The slaughter below told her that Korza was too dangerous to confront in close combat, even if she sent her remaining forces down after him.
But there was another way, a more fitting way.
The anger inside her hardened to a newer purpose.
Before the image went dark, she had spotted the body of one of her team near the tomb’s door, carrying a satchel over one shoulder. An identical pack waited near the top of the fissure.
She turned to the two hunters still in attendance.
Tarek had shaved his head like many of the others and riddled his skin with black tattoos, in his case Bible verses written in Latin. Leather, stitched with human sinew, clad his muscular six-foot frame. Steel piercings cut through lips and nostrils. His black eyes had narrowed to slits, furious at the casualties inflicted by those in the tomb. He wanted revenge. Dealt by his own hands.
“The knight is too dangerous,” she warned. “Especially when backed into a corner. We are down too many to risk sending more.”
Tarek could not argue. They had both witnessed the slaughter on the screen. But there was another option. Not as satisfying, but the end would be the same.
“Blow the fissure.” She motioned to the pack on top and pictured the satchel below. “Kill them all.”
She intended to entomb the knight and his companions, to rebury the secrets here under tons of rock. And if Korza survived the blast, then a slow death trapped beneath all of that stone would be his fate.
For a moment it seemed that Tarek would disobey her order. Fury ruled him, stoked by all the blood. Then his gaze flicked to her neck. To the tattoo. He knew its significance better than any.
To defy her was to defy Him.
Tarek bowed his head once, like bending iron—then turned and folded into the night.
She closed her eyes, centering herself, but a low moan caught her attention, reminding her that she still had work to do.
The freckle-faced corporal named Sanderson knelt in the dust, the lone survivor of the massacre on the summit. He’d been stripped to the waist, his head yanked back by nails dug deep into his scalp by the remaining hunter at her side. This one—Rafik, brother to Tarek—was lean, all bone and malice, a useful tool in trying times.
She shifted closer, the soldier’s eyes tracking her.
“I have questions,” she said gently.
He only stared, trembling and sweating, doe-eyed with terror, looking so very young. She once had a brother very much like this one, how he had loved roses and chilled wine, but she had been forbidden from any contact with him after taking His mark. She had to cut away all earthly attachments to her past, binding herself only to Him.
Another loss she placed upon Korza’s shoulders.
She ran the back of her hand down the corporal’s velvety cheek. He was not yet old enough to grow a proper beard. Yet, despite his terror, she read an ember of defiance in his eyes.
She sighed.
As if he had any hope of resisting.
She leaned back and lifted an arm, casting out her desire.
Come.
The pair—she named them Hunor and Magor, after two Hungarian mythic heroes—were never far from her side, forever bonded to her. Without looking, she felt them push out of the darkness behind her, where they had been feeding, and pad forward. She held out a palm and was met by a warm tongue, a furry muzzle, and a low rumble like thunder beyond the horizon.
She dropped her hand, now damp and weeping with blood.
“They’re still hungry,” she commented, knowing it to be true, feeling an echo of that desire inside her.
The soldier’s eyes widened, straining against the unimaginable. Horror at what stood behind her quashed any further defiance.
She leaned very close. She felt his hot breath, almost tasting his anguish. She moved to his ear and whispered.
“Tell me,” she said, starting with a simple question, “who was that woman down there?”
Before he could answer, the night exploded behind her. Light, sound, and heat erupted from Masada’s summit, shaking the ground, turning darkness to day. Flames blasted out of the chasm, swirling into a cataclysm of smoke and dirt—closing what God had opened only hours ago. She intended to bring this entire mountain down to cover her tracks.
With the detonation, peace again settled over her.
She stared down at the corporal.
She still needed answers.
10
October 26, 5:14 P.M., IST
Masada, Israel
Heat scorched Rhun’s back, as hot as the breath of any dragon. He pictured the wall of flames rolling over the top of the sealed dark sarcophagus. But it was the sound that hurt the worst. He feared the concussive blast might crack his skull, fountain blood from his ears, and defile this once-sacred space.
Beyond their tomb, stone rained down near the entrance. Unlike the first explosion that had sealed the fissure above, this second one sought to destroy this very chamber.
Thus trapping them.
As fire and fury died down to a rumbling groan, he braced hard against the limestone sides of the tomb. It was fitting that he die in a sarcophagus—trapped as surely as he’d once sealed another behind stone. Indeed, he almost welcomed it. But the woman and soldier had not earned this fate.
He had hurled them both inside the coffin after the first explosion. Knowing this ancient crypt offered the only shelter, he had drawn the stone lid over them, using all of his strength, assisted only slightly by the soldier. If they survived, he did not know how he would explain such strength of limb. The code he lived by demanded that he let them die rather than allow those questions to be asked.
But he could not let them die.
So they crowded together in pitch darkness. He tried to pray, but his senses continued to overwhelm him. He smelled the wine that had once filled this box, the metallic odor of blood that saturated the remains of his clothing, and the burnt paper-and-chalk smell of spent explosives.
None of it masked the simple lavender scent of her hair.
