Chapter 38 - The Vault of Sins
Marcus shattered the rusted bronze padlock with a discarded iron cemetery stake, throwing his shoulder against the massive doors. They groaned open, releasing the stale, frozen air of a hundred years of decay.
Inside, the mausoleum was lined with marble crypt plates bearing the names of five generations of Vance aristocrats. Marcus walked past the ornate tombs of railroad tycoons, pharmaceutical barons, and corrupt politicians, his footsteps echoing in the tomb.
At the far end of the chamber, beneath a life-sized marble carving of an angel with broken wings, was Crypt 4.
The plate read: *SARAH VANCE — BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER.*
Marcus froze. His breath hitched in his throat.
They hadn't buried Sarah in a public cemetery. Eleanor had insisted on placing her here, in the family vault. Marcus had believed it was an act of high-society respect. Now, looking at the carved stone, he knew it was something far more sinister.
Beside the crypt was a bronze relief depicting the Tree of Life. Marcus pressed his trembling fingers into the roots, finding the hidden mechanical keypad concealed beneath the bronze foliage.
He punched in Chloe’s birthday: *1 - 1 - 0 - 4.*
With a deep, pneumatic hiss, the marble tombstone didn't slide open—it pivoted inward on hydraulic hinges, revealing a brightly illuminated, temperature-controlled subterranean laboratory carved directly out of the granite bedrock beneath the graves.
Marcus carried Chloe down the spiral steel staircase into the secret vault.
The room was pristine, clinical, and horrifying. Stainless steel refrigeration units hummed along the walls. But it wasn't medicine Marcus saw first.
Lining the center of the room were four transparent cryogenic pods. Three of them were empty, their interior frosted with dry ice.
Inside the fourth pod was a child.
May you like
A little girl.
Marcus staggered backward, his knees nearly giving out. He
