The Blood Gospel

by Rebecca Cantrell James Rollins

  Jordan dropped to a knee, tilted his submachine gun up, and unloaded at full auto, shredding the monster in the chest with pure silver. “That’s for my men.”

  The strigoi lieutenant clattered to the stone, his body steaming. But he was still alive, in agony, dragging himself toward the impaled Rafik.

  Leopold scooped up the monster’s abandoned sword, the very weapon that had come close to killing him. He strode to the struggling strigoi.

  The creature had almost reached his goal, extending a bloody arm, his fingers scrabbling to reach the one called Rafik, to touch him one last time.

  Mercilessly, Leopold swung the sword in a blurring flash.

  The strigoi’s head flew off his body, and the stretching arm fell limply to the floor.

  The fingers dropped short, never reaching the other, the two remaining forever separated.

  Leopold turned and stared around the cavern, his brow pinched in confusion. “Where did everyone else go?”

  Jordan spun, searching the spot where Erin had been a half minute ago.

  She was gone.

  And Rhun with her.

  60

  October 28, 5:34 P.M., CET

  Necropolis below St. Peter’s Basilica, Italy

  Erin twisted to the side as a strigoi’s blade thrust toward her.

  Then Rhun was there. He yanked her nearly off her feet and hauled her behind him. With one quick step forward, he slashed his blade across the strigoi’s throat, felling him like a sapling.

  She stared around, realizing they were momentarily alone in the tunnel down which Bathory had fled. She glanced back. Out in the main necropolis, Sanguinists were flowing down the columns to join the subterranean battle.

  “Return to Jordan when it’s safe,” Rhun said fiercely, brooking no argument as he nodded back to the fighting. “I shall overtake Bathory.”

  With a swirl of his cassock, he disappeared down the dark tunnel.

  With no choice, Erin faced the battlefield, heard the screams, smelled the blood. She searched the carnage until she spotted Jordan. He stood with his back to one of the metal plinths, firing at another tunnel that disgorged a flow of strigoi.

  It was chaos, a hellish Bosch painting come to life.

  She would never make it through that gauntlet. If the strigoi didn’t get her, friendly fire might. She turned back toward the empty tunnel that Rhun had taken. It seemed the safest choice.

  She kept her light low and to the left, running her right hand along the side of the tunnel, feeling for a side tunnel. If she came to a crossroads and she didn’t know which direction Rhun had taken, she’d have to turn back.

  Shots echoed ahead of her, coming from a place where a gray light flowed from around a bend in the tunnel.

  She hurried forward—then a fierce, guttural growling flowed back to her, slowing her feet to a more cautious pace.

  She brought up Jordan’s Colt, loaded with silver ammunition. She moved more warily as she reached the turn in the tunnel. Step-by-step, she edged around the bend.

  The crack of a pistol made her jump.

  A short way down the tunnel, she watched Rhun leap with unnatural speed past the bulk of the grimwolf, his gun smoking. Landing beyond it, he lunged down the tunnel, away from the wolf, ready to continue his pursuit of Bathory, who was nowhere in sight—but then he skidded to a stop, turning as he did so with incredible grace.

  Over the bulk of the wolf, his eyes found her. No doubt he had heard her heartbeat or noted the shift in shadows as she arrived with her flashlight.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  The grimwolf jerked around, facing her, its teeth bared, its muscles bunched to spring.

  “Erin, run!”

  The beast’s ears twitched toward Rhun, but it didn’t turn from Erin.

  Rhun came sprinting back, his pistol up, firing at the monster’s hind end.

  That got its attention.

  With a deafening howl, it surged around, and with a heave of its back legs, bowled into Rhun. Erin lost sight of him, blocked by the body of the wolf.

  More shots were fired.

  She pointed her Colt but didn’t fire, fearing she might strike Rhun with its silver bullets.

  Then the wolf tossed its thick neck—with Rhun clutched in its jaws. The massive beast shook him like a rag doll. Blood sprayed the walls of the tunnel. Rhun lost his handgun and struggled to free a knife.

