He did the last thing she’d expected then. With his free hand he pulled out a cellphone, dialled a number and snarled into it,

“Open the accursed door Charles, you are supposed to be watching the security camera, not playing that infernal game again!’

A slab of marble glided noiselessly inward, showing an interior completely at odds with the derelict cemetery. The tunnel was clean, lit with glowing white panels inset in the ceiling. Sloping slightly downwards it disappeared around a corner. He dragged her inside and released her with a shove, behind them the door sealed with an ominous hiss.

Walking in front of him on fear jellied legs she rubbed her throat, when she tried to speak her voice came out as a high croak,

“..so..you just find the victims..someone else does the killing?”

Grabbing her arm he yanked her around to face him, his face wrinkled into an angry scowl.

“Will you just stop with this murder idiocy?! This whole thing has been a disaster from the start, if you had just left well enough alone we would not have had to bring you here in the first place, the least you could do is not treat this like some kind of horror movie!”

Tears welled up and spill down her cheeks, while her body trembled.

“Oh for Nether's sake!” he pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, “don’t cry, hells, I did not mean to scare you! This was supposed to be exciting, chance of a lifetime experience, not… this.”

As she scrubbed her face with the cloth he sighed and took her elbow, more gently this time.

“Come, trust me, please? It is not far now.. I promise it will be worth it”

“Worth it for who?” She was sullenly scared now, angry with herself for coming and with him for trying to be nice.

He didn’t answer, just half led, half dragged her around the corner and into an open space that must once held the family caskets. It was currently decked out with a sophisticated array of computers along one wall, and a diametrically unsophisticated array of ancient artefacts along the other.

There was a tousle headed man, she assumed was Charles, in wrinkled clothing slouched in front of the screens. Around him was a detritus of coffee cups and takeaway containers. On the screens were video feeds, some showing the graveyard, others in places she recognised, like the stacks in the library where she’d stumbled upon the first mentions of the cult, and the antique dealers where she’d found more clues. The screen in front of Charles had a video game she recognised but had never bothered to play.

“Charles, this is Gretchen, Gretchen, Charles.”

Charles swung around on his chair and gave her a startled look.

“Jesus, Angelus, what did you do to her, she looks half frightened to death!”

Angelus looked sullen. “You try explaining this place to someone who has decided you must be a serial killer!”

Charles looked at her, then at Angelus and burst into peels of laughter, doubled over in his chair wheezing between giggles.

“She, *gasp* thought you *gasp* were a murderer?”

Angelus’s scowl deepened, “I have a brooding presence!”

Charles shook his head, wiping his face with a hand.

“You’re all bark ‘Lus, face it, you’re the biggest teddy-bear in existence.” He turned to give her a reassuring smile, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Don’t worry, we don’t want to hurt you, we want to recruit you.”

Her bemusement and fear turned to anger, “recruit? Recruit! What makes you think I would EVER work for a couple of crazy people like you, he practically kidnapped me!” She levelled an accusing finger at Angelus and his face fell.

“I.. I am sorry, I, may have, miscalculated my approach somewhat. But look, I was not lying, we have artefacts, and we can tell you anything you wish to know about our secret society.”

“Cult, it’s a freeking Cult, and I don’t want to know any more!” She spun on her heel and stormed back towards the door.

Angelus strode after her, “you cannot get out unless Charles opens the door.”

Turning on him she snarled, “Then tell him to! I’m done with this bullshit and your stupid practical joke!”

“It is not a joke Gretchen, I can assure you.”

He grabbed for her arm but she whipped it away. “Don’t! Just don’t, Angelus, if that’s really your name, don’t ever touch me again!”

Agitated he ran his hands through his hair, “we cannot just let you go, you must either join us, or sign a non disclosure form, this is serious.”

“And I’m serious when I say if you don’t let me out I’m going to scream this place down, and then sic the cops on you!”

His eyes widened in shock. “Why are you making this so difficult?”

Charles sauntered up the corridor behind him. “Go watch the video feed ‘Lus, let me deal with this.”

Angelus grumbled back down to the screens and Charles gave her a reassuring grin.

“Now, can we start again?”

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “Why should we?”

His grin widened, “tell me Gretchen, which rumour about our society drew you to hunt for us so relentlessly? Was it eternal life, or the cure for all diseases?”

She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled, and huffed out a breath,

“the cure.”

“So..what is it, cancer? A wasting disease? Genetic death sentence?”

She chewed her lip, debating whether to tell him or not, spooked by the intensity of his gaze.

“What difference does it make?”

He shrugged, “not much, we can cure anything you have.”

Sucker punched by his words she staggered, leaning heavily against the door gasping for breath.

“Stop playing games, it’s not funny!”

He stepped closer, his eyes boring into her, “I’m not joking, two years ago I was wheelchair bound and dying slowly and painfully.” He reached a hesitant hand out and rested it lightly on her shoulder. “We can cure you, but you have to join us.. There are.. Side effects, and the world can’t ever know about them.”

She shivered, “side effects? Like what, you have to drink human blood, or kill people, or..”

He cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“Geeze you watch way too many horror movies! No, side effects like,” he started listing them off on his fingers, “living forever, becoming sterile, staying the same age for the rest of your never ending life, having to move country every fifteen to twenty years because you don’t age, going insane watching everyone you love die of old age.”

He glanced at her sadly.

“Angelus is five hundred years old, can you even imagine that? The world just constantly changing around you, never staying in one place, losing people all the time, and he’s nowhere near the oldest. Not everyone is cut out for this, we choose people carefully.”

She shook her head, numbed.

“So..that’s why you’ve been watching me? To see if I was a good candidate?”

“Yeah, we need to be sure you won’t flip out after the first twenty years when you have to be relocated, we’ve had some..” his face screwed up in a wince of remembered pain, ”really bad experiences.”

She felt herself echoing his wince. “So..now what?”

“Now we give you a choice. Two drinks, one gives you an eternal healthy life, with all it’s side effects, and the other one puts you to sleep and wipes your memory of the last few months, you’ll wake up in hospital, perfectly safe, but you won’t remember any of this.”

She nodded slowly, “Ok..so, where are they?”

He seemed nonplussed, “You don’t want to think about it for a bit?”

“No, I know what I want to do.”

He nodded and led her back to the room where Angelus was standing by the artefacts. In front of him were two identical goblets, filled with a thick dark liquid.

She pulled a face, “that’s not blood is it?”

Angelus rolled his eyes at her, but it was Charles who answered.

“No, absolutely not, it doesn’t taste great so we put it in a sugar syrup, the left one is eternal life, the right one is the memory wipe.”

She smiled and reached for one of the goblets.

Charles cleared his throat. “Just out of curiosity, what is wrong with you?”

She paused with the brim of the cup in front of her mouth,

“Schizophrenia, you know, paranoid delusions, hallucinations, hearing voices, that sort of thing.” She raised the goblet, “cheers!” and swallowed the liquid in one long gulp.