"You're back?!" Bruno's voice trembled with both relief and fear.
Gideon, who had been standing by the window with a pistol in his hand, dropped the gun on the table and rushed toward them.
"We heard sirens!" he almost shouted. "Gunshots! Screams! We thought… fuck, we thought you were gone!"
"What happened?"
Flash sank wearily onto a chair, pressing a hand to his bandaged shoulder. Blood was already seeping through the fabric again.
"Laurent's dead," he said curtly.
"Ethan killed him."
"Well, 'killed' is a bit of an informal way to put it."
Ethan stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
Bruno and Gideon stared at him.
"Ethan…" Gideon said quietly.
"What… what's happening to you?"
Ethan didn't answer. He simply stared at the floor. The voices inside the stake kept whispering.
"Home…" they repeated.
"You are our home…"
"The curse… is spreading," Ethan said softly.
"I'm going to become one of the pillars soon. I can feel it growing."
"This thing is almost everywhere. Someone needs to block it. Otherwise… I don't know how much longer I can hold on."
Gideon stepped closer.
"What do you mean it's spreading? Ethan, isn't this happening too fast?"
Ethan didn't answer right away. Instead, he slowly pulled two things from inside his jacket and placed them on the table under the lamplight.
First, the small silver key with the intricate pattern. It clinked against the wood. Then the old photograph.
Bruno and Gideon leaned over the table.
"Is that… her?" Gideon asked quietly.
Ethan nodded.
"Laurent gave me the key before he died. He said it would show me some kind of truth. And the photograph… was in his desk."
Flash, still clutching his wound, reached for the documents he had brought from the mansion. He dumped them onto the table, several thick folders, handwritten pages, diagrams, old letters.
"Let's start going through them," Flash said.
"While Ethan is still himself, we need to find some answers."
They gathered around the table. Bruno, despite his weakness, moved closer. Gideon switched on another lamp.
Flash opened the first folder. His fingers left bloody prints on the paper.
"Here… mentions of 'Container 47'," he muttered, flipping through the pages.
[Container 47, I don't know what's stored in it, but I know for certain! There are some kind of capsules inside. One of our scientists created them and passed them to the girl. She only gave one name… Maria…]
"Laurent kept records and even wrote about this plague, that's what he called it." Ethan shuddered at the words.
[Plague energy, remnants, this isn't our power at all. I don't know where Gérard got it or how he managed to separate Luft particles and create something else? It resembles the curse that follows our kind of killing and in general…]
[The condition after infection with our curse. And that crap Gérard keeps, I'm afraid it could mean the end for vampires too.]
[Very familiar and ancient power, only I can't remember… where it comes from?]
[Perhaps we've run into something truly ancient…]
"Plague…" Ethan repeated quietly.
"So what's inside me… or what I still have to go through… is the plague?"
Gideon looked up from the documents.
"There's an entire correspondence here."
"Laurent wrote to someone that the essence is ready for the final stage. And that the vessel is almost ripe."
"The date is two weeks before we met Ethan."
Bruno swore under his breath.
"They were preparing Maria from the very beginning, Ethan. Not just as bait, as a vessel."
Ethan sat staring at his hands. His left hand was failing again, the fingers clenched and unclenched on their own. The black lines on his neck pulsed beneath his collar, but he still tried to hide them.
"I need someone to block this," he said suddenly, raising his gaze. His eyes held a heavy, almost desperate plea. "Before the darkness crawls completely into my head. While I'm still… me."
Flash looked up from the papers and gave him a long, heavy look.
"We'll find a way," he said. "The key, the documents, 'Container 47' none of this is random. But first we need to understand what this essence is and how to stop it."
Silence fell over the room. Only the rustle of paper and the distant sound of rain outside the window.
Ethan sat gripping the silver key in his palm. Inside the stake, the voices, now joined by Laurent's mocking new one, whispered softly, almost tenderly:
"Home… you are our home… and soon you will accept it…"
Only the rustle of papers and the occasional crackle of the old lamp broke the silence that Flash noticed.
On the table lay the documents spilled from Laurent's leather folder, the old photograph, and the small silver key.
Ethan sat staring at the photograph. His fingers trembled. Despite his weakness and his friends' protests, he reached for the thickest folder and opened it.
"Ethan, wait…" Gideon began, but Ethan was already turning the pages.
"I need to know," he answered dully, not lifting his eyes.
"I want to know now, while I can still read!"
Flash wanted to say something, but only gave a heavy sigh and leaned back in his chair, pressing a hand to his wounded shoulder.
Ethan read quickly, almost feverishly. His eyes raced across the lines. The further he read, the tighter his jaw clenched. His face grew paler.
Finally he stopped on one of the letters. The date was almost two years old. Laurent's handwriting, neat, slightly old-fashioned.
Ethan read aloud, quietly and clearly:
"Maria herself insisted on staging her death."