  Knowing she had to help, Erin fired her pistol at the wolf, striking it in the shoulder. It twitched, but otherwise remained unfazed. She fired over and over, hoping that the cumulative load of silver might affect it. Pieces of fur ripped off its hide, but still it ignored her and slammed Rhun to the floor, its jaws clamped around his neck.

  Rhun didn’t move.

  Erin began to run forward—when she heard a high-pitched whistle slice down the tunnel.

  Bathory.

  The grimwolf dropped Rhun, shook blood from its muzzle, and bounded off down the dark tunnel.

  Holstering her useless pistol, Erin rushed forward and skidded on her knees to reach him. Blood soaked her jeans—but it was not her own.

  She shone her flashlight on Rhun. Blood wept down both sides of his torn throat. It bubbled from his lips as he tried to speak.

  She pressed both hands against his wound. Cold blood covered her palms and seeped between her fingers.

  He coughed his throat clear enough to issue a command: “Go back.”

  “When you stop the bleeding.” The wounds were so deep that she did not see how he could do so, but she remembered how he had controlled his blood back in the Cardinal’s residence in Jerusalem.

  He closed his eyes, and the blood from his neck slowed to a trickle.

  “Good, Rhun, good.” She fumbled for the wineskin that was tied to his thigh.

  “Not enough …”

  The flask slipped from her blood-slicked hands and thumped to the floor. She picked it up, wiped one hand on her pants, and twisted the cap. It took three tries before it opened. Should she pour it on his wounds? Have him drink it? She remembered that Nadia had put it on his wounds first.

  Following her example, Erin doused the wound.

  Rhun groaned and seemed to fade away.

  She shook his shoulder to keep him conscious. “Tell me what to do. Rhun!”

  He opened his eyelids slowly, but his gaze slid past hers, staring at the ceiling before his eyes rolled back in his head.

  Back in Russia, Rasputin had mixed human blood with the wine. That concoction had seemed to heal Rhun better than the holy wine alone.

  Erin knew what he needed.

  Not wine.

  Not now.

  Rhun needed human blood.

  She swallowed. Her hand ran across the puncture wounds left by the collar Bathory had forced her to wear.

  She looked down the tunnel. No sign of Bathory or the wolf. Erin knew she could never catch the woman. The best hope to secure the Gospel was still Rhun. If Bathory escaped Rome with the book, the world would be forever changed.

  But was she ready to do this? To risk everything on her faith that her blood would cure Rhun? Every fiber of her scientific mind rebelled at the thought.

  After escaping the compound, she had refused to succumb to superstition, finding no value in mere faith. She knew too well what had happened when her father and mother had stopped thinking logically. They had placed the fate of her infant sister, Emma, in the hands of an indifferent God—and Emma had died for those blind beliefs.

  But over the past days, Erin had seen extraordinary things. She could not discount them; she could not explain them with logic and science. But was she ready to trust her life to a miracle?

  She stared down at Rhun.

  What choice did she have?

  Even if she could fight her way back to Bernard and the other Sanguinists, to warn them, Bathory would be long gone by the time Erin fetched them here.

  Bathory must not escape with the book. The stakes for the world were t
oo high for Erin not to try everything—even the power of faith.

  She leaned over Rhun, baring her neck to his cold mouth.

  He did not move.

  Reaching up, she raked her fingernails across the soft scabs on her throat, ripping them away. Blood began to flow. Again she pressed her bleeding throat against his open lips.

  He snarled and turned his head, refusing to drink.

  “You have to.”

  His voice was a pained whisper. “Once I start, I might not …”

  She finished his sentence: once started, he might not be able to stop.

  Might was the important word.

  It seemed, in order to do this, that she must put her trust not only in faith, but also in Rhun.

  If I do not try, then the Belial will have already won.

  She tilted her head, lowered her throat to his mouth.

  Her blood pattered onto his lips.