Her heartbeat, swift as a woodlark’s, raced against his chest. The warmth of her trembling body spread along his stomach and legs. He had not been this close to a woman since Elisabeta. It was a small mercy that Erin was turned away from him, her face buried in the soldier’s chest.
He counted her heartbeats, and in that rhythm, he found the peace to pray—until at last silence finally returned to his mind and to the world beyond their small tomb.
She stirred under him, but he touched her shoulder to tell her to be still. He wanted them to wait longer, to be certain that the room had stopped collapsing before he attempted to shift the tomb’s lid. Only then would he know if they were entombed by more rock than even he could lift.
Her breathing slowed, her heart stilled. The soldier, too, calmed.
Finally, Rhun braced his knees against the bottom of the stone box and pushed up with his shoulders. The lid scraped against the sides. He heaved again. The massive weight moved a handsbreadth, then two.
Finally, it tilted and smashed to the floor. They were free, although he feared that they had only traded the small cell for a larger one. But at least the temple held. The men who had dug out this secret chamber had reinforced its walls to hold the tempestuous mountain at bay.
He stood and helped Erin and Jordan out of the sarcophagus. One glowstick had survived the blast and cast a dim glow into the room. He squinted through scorching dust to the tomb’s entrance.
It was an entrance no more.
Earth and rock sealed it from floor to ceiling.
The other two coughed, holding cloths to their faces, filtering the fouled air. They would not last long.
The soldier clicked on a flashlight and shone it toward the doorway. He met Rhun’s eyes and stepped back from him, his face dark with suspicion and wariness.
The woman cast the beam of a second flashlight around the ruined chamber. A layer of dust covered everything, transforming the dead bodi
es to powdered statues, blunting the horror of the slaughter.
But nothing hid the broken pieces of the sarcophagus’s heavy stone lid. Her light lingered there. Motes of dust drifting through the beam did not obscure the truth of his impossible act in lifting and pushing that stone free.
The soldier did not seem to notice. He faced the blasted doorway as if it were an unsolvable mystery.
Closer at hand, the woman’s light settled on Rhun, as did her soft brown eyes. “Thank you, Father.”
He heard an awkward catch in her voice when she said the word father. He found it discomfiting, sensing that she had no faith.
“My name is Rhun,” he whispered. “Rhun Korza.”
He had not shared the intimacy of his full name with another in a long time, but if they were to die here together, he wanted them to know it.
“I’m Erin, and this is Jordan. How—”
The soldier cut her off; cold fury underlay his tone. “Who were they?”
That single question hid another. He recognized it in the man’s voice, read it in his face.
What were they?
He considered the hidden question. The Church forbade revealing the truth, its most guarded secret. Much could be lost.
But the man was a warrior, like himself. He had stood his ground, faced darkness, and he had paid in blood for a proper answer.
Rhun would honor that sacrifice. He stared the other full in the eye and offered the truth, naming their attackers. “They are strigoi.”
His words hung in the air, like the swirling dust, obscuring more than they revealed. Clearly confused, the man cocked his head to the side. The woman, too, studied him, more in curiosity than in anger. Unlike the soldier, she did not seem to blame him for the deaths here.
“What does that mean?” The soldier would not be pacified until he understood, and doubtless not afterward either.
Rhun lifted a stone off one of the dead men and brushed sand from his face. The woman kept her light on his hands as he angled the dusty head toward them. With one gloved hand, he peeled back cold lips, exposing an ancient secret.
Long white fangs glinted in the beam of light.
The soldier’s hand moved to the butt of his gun. The woman drew in a sharp breath. Her hand rose to her throat. An animal’s instinct to protect itself. But instead of remaining frozen in horror, she lowered her hand and came to kneel beside Rhun. The man stayed put, alert and ready to do battle.
Rhun expected that, but the woman surprised him, when so little else did. Her fingers—trembling at first, then steadying—reached to touch the long, sharp tooth, like Saint Thomas placing his hand in Christ’s wound, needing proof. She plainly feared the truth, but she would not shun it.
She faced Rhun, skeptical as only a modern-day scientist could be. And waited.
He said nothing. She had asked for the truth. He had given it to her. But he could not give her the will to believe it.
She waved a hand over the corpse. “These may be caps, put on to lengthen his teeth …”
Even now, she refused to believe, sought comforting rationalizations, like so many others before her. But unlike them, she leaned closer, not waiting for confirmation or consolation. She lifted the upper lip higher.
As she probed, he expected her eyes to widen with horror. Instead, her brows knit together in studious interest.
Surprised yet again, he eyed her with equal fascination.
5:21 P.M.
Kneeling by the body, Erin sought to make sense of what lay before her. She needed to understand, to put meaning to all the blood and death.
She desperately ran through a mental list of cultures where people sharpened their teeth. In the Sudan desert, young men whittled their incisors to razor points in a rite of passage. Amid the ancient Maya, filed teeth had been a sign of nobility. In Bali, tooth filing was still a coming-of-age ritual that marked the transition from animal to human. Every continent had similar practices. Every single one.
But this was different.
As much as she wanted it to be true, no tools had sharpened these teeth.
