The Blood Gospel

by Rebecca Cantrell James Rollins

  Rhun would visit his tiny unmarked grave later.

  Every night since her burial, he had left the quiet of the monastery after everyone slept and had come to pray for her, for her child, and to allay the sorrow in his own heart.

  Soft footsteps sounded behind him.

  Still on his knees, he turned.

  A shadow-cloaked figure stepped close. Rhun could not make out its features in the darkness, but the stranger was not a priest.

  “The pious one,” the newcomer whispered, his accent foreign, the voice unfamiliar.

  Rhun’s heart quickened; his fingers sought his cross, but he forced his hands to remain clasped, tightening his fingers.

  What did he have to fear from this stranger who showed no threat?

  Rhun bowed his head respectfully to the man. “You are in the Lord’s cemetery late, my friend.”

  “I come to pay my respects to the dead,” he answered, and waved long pale fingers toward the grave. “As do you.”

  Icy wind blew through the field of stone crosses and carved angels, rustling the last leaves of autumn and bringing with it the odor of death and decay.

  “Then I leave you to your peace,” Rhun said, turning back to his sister’s resting place.

  Oddly, the man knelt next to Rhun. He wore fine breeches and a studded leather tunic. Mud besmirched costly boots. In spite of his coarse accent, his finery betrayed his origin as a nobleman.

  Growing irritated, Rhun turned to him, noting the long dark hair that fell back from a pale brow. The stranger’s full lips curved up in amusement, although Rhun could not fathom why.

  Enough … it is late.

  Rhun gathered his rough-spun robes together to stand.

  Before he could rise, the man wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him to the wet ground, as if he were taking a lover. Rhun opened his mouth to yell, but the stranger pressed one cold hand on his face. Rhun tried to push the man away, but the other caught both of his wrists in one hand and held them as easily as if he were a small child.

  Rhun struggled against him, but the man held him fast, leaning down. He used his rough cheek to tilt Rhun’s head to the side, exposing his neck.

  Rhun suddenly understood, his heart galloping. He had heard legends of such monsters, but he had never believed them.

  Until now.

  Sharp fangs punctured his throat, taking away his innocence, leaving only pain. He screamed, but no sound escaped him. Slowly, the pain turned into something else, something darker: bliss.

  Rhun’s blood pulsed out of him and into the stranger’s hungry mouth, those cold lips growing warmer with his hot blood.

  He continued to struggle, but weakly now—for, in truth, he did not want the man to stop. His hand rose on its own and pulled that face tighter to his throat. He knew it was sinful to give in to such bliss, but he no longer cared. Sin had no meaning; only the aching desire for the probe of tongue into wound, the gnaw of sharp teeth into tender flesh, mattered now.

  There was no room in him for holiness, only an ecstasy that promised release.

  The man drew back at last.

  Rhun lay there, spent, dying.

  Strong fingers stroked his hair. “It is not yet time to sleep, pious one.”

  A sliced wrist was pressed against Rhun’s opened lips. Hot silken blood burst on his tongue, filled his mouth. He swallowed, drew in more. A deep moan rose in his throat, drowned itself in the blood.

  Soon his entire existence glowed with one word, one wish.

  More …

  Then that precious font was ripped from him, leaving an unfathomable well of hunger inside him, demanding to be filled with blood—any blood.

  Above him, the stranger was struggling with four priests.

  A blade flashed silver in the moonlight.

  “No,” Rhun screamed.

  Rough hands pulled him to his feet and dragged him stumbling back to the silent monastery, where the gift of eternity soon became his curse.

  Rhun shed his penance with a shudder. Even now, he missed that man who had killed him, who destroyed his old life. In quiet moments, he still longed for that first taste of his blood. It was a sin he had repented many times, but it never went away.

  Across the desk, Bernard watched him, his face as full of sorrow as it had been the night that Rhun was brought before him, covered in blood, weeping and trying to escape the monks and flee into the night. Bernard had saved him then, shown him how he could serve God in his new form, kept him from ever feeding on innocent human blood.

