As Elizabeth turned her own eyes out across those empty waters, she was again struck by the hollowness of her loss. And not just Rhun. She pictured her estates, her children, her family. All gone.
I am alone in this world.
Tommy leaned against her. She gripped him in turn. He glanced at her, moonlight shining in his eyes, his gaze full of fear but also gratefulness that she was near.
He needed her.
And I need you, she suddenly realized.
Iscariot joined them, stepping forward amid a flutter of emerald wings, the moths released from a hold in the side of the craft. She refused to shy from the unspoken threat and kept her back stiff.
“It is time,” he said and took Tommy’s shoulders.
He turned the boy to face the cliffs—and his destiny.
6:12 A.M.
Erin held Christian’s heavy head in her lap as Jordan idled their listing boat toward the dark dock of the oil platform. The three of them were alone on the boat. Rhun and Bernard had slipped into the water when they were a hundred yards off and swam to the dock on their own. From a distance away, she saw a small scuffle of shadows, a strangled cry—then Rhun had flashed a signal that it was safe for them to continue to the dock.
Jordan nudged the boat forward.
The pair of Sanguinists had made it clear that she and Jordan were to hang back until the way ahead was clear. Rhun’s and Bernard’s keen senses would pick out and dispatch any threats.
“Keep down,” Jordan warned her as they fell under the shadow of the platform above. He kept one hand on the wheel, the other on a rifle, the weapon dropped by one of the men Bernard had killed earlier. She ducked her head low over Christian, watching Jordan.
Jordan’s eyes surveyed every strut and catwalk above, clearly not fully trusting the Sanguinists to keep them safe. The weight of the massive structure seemed to press down upon them. Far above, electric lights blazed, but the lower area was mostly dark, a shadowy world of concrete pillars, steel stairs, and a crisscrossing maze of ramps and bridges.
The Zodiac limped past the bulk of a huge luxury hydrofoil docked in a neighboring berth.
Jordan looked at it closely—and perhaps a bit enviously. “Guy’s got bank,” he mumbled, with a weak attempt at levity.
She gave him a quick smile to let him know that she appreciated the gesture. A minute later, the Zodiac bumped to a stop at a steel dock.
Jordan held out an arm, his palm down, urging her to remain low. He watched closely for several long breaths, then waved her up.
Erin shifted higher. The salty wind felt good against her face.
Jordan hopped off, shouldering his rifle and quickly tying off the boat. He then crouched next to her in the boat. They were to await Rhun and Bernard’s return.
It did not take long.
A shadow shed from above and landed silently on the steel treads of the dock. Rhun joined them, followed a moment later by Bernard. Both had knives bared and bloody. Erin wondered how many men they had killed tonight.
Bernard sheathed his blade and helped Erin to haul Christian quickly from the boat, then the cardinal carried his body from there.
“The way up should be clear,” Rhun said. “But we must take care when we reach the structure on top.”
He led them to a long metal staircase that corkscrewed around the neighboring concrete pillar and rose to the platform above. Once on the stairs, Rhun passed Jordan a machine pistol. He must have confiscated it from one of the guards.
Jordan shouldered his rifle and took the more agile weapon.
“Don’t fire unless you must,” Rhun warned. “My blade is more silent.”
He nodded, as if they were talking about their golf swings.
As they climbed higher and higher, Erin concentrated on hanging tightly to the cold slippery metal rail. Winds whipped at her in sudden gusts. She came across one landing slick with blood and stepped gingerly around the stain, trying not to picture the slaughter.
Ahead of her, Jordan’s boots ascended more confidently. Behind her, the cardinal seemed to have no trouble climbing while carrying Christian over his shoulder.
Rhun had disappeared above again, but his presence was plain. She heard a soft thud somewhere over her head. Moments later, they reached the top of the winding stairs. The electric lights seemed too stark and cold after the shadows below.
Rhun stood over the body of another guard.
Jordan joined him, crouched low, his pistol high.
