Her sister’s body was wrapped in the quilt when her father buried her tiny body.
Through the ice, Erin traced the green Irish-chain pattern, darkened with mold and age. Her fingertips slid across ice. She had never expected to see this quilt again.
Aghast, she realized what its presence here meant.
To obtain it, Rasputin must have despoiled her sister’s grave.
9:11 P.M.
Elizabeth ran through the maze, dragging Rhun along by the silver manacles. Nadia trailed, ever her dark shadow. Their human opponents could never match her group’s preternatural speed. Elizabeth should have no difficulty reaching the center of the maze well ahead of the blond doctor.
Though she cared little about the ambitions of the Sanguinists, she knew she must win this contest. If Cardinal Bernard ever decided that she was not the Woman of Learning, her life would be forfeit. Her fingers strayed again to the soft scarf that covered the wound on her throat. It was a shallow cut, a reminder of the depths of the order’s trust in her. If Bernard’s faith in her faltered, the next cut would be far deeper.
So she set a swift pace, memorizing every turn in the dark. She needed no light as she sped along. But with every step, her newly healed throat ached from the cold. Erin’s blood had partially revived her, but it was not enough, not nearly enough. It surprised her that the woman had offered such a boon—and even more so that Erin recognized the grievous nature of the Sanguinists’ assault on her.
The woman grew ever more intriguing to her. Elizabeth had even begun to comprehend Rhun’s fascination with her. Still, that would not stop Elizabeth from defeating the human in this task.
Elizabeth’s boots trod across the snow, her legs hurrying her forward. She ignored the distractions along the way, those rooms that had been sculpted to draw the eye and stir the imagination. Only one chamber had slowed her progress. It was a room that held a life-size carousel of horses made of ice. She remembered seeing such a display in Paris back in the summer of 1605, when such attractions had begun to replace the old jousting tourneys. She remembered the delight on her son Paul’s face upon seeing the bright costumes and prancing stallions.
An ache for her lost family, for her children long dead and grandchildren never seen, welled inside her.
Both sorrow and anger drove her onward.
Sweeping along, she peered through the many ice windows, each cunningly fashioned, but none provided clues as to which direction she should go. At a crossroads, she breathed in the smell of cold and snow, trying to judge the wind for a clue to the correct path.
Then from ahead came a faint rustling, hinting at unseen lurkers. No heartbeats accompanied the noises.
Strigoi.
She must be close to the heart of the maze.
Focusing on the sounds, she increased her pace again—then something caught the corner of her eye. Something frozen inside one of the ice windows, like a fly in amber. She stopped to study it, drawing Rhun to a halt, too.
Suspended in the middle of the ice was a rectangular object the size of her two hands put together. A shiny black cloth wrapped it snugly, tied with a dirty scarlet cord. She knew what it held.
It was her journal.
What is it doing here?
It was hard enough to imagine that the book had survived the ravages of centuries. It was even harder to fathom that someone had plucked it from its long-ago hiding place and brought it here.
Why?
The shiny cloth was oilskin. Her fingertips remembered its sticky surface, and her mind’s eye saw the first page as clearly as if she had drawn it yesterday.
It was a picture of an alder leaf, along with a diagram of its roots and stems.
Those early pages had contained drawings of herbs, listing their properties, the secrets to their uses, the places where they might be gathered on her estate. She had drawn the plants and flowers herself, written the instructions in her fairest hand by candlelight during the long winter hours. But she had not stopped there, remembering when her studies had turned darker, as dark as the heart Rhun had blackened.
Elizabeth wrote the last entry while the peasant girl died in front of her, blood seeping from a hundred cuts. Elizabeth had thought her stronger than that. She had mistimed the girl’s death, the outcome a failure. She felt a stab of impatience, but reminded herself that even such failures brought her knowledge.
Behind her, another girl whimpered from her cage. She would be the next subject, but her fate could wait until tomorrow. As if she sensed this, the caged girl grew quiet, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking.
Elizabeth scribbled observations by the light of the fire, recording each detail—how quickly the first girl died, how long she could wait before turning such subject into a strigoi, how long it took for each to die in that state.
Over and over, with different girls, Elizabeth experimented.
Slowly and carefully, she learned the secrets of who she was, what she was.
Such knowledge would only make her stronger.
Elizabeth lifted her hand to touch the ice. She had not thought to see her journal again. She had hidden it within her castle once her trial had started. It contained more than six hundred names, many more girls than she had been charged with killing. She had secured it deep under her castle, beneath a stone so large that no mortal man could lift it.
But someone had.
Likely the same someone who brought it to this maze, left it for her to find.
Who? And why?
“What are you doing?” Rhun asked, noting her interest.
“That book is mine,” she said. “I want it back.”
Nadia shoved her forward. “We have no time for such diversions.”
Elizabeth stepped back to the ice window, standing her ground. She wanted it back. Her work might yet have value.
“Oh, but we do,” she said, scraping the edge of her manacle down the ice, removing the top layer. “I am the Woman of Learning, and I choose how we spend our time. I am the one being tested.”
