Innocent Blood

by James Rollins

  “If we could’ve possessed such a weapon . . .” Bernard shook his head, as distraught as Jordan had ever seen him. “Imagine the suffering we could have spared the world.”

  “And all you would’ve wreaked,” Arella said. “I walked the mosque after you left Jerusalem. I saw what your forces did in the name of God. You were not ready. The world was not ready.”

  Rhun touched his pectoral cross. “We have no time for this,” he reminded them. “The sun will be setting in another hour.”

  His words seemed to finally break through Bernard’s anger and anguish. “You are right.” He reached to his armor and removed the Blood Gospel again and held it out. “Please, my child. Before it’s too late. You must bless this book.”

  Looking worried, Tommy took it. The book looked huge in his small hands. “This didn’t work last time. And remember, I’m not the First Angel.”

  Bernard gave them a baffled look. It seemed the cardinal was suffering one long day of surprises, most of them bad. Jordan knew how that felt. “What does he mean?”

  Erin ignored him. “Try anyway,” she urged the boy. “You can’t do any harm.”

  “Okay,” Tommy said doubtfully. He opened the book and lifted his palm over the pages. “I, Thomas Bolar, bless this book.”

  Everyone leaned forward, as if expecting a miracle.

  Again nothing.

  No golden light, no new words.

  It seemed this blasted place had worn out its potential for miracles.

  4:04 P.M.

  “As Tommy said,” Erin offered, sensing the defeat among the Sanguinists, “he’s not the First Angel.”

  “Then who is?” Bernard asked.

  Erin knew she was missing something, but she felt as if she were struggling with a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, shifting pieces blindly. “Arella said Tommy carries the best of the First Angel inside him. So I think he’s still key to this puzzle.”

  Rhun stood a little straighter upon hearing this. She imagined he had been thinking of all the lives spent to bring Tommy here.

  They can’t have died in vain.

  Still, she let that go. It was the Sanguinists’ job to wallow in sin and redemption. She had a real problem that needed solving, and she could not let herself be distracted.

  “If the First Angel is inside Tommy,” Jordan said, “how do we get him out?”

  “Maybe he has to be cut out,” Bernard said.

  Erin scowled at him. “I think we’ll save that as a last resort.” She stared at Tommy. “Maybe an exorcism could release the angel.”

  Tommy gulped, looking no happier about her suggestion than Bernard’s.

  Rhun’s shoulders tightened. “You do not exorcise angels, Erin. You exorcise demons.”

  “Maybe so. But maybe not.”

  They were all in new territory here.

  Erin looked to Arella. “And you cannot help us?”

  “You have all the answers that you need.”

  Erin frowned, beginning to understand the ancients’ frustration with their oracles. Sometimes they could be downright obtuse. But Erin knew the sibyl was telling her the truth. Somewhere inside Erin was the answer. As the Woman of Learning, it was up to her to puzzle it out from here. She also had to trust that Arella’s silence served a purpose, and the sibyl wasn’t playing coy just to frustrate them.

  Did that mean something, too?

  “Maybe we need to take Tommy to Rome after all,” Jordan said, “now that he’s better.”

  “No,” Erin said. “Whatever is to come, it must happen in this place.”

  She turned in a slow circle, knowing the answer lay somewhere in the sandy golden crater. Her eyes went from the panels to the uneven glass edges that looked like splashes of water frozen into ice along the crater’s rim.

  “Are you sure it must happen here?” Jordan pressed.

  Plainly he was seeking any excuse to escape this desert and get her somewhere safe. She appreciated that sentiment, but with the gates of Hell relentlessly opening, nowhere on Earth would be safe for much longer.

  Support for her position came from the most unlikely spot.

  Agmundr grunted. “The woman is right. We must stay here.”

  “Why?” Erin turned to him. “What do you know?”

  Agmundr pointed to the north. “Nothing mystical. That Chinook helicopter that I thought was following us . . .” He glanced at Bernard. “I fear we failed to outrun it after all.”

