October 26, 5:04 P.M., IST
Masada, Israel
“Hold your fire!” Jordan yelled, lifting up his left arm. “It’s the padre.”
He lowered the muzzle of his submachine gun and strode over to the clergyman. It was strange enough that the priest had come down here, but he noticed something even more disturbing.
He’s not wearing any rappelling gear.
Jordan stepped in front of him as the aftershock faded. “What are you doing down here, Father?”
From under the cowl of his hood, the priest regarded him. Jordan did the same, sizing the other up. Father Korza stood two inches taller than Jordan, but under his long open jacket, he was leaner, muscular, a whip of a man. The hard planes of his face were clearly Slavic, softened only by full lips. He wore his black hair down to his collar—a bit too long for a holy man.
But it was those eyes, studious and dark—very dark—that set Jordan’s heart to pounding. His fingers involuntarily tightened on his weapon.
He’s only a priest, he reminded himself.
Father Korza stared a moment longer at Jordan, then his gaze flicked away, sweeping the room in a single glance.
“Did you hear me, padre? I asked you a question.”
The priest’s words were whispered, breathless, oddly formal. “The Church has prior claim to what lies within this crypt.”
Father Korza started to step past him. Jordan grabbed his arm—but only caught air. Somehow the priest smoothly shrugged out of his way and stalked toward the open sarcophagus.
Jordan followed, noting the priest’s eyes fix to the child staked to the wall, his face unreadable. Reaching the tomb, the man glanced inside the empty sarcophagus and visibly tensed, going statue-still.
Erin approached him from the far wall. She held aloft her cell phone, plainly searching for a signal, hoping to get her photographs uploaded somewhere safe, always thinking like a researcher.
As she reached the sarcophagus, Jordan kept between her and Father Korza. For some reason, he didn’t want her near the strange priest.
“This is a restricted area,” Jordan warned.
Perlman backed him up, resting a palm on his sidearm. “You should not be here, Father Korza. The Israeli government set strict guidelines on your visit here.”
The clergyman ignored them both. He focused on Erin. “Have you found a book? Or a block of stone of such size?” He held out his arms.
Erin shook her head. “We found nothing like that, just the girl. It looks like the Germans cleared this tomb during the war.”
His only reaction was a slight narrowing of his eyes.
Who is this guy?
Jordan placed his hand on the butt of his machine pistol, waiting to see what the holy man would do next. Brusque and taciturn, the priest had obvious issues with authority, but so far he’d shown no outward signs of threat.
Peripherally, Jordan watched McKay slip a hand to his own dagger.
“Easy, Corporal,” he ordered. “Stand down.”
The priest ignored McKay, but he suddenly tensed, freezing in midturn, his ear cocked to the side. He made eye contact with Jordan, but his words were for all of them.
“You must all leave. Now.”
The last word bristled with warning.
What is he talking about?
The answer came from Jordan’s earpiece: a scream burst forth, full of blood and pain, sharp enough to stab deep into his head.
Sanderson.
From up top.
The scream cut off into a burst of static.
He touched the throat mike. “Sanderson! Respond!”
No reply.
“Corporal, come in!”
The priest moved swiftly to the entrance. Cooper and the young Israeli soldier blocked him from leaving. Weapons were raised all around.
At the threshold to the tomb, the priest lifted his face toward the roof, his whole body going rigid, like a big cat before an attack. His next words were chilling for their calmness.
“Back against the walls.” He turned and locked eyes with Jordan. “Do as I say or you will all die.”
Jordan raised his weapon. “Are you threatening us, padre?”
“Not I. The ones who come.”
5:07 P.M.
Erin struggled to comprehend what was happening. The priest’s gaze met hers. For a moment a flicker of fear broke through the pale contours of the priest’s face, long enough to drive her heart into her throat. She sensed that he worried for their safety, not his own. A terrible sadness haunted his eyes as he looked away, as if he already mourned them.
