Innocent Blood

by James Rollins

  It was a coffin.

  She stopped so suddenly that Rhun collided with her.

  “Forgive me,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes had not left the coffin. She sniffed. The box did not contain a corpse, or she would have smelled it.

  Why is it here?

  Then Nadia smiled—and Elizabeth immediately understood.

  She lunged back, bumping hard into Rhun. With her left hand, she pulled Rhun’s hooked blade from its wrist sheath. In one quick motion, she swept it at Nadia. But her target danced back, the blade catching her on the chin, drawing blood.

  But not nearly enough.

  Elizabeth cursed the clumsiness of her left hand.

  Behind her, a door slammed. She turned and saw that Christian had stuffed the two humans in the cockpit for safekeeping. She was flattered that he thought her such a threat.

  She tightened her grip on the knife and faced Nadia.

  The woman had slipped free a length of silver chain, readying it like a whip, and carried a short sword in the other.

  “Stop!” Rhun yelled, his voice booming in the small space.

  Elizabeth held her ground. She pictured the sarcophagus from which she was birthed into this new world. She remembered the bricked-up cell in her castle tower where she had slowly starved. She could not stand to be confined again, to be trapped.

  “The last time you put me in a coffin,” she spat at Rhun, “I lost four hundred years.”

  “It’s just for this trip,” Rhun promised her. “The plane will be traveling above the clouds. There will be no escaping the sun where we fly.”

  Still, she panicked at the thought of being shut away again, unable to control herself. She thrashed against the silver that bound her to him. “I’d rather die.”

  Nadia stepped closer. “If you prefer.”

  With a quick flick of her short sword, the woman slashed Elizabeth’s throat. Silver burned her skin, and blood poured from the wound, trying to purge the holiness from her body. Elizabeth stopped fighting, the blade falling from her fingertips. Rhun was there, clamping his hand over her throat, holding in the blood.

  “What have you done?” he hissed at Nadia.

  “She’ll live,” Nadia said. “I cut shallow. It will make it easier to get her into the box without more needless fighting.”

  Nadia lifted the hinged lid.

  Elizabeth moaned, but crippled by silver, she had the strength to do nothing more.

  Rhun lifted her and carried her to the coffin.

  “I promise that I will fetch you from here,” he said. “Within hours.”

  He lowered her into the coffin gently. A click and the manacle left her wrist.

  She willed herself to sit up, to fight, but she could not summon the strength.

  The lid came down on the box, smothering her again into darkness.

  24

  December 19, 5:39 P.M. CET

  Castel Gandolfo, Italy

  With the sun down for the past hour, Leopold haunted the edges of the papal summer residence. The grounds themselves were larger even than the entirety of Vatican City, offering plenty of places to skulk, hide, and watch. At the moment, he was up in one of the giant holm oaks that dotted the property, using its branches and thick trunk to keep hidden in the dark. The tree stood only a stone’s throw from the main castle.

  Earlier, as the sun went down, he had crawled out of his hay bale. Using the darkness, it was easy to slip through the police barricade around the ruins of the train. His ears easily picked out the heartbeats of the salvage investigators, allowing him to avoid them and leave unseen. From the hay bale, he had heard the cardinal mention that he would be coming to Castel Gandolfo, where he would mourn and pray for the souls who had lost their lives this day.

  So Leopold followed after sunset, rushing with the speed only a Sanguinist could muster, to cross the handful of miles to reach the small village with its looming papal castle.

  For the past half hour, he had watched the residence from a distance, slowly circling it completely. He dared get no closer lest the Sanguinists inside sense his presence.

  But with his keen ears, he heard much from inside, bits and pieces of conversation, the flow of gossip among the staff. He slowly learned what they knew of the tragic events. It seemed only Cardinal Bernard had escaped alive. The police had found the bodies of the train engineers. Leopold remembered hearing a helicopter come and go before the rescuers arrived on scene. The cardinal must have collected his dead. Bernard would not let the bodies of Sanguinists fall into the hands of the Italian police. Leopold even heard a maid mention a body, seen briefly by her, before Bernard whisked it out of sight into the bowels of the castle.

