“The smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand,” Rhun repeated, his voice reverential.
“Everyone on that mountaintop died.” Jordan’s words came faster now. “Only something inhuman, like an angel, could have survived that poisonous assault.”
Erin gave him a smile that warmed him to his toes. “The events match the biblical passage. More important, it points to someone whom we could actually hope to find.”
“The boy,” Rhun said, sounding unconvinced. “I spoke to him atop that mountain that day. He seemed like just an ordinary child. In shock, grief-stricken after the death of his mother and father. And he was born of the flesh. How could he be an angel?”
“Remember, Christ was also born of the flesh,” Cardinal Bernard countered. “This boy seems like a fine starting point to begin our search.”
Jordan nodded. “So where is he? Does anybody know? The last I recall, he was being evacuated off that mountaintop by helicopter, by the Israeli army. They were taking him to one of their hospitals. It shouldn’t be hard to track him from there.”
“It will be harder than you think,” Bernard said, suddenly looking worried.
That was never a good thing.
12:05 P.M.
“Why would it be harder?” Erin asked, sensing she wasn’t going to like the answer.
Bernard sighed regretfully. “Because he is no longer in the custody of the Israelis.”
“Then where is he?” she asked.
Instead of answering, the cardinal turned to Brother Leopold. The German monk had remained silent near the back of the car. “Leopold, you are the most skilled with computers. My laptop is with my luggage. Father Ambrose has my passwords. I need to access my files at the Vatican. Can you help me?”
Leopold nodded. “I can certainly try.”
The monk rushed out of the dining car and headed into the galley.
Bernard turned back to the others. “We were keeping tabs on the boy, staying in contact with the Israelis who were studying him at a military hospital. His name is Thomas Bolar. The medical staff was trying to discover how he had survived the poison gas. And then—”
Leopold burst back into the car, returning with a simple black laptop in hand. He crossed to them, set it on the table, and booted it up. Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Leopold typed with the speed only a Sanguinist could manage. His fingers were a blur across the keyboard, accessing the Internet, punching in passwords, connecting to a Vatican server.
Bernard looked over his shoulder, directing him every now and again.
Erin found it odd to watch these ancient men in priestly garb engaging with modern technology. It seemed like Sanguinists should be haunting churches and graveyards, not surfing the Internet. But Leopold seemed to know what he was doing. In a few minutes, he had a window open on the screen containing a grainy gray video.
Erin crowded closer to see, as did everyone else.
Only the countess hung back. From her uneasy expression, such technology must unnerve her. She had not lived through the long years like the others so that she could assimilate the changes over time. Erin wondered what it must be like to be thrust from the sixteenth century into the twenty-first. She had to hand it to the woman. As far as Erin could tell, the countess seemed to be taking it in stride, showing a surprising resilience and toughness. Erin needed to be mindful of that in her dealings with her in the future.
For now, she kept her attention fixed to the laptop.
“This is surveillance video taken from the Israeli medical facility,” Bernard said. “You should watch this, then I’ll explain more.”
On the screen, a boy sat in a hospital bed. He was dressed in a thin hospital gown, tied in the back. As they watched, the boy wiped tears from his eyes, then got up and dragged his IV pole to the window. He leaned his head against the glass and looked out into the night.
Erin felt for the boy—both his parents had died in his arms, and now he was trapped alone in a military hospital. She was glad that Rhun had taken time to spend a few minutes talking to the child, comforting him, before everything went to hell.
Suddenly, another small figure stood next to the boy at the window. The newcomer’s face was turned away from the camera. He had appeared out of nowhere, as if someone had cut out a piece of the video.
The stranger wore a dark suit coat and slacks. Thomas shrank back from him, clearly afraid. In a move too fast to follow, a knife flashed under the lights. The boy clutched his throat, blood gushing out, drenching his hospital robe.
Erin’s shoulders inched up, but she didn’t look away from the screen. Jordan pulled her closer to his side, supporting her. He must have seen his share of bloodshed and the murder of children in Afghanistan and knew how hard it was to watch such cruelty.
On the screen, Thomas stumbled away from the stranger. He yanked off a trail of wires attached to his chest. Lights flashed on the bedside machines. An alarm. The kid was trying to call for help.
Smart.
Two Israeli soldiers ran into the room, their weapons up and ready.
The stranger hurled a chair through the window, grabbed Thomas, and threw the boy out the window before the soldiers could open fire.
From the attacker’s speed, he had to be strigoi.
The stranger turned to face the soldiers, finally showing his face. He looked to be a boy himself, no more than fourteen. He sketched a quick bow to the soldiers before jumping out the window himself.
“How far was the drop?” Jordan asked, watching the soldiers rush to the window and begin silently firing below.
“Four stories,” the cardinal answered.
“So Thomas must be dead,” Jordan said. “He can’t be the First Angel.”
Erin wasn’t so sure. She glanced to Bernard as he whispered to Leopold. If Thomas was dead, why waste everyone’s time showing this video?
“The boy survived the fall,” the cardinal explained and pointed to the screen.