“Doc, talk to me.” Jordan hovered over her shoulder, his tense voice loud in the small space. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
She fought to keep her tone clinical, both for her sake and for his. If she lost her composure, she might never get it back. “These canine teeth are firmly rooted in the maxilla. Feel how the bony sockets at the base of the fangs are thickened.”
Jordan stepped over a pile of rubble to stand between her and the priest. He rested one hand on his gun. “I’ll take your word for it.”
She flashed him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. It didn’t seem to work, because his face stayed stern when he asked, “What does it mean?”
She leaned back on her haunches, eager to put space between herself and the tooth she had just touched. “Such root density is a common trait in predators.”
Father Korza stepped away. Jordan’s barrel twitched toward him.
“Jordan?” She stood next to him.
“Keep talking.” He eyed the priest, as if he expected him to interrupt, but the man stood still. “It’s interesting stuff, isn’t it, padre?”
She scrutinized the dusty brown face in the rubble. It looked as human as she did. “A lion’s jaw exerts six hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. To support such power, the tooth sockets harden and thicken around the fangs, as these have done.”
“So what you are saying,” Jordan said, clearing his throat, “is that these fangs aren’t just a weird fashion statement. That they’re natural?”
She sighed. “I can’t come up with another explanation that fits.”
In the dim light of her flashlight, she read the shock on Jordan’s face and the fear in his eyes. She felt it, too, and she would not let her feelings overwhelm her. Instead, she turned to the silent priest for answers. “You called them strigoi?”
His face had closed into an unreadable mask of shadows and secrets. “Their curse bears many names. Vrykolakas. Asema. Dhakhanavar. They are a scourge once known in all corners of the world. Today you call them vampires.”
Erin sat back. Did a memory of this horror lie at the root of ritualistic tooth filing, a macabre mimicry of a real terror forgotten in the modern age? Forgotten, but not gone. An icy finger traced up her back.
“And you fight them?” Jordan’s skepticism filled the tomb.
“I do.” The priest’s soft voice sounded calm.
“So what does that make you, padre?” Jordan stepped into a wider stance, as if expecting a fight. “Some kind of Vatican commando?”
“I would not use such words.” Father Korza folded gloved hands in front of him. “I am but a priest, a humble servant of God. But to serve the Holy See, I and certain other brethren of the cloth have been trained to fight this plague, yes.”
Erin had a thousand questions she wanted to ask, but she had a most pressing one, one that had troubled her since the priest stepped into the tomb and said his first words.
The Church has prior claim to what lies within this crypt.
Suddenly glad to have a soldier between them, Erin watched the bloody figure over Jordan’s shoulder. “Earlier, you asked about a book that might be hidden here. Is that why we were attacked? Why we’re trapped down here?”
The priest’s face closed. He craned his neck toward the brick roof as if seeking guidance from above. “The mountain is still moving.”
“What—” A great groaning of stone, accompanied by explosive booms of crushed rock, interrupted Jordan’s question. The ground shook—at first mildly, then more violently.
Erin stumbled into Jordan’s back before finding her footing. “Another aftershock?”
“Or the concussive charges weakened the mountain’s infrastructure.” Jordan looked at the ceiling. “Either way, it’s coming down. And soon.”
“We must first find the way out,” Father Korza said. “Before we discuss other matters.”
Jordan moved toward the collapsed entrance.
“We will gain no passage that way.” Father Korza slowly turned in a full circle. “But it is said that those who came to hide the book during the fall of Masada used a path known only to a few. A path they sealed behind them as they left.”
Jordan scanned the solid walls. “Where?”
The priest’s eyes were vacant. “That secret was lost.”
“You’re not holding out on us, are you?” Jordan asked.
Father Korza fingered rosary beads on his belt. “The path is beyond the knowledge of the Church. No one knows it.”
“Not true.” Erin ran both hands along the wall closest to her, digging a nail into the mortar between two stones.
All eyes turned to her.
She smiled. “I know the way out.”
5:25 P.M.
Jordan hoped that Erin knew what she was talking about. “Show me.”
She hurried to the rear of the chamber, dancing her fingertips along rough stone as if reading a book written in Braille.
He followed, patting the stone with one hand, the other still on his submachine gun. He didn’t trust Korza. If the priest had warned them from the start, Jordan’s men might still be alive. Jordan wasn’t going to turn his back on him anytime soon.
“Feel how clean the masonry is along this wall?” Erin asked. “The blocks fit so perfectly that little mortar was even needed. I suspect they only cemented it as an extra measure to secure the vault against quakes.”
“So it’s probably the only reason we’re still alive,” he said. “Let’s hear it for overbuilding.”
A distracted smile played across her lips. He hoped to see that smile again out in the sunlight, somewhere safe.
At the back wall, she dropped to a knee beside the impaled bodies. Her shoulders tensed, and her eyes fixed on the wall, averted from the dead. But she kept going. He admired that. She placed a palm against the ancient bricks and stroked it downward.
“I noticed this earlier.” The ground jolted, and her next words rushed out. “Before the attack. When we were examining the girl.” She took his hand and placed it beside hers on the stones. “Feel the ridges of mortar pushing out between the bricks.”
The Blood Gospel Page 10