  Leopold shifted on his branch and prayed for their murdered souls. He knew the deaths were necessary, to serve a greater purpose, but he mourned Erin and Jordan, and his fellow Sanguinists—Rhun, Nadia, and Christian. Even the irascible Father Ambrose had not deserved such a fate.

  Now, he listened to the sounds of a funeral Mass, the cardinal’s rich Italian tones unmistakable even from such a distance. Leopold’s lips moved in prayer to match, attending that Mass himself from his perch in the tree. All the while, he listened for the voices of Erin and Jordan, in case the staff were wrong. He tried to pick their heartbeats out of the tapestry of the pope’s human retainers.

  Nothing.

  He heard only the cardinal’s prayers.

  As the funeral Mass finished, he climbed down the tree and retreated out of the grounds and across to the neighboring town. He searched and found a discreet telephone booth beside a gas station. He dialed a number he had memorized.

  The connection was answered immediately. “You survived?” the Damnatus said, sounding more angry than relieved. “Did anyone else?”

  Of course, that would be the Damnatus’s main concern. He plainly worried that if Leopold had survived, then others might have, too, like the prophesied trio. Leopold did not expect an apology from him for being caught in that same trap—as much as he might believe he deserved one. Both knew their path was a righteous one. No matter Leopold’s feelings, he must work together with the Damnatus, even if the man had almost killed him to achieve that goal.

  Knowing this, Leopold explained all he had learned. “From what I have been able to determine, only the cardinal survived. A maid spotted a body brought here from the wreckage. There may be more.”

  “Return to the castle and check that body,” the Damnatus ordered. “Confirm the others are dead. Bring me proof.”

  Leopold should have thought of that himself, but to enter the residence would put him at great risk of discovery. Still, he made the Damnatus a promise. “It will be done.”

  Minutes later, Leopold found himself at the secret gate that led into the Sanguinists’ subterranean wing of the castle. He prayed that none guarded this door. Once there, he sliced the tender flesh of his palm and dripped a few precious drops of blood into the old stone cup. He whispered the necessary prayers, then slipped through the entrance as it opened.

  He paused at the threshold and stretched out his senses: listening for heartbeats, smelling for the presence of others, straining to see into each dark corner.

  Once satisfied that he was alone, Leopold worked his way toward the Sanguinist Chapel. Any of the bodies recovered from the explosion would have been brought down there. He remembered listening to the funeral.

  Fearing others of his order might still be about, he slipped out his short blade and tightened his hand on it. He had killed many men and strigoi in his long life, but he had never killed another Sanguinist. He girded himself against that possibility.

  He continued silently down the final tunnel, breathing in the familiar underground smells of damp earth, rat droppings, and a hint of incense from the recent Mass. As he neared the entrance to the chapel, his steps slowed.

  Quiet prayers drifted to him, stopping him.

  He recognized the lone mourner’s voice.

  Cardinal Bernard
.

  Leopold crept to the closed door and peered through its tiny window. Beyond a row of pews, a white altar cloth covered a stone table, lit with beeswax candles at both ends. A golden chalice stood in the middle, brimming with wine.

  The flickering firelight reflected off the stained-glass windows built into the stone walls to either side—and off an ebony coffin that rested before the altar.

  He noted the simple silver cross affixed to the top.

  It was a Sanguinist’s coffin.

  He knew the body inside must soon be shipped to Rome and entombed in the Sanctuary below St. Peter’s, the one place on Earth secure enough to keep their secrets.

  But one person was not yet ready to say good-bye.

  Bernard knelt in front of the coffin, his white head bowed, murmuring prayers. He seemed somehow smaller, fallen from his high station as cardinal into profound and personal sorrow.