Another video file appeared, this one from a parking lot camera on the ground.
Caught from this angle, Thomas fell through the air, his blood-soaked hospital gown fluttering around his body like wings before he crashed headlong to the black asphalt. Shards of broken glass sparkled and danced around him.
As they watched, the boy stirred, plainly alive.
A split second later, the stranger in the suit landed, on his feet, next to him.
He grabbed Thomas by an arm and sprinted with him into the desert, vanishing quickly from view.
“We believe that the kidnapper was strigoi, perhaps in service to the Belial,” the cardinal said. “But we know for certain the child who survived Masada was no strigoi. He was reported in sunlight. The Israeli medical machines showed he had a heartbeat.”
“And I heard it, too,” Rhun added. “I held his hand. It was warm. He was alive.”
“But no human could survive a fall like that,” Leopold said, awed, still typing rapidly, as if trying to search for answers.
Erin caught a glimpse of a text box being opened, a message sent, then closed again. All done so quickly, in less than two seconds, that she failed to make out a single word.
“But Thomas survived,” Jordan said. “Like he did in Masada.”
“As if he’s under some divine protection.” Erin touched Leopold’s shoulder. “Show that first video again. I want to see that attacker’s face.”
The monk complied.
As the stranger turned toward the camera, Leopold froze the image and zoomed in. The kidnapper had an attractive face, oval, with dark eyebrows, one raised higher than the other. He had light-colored eyes, with short dark hair parted on the side.
He didn’t look familiar to her, but both Rhun and Bernard tensed with recognition.
“That’s Alexei Romanov,” Bernard said.
Erin let the shock ring through her.
The son of Czar Nicholas II . . .
Rhun
closed his eyes, clearly aggrieved by sudden insight. “That must be why Rasputin let go of the Blood Gospel so easily back in St. Petersburg. He had already put plans in motion to kidnap this boy. He was playing an entirely different game from us, keeping cards up his long sleeves. I should have suspected as much back then.”
“You speak of the Romanovs,” the countess interrupted. “In my time, that Russian royal family lost power and were exiled to the far north. Did they then return to the throne?”
“They ruled from 1612 until 1917,” Rhun said.
“And my family.” The countess leaned forward. “What became of them? Did we also return to power?”
Rhun shook his head, looking reluctant to say more.
Contrarily, Nadia was more than happy to extend the branches of the countess’s family tree, to fill in her lost history. “Your children were charged with treason for your crimes, stripped of their wealth, and exiled from Hungary. For a hundred years, it was forbidden to speak your name in your homeland.”
The countess raised her chin a couple of millimeters, but she gave no other sign that she cared. Yet something in her eyes cracked as she turned away, revealing a well of grief behind that cold demeanor, a peek at her former humanity.
Erin changed the subject. “So Rasputin kidnapped this boy. But why? To what end?”
No one answered, and she didn’t blame anyone, remembering her own dealings with Rasputin. The monk was shrewd, conniving, and out merely for himself. To guess the twisted intentions of the Mad Monk of Russia, it would take someone equally as mad.
Or at least, a kindred soul.
The countess stirred and gazed around the room. “I would surmise he did it because he hates you all.”
15
December 19, 12:22 P.M. CET
South of Rome, Italy
As the rattling set of coaches tunneled through the bright middle of the day, Elizabeth pulled on the chain that connected her manacles to the wall of the last car.
The loathsome Sanguinist woman, Nadia, had marched her back into the darkness and secured her in this coach. The chain was locked into a hasp at waist height, the links of silver so short that she was forced to stand while the room rocked around her.
Steps away, Nadia watched her, as patient as a fox watching a rabbit den.
Elizabeth twisted her arms, trying to find a more comfortable position. The silver manacles burned in a ring of fire around her wrists, but she was more at ease here than in the dining car, where the single open curtain had allowed in a stream of sunlight. She had not showed how much it had seared her eyes whenever she looked at the woman and soldier, refusing to reveal weakness before these two humans.
As the train trundled on, she set her feet farther apart to keep from being knocked about by the rocking. She would adapt. The modern world had many powerful objects, and she would master them. She would not let fear of them rule her.
With her hands pressed against the wall, she savored the warmth of the sun-heated steel against her palms. She imagined the sun blazing strong and bright outside, crossing a blue sky with sharp white clouds. She had not seen such sights for centuries, barely remembered what they looked like. Strigoi could not stand the sun, as Sanguinists could. She missed the day, with its heat and life and growing things. She remembered her gardens, the bright flowers, the healing herbs she once grew.
But was she willing to give up her freedom as a strigoi in order to see the sky again, to convert to the pious life of a Sanguinist?
Never.
She rubbed her warmed hands together and pressed them against her cold cheeks. Even if she tried to convert, she suspected God would know that her heart was black, and the blessed wine would strike her dead.
She had agreed to help the Sanguinists, but her promise had been given under threat of death. She had no intention of keeping her word if presented with a better chance at survival. An oath sworn on pain of death was not binding.
She owed them nothing.