  Rhun shook his head to clear it of the past.

  He faced Bernard, both friend and mentor, remembering the events at Masada and in the desert. Here was the man who had set much of it in motion, a man who kept too many secrets.

  “You have gone too far,” Rhun said hoarsely, still feeling his torn throat, the wash of hot blood from the stranger’s wrist.

  “Have I?” The Cardinal ran a robust hand through his white hair. “How so?”

  Rhun knew the man was testing him. He gripped his pectoral cross, using the pain to control his anger. “You sent that archaeologist into danger. You sent me to face the enemy alone—strigoi of the Belial sect.”

  His friend leaned back and steepled his fingers. His eyebrows knitted with concern. “You believe your attackers were Belial? Why?”

  Rhun related his experiences on and under the mountain, then explained. “The strigoi who came were not mere scavengers drawn to the tragedy. They came with plain purpose. And used concussive charges.”

  “Employing the weapons of man.” Bernard lowered his hands. He sat straighter, his warm brown eyes pained. “I did not know that they would come for it.”

  The Belial were a sect of the strigoi who were in league with humans, combining the worst of both worlds—merging human cunning to feral ferocity, uniting modern weaponry with ancient evil. They were a scourge whose numbers had swollen over the past century, posing an ever greater threat to their order and to the Church. Even after decades of fighting them, hunting them down, much was still unknown about the Belial, such as who truly ruled them: was it man or monster?

  Rhun’s anger calmed. “The Belial must have caught wind of the strange deaths surrounding the earthquake and guessed what it meant as well as we did.”

  The Cardinal remained statue still. “Then they seek the Gospel—like we do—and are desperate enough to reveal themselves for it.”

  “But the book was gone, the crypt empty,” Rhun said. “They did not find it either.”

  “No matter.” The familiar face looked softer in the candlelight, relieved and reassured. “If the prophecies are correct, they cannot open it. Only the three may bring it back to this world.”

  Rhun’s chair creaked when he leaned forward, an old fury kindling back to life. He knew all too well what Bernard meant by evoking the three mentioned in the prophecies surrounding the Gospel, the three figures who were destined to find and open the book.

  The Woman of Learning.

  The Warrior of Man.

  The Knight of Christ.

  Even now he saw the glimmer of hope in Bernard’s eyes, knew what the Cardinal suspected.

  He pictured Erin’s face, bright with curiosity—a Woman of astounding Learning.

  And Jordan’s heroic attack on the grimwolf—a Warrior of Man.

  He gripped his own cross—marking him as a Knight of Christ.

  He forced his fingers to let go of the silver, hoping his friend could do the same with his foolish hope. “Bernard, you place too much trust in those old prophecies. Such conviction in the past cost much misery and bloodshed.”

  The Cardinal sighed. “I do not need to be reminded of my past mistakes. I carry that burden as heavily as you do, my son. I attempted to force God’s hand in Hungary all those centuries ago. It was hubris of the highest order. I thought the portents pointed to Elisabeta, that she was meant to join you. But I was mistaken. I admitted it then, and I do not recant that foolishness now.”
He reached over and placed a cold palm atop Rhun’s hand. “But do you not see what happened today? You stumbled out of that rubble with a Woman of Learning to your left and a Warrior of Man to your right. It must mean something.”

  Rather than dimming, the glimmer in his friend’s eyes grew brighter.

  Rhun drew his hand away. “But you put the woman there.”

  That realization stabbed Rhun with misgiving. Was his friend still trying to force the hand of prophecy? Even after the tragic consequences of his past attempt? When another woman suffered as a consequence of his mistake?

  Bernard dismissed this all with a wave of his fingers. “Yes, I used my influence to send a woman of learning to Masada. But, Rhun, it was not I who knocked down the mountain of Masada. It was not I who saved the woman and the warrior and led them out of the tomb, the last resting place of the Book. Against all commandments, you saved them both.”

