In the midnight of the prairies all would have been still. A soft wind stirring the grass in the light of a pale moon. Maybe a fox, slinking as foxes do, beneath the shadows of the ruined monastery. In the stillness the sounds of music might have just reached from the saloons of Dodge. But it would have been peaceful.

I always wondered like this, on what lay on the other side before I stepped through.

Lines of light would have cut the air as if from nowhere. The fox's ears pricked, it would have disappeared at the sudden intrusion. The lines of light, slicing reality until they were filled with glaring brightness, illuminating the old crumbling stone. A beacon in the darkness.

Then I stepped through. A Griidlord, splendid and terrible in my armor. The angular points of the pauldrons, the sharp lines of the breastplate becoming more pronounced as the suit adapted to me. A red cap, fluttering in the light breeze as I became present. The Midnight Door.

I stood, the relic in my hand. A rectangle of plastic, no bigger than a playing card. This had been Enki's final payment to me for the slaying of Julia Rosegold.

Enki's voice, excited, not trying to hide it. Okay, kiddo. So I won't be with you, but I'll be waiting. Don't take too long. And take pictures.

In the fold of my suit was an instant film camera that I had brought on Enki's request.

I thought back, I can't take too long. I'm AWOL with a war going on.

Enki said, Oh, no! You don't need to worry about that, nothing happening tonight, I told you. I meant don't take too long before you pop back up here. I'll want you to go back down straight away after you report back. Jimminy whillikers, but this is going to be fun. I hope. Unless it's that auto-erotic asphyx—

I cut it off. I'll be back.

I descended the stairs and could feel the absence of the voice. Like a switch had been flipped, it wasn't just the sudden silence in my mind, it was the lack of that certain hard to place vibration I associate with it.

The room below as it always was. Lit by electric lighting, the refuse heap by the huge impenetrable doors, the dusty stone. A finger of melancholy stroked me. This was where Joel had met me more than once, it was where we had worked out a system for sharing messages. I had not necessarily liked the old Emperor. He had scared me, even as my own power grew. But he had prodded me down these paths, set the dice rolling in a game I couldn't even name. I would never meet him here again, never leave another message in the hiding place, never find one.

I wasted little time on feelings. I moved to the doors. My hands trembled with excitement. There had been so much answer seeking and so few answers. I could feel that something lay behind these doors. It had been my father's intended refuge. He must have had a relic like this, but I had never found it on his body. The Horde had left relics of great value on his corpse, but taken just that one? It seemed improbable. And yet…

I saw the unit Enki had told me about, just alongside the doors, embedded in the frame. It was nothing against the grandeur of the doors. A tiny raised section, with a faint red light, a thin slot. It had been so easy for it to go unnoticed in a place so pregnant with mystery.

I pushed the relic, the card, into the slot. The first moment, nothing happened. The next, the red light became a green light. Then the doors shuddered. Their vibration caused dust and ancient mortar to snow from the ceiling of the room.

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A gap appeared between the doors. My heart raced with anticipation. The gap widened, more light rather than darkness spilling from the opening. I clenched and unclenched my fists, tension pulling at me.

The doors opened and revealed a room. A large enough room with metal walls, floor and ceiling. I had the impression then that this wasn't really part of the monastery with its brick and mortar. This was something ancient and preserved from the time before. The monastery had been built around and on top of this new room.

The room contained furniture, but was fairly sparse. A couple of chairs. A tall metal filing cabinet. A few metal trays on frames; little rollable tables the likes of which are used in surgeries. A tangle of wires and screens and metal boxes, like computers, that hummed faintly. I'd seen computers before, scarce as they may be.

In the centre of it all was the chair. A large long chair, padded, with pneumatic joints and a swivel base. And most importantly, with restraints. Wide thick leather straps, rows of them, designed to hold someone immobile from the top of their head to the tips of their feet.

I didn't move at first. I was staring into something from the past. Something I couldn't explain and yet seemed familiar. It also seemed terrible. That chair, with its straps, spoke of unwilling participants and dark deeds.

I saw the letters A.N.U.B.I.S stencilled across several of the computer-like boxes. I knew that name, it was a name of a god from deepest past.

I reached down and took the camera from the folds of my armor. I would use it now, before I disturbed anything, to keep a record for myself as much as to have something to show Enki. I took four pictures. When each was shot, I opened the hatch at the back of the camera, retrieved the developed photograph and placed a blank in its place. When the photographs were collected and secured, with the camera, in the folds of my suit, I took a deep breath. I was ready to explore whatever this was. My instincts cried to me that whatever it was, it wasn't a good place I had walked into.

I took a step closer. A clipboard rested on one of the metal trays. Gently, like handling a precious artifact, I picked it up. Notes in handwriting I couldn't follow. The letters were illegible to me, elaborate symbols rather than the alphabet I knew.

I flipped the pages. More symbols, tightly packed. No two of the symbols seemed the same at cursory glance.

I flipped on through pages of this, seeing diagrams and charts that were meaningless to me. Then, at the back, were new pages. In the alphabet I did know. In handwriting only too familiar to me.

It was a list of names, with notes. The handwriting was that of Sempronius. My pulse quickened.

I scanned the list. Names, male and female. Alongside each of them a few scribbled notes naming locations and family names. All of the locations seemed to be within the City of Angels. The family names were familiar as well. They were all the family names of Griidlords from history. Rosegold. Yvina… Montagnion.

By each of the names was a date and an x. The dates went back some 12 years. They seemed to be clustered. A dozen or so all shared dates within a few days of each other. Then a gap of weeks and another cluster. All marked with x's. I felt a strange dread rise in me as I turned the page. It was the same. More names, another score. The next page was no different. There must have been sixty or more names here. I felt the dread solidify in me as I turned to the last page. I had a terrible feeling I knew what I would see.

This last page terminated halfway down. The list of names ended part way through the page. On the last name there was no x marked. The last name was one I knew only too well.

TIBERIUS

My hand flew to the side of my head as I dropped the clipboard, staggering back. It clattered on the ground with terrible stridence in the silence of that place.

My knees felt weak, I had to lean on the wall to steady myself. I turned back from the room, and out of it, back to the brick lined basement.

I could have walked on, back up the stairs, to the freshness of the night. Enki would have had its report and I would have taken solace in its company, as poor as it may have been.

But I stopped.

I stopped to look at the refuse heap. Now that I looked at it, I could see beyond the old food containers and rusted cans, beyond the drift and unnamable refuse. There were an awful lot of old rags there. Old clothes. Small clothes.

I shouldn't have done it. Not then. Not with the thoughts and shocks coursing through me. But I couldn't suppress the instinct. The suit was all instinct, it played on my nervous impulses.

SIGHT flared and I could see through the refuse heap. My vision penetrated its depths.

And I saw what an inkling had told me I would see.

Bones.

So many bones.

Small bones.

Beneath the rubbish and debris was a graveyard of children.

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