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
But Jordan was clearly not giving up so easily. “What’s going on? I’ve got men topside. As does Lieutenant Perlman.”
Again that mournful look. “By now, they are dead. As you shall be if you do not—”
A gasp rose from Cooper, who stood by the door. Everyone turned. He opened his mouth, but only blood flowed out. He collapsed to his knees, then his face. The black hilt of a dagger jutted from the base of his skull.
Erin cried his name. The soldiers raised their guns as one. She stepped behind them, out of the line of fire.
Beyond Cooper’s body crouched a dark shape, a figure sculpted from shadows. Jordan fired multiple volleys, blasts deafening in the closed space. The shadow shivered back into darkness—
—but not before snagging the young Israeli soldier who was still hovering near the threshold. Erin caught a glint of steel, then he was gone, yanked off his feet and into the black tunnel.
Jordan stopped firing, plainly fearing he’d hit the soldier.
A scream, full of terror and blood, echoed—then silence.
Lieutenant Perlman lurched forward, weapon up. “Margolis!”
The priest’s black-clad arm shoved the Israeli back.
Hard.
“Stay here,” Father Korza warned, then defied his own words.
With a turn of his wrist, a blade appeared in his fingers as if out of thin air. He bared the edge: a sickle of silver, a hooked dagger, like some prehistoric claw.
With a sweep of his jacket, he dove across the threshold and vanished.
Immediately a savage wailing keened out of the darkness.
The sound sang to fears buried in her bones and bound her in place.
Even the hardened soldiers seemed to sense it. Jordan drew her farther from the entrance. McKay and Perlman flanked them, weapons pointed at the door. Retreating, regrouping, they took cover behind the sarcophagus.
A single piercing scream ripped from the tunnel.
Jordan lifted Erin as effortlessly as if her bones were hollow, her flesh immaterial. She felt that way already, as if she could float away.
He rolled her into the open sarcophagus. “Stay down, stay hidden.”
The steel in his voice and iron in his eyes grounded her back in her own skin—not that she wanted to be there. He pressed her lower. “Do you understand?”
“Yes.” She wanted to duck away, cover her head, shut out the horror, but when she did, sightlessness scared her more. Her fingers clung to the lip of the box. Like everyone else, she watched the pitch-dark mouth of the tunnel.
To the left, a sharp strike and flash drew her eye. McKay held a flaming flare.
“Toss it!” Jordan pointed to the dark exit.
McKay swung his arm and tossed the flare through the doorway. It tumbled end over end, leaving a trail of fire, and plunged into the well of darkness. Brightness forced back shadows, along with darker shapes. Erin lost count at four.
That left a lone figure in the center, standing in a shredded cassock, lit from the back. He held an arm over his eyes, blinded by the sudden flare. His other hand held up a curved dagger, blade dripping black blood, shimmering with reflected fire.
“Father!” Jordan yelled, raising his weapon. “Get down!”
The warning came too late.
Like rabid dogs, shadowed shapes leaped at the priest.
They slammed him down. He landed hard atop the flare, quenching it with his body. Erin winced. Darkness again swallowed the scene—but not before a figure bounded over the priest and leaped headlong into the chamber.
It flew far, hit the stone floor, then shot straight at them, moving impossibly fast. A wolf? No. A man in wrinkled brown leather, arms wide, a butcher’s hook held aloft by one muscular arm.
Jordan dropped to one knee and fired up, striking the man square in the chest. The hail of rounds knocked him into the bricked roof. He dropped to the stone floor, hitting hard and going dead-still.
At the door, a mass of shadows rolled into the room. The priest wrestled with two black-suited figures. A third leaped past.
The attacker sped low and fast into Lieutenant Perlman. They hit the wall beside the crucified girl and dropped out of view. The Israeli’s rifle barked, blasting upward, rounds sparking off rock. Erin flattened herself in the stone box.
A shadow materialized above her. She caught a flash of teeth—too many teeth—and wished that she had a gun or a knife. She crossed both arms in front of her face and waited to feel the teeth in her skin.