Erin huddled with Bernard at the top of the stairs while the other two made a fast canvass of the immediate area. Up this high, the winds crashed against her, whipping her hair, snapping her leather jacket.
Finally, Rhun and Jordan returned.
“Place is a ghost town,” Jordan said. “Must keep only a skeletal crew here.”
Rhun pointed to the towering superstructure. “There’s a doorway over there.”
They sprinted as a group across the open decking. The structure ahead appeared to be a rendition of an old sailing ship’s forecastle, down to the tall windows, faux rigging, even a bowsprit with a figurehead. It looked like a ship cresting upward out of a steel sea.
Rhun led them to a door. He creaked it open, revealing a long corridor. He ushered them across the threshold, shutting the door behind them, but he held them at the entrance.
He lifted up a hand and shared a significant glance with Bernard. Erin guessed that they must have heard something, possibly a heartbeat or some sign of a life. With a nod from Bernard, Rhun rushed forward like a hound loosed upon a fox. He vanished into the shadows. Distantly a door slammed, accompanied by a crash of what sounded like pots and pans.
Rhun returned a moment later, slipping out of the darkness and waving them onward.
Jordan glanced hard at Rhun.
“A galley cook.” Rhun lifted his arm, revealing a green bottle of wine. “And I found this.”
Bernard quickly took it.
Erin knew the wine could be consecrated and used to help Christian heal. She hoped that it would be enough.
“I hear no one else,” Rhun said. “Not a scuff, breath, or heartbeat.”
Bernard concurred. “I believe we are alone here.”
“Let’s be careful anyway, just in case,” Jordan warned.
As they headed down the corridor, Erin realized the significance of the lack of any living presence. “Does that mean that Tommy isn’t here?”
Or Iscariot or Elizabeth.
She pictured the helicopter that had attacked them.
Had the others been aboard it? If so, where had they been headed?
“We must search thoroughly to make certain,” Rhun said. “And if they are not, we must try to find where they’ve gone.”
“And why Judas absconded with the First Angel to begin with,” Bernard added, shifting Christian’s weight on his shoulder. “How is the boy a part of his plan?”
His plan for Armageddon, Erin reminded herself.
The passageway ended at a large salon, lined by bookcases on both sides with arched windows overlooking the sea below. A large ship’s wheel stood before the windows. From the display cases holding nautical bric-a-brac, it looked like a museum.
Rhun crossed to a large hearth set amid the shelves and held out his hand. “Still warm.”
“The boss clearly left in a hurry,” Jordan said. “He must’ve been on that other chopper.”
But why?
“I will tend to Christian here,” Bernard said, carrying his body to the fireplace and lowering him to a couch. “Go learn what you can.”
Erin was already moving, spotting a set of elevator doors to the right, framed in a frilly grille of brass. Other doors stood closed along the walls, likely leading to a maze of rooms and corridors. Ignoring them, she crossed instead to the ship’s wheel. It marked the symbolic post of the captain of this steel-locked ship. The towering windows offered a commanding view of the sea, looking east toward the distant coast, where the stars had
begun to fade with the approach of the new day.
Sensing time was running out, she glanced to the right, to the nearest door. Perhaps the captain kept his most precious spaces close to his command post.
She headed to that door and found it locked.
Jordan noted her frustration as she tugged on it.
“Allow me,” Jordan said. “I have a key.”
She turned to him. How—?
He lowered his rifle, aimed at the lock, and fired.
The blast made her jump, but the result made her smile. The handle was blown off, leaving a hole through the door.
She easily pushed it open, revealing a private study lined by walnut wainscoting in a high Victorian style, with a botanical mural intricately painted on the wall, depicting lifelike flowers, leaves, and twining vines, mixed with butterflies and bees. It looked less decorative than instructional, like something one would find in a Renaissance text on botany.
Erin made straight for the massive writing desk, a solid affair with well-turned legs and a leather top covered with papers.