  Erin looked at the smoking chopper. It looked like a horse that had been ridden into the ground.

  Agmundr cocked his head. “From the sounds of its engines, it’ll be here shortly.”

  Rhun and the others clearly tried to listen for it, but their blank faces told her that the Viking must have sharper hearing.

  “Are you certain?” Bernard asked.

  Agmundr lifted a heavy eyebrow, plainly wondering how the cardinal could doubt him.

  Jordan grimaced, and Erin put her hand on his arm.

  “Nothing like a little more pressure,” he said.

  “I work best under pressure.”

  Of course, maybe not this much pressure.

  4:08 P.M.

  Rhun envied Erin and Jordan, appreciating how they found comfort in each other, how a simple touch could slow a troubled heart.

  He glanced at Elisabeta, who pulled a protective arm around Tommy after Wingu undid her chains. In the battle to come, they would need every resource. Rhun sensed Elisabeta would do everything to keep the boy from harm.

  Her gaze met his. For once, he read no animosity, only concern for the boy under her arm. How different their fates might have been if he had met her as a simple man, instead of a tainted strigoi. Then again, perhaps it would have been best if he had never met her at all.

  “How many soldiers can a Chinook carry?” Christian asked, drawing Rhun back to the moment.

  “It’s a troop carrier,” Jordan answered. “Fifty or so. More if you pack ’em in tight.”

  Fifty?

  Rhun scanned the dark sky. He finally spotted the olive-green bee against the gray sky. It was indeed a large craft with rotors front and back and a long cabin stretched between. Its engine pulsed with strength and menace.

  Rhun considered their small group. The Sanguinists here were all seasoned warriors, but they numbered too few.

  Jordan tracked the aircraft with his weapon, but he didn’t fire. “Armored,” the man mumbled as the craft flew closer. “Figures.”

  The massive helicopter circled the crater from a distance away, sizing them up, taking account of the situation. Then it slowly settled to the ground, a good hundred yards beyond the crater rim.

  It kicked up a giant cloud of sand, obscuring its form. But Rhun made out a ramp lowering from the rear of the helicopter. Shadows tromped down it. He counted two score. So less than fifty. But they looked strong, fit, and fierce, some in leather armor, others in uniforms of different armies, and a few in simple jeans and T-shirts. They were clearly no disciplined fighting force, but they did not need to be.

  He listened for heartbeats from them—but found none.

  All strigoi.

  Rhun stepped forward, shielding Erin and Jordan behind him. He had led the pair to this moment—back inside the mountain of Masada, when he had revealed his nature to them. He had set them on this bloody path, and he could do no less than give his life to protect them now. But he feared that it would not be enough.

  Then again, he was not alone this day.

  Christian drew to one side of him, Bernard on the other, and flanking them all were Agmundr and Wingu. Elisabeta hung back with Tommy, crouching from the threat, showing sharp teeth.

  Upon some silent signal, the entire pack of strigoi began to lope across the sand at a speed that no human could ever match, racing under this dread gray sky.

  Erin’s heart skipped faster, but she held her ground. Jordan stood calm next to her, his bravery evident with every strong beat of his heart.

  Rhun dre
w his blade and waited.

  He picked out his first target: the biggest warrior, a tall man in the middle. Christian followed his gaze, nodded, and picked another for himself. Rhun watched the others choose their targets.

  With discipline and training, the Sanguinists could break the first wave of attackers. Additionally, his group had the advantage of fighting on holy ground.

  It might weaken the others enough.

  It might.

  Then another hatch dropped from the flank of the helicopter and dark beasts poured out of the shadows and into the grim light.

  Rhun’s fragile hope faded.

  Blasphemare.

  He spotted gray jackals with long noses and large ears, howling as they ran, their cries piercing the day. Behind them came a pride of black-coated lions flowing with a sinuous grace, like oil across the sand.

  Each was twisted into a fearsome and monstrous incarnation of its natural self, born of black blood and cruelty.