As if hearing her thoughts, Nadia glared at her. Once Elizabeth was free, she would make the tall woman pay for her insolence. But for now she sensed that Nadia would be a difficult captor to escape. The woman plainly loathed her, and she seemed dedicated to Rhun—although more like a fellow knight, not like a woman devoted to a man.
The same could not be said of the human woman.
Dr. Erin Granger.
Elizabeth had easily spotted the telling pink scars on the other’s neck. A strigoi had fed upon her recently and suffered her to live. A rare enough event, and certainly no ordinary strigoi would have left such careful marks. Those punctures spoke of control and care. From the awkward manner in which the woman and Rhun sat and did not speak, she suspected that Rhun had fallen again, fed again.
But in this instance, he had not killed the woman, nor turned her into a monster.
Elizabeth remembered how Erin’s heart had sped when Rhun first entered the car. She recognized the anguish that poured from the woman’s voice when she saw his wounds and spoke his name. This human seemed intertwined with Rhun in a deeper manner than the blood bond of feeding should foster.
Jealousy flared hot and venomous.
Rhun belongs to me and me alone.
Elizabeth had paid dearly for that love and refused to share it.
She thought back to that night, of Rhun in her arms, of their unspoken love for each other finally being expressed in the heat of lips, of the press of flesh, the soft words of love. She knew what was happening was forbidden a priest, but little did she know how much such laws chained the beast that truly lurked inside Rhun. Once broken, that face finally showed its fangs, its darker lusts, and tore her from her old life and into one of eternal night.
And now it seemed Rhun had loosed that same beast upon another woman, another whom he plainly cared for.
In that attraction, Elizabeth also saw possibility. Given a chance, she would use their feelings for each other against them, to destroy them both.
But for now, she must content herself with waiting. She must go along with Bernard’s group, but she held little trust in the cardinal. Not now, and certainly not during her mortal life. Back then, she had striven to warn Rhun against Bernard, sensing the depths of secrets hidden inside his heartless, sanctimonious chest.
In the neighboring car, her keen ears picked out her name being spoken.
“We cannot risk losing her,” Cardinal Bernard said. “We must know where she is at all times.”
The young monk named Christian answered. “Don’t worry. I’ve already taken measures to assure that. I will keep her on a short leash.”
Another spoke with the thick tongue of the Germans, marking him as Brother Leopold. “I will see about getting more coffee.”
Light footsteps left the table, heading to the coach at the front, where food was being prepared and where she could faintly make out another human heartbeat, another servant to this horde.
Those at the table sat silent, apparently having little to say, each probably pondering the journey ahead.
She decided to do the same and turned to Nadia. “Tell me of this Russian connected to the royal Romanovs . . . this Rasputin? Why does the Church have no love for him?”
Perhaps she could make an ally out of him.
Nadia sat silent as stone, but her face betrayed how she loved withholding secrets.
“Your cardinal wishes me to be part of this endeavor,” Elizabeth reminded her, pressing her. “As such, I must know everything.”
“Then let the cardinal tell you.” Nadia folded her arms.
Realizing that no quarter would be given, Elizabeth turned her attention to eavesdropping, but she lost interest as the rattling of the train grew louder as it climbed some long hill, blotting out most sounds.
Minutes later, the steel door to her prison opened, bringing in the sharper smells of food, the blaze of sunlight, and the louder heartbeats of the humans.
Cardinal Bernard entered with the younger Sanguinist, Christian. T
hey were followed by another priest, this one human, likely the cardinal’s retainer. She recognized his sluggish heartbeat from the first car, where the food was being prepared. She was growing hungry herself—and this one had a round belly, fat cheeks, all plump with blood, a pig waiting to be slaughtered.
“We will arrive soon,” Bernard informed Nadia. “Once we leave the train, I am placing you and Christian in charge of Countess Bathory.”
“Do you not mean in charge of the prisoner?” Elizabeth corrected. “Even though I have joined your quest, do you trust me so little?”
“Trust is earned,” Christian said. “And you currently have a massive trust deficit.”
She held out her bound hands. “Can you not at least release me to move freely about this prison? With daylight outside, I cannot escape here. I do not see what harm—”
An explosion blasted away her words. As if struck by the hand of God, the entire coach lifted under them, riding atop a thunderous roar, accompanied by the fires of Hell.
16
December 19, 12:34 P.M. CET
South of Rome, Italy
Rhun moved upon the first shift of air, the first note of the explosion. He rode the blast wave as time slowed to the thickness of liquid glass.
He lunged across the table, wrapped both his arms around Erin, and hit the closed window with his shoulder. The thick curtain wrapped around his body as he crashed through. Glass raked his arms and back. Flames and roaring chased him out into the world.
At his heels as he leaped from it, the train car expanded, growing impossibly bigger until its skin split—and smoke and soot and wood burst outward in a great explosion.
Tossed high, Rhun turned his body to the side and hit the ground rolling, one arm around Erin’s back, the other pulling her head close to his chest. He and Erin rolled across the stubble of a harvested field that bordered the tracks.
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