Jordan followed her inside.
Rhun stepped to the doorway, drawn by the commotion.
“Be careful,” he warned. “We don’t know—”
Suddenly the delicate paintings along the wall burst to life. Leaves fluttered from branches, flowers spun delicately from stems, a scatter of butterflies and bees wafted off the wall.
The entire motif was a deadly collage.
It filled the air in a dazzling kaleidoscope of movement and color.
And swooped toward Rhun.
41
December 20, 6:38 A.M. CET
Mediterranean Sea
Jordan charged the few steps to Rhun and shoved him out the door, punching one palm to his chest. Caught by surprise, the priest tripped backward and landed flat on his ass in the next room.
Jordan slammed the door shut in his face with a certain amount of satisfaction.
“Stay out there!” he yelled through the door. He grabbed an umbrella from a neighboring stand and jammed its tip through the hole he had blasted through the door, plugging the stinging cloud in with him and Erin. “I’ll see about ridding the room of these buggers! Until then, stay out, Padre!”
Jordan turned away, imagining Rhun was not happy.
Too bad.
A flower petal drifted to his cheek—and stung him, piercing the corner of his lip. He grabbed it, crushed it in his fingers, and threw it down.
As if angry at this assault, more of the creatures fell upon him, silver stingers penetrating any exposed skin: face, hands, neck. He battered at them, seeing Erin under attack, too. He headed toward her through the cloud, doing his best to protect his eyes. While the buggers might not be toxic to humans, he and Erin could still be blinded by their stingers.
Erin huddled by the large antique desk and swatted at the air around her with a binder from the tabletop. He heard a litany of curses, saw spots of blood dribbling from countless punctures on her arms and face.
She slapped at her throat, and a butterfly crumpled to the ground.
Taking a clue from her example, he swept off his long jacket and batted at the air. He joined her, using the coat like a matador against a thousand angry bulls. Whipping it in a fury, he cleared some breathing room around her.
Still, she pulled the collar of her own jacket up over her head and formed a tent around her. She leaned down, scattering papers under her palms, plainly searching for any clue to the whereabouts of the others.
He peeked over her shoulder. The papers looked to be written in a hundred languages, many of them ancient. “Just grab everything!” he suggested. “We can sort through it later!”
“Not until we neutralize the threat here. If anything escapes with us, they’ll go straight for Rhun, Bernard, or Christian.”
Jordan knew she was right. The buggers seemed tuned to attack strigoi. A moment ago, Erin had not set off this trap by entering. Even his rifle blast had failed to wake them up. It was only when Rhun crossed the threshold that they rose up.
“Let’s see if I can’t knock this load down a bit,” he said. “You keep searching.”
He reversed his tactic. Instead of using the coat to batter the threat away, he used its length and bulk like a huge net. He cast it out, scooping coatfuls of the fluttering horde out of the air. He forced them to the floor and stamped them under his boots.
Erin called to him as he worked. “Most of these papers have the letterhead of the same company. The Argentum Corporation.”
Jordan recognized the name. “Big conglomerate!” he called back. “Does all kinds of stuff, including arms manufacture. Sounds like a business a man like Judas would get himself involved with.”
He continued his steady assault. He bashed, battered, and crushed his way throughout the room until the air began to clear. Then his hunting became more focused, picking individuals out of the air with a snap of his coat.
Rhun called through the door. “How are you faring?”
“Just finishing some light housekeeping!”
Erin waved to him. “Jordan, come see this.”
He joined her, brushing a trail of blood from his eyes. She pointed to a piece of Argentum company correspondence: a grayish-silver envelope with an embossed letterhead in the corner, depicting an old-fashioned anchor.
“I keep seeing these anchors all over this place,” Erin said. “And remember Rhun’s text from Rasputin, the one that warned him that the symbol of an anchor was connected to Judas?”
“Yeah, the guy clearly has a nautical fetish.”