  Confronted here by the physical proof of his deeds, grief cut through Leopold. A warrior of the Church lay dead, and it might as well have been by his hand. While such a death in service to the Church brought a Sanguinist his final peace, Leopold found no comfort from that thought.

  Bernard’s scarlet vestments wrinkled as he leaned forward and placed a hand on the side of the coffin. “Farewell, my son.”

  Leopold pictured his fellow Sanguinists aboard the train. From the cardinal’s final words of good-bye, it must be either Rhun or Christian in that coffin.

  Bernard stood and left the chapel, his shoulders bowed with grief.

  Leopold retreated to a side room, stacked full of wine casks. He waited until the sound of the cardinal’s footfalls had long since faded before returning to the empty chapel and entering.

  He moved toward the coffin, his legs leaden with grief and guilt. He knew that the Damnatus would want it to be Rhun in that coffin, the prophesied Knight of Christ. The fate of the others could not be certain, but Leopold suspected there must not have been enough of their blasted remains to be carried here.

  Reaching the coffin, he ran a palm across the cold smooth surface and whispered a prayer of atonement. Once done, he held his breath, lifted the lid, and looked inside, bracing himself.

  It was empty.

  Shocked, Leopold searched the chapel, looking for a trap, but found none.

  Returning his attention to the coffin, he saw it was not entirely empty.

  A single rosary lay curled with great care on the bottom, the beads well worn, the small silver cross dull from the decades of a thumb rubbing it in prayer. He pictured Bernard recovering this rosary from the cold mud of the winter fields, all that was left of the Sanguinist who had once carried it.

  Leopold did not have to touch it to know to whom it belonged.

  It was as familiar as his own palm.

  It was his rosary, lost when he fell from the train.

  He closed his eyes.

  Look how far I have fallen, my Lord . . .

  He remembered Bernard so bowed by sorrow, so stricken by grief.

  Over me . . . a traitor.

  He closed the lid and stumbled out of the chapel, out of the castle.

  Only then did he weep.

  PART III

  He casts forth his ice like morsels;

  Who can stand before his cold?

  —Psalms 147:17

  25

  December 19, 8:04 P.M. CET

  Stockholm, Sweden

  The world had become encrusted in ice.

  Huddled against the implacable cold of the Swedish winter night, Erin shivered in her jacket as she strode down a street in central Stockholm. Her coat’s armored leather might protect her from bites and slashes, but it did little against the frigid wind that cut through every opening afforded it. Every breath felt like she was inhaling frost. Even underfoot, the chill of the ice-glazed cobblestones seemed to seep through the soles of her boots.

  She had only learned of their destination once the chartered jet was airborne, sweeping north from Rome. The flight to Sweden took about three hours, landing them in this land of snow and ice. They were now headed to a rendezvous in the city with Grigori Rasputin, to negotiate for the release of Tommy Bolar, possibly the First Angel of prophecy.

  She was surprised Rasputin had agreed to meet in Stockholm, not St. Petersburg. Bernard must have pushed hard, drawing the Russian monk as far as possible from his home territory, into something that passed as neutral ground.

  Still, to Erin, it didn’t feel far enough.

  Christian led the way. In this continuing pageant of subterfuge, the youngest Sanguinist was the only one who had been informed of the meeting place in the city, drawing the group quickly across central Stockholm. Austere buildings lined the way. The simple Scandinavian facades were a relief after the ornamented Italianate structures of Rome. Warm light spilled into the night from most windows, reflecting off new snow that had drifted up on both sides of the street.

  Erin’s breath formed white clouds in the air, as did Jordan’s.

  If the Sanguinists breathed, there was no sign.

  She noted Jordan suddenly sniffing at the air, like a dog on a scent. Then she smelled it, too: gingerbread and honey, roasted chestnuts, and the burnt smell of sugar-glazed almonds.

  At the end of the street, a large square beckoned, aglow with lights.

  It was a Christmas market.

  Christian led the way toward that haven of warmth and cheer. She and Jordan kept to his heels, trailed by Rhun and Bathory, the two again discreetly handcuffed together.