Instead, bullets ripped through the torso above, and the bulk dropped atop her. She struggled out from under the body, her jeans wet with blood. Gritting her teeth, she searched the body for a weapon. No gun, but he carried an Egyptian khopesh with a long curved blade. She had seen similar swords in hieroglyphs and paintings, but such weapons hadn’t been used in battle for seven hundred years.
McKay peered over the edge of the sarcophagus. “You okay?”
Before she could answer, he vanished, hit broadside. She rose up on her knees, clutching the sword.
McKay sailed across the room and slammed into the wall, cracking his head. He fell to the floor, leaving a streak of blood on the wall behind him.
A dark figure leaped atop McKay and lunged at his throat.
5:08 P.M.
Jordan was pinned under an attacker who was stronger than anyone he had ever fought. He’d already lost his gun. The guy was also ridiculously fast.
Jordan twisted and grabbed for his ankle—and the KA-BAR dagger sheathed there. He freed it as bony hands lashed down. One clamped to his throat, the other held his arm pinned against the stone.
Nails dug deep, tearing flesh.
Wrenching his free arm around, he drove the KA-BAR blade deep into the assailant’s throat, to the hilt, until he hit bone, then ripped outward.
Blood washed down his arm.
The man went limp. Jordan threw off the deadweight and rolled to a crouch. His attention fixed on Erin, standing in the sarcophagus with a short, curved sword in one hand. She looked ready to climb out to help McKay, who lay on the other side of the room, but McKay was beyond anyone’s help now. Like Perlman, who was on the floor nearby, his throat had been torn away.
Jordan shot McKay’s attacker full in the chest, knocking him off his teammate’s body. Movement turned his head back to Erin.
A shadow loomed behind her.
He leaped toward her, but a hand shoved him aside. It felt like being clipped by a speeding truck. He lost his footing and crashed into the wall.
Dazed, he watched the priest barrel past him, knock Erin down, and tackle her attacker. He struck the bloody man with his shoulder and drove him backward, slamming him into the mummified girl on the wall. Dried bone exploded under their weight.
Korza rebounded back a step.
His opponent remained in place, hanging off the ground, impaled and writhing. The butt end of the crossbow bolts that penetrated his flesh held him aloft. One bolt poked out the man’s throat. Fingers scrabbled at it. Blood bubbled out of the wound, as if it were boiling.
Then Korza lashed out, severing the man’s throat with an explosive stroke.
Jordan regained his own shaky feet, crouched, searching all around. The priest stood before the wall, shoulders hunched under shredded garments. Dark blood dripped from his blade, from his fingertips. Jordan didn’t know how much of it came from the priest’s own wounds.
He kept his gun up as he stumbled to Erin. He saw no reason to check on his other teammates. He knew death when he faced it. As far as he could tell, the only ones still alive in this room were the priest, Erin, and him.
He kept a cautious eye on the priest, leery of his allegiances.
With a flare of his long jacket, Korza dropped to a knee, head bowed as if in prayer—but that was not his intent. He snatched something from the floor. It vanished into his black robes as he stood again.
The child’s small doll was gone.
Instead of checking on Erin, he’d gone to pick up a doll? Jordan gave up trying to figure the man out.
“Erin?” he said as he reached her side.
She whirled toward him, her sword held high.
“Just me,” he said, and shifted his gun to the side, both hands up, palms out.
Her wide eyes came into focus, and she lowered the blade. He pried it out of her fingers and dropped it. Her face white, her eyes lost, she slumped in the corner of the sarcophagus. He lifted her out and sat with his back against the cold stone with her in his lap. He ran his hands over her, searching for wounds. She seemed unharmed.
The priest joined them. Jordan’s hand inched toward his pistol, a protective arm encircling Erin. What were his intentions?
“There are no more,” Korza whispered as if in prayer. “But we are still not safe.”