  He groaned deep in his throat, but this time he did not turn away.

  Erin’s heart raced. She was still animal enough to want to run away—but in the end she wasn’t an animal. She remained steadfast, her mind flashing to Daniel entering the lion’s den.

  I can do this.

  Shifting her gaze, she forced herself to look at Rhun. His eyes grew alert, as if those few drops of blood had revived him.

  He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her down.

  She tensed, knowing she could still stop him in his weakened state. Her body continued to scream for her to flee. Instead, she took a deep breath and gave in to her faith.

  Rhun shifted, laying her down on the stone floor beside him while he raised up on one elbow, a question glowing in his dark eyes.

  She trembled from her bones outward.

  “Erin.” He lingered on the n at the end of her name. “No. Not even for this price.”

  She pleaded, “I can’t catch Bathory and the grimwolf. Only you can save the Gospel.”

  She read defeat in his eyes, knew he could not fault her logic.

  “But—”

  “I know the consequences,” she said, repeating the same words she’d spoken before climbing down into the fissure in Masada. These were the consequences. “You must do it.”

  His lips slowly lowered toward her, his face softened by tenderness. She marveled at his expression.

  Still, he stopped. “No … not you …”

  “It serves your vows.” She clenched her hands into fists. She thought of all those lives that would be destroyed if either of them balked from this act of duty. “The book is more important than the rules.”

  “I understand … were you someone else, perhaps. But.” He tightened his hand on her shoulder. “I can’t feed on you.”

  She stared into his face, seeing what was hidden behind that collar, behind those hidden fangs—a man.

  He stroked strands of hair off her face, his fingers cold but very gentle, his hand cupping her cheek.

  She had no words to convince him to break his vows as a priest.

  She had no actions that would stir his bloodlust as a Sanguinist.

  She had only one recourse.

  To treat him as a man.

  And she a woman.

  She lifted her head from the stone, her eyes fixed on Rhun’s dark ones. She read the sudden flash of fear in their depths. He was as frightened as she was, perhaps even more. She ran her fingers through his thick hair, drew his mouth to hers. Rhun closed his eyes, and she kissed him. His cold lips brought the taste of blood into her mouth.

  As she drew him to her, she felt the last of his resistance give way—the hardness in his lips softening and letting her come closer. His mouth parted, as did hers, as natural as a flower opening at dawn.

  He shifted farther over her, his weight settling on top of her.

  He should have been cold, but the heat in her was enough to warm both of them.

  Her tongue found his, encouraging him. He moaned between their lips—or maybe the sound came from her. She felt the slow push of sharpness within his mouth, like a gate closing against her, but she held fast. Her tongue reached, punctured so sweetly on a point as sharp as a thorn.

  Her blood welled, filling both their mouths.

  But rather than tasting iron and fear, her senses burst with the essence of her life, a sweetness and burning heat that swept aside all fear. She could almost taste her own divinity—and she wanted more.

  She pulled him tighter.

  He clung to her, with the promise of cold iron and ecstasy.

  The intensity of the sensation stunned her. Her body could not hold it, arching under him, with the rapture of life coursing between them, quick and rhythmic as her heartbeat.

  He lifted his lips from hers, exquisitely close but not touching. Even such a slight distance left her feeling an aching emptiness. He moaned as if he felt it, too. His breath whispered across her lips.

  He stared down, his eyes larger and darker than she’d ever seen them, offering glimmers of what lay beyond the grave.

  Rather than feeling fear, she glowed against that darkness with the blaze of her own light, with the heat of her body.

  She arched her neck, offered him her throat, daring him to drink from that blazing font—desiring it with every fiber of her being.

  He took it.

  A prick of fangs, testing—then plunging deep.

  Heat flowed out of her, warming those cold lips at her throat.

  She writhed beneath him, opening herself to the pleasure. Darkness closed around the edges of her vision. With each pulse, he swallowed her into his body.