  Nadia trailed behind, her attention focused on the straight back of the countess.

  With every step and glance, Rhun radiated cold fury. For the entire flight, he had sat seething over Nadia’s attack on Bathory. Erin could understand the logic and necessity of the woman’s confinement. No one trusted the countess, fearful that she might say something to a border agent, or attack someone, or even go on a rampage aboard the jet, which from the sounds of the battle prior to taking off from Rome proved not an unjust concern.

  Like Rhun, Erin still balked at the act of slicing the woman’s throat.

  Bathory had been nearly killed for their convenience. Erin had donated her own blood to restore the countess to health after the plane had landed, but she knew that did not undo the damage. She saw it in the countess’s eyes. Nadia had cut through more than just the woman’s throat, but also any trust the woman had for them.

  To Erin, it was also a harsh reminder of the lengths to which the Sanguinists were willing to go to achieve their goals. She knew securing the First Angel was important to stop a holy war, but she wasn’t so sure that the ends justified the means. Especially in this case. There could have been a less brutal way to secure Bathory, another means to earning her grudging cooperation, but the Sanguinists didn’t seem to look for it.

  Still, this deed could not be undone.

  They had to move forward.

  Stepping into the warmth and merriment of the Christmas market, her icy mood thawed, along with some of the cold as she passed by open braziers that glowed with roasting chestnuts and almonds.

  Farther to the left, a giant pine lit with golden balls stretched snow-dusted green branches toward the night sky. Out of the darkness overhead, feathery snowflakes danced to the ground. To the right, a round jolly Santa waved from inside a booth selling Christmas candies, one hand stroking his long white beard.

  Jordan seemed to note little of it. His eyes plainly appraised the square, checking the tall buildings and the crowds bustling along in their warm winter clothes. He eyeballed each shop front as if a sniper could be hiding behind it.

  She knew he was right to be on guard. Reminded that Rasputin lurked somewhere nearby, the simple magic of the Christmas market quickly evaporated. Per the Russian monk’s demands, their party had left their weapons inside the jet. But could they trust Rasputin to do the same? Oddly, he was known to be a man of his word—though he could twist those words in the most unexpected ways, so great care had t
o be taken with each syllable he uttered.

  Passing alongside a stand selling wooden toys, Erin bumped against a girl wearing a blue knit cap with a white pom-pom. In her small hands, the child had been examining a marionette of an elf riding a deer. The puppet fell into the snow, tangling its strings. The proprietor of the shop did not look happy.

  To avoid a scene, Erin handed him a ten-euro note, offering to pay. The transaction was made swiftly in the cold. The child offered a shy smile, grabbed her prize, and ran off.

  While this was done, Jordan stood by a booth selling steaming sausages. Other links were looped over dowels near the ceiling. If there was any doubt as to what the sausages were made of, it was dispelled by the stuffed reindeer head hanging behind the apple-cheeked proprietor.

  Erin joined the others, ready to apologize for the delay.

  But Christian had stopped and searched around. “This is as far as I know where to go,” he said. “I was told to get us from the airport to this Christmas market.”

  They all turned to study the spread of the festival.

  The countess touched the healed wound on her neck. “A life-or-death mission, and yet you all know so little?”

  Erin agreed with her, sick of so many secrets. She felt the weight of the amber stone in her pocket. She had transferred Amy’s keepsake from her old clothes to the new, carrying this burden with her, reminded that secrets could kill.

  She eyed everything in the square warily. A woman pushed a baby carriage, the front covered by a plaid blanket. Next to her, a four-year-old with sticky cheeks held a lollipop in his fuzzy mitten. Beyond them, a gaggle of young girls giggled next to a stand that sold gingerbread hearts, while two boys puzzled over the inscriptions written on the hearts with white frosting.

  A chorus of voices rose in song, echoing across the market, coming from a children’s choir singing “Silent Night” in Swedish. The melancholy notes of that Christmas favorite echoed her mood.