“It’s not nautical. It’s Christian.” She traced the shape of the cross that made up the center of the anchor. “This is a crux dissimulata. Ancient Christians used it as a secret symbol, back when Christians were persecuted for their faith and a cross would have been too dangerous to display outright.”
Jordan slapped a small brass-and-silver bee to ruin. “Must be why he chose it for the logo of his Argentum Corporation.”
“He still loves Christ,” Erin said. “And with this immortality, he can never escape his guilt. It’s no wonder he is fighting so hard to bring Him back.”
“But how?” Jordan asked.
She pushed the papers away. “There is nothing here but corporate financials and normal correspondence. Nothing points to his plan. But it must be here. Somewhere in this room.”
“He wouldn’t leave something like that out in plain sight. He would’ve hidden it.” Jordan pointed to the desk drawers. “Search for something locked, something concealed.”
With only a few stingers still in the air, Jordan searched the walls, removing the framed paintings.
“Nothing in the drawers!” Erin called to him.
Jordan reached a gilt-edged portrait that looked old. A second glance at its subject matter revealed it was a painting of Iscariot, little changed from today, but here he was wearing a Renaissance outfit, his arm around a dark-skinned woman in an expensive-looking gown. Her fingers held a small Venetian mask.
As he tried to lift this portrait, he found it was actually hinged to the wall.
Jordan’s smile matched the one worn by Judas in the painting.
He pulled it back to reveal the face of a modern safe with a digital lock.
“Erin!”
She glanced up, her eyes widening. “That’s gotta be it!”
“Let’s see if I can get this open.”
“I don’t think blasting it with a rifle will help this time.”
Jordan rubbed the tips of his fingers and blew on them. “Just needs a little safecracking.”
She looked doubtfully at him.
“Ever the skeptic, Dr. Granger.” Jordan took the flashlight out of his pocket and played the beam across the numbers on the white numerical keypad, tilting it back and forth to illuminate them from different angles. “I can get this one open in six tries.”
“Really? How?”
“Science,” he said. “Breaking into t
his safe will be all about science.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Look closely at the numbers.” He shone the flashlight on the digital keypad again. “Do you see the colored dust on a few of the keys?”
She leaned forward. “What is it?”
He held up his free hand, which was coated with the same glittering flakes. “Guy has a hobby he dotes on. Likely tinkers and handles his creations often. Forgets to wash his hands when he is in a hurry.”
“Makes sense,” Erin said.
“The guy is full of himself, grown confident in his security. Punches the same numbers over and over. But he’s also plainly paranoid. I doubt he lets his maid clean his hidden safe.”
Jordan pointed to the number seven. “That button has got the most dust on it, so I’m betting it’s the first number.”
“And the other three?”
“If you look close enough, you can see dust on the numbers nine, three, and five.”
She bent to look. He liked having her close, and he liked looking intelligent for a change, too.
“So.” Here he needed a bit of good fortune. “If there are no repeated numbers and the code is four digits long, starting with the number seven, that leaves me only six possible variations.”
“Clever,” Erin said.
He tapped his head with a finger. “Logic.”
And hopefully luck.
He tapped out the various combinations, starting with 7935. Nope. On his third attempt, the light on the front of the safe blinked from red to green.
He stepped back and let Erin do the honors.
She grabbed the handle, turned it, and swung the door open.
Jordan stared over her shoulder. “More paper.”
A stack filled the space, held down by a blocky glass paperweight.
Erin picked it up, lifting the block toward his flashlight. Hanging in the center of the crystal was a brown leaf.
“There’s writing on it,” she said. “Herodian Aramaic.”
“Can you translate it?”
She nodded, squinting a bit, turning the block this way and that. Finally, she sighed and spoke the words written there. “ ‘After His words, written in blood, are lifted from their prison of stone, the one who took Him from this world will serve in bringing Him back, sparking an era of fire and bloodshed, casting a pall over the earth and all its creatures.’ ”
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