Jordan glanced over at the battered man.
“They will seal us in,” he said with such certainty that Jordan believed him.
“How do you know …?”
“Because it is what I would do.” He strode toward the door.
Jordan noted where he headed. The ROV sat on the floor, one camera aimed at them, a green light shining above it. The priest stamped on the lens. Metal and glass shattered under his heel and skittered across stone.
Jordan understood, remembering Sanderson’s scream.
They’ve been watching us.
9
October 26, 5:11 P.M., IST
Masada, Israel
As the last screams echoed across the summit, Bathory crouched before the now-dark monitor, frozen in shock, trapped between the past and the present.
She had witnessed the battle in the tomb, followed by the slaughter of the forces she had sent below. The fighting had been swift, dimly lit, much of it occurring out of camera view.
But she had also spied the few moments before the chaotic fighting.
She had watched a helmeted soldier confront a black-garbed figure, his back to the camera. But she had caught the flash of a white Roman collar as he cast a single glance to encompass the room.
Her pained blood went cold at this fleeting glimpse of the enemy.
Here was that Knight of Christ mentioned in the texted message.
A Sanguinist.
The two men faced off like rams during rutting season. Maybe the soldier would solve her problem for her, but the knight stepped past the soldier and stopped, staring at the far wall—what did he see?
She wished the camera’s range extended to the back of the room.
Out of those shadows, a woman in civilian clothes appeared, another surprise. She came waving her phone in the familiar pantomime of someone searching for a signal.
The knight turned to the woman and held out his hands to indicate an object the size and shape of a book.
Bathory’s breathing had quickened.
The woman shook her head.
The knight performed a slow circuit of the room. The tomb seemed empty, except for the sarcophagus. No likely hiding places. When the knight’s shoulders slumped, she let out her breath.
So they had not found the book.
Either it had never been there, or it had been plundered.
Then the knight grew wise to the presence of Bathory’s team, requiring a swift response. He should have been defeated, but she had underestimated his skill, also the support by the soldiers
. He had taken out half of her forces in seconds.
From his performance, she knew the knight below was not new to the cloth, but someone much older, as well blooded as her own forces.
Then, as that knight crossed to crush the ROV camera, she got a full look at his face: his cleft chin, his broad Slavic cheekbones, his intense dark eyes. The shock of recognition immobilized her and left her hollowed out.
But life was not a vacuum.
Into that void, a molten, fiery hatred flowed, filling her anew, forging her into something else, a weapon of fury and vengeance.
She finally moved, clenching her hand into a fist and gouging her ancient ruby ring down the darkened monitor. Like so much that she possessed, the precious ring had been connected to her family for a long time.
As had the knight.
Rhun Korza.
That name had scarred her as surely as the black palm on her neck—and caused her as much pain. All her life, she had been raised on tales of how Korza’s failure had cast her once-proud family into generations of poverty and disgrace. She fingered the edge of her tattoo, a source of constant agony, another debt of blood that she owed that knight.
She flashed to that long-ago ceremony, kneeling before Him to whom she had pledged herself, His hand around her throat, burning in that mark in the shape of His palm and fingers, binding her to Him in servitude.
All because of that knight.
She had seen him in a thousand dreams and had always hoped she might someday find him alive, to make him pay for the deeds that had doomed generations of women in her family to sacrifice, to years of living with torment—enslaved by blood, fated to train, to serve, to wait.
This knowledge came with another truth, a pained realization.
She again felt His strangled hold on her throat, burning away her old life.
Her master must have known that Rhun Korza was the knight sent to Masada to retrieve the book. Yet that secret had been kept from her. He had sent her to face Korza without warning her first.
Why?
Was this to satisfy His own cruel amusements—or was there some greater purpose in all of this?
If she had known that Korza lurked in that tomb, she would never have sent anyone down. She would have waited for the knight to come up with the book, or empty-handed in failure, and shot him off the fissure like a fly off a wall.
The Blood Gospel Page 9