  He tested their heartbeats, finding them slow and deep, attesting to their age and strength. Even without the strigoi, Rhun doubted that his forces would stand against these creatures for long—if at all.

  Rhun swallowed once and whispered a quick prayer.

  They were doomed.

  As had been foretold the day he was turned, he would die fighting.

  But Erin deserved a better fate.

  4:31 P.M.

  It had to be blasphemare, too.

  Jordan groaned. He gripped his machine pistol more firmly, knowing it was little better than a popgun against these beasts.

  The countess drew Tommy back behind her. “Don’t paint the devil on the wall,” she told him.

  What does that mean?

  Tommy was equally baffled and voiced it aloud. “Huh?”

  The boy looked at the menagerie hauling ass toward them. It sure looked like the devil was all around them. And this was no painting, but a slavering, howling horde in all its cinematic glory.

  “It means . . . have hope,” she explained.

  It was odd to hear the countess talking of hope when Jordan himself couldn’t seem to muster more than a scrap of it. Still, it was nice of her to try to comfort the kid.

  The strigoi horde reached the crater’s rim first and rather than flooding over the edge, they parted and swept outward, encircling the bowl, trapping them completely. Or perhaps they also sensed the holiness of this sand-and-glass valley.

  The countess hissed low in her throat, pulling Tommy farther behind her. The Sanguinists moved to match the strigoi maneuver, ringing everyone in a protective circle.

  Arella spoke near Jordan’s ear, making him jump, coming upon him so quietly.

  “The countess speaks wisdom,” Arella whispered. “All can yet be won.”

  Before Jordan could ask her what that meant, Arella grabbed Tommy from behind Bathory and yanked him toward the open mouth of the well—and pushed him into it. He cried out as he splashed clumsily into the water.

  Bathory was upon her in a flash, knocking her away. But a splash from the well washed across her boots. She cried out and fell back, as if it had been molten lava.

  Arella returned to the well’s edge as Tommy floundered below.

  “Beware,” she warned. “Only those imbued by angels can touch these waters. All others will be destroyed. Even humans.”

  With those dire words, she dove into the water, catching Tommy’s arm and dragging him below.

  The countess hung back, looking stricken.

  No wonder the well had been so firmly sealed and left to the sand and ages.

  “At least the boy is safe from immediate harm,” Rhun consoled her.

  Yeah, but what about us?

  Jordan widened his shooting stance. He stared up at the horde gathered around them. Strigoi hissed and drew long curved swords. Blasphemare crowded in by their hips and shoulders. At least the bastards hadn’t brought guns—then he remembered why they didn’t carry such weapons.

  They preferred to eat their prey alive.

  51

  December 20, 4:33 P.M. EET

  Siwa, Egypt

  Movement drew Erin’s eye to the crater’s edge, to where a giant in brown leather stalked forward, edging into the bowl. The strigoi was black skinned, shaven headed, pierced with steel, dragging a long broadsword behind him. He bent to pinch some of the sand and cast it away in disgust, likely sensing the holy ground. He spit where he tossed the grains, sneering and looking down at them.

  At her.

  A chill swept through her.

  He continued another step, then another into the crater.

  He didn’t come alone.

  A pair of blasphemare lions padded to either side of him, staying close, their eyes searching, tails swishing grains. Their manes were black rather than tawny, ruffled by the hot desert wind. Their eyes shone toward her with a dread crimson under the ash-covered day. They snarled, showing fangs that better fitted something saber-toothed. Black claws dug deep, kicking sand back in a posture of pure feline threat.

  The giant swung his sword in an easy figure eight through the air, the long blade an extension of his muscular arms.

  Suddenly Erin wished she had not insisted her group come to Siwa.

  Still, she pushed such thoughts down and firmed her grip on her gun. No matter the outcome in the next few minutes, she knew it was right to come here. Her guilt lay not in bringing everyone here but in failing to solve the mystery of these sands in time, the riddle hidden behind Arella’s calm eyes.