  “I could not leave them there to die.” Rhun looked down at his shredded garments, smelled again the blood on his skin.

  “Don’t you see? The prophecy is a living force now.” Bernard lifted the silver cross that hung around his neck and kissed it, his lips reddening from the heat of silver and holiness. “We each have our role to play. We must each humbly bow to our own destinies. And whether I’m right or wrong, you know we must keep the Gospel from the hands of the Belial at all costs.”

  “Why?” Bitterness tinged Rhun’s next words. “A moment ago, you were certain that the Belial could not open it. Yet now you seem to doubt that part of the prophecy.”

  “I do not presume to understand God’s will, merely to interpret it as best I can.”

  Rhun thought of Elisabeta’s silvery-gray eyes and Erin’s amber ones.

  Never again will I fall so low.

  “And if I refuse this destiny?” Rhun asked.

  “Now who presumes to know God’s heart better than He?”

  The words stung, as they were meant to.

  Rhun bowed his head and prayed for guidance. Could this truly be a challenge that God had placed before him? A chance for absolution? What greater task could God ask of him than to protect His son’s final Gospel? Rhun still did not trust Bernard’s deeper motives, but perhaps the Cardinal was correct to see the hand of God in today’s actions.

  He considered all that had come to pass.

  The final resting place of the book had been sundered open, heralded by quakes, bloodshed, and the survival of one boy, an innocent child spared.

  But with the lavender scent of Erin’s hair fresh in his nostrils, Rhun resisted that path. He would surely fail her—as he had failed another long ago.

  “Even if I were to consent to aid in your search for the Gospel—” Rhun stopped at the smile on Bernard’s face. “Even so, we cannot force the two here to go after it, not with the Belial in play.”

  “That is true. We can force no one. The two must enter the search of their own free will. And to do so, they must give up their worldly attachments. Do you think that they are ready for such a sacrifice?”

  Rhun pictured the pair that Bernard believed to be the Woman and the Warrior. When he first met the two, he considered them, much as the Cardinal had done, to be little more than what was revealed by their roles: an archaeologist and a soldier.

  But now he knew that was no longer true.

  Such labels were pale reflections of the two who had bled and fought at his side.

  There were truer ways to describe them, and one was by their given names.

  Erin and Jordan.

  The Cardinal’s last question plagued him. Do you think they are ready …?

  Rhun hoped, for their sakes, that the answer was no.

  21

  October 26, 9:33 P.M., IST

  Jerusalem, Israel

  Hallelujah for small miracles.

  Jordan discovered several gifts waiting for him on the bed of his small, monastic cell. A set of clean clothes had been folded atop the pillow—and on the blanket rested his weapons, returned to him.

  He crossed quickly and examined his Heckler & Koch machine pistol and his Colt 1911. They were loaded—which both relieved him and disturbed him. His hosts either trusted him or were plainly not worried about any threat he might pose.

  But that trust was a one-way street.

  Standing in place, he gave the small room a once-over. It had been dug out from solid rock. The space contained a single bed that had been jammed against one wall to make room for a wide washstand topped with a copper basin full of steaming water.

  He did a fast and thorough search for surveillance equipment. Considering the spartan accommodations, there weren’t many places to hide a listening device. He searched the mattress, felt along the edges of the raw wood bed frame, and examined the washstand.

  Nothing.

  He even stepped to the crucifix on the wall, took it down, and checked behind it, feeling vaguely blasphemous for doing so.

  But still nothing.

  So, they apparently weren’t listening in—at least not with modern technology. He eyeballed the door. How sharp was the hearing of a Sanguinist?

  Considering his level of paranoia, he wondered how wise it had been to come here after all. Should he and Erin have waited in the desert and taken their chances with the jackals? Or maybe another grimwolf?

  That didn’t sound any better.

  And at least by coming here, they were still alive. Others had not been so lucky. He pictured his teammates’ broken bodies, buried now under tons of stone.