“She is right,” Rhun added. “Rasputin would not want us to interfere. She must succeed or fail on her own.”
“Then be quick about it,” Nadia said.
Rhun added his strength to Elizabeth’s. Together, they quickly bored through the clear ice until the book was free. With both hands, Elizabeth plucked the precious book from its cold prison.
As she held it, she noticed shadowy shapes on the far side. Though distorted by the ice, the forms clearly were men or women. Again she heard no heartbeats.
They must be the strigoi she had sensed before.
She suddenly realized there was no need to follow this damnable maze any longer. There was a more direct path to victory. Hauling her free arm back, she slammed her elbow into the ice window, shattering through it to the far side.
Shards of ice danced across the dirty snow of the maze’s heart.
Rhun and Nadia bowed next to her, peering through the hole.
Elizabeth laughed between them. “We have won.”
27
December 19, 9:21 P.M. CET
Stockholm, Sweden
Erin tore her eyes from the frozen quilt. She could not let her personal feelings distract from her goal. She had to leave this piece of her past behind and press on. She guessed its purpose here: Rasputin wanted to throw her off balance, to slow her down.
She would not give him the satisfaction.
“Erin?” Jordan’s soft voice breathed in her ear.
“I’m fine.” The words sounded strange, plainly a lie. “Let’s keep going.”
“Are you sure?” His warm hands cupped her shoulders. Jordan knew her well enough to see through her brave words.
“I’m sure.”
She sounded more confident that time. She could not let Rasputin see how he had affected her. If he sensed any weakness in her, he would use it to tear a deeper wound. So she buried that pain and kept marching.
We must be near the center by n
ow.
She hurried forward, again running her fingertips along the left wall, moving ever closer to the heart of the maze. In another two turns of the passageway, she entered a spacious round room, the walls made of packed snow, again open to the sky above, the edges of the walls overhead crenellated.
They had reached the central turreted tower of the ice palace.
In the middle of the space rose a life-size ice sculpture of an angel. It stood atop a plinth, also carved from ice. The craftsmanship was extraordinary. It looked as if the angel had just landed there, using its massive wings to alight on this frozen perch. Moonlight shimmered through its diamond wings, each feather perfectly defined. The body itself was glazed by frost to a pure white, its snow-dusted face turned up toward the heavens.
As beautiful as the sight was, Erin only felt disappointment.
Gathered below the sculpture was Rhun’s group, with the countess wearing a smug smile.
I lost.
The judge of this contest stood beside the victor.
Rasputin lifted his arm in greeting toward her. “Welcome, Dr. Granger! About time you joined us!”
The monk looked the same as always, in a simple black robe that draped below his knees. From his neck hung a prominent Orthodox cross, in gold instead of the Sanguinist’s silver. His shoulder-length hair looked oily in the dim light, but his light blue eyes stood out, dancing with amusement.
She met his gaze defiantly as she crossed toward them.
He clapped bare white hands, the sound too loud for the quiet space. “Alas, it seems you have come in second, my dear Erin. It was close, I must say.”
Bathory gave her a cold triumphant smile, here again proving she was the true Woman of Learning.
Rasputin continued, turning to Jordan. “But what is that clever expression, Sergeant Stone? Close only counts with hand grenades?”
“Or horseshoes,” Jordan added. “Which is this?”
Rasputin laughed, deep from his belly.
Rhun scowled. “We did not come here to play games, Grigori. You promised us the First Angel. As Bernard agreed, your home in St. Petersburg—the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood—will be reconsecrated by the pope himself. His Holiness will also give you a full pardon and rescind your excommunication. If you wish, you may take the vows of a Sanguinist again and—”
“Why would I want that?” Rasputin said, cutting him off. “An eternity of pious suffering.”
Bathory tilted her head. “Indeed.”
Erin kept back, ignoring Rhun and Rasputin as their argument grew more heated. The masterful sculpture captured her attention. Closer now, she saw the expression of anguish on that white face, as if this winged creature had been cast from the heavens to land atop this plinth, banished to this earthly realm.
It was horrible and beautiful at the same time.
Rhun continued. “You may return to St. Petersburg knowing that your soul has been forgiven by the Church. But you must first deliver us the boy, Grigori.”
“But I brought you what I promised,” Rasputin said, waving toward the statue. “A beautiful angel.”
“We did not ask for this mockery of holiness,” Rhun said, taking a threatening step toward Rasputin, stirring the handful of strigoi who gathered at the room’s edges.
“So are you then saying you don’t want my gift?” Rasputin asked. “Are you declining my generous offer and breaking our bargain?”
Something in the monk’s eyes went dark, hinting at a danger, a trap.
Oblivious to this, too angered to note it, Rhun began to tell Rasputin where he could shove this frozen angel.
Erin cut him off. “We want it!” she called out before Rhun could say otherwise.
Rasputin turned to her, his face going hard, angry.
Erin moved to the statue, beginning to fathom the level of the monk’s cruelty. She took off her gloves and touched the angel’s foot. Frost melted under the warm fingertips. She wiped her palm up the statue’s leg, wiping away more of the surface to reveal the clear ice underneath.