  Around her, the Sanguinists had drawn their swords. Bernard carried an antique curved blade that shimmered like water, made of Damascus steel, edged with silver, likely deeply blessed. Christian brandished a curved blade, too, but his was modern, a kukri out of Nepal. Agmundr drew a longsword from a sheath across his back. Wingu raised two shorter blades, one in each hand, swinging them with grace and power.

  Rhun simply had his karambit in hand, its hooked edge as lethal as any blasphemare claw.

  The giant strigoi took a final step forward, drawing the lions at his hips—then stopped again.

  From behind him, a familiar silver-haired figure stalked into view. Iscariot had changed out of his usual gray suit into leather armor, bleached white, tailored gracefully to his muscular body.

  Jordan swung his machine pistol toward him.

  Iscariot noted the motion, and a shadow of a derisive smile etched his features. The man had plainly recovered from the last time Jordan had shot him with that same weapon.

  Iscariot lifted an arm and released an emerald-winged moth into the air.

  The Sanguinists shifted warily, their eyes upon its flutter. How many of those poisonous creations had he brought with him? With enough of them, he could fell the entire group of Sanguinists without stirring his army.

  But the moth flew only a few feet into the crater before spiraling to the ground, shattering a wing to iridescent scales as it crashed. Whether from the contamination of the ash in the air or from the blowing dust of sand, apparently its delicate cogs could not handle this harsh terrain.

  Or maybe again it was the holiness found here.

  No matter the cause, at least one threat had been neutralized.

  Not that it would likely change the final outcome.

  Iscariot’s voice carried easily down into the crater. His gaze swept over them, noticing who was missing. “It seems you have lost your two angels.”

  Erin willed herself to keep her gaze fixed on the enemy and not let it twitch toward the well where Arella had vanished with Tommy. She hoped that the boy would get away, that the spring led out to some secret exit, some distant pool. Tommy’s immortality should keep him alive, even drowned underwater.

  “We may have lost our angels,” Jordan called back. “But I see you found your demons.”

  Iscariot laughed and gestured to the Sanguinists. “You have your own demons, Warrior of Man.”

  “Friends,” Jordan countered. “Not demons.”

&n
bsp; Iscariot frowned at them, clearly having no more patience. “Where are you hiding him?” he asked, leaving no doubt he was talking about Tommy.

  Iscariot must know, as long as Tommy was loose, that his plan to unleash Hell on Earth remained threatened.

  Silence stretched for several breaths.

  Judas’s eyes settled on Erin and remained there. He lifted an arm and pointed to her. “No one is to harm her,” he called out loudly. “She is mine. She will give me my answer.”

  A wave of snarling and hissing swept along the crater’s rim.

  “Kill the rest!”

  4:34 P.M.

  Far down the throat of the well, Tommy kicked as hard as he could, heading even deeper. The initial shock after the strange woman tossed him down here and dragged him under had faded. Now he just tried to keep up with her. Despite the sudden dunking, he oddly trusted her.

  He didn’t know if she was really an angel, but she’d saved his life, so for now, he would give her the benefit of his doubt.

  To either side, the walls of the well felt like beach glass, still rough, but too smooth to be rock. He pictured that explosion etched above, of a battle between Lucifer and Michael. That same blast must have gone deep under the earth, sealing off that pool where Christ had stood and melting everything around it to glass.

  He wanted to disbelieve that story, too, except for two things.

  One, the water grew ever warmer the deeper he dove.

  Two, beneath him, lighting his way, a golden glow beckoned, outlining the woman’s sleek legs.

  He chased after her until his lungs were bursting, his ears stinging from the pressure.

  Down, down he went.

  Finally, he reached the bottom, desperate for air.

  She pointed to a side cavern that opened a few yards off. With his lungs burning, he ducked through the short passageway, pushing off the smooth walls and kicking off the bottom. The source of the light came from there, drawing him like a moth to a flame.

  But it wasn’t a flame he sought.

  Air.

  He had dived with his father off the Catalina coast, into sea caves that pocked that island, remembering ducking through rock to find a cave sloshing with water below and a pocket of air above.