  He thought of the calls and visits he would have to make once this ordeal was all over: to the parents, to the widows, to the children.

  He sank to the bed in defeat and grief.

  What in the hell could he tell them?

  9:52 P.M.

  Cramped was a generous description for Erin’s room.

  She kept hitting her elbow on the wall as she tried to scrub herself clean at the washbasin. She had stripped down to a bra and panties, and once clean, she faced the clothes that had been laid out for her.

  It was no problem to slip into the white cotton shirt she found on her bed—but what to do about that long black skirt? It was just like the ones she’d worn as a girl, the ones that always tripped her up, kept her from climbing trees, made it almost impossible to ride horses. In her former world, women wore skirts, while men enjoyed the freedom of pants.

  She had worn a skirt or dress throughout her childhood and balked at returning to one. But with her jeans cut to shreds and covered in blood, sweat, and sand, she’d have to wear the dress—unless she wanted to run around in front of Jordan and the priests in her underwear.

  That settled it.

  She transferred the contents of her jeans to her skirt pocket: the Nazi medallion from the tomb, her wallet, and a faded scrap cut from a quilt many years before, no bigger than a playing card.

  Her fingertips lingered over the last item, drawing both strength and anger from it. She always carried the scrap with her, along with the anger and guilt it represented. She pictured the baby’s quilt from which it had been cut, how she’d stolen it before it was buried with her infant sister. She shut down that memory before it overwhelmed her and stuffed it away, shoving the piece of cloth deep into the skirt’s pocket.

  That done, she wiggled into the garment, hating how it felt against her legs. The sandals she left by the bed. Her sneakers were staying with her.

  Once dressed, she returned to the door, found it unlocked, and peeked out into the hallway. She found it empty and stepped out of the room. As she turned to shut her door—something scraped across stone, sounding like nails clawing out of a grave.

  Spooked, already on edge, she bolted across the hall. She didn’t want to be caught outside of her room, especially by whatever made that scraping noise. She pictured the slavering jaws of the grimwolf.

  Without knocking, she burst through Jordan’s door.

  She found him wearing only a towel and a surprised expression. I
n his right hand he jerked up a pistol—but then lowered it immediately.

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She blushed. “I shouldn’t have … I didn’t mean to …”

  “It’s all right,” he said, smiling at her fluster, which only drew more heat to her cheeks. “I’m glad you came over. I wanted to talk to you alone anyway. Away from the others.”

  She nodded. That was why she had headed over here, too, but she had expected that conversation to be one during which they were both clothed.

  She stepped against the door, trying not to look at Jordan’s muscular chest, at the thin line of hair that split his washboard abs, or at the length of his tan legs.

  She wanted to turn away, but her eyes caught on an unusual tattoo that spanned his left shoulder and ran partway down his arm and across a corner of his chest and back. It looked like the branching roots of a tree, all rising from a single dark spot on his upper chest. There was a certain flowery beauty to it, especially etched on such a masculine physique.

  He must have noted the object of her attention. He drew a finger down one of those branching lines. “I got this when I was eighteen.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called a Lichtenberg figure. It’s a fractal pattern that forms after something gets struck by a lightning bolt. In this case that something was me.”

  “What?” She stepped toward him, both intrigued by and glad for the distraction.

  “I was playing football in the rain. Got hit near the goalpost after catching a touchdown.”

  She stared up at his blue eyes, half smiling, trying to judge if he was making fun of her.

  He lifted three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

  Of course he was a Boy Scout.

  “I was pronounced dead for three minutes.”

  “You were?”

  He nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “What was it like being dead?”

  “I didn’t have that whole dark-tunnel, bright-light thing, but I came back different.”

  “Different how?” He seemed pretty grounded, but was he going to tell her that he’d seen God or been touched by an angel?

  “It’s like my number was up.” He flattened his palm over his heart. “And everything after that moment was a bonus.”