She brought up her flashlight, shining the beam of her light into the heart of the clear sculpture. She swore and stared daggers at Rasputin.
“What is it?” Jordan asked.
She shifted aside to show him, to show them all.
Through the space she had cleared, a bare human leg shone within the ice.
A boy’s leg.
A boy who could not die.
Even if frozen.
With her stomach heaving, she whirled to face Rasputin. “You froze him inside a block of ice and carved a statue out of him.”
Rasputin shrugged, as if this were the most natural thing to do. “He is an angel, so of course I gave him wings.”
9:24 P.M.
Jordan pointed to the statue and grabbed Christian by the arm. “Help me! We need to get that kid free!”
The boy must be in agony.
Frozen to death, but unable to die.
Together, they rammed their shoulders at the statue’s midsection. It toppled backward off the plinth and crashed to the snow. A crack shattered down the torso. Erin joined them, dropping to her knees. They worked to clear the ice from the frozen form, each taking a side, pulling and breaking away chunks of ice.
Jordan removed a piece from the boy’s chest, taking some of his skin with it.
He prayed the boy slept in this icy slumber, trying not to picture the kid being dropped into cold water, sealed there, drowning as the ice formed around him. He could only imagine the suffering.
Erin worked very gently on his face, exposing his cheeks, his eyelids, cracking ice from his hair. His lips and the tip of his nose had split, leaking blood and freezing again.
Rasputin looked on, his arms crossed. “Of course, this presents a problem,” he said. “The countess reached the center of the maze first, but Erin found the angel. So then who is the winner?”
Jordan scowled at him, as if that mattered now. He watched as Erin concentrated on freeing the boy’s face, pressing her hands against his cheeks and chin and across his closed eyes. It seemed a futile process. It could take hours to thaw the boy out, even with a fire nearby.
But Erin glanced over to him, her expression amazed. “His skin is frozen, but once warmed, the flesh below seems soft, pliable.”
Intrigued, Rasputin stepped closer. “It seems the grace that grants Thomas his immortality resists even the touch of ice.”
Still, from the grimace frozen on the boy’s face, such grace had clearly not kept him from suffering.
Jordan pulled a small med kit from his pocket. He had taken it from the bathroom at Castel Gandolfo. He snapped it open and took out a syringe. “This is morphine. It’ll help with the pain. Do you want me to inject it? If his core is not frozen and his heart beats—even slowly—it might offer him some relief, especially as he wakes up.”
Erin nodded. “Do it.”
Jordan placed a hand over the boy’s bare chest, over his heart. He waited for his palm to warm the skin below. As he waited, he felt a feeble beat.
He glanced up.
“I heard it, too!” Rhun said. “He is stirring.”
“Sorry, buddy,” Jordan mumbled.
He lifted the syringe high and pounded the needle through the thawed palm print on his chest, aiming for the heart. Once set, he pulled back on the plunger, got a reassuring flush of cold blood into the syringe, indicating a good stick. Satisfied, he pushed the plunger home.
Erin brushed his frosty hair and whispered a litany into his cold ear, warming him with her breath. “I’m so sorry . . . I’m so sorry . . .”
They waited a full minute, but nothing seemed to happen.
After rubbing his thighs, calves, knees, Jordan worked the boy’s legs, bending them with great care. Christian did the same with his arms.
Erin suddenly jerked back as his thin chest gave a heave, then another.
Jordan stared over as the boy’s eyelids pulled open. Despite the dimness, the boy�
�s pupils remained fixed and tiny, constricted by the morphine. His lips gasped open, and a gargled cry escaped, half weeping, half pain.
Erin cradled him in her lap. Jordan shed his leather jacket and wrapped Thomas’s body and limbs as a violent trembling shook through his wan form.
Rhun loomed over Rasputin. “We will take the boy from here. You have won your pardon, but our business here is concluded.”
“No,” Rasputin said. “I’m afraid, it is not.”
More strigoi entered from the various archways around the room, joining the handful already there, quickly outnumbering their group. Many carried automatic weapons.
The Sanguinists moved together to face the threat.
“Do you break your word?” Rhun asked.
“I almost got you to break it for me by nearly refusing my gift,” Rasputin said with a smile. “But it seems Erin saw through my little ruse here. Which only makes your decision harder, Rhun.”
“What decision?”
“I told Bernard I would hand the boy over to the Woman of Learning.” He waved an arm to encompass both Erin and Bathory. “So which woman is it? You must choose.”
“Why?”
“The prophecy allows for only one Woman of Learning,” said Rasputin. “The false one must die.”
Jordan stood up, moving to stand over Erin.
Rasputin smiled at this motion. “Clearly the Warrior of Man will choose his lady love, guided by his heart not his head. But my dear Rhun, you are the Knight of Christ. So you must choose. Who is the true Woman of Learning? Which woman shall live? Which shall die?”
“I will not become part of your evil, Grigori,” Rhun said. “I will not choose.”
“That is also a choice,” Rasputin said. “Rather the more interesting one.”
The monk clapped his hands once.
His strigoi brought up their guns.
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