  Ecstasy filled those empty spaces between her heartbeats. Shatteringly fast at first as her body gave itself over to pure sensation. Then time slowed, and the pleasure expanded and grew even more intense. She waited for her heart to stop so that she could dwell in that feeling forever. Nothing else mattered.

  Only bliss.

  Then slowly, a soft light surrounded her, enveloped her—along with a love unlike any she had ever known. Here was the love she had wanted from her mother, from her father, from a baby sister who never had a chance to grow.

  Somewhere far back, Erin knew she was dying—and she was so grateful for it.

  She breathed in that light, as if taking her first breath.

  Then she saw them.

  Her mother stood in the tunnel of light. A little girl stood next to her. Emma. She had her baby quilt slung over her arm, the missing corner facing Erin. Her father stood behind them wearing his old red flannel shirt and jeans, as if he had just come back from the stable. He raised his arm and beckoned to her to join them. For the first time in many years, she felt no anger when she saw him, only love.

  She reached her arms toward them all. Her father smiled, and she smiled back. She forgave him—and herself.

  He had been bound by his faith, she by her logic.

  At this moment they were beyond both.

  Then that innocent light fractured.

  And cold darkness rushed in.

  She opened her eyelids. Rhun had pulled away from her. He rolled off of her and leaned against the wall, shaking. With the back of his hand, he wiped his mouth. Wiping away blood.

  Her blood.

  Her eyelids drifted closed, feeling a sting of rejection.

  “Erin?” His chill fingertips brushed her cheek.

  She trembled from cold and loneliness, consumed by the ache of all that she had lost.

  “Erin.” Rhun lifted her into his lap and rocked her, his hands stroking through her hair, running along her back.

  She forced herself to open her eyes, to look into his, to say the impossible. “Go.”

  He held her so tightly that it hurt.

  “Go,” she insisted.

  “Will you be all right?”

  He heard her heartbeat. He knew that she wouldn’t be. “Don’t waste my blood, Rhun. Don’t let this be in vain.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I co
uldn’t—”

  “I forgive you,” she breathed out. “Now go.”

  He tore off his pectoral cross and laid it upon her chest. She felt the weight of it over her heart. It felt warm.

  “May God protect you,” he whispered. “As I could not.”

  He lowered her onto the filthy stone floor, covered her with his cassock, and left her.

  61

  October 28, 5:44 P.M., CET

  Necropolis below St. Peter’s Basilica, Italy

  On the hunt, Rhun ran.

  Erin’s blood pulsed warm and strong through his veins. Her life sang within him. He had never felt such power surge through his limbs. He could run forever. He could defeat any foe.

  His shoes skimmed the stone floor, not seeming to need even to touch it. Fast, and faster still. Air caressed his face, tendrils of wind stroked through his hair.

  Even in his rapture, he grieved for Erin. She had given everything for the Gospel. And for him. Her learning, her compassion—they lay waning behind him. It should have been his darkness dying on the floor, not her light.

  He would not waste her sacrifice.

  Mourning would come later.

  The musky odor of grimwolf painted the trail before him. In that scent, he read each heavy-pawed footfall, smelled each drop of blood, even as the creature healed and the drops grew smaller.

  It could never escape him.

  He would find them. He would retrieve the book. He would honor Erin’s sacrifice.

  She would not be forgotten, not for one of all his endless days to come.

  5:55 P.M.

  Jordan jogged along the tunnel, searching for Erin.

  Leopold kept close behind.

  The two had fought their way through the first wave of strigoi in order to open a path to this tunnel. Jordan hoped that Erin and Rhun had reached Bathory and retrieved the book.

  After all of this bloodshed and horror, he just wanted to go home.

  And when he pictured home—he pictured Erin’s face.

  “There!” Leopold said, pointing ahead, spotting with his sharper eyes a body crumpled along the side of the tunnel.

  Don’t let it be Erin. Don’t let it be Erin.

  Jordan hurried forward, for once outpacing a Sanguinist. He led with his flashlight, sweeping his beam across the still figure.