kind returned,
sharper and keener than before, and with it a
terrible thirst of his own. Blindly he
reached for the first available flesh and
found Giles's arm, offered freely for his
needs. He grasped it and hunted the vein with
nose and lips, following the scent of the
newly drunk blood, and then he bit. Thick
fluid filled his mouth but the expected taste
of iron was gone - there was just warmth and
sweetness and desperate, desperate need, and
he sucked until the arm must be dry.
Too
soon it was taken from him. It wasn't nearly
enough, but he felt strength of a sort
returning to his limbs - enough to get out of
this place. "We should leave," he
mumbled thickly, and this time Giles listened
to him.
"Yes,
my friend, it would be dangerous to linger
here now, lest the churchmen find us and lock
us away again."
"Where
will we go?"
"Does
it matter? We will be together, the three of
us, and they will not separate us
again." He bent his head and kissed Dave
slowly on the lips.
"Together,"
said Stefan, and did the same.
The
vampires took one arm each, and with Giles
supporting him on one side and Stefan on the
other, they began to walk towards the door.
As they moved behind the shelves he looked
back once and saw the coffin lying open and
beckoning in the middle of the floor. And he
knew this was the place where he'd died.
