She stood now in the heart of Hugh’s church.
And wasn’t the purpose of a heart to pump blood?
The Sanguis stone had to be here.
Erin glanced directly over her head, back to the ceiling. Did Hugh hide it somewhere up there?
No, she decided, that riddle’s been solved.
A previous principle echoed in her head.
As above, so below.
She stared down to her toes, then dropped to her knees. She leaned down and swept the straw from the floor, searching. She scuffled around until she found a stone with a distinct scalloped indentation.
Like a cup.
“It’s under here,” she said hesitatingly, then louder and more certain. “You’ve turned the Sanguis into the heart of your church, Monsieur de Payens! You’ve hidden it here.”
The others rushed over, stirring a flight of dark birds across the bricked vault.
Hugh followed.
Rhun reached her first, lowering beside her. He held his palm over the chunk of stone she had found. “She is right. I can even feel a whisper of holiness rising from here.”
Sophia joined him, warming her hands with that glow. Of all the Sanguinists, only Elizabeth hung back, her arms crossed, showing little interest.
Even the lion trotted over. The cub had kept close to Hugh, mostly eyeing the bird on the man’s shoulder with a natural feline curiosity. The cat licked its chops a few times. Still once near, the cub pawed at the cupped indentation, batting at whatever it felt.
The motion drew Erin’s attention back to that small feature. She ran a finger along the scalloped rim, reminded that blood was likely the key here, too.
“This is a Sanguinist gate, isn’t it?” Erin stated. “The only way it can be opened is with the blood of a Sanguinist.”
“You are truly a remarkable woman,” Hugh admitted. “With a mindfulness that is impressive.”
She stared at him, sensing there was still more. “Something tells me opening this particular gate isn’t that simple.”
“Indeed, such gates can be locked in many unique ways.”
Erin remembered Bernard shutting them out with the pro me command.
“Even I can no longer open it,” Hugh admitted. “I’ve secured it with a command few Sanguinists still remember. Not even my dear friend Bernard.”
Erin nodded. At least that made sense. It was locked in such a way that no one could force Hugh to open it under duress.
“I am too tainted to open it now,” Hugh said. “It will take purity to unlock the holy stone.”
“Purity?” Erin asked.
“It will only open for a Sanguinist who has never supped of blood before drinking the wine and accepting Christ’s offer.” Hugh stared at them. “It will take the blood of the Chosen One.”
Erin turned to Rhun.
6:18 P.M.
Rhun backed from the gazes of the others.
I am no Chosen One . . . at least, no longer.
It was true that he had not tasted human blood before becoming a Sanguinist. He remembered being attacked at his sister’s gravesite by a strigoi, only to be saved by a trio of Sanguinists who brought him before Bernard. There, on his knees, Rhun had taken his vows, drank the wine, and accepted his mantle to join the order.
But I am far from pure now.
“It can only be you,” Erin pressed him.
“It cannot be. I have sinned. I have tasted blood.”
“But you were forgiven your sins in the desert,” she said quietly, touching his bare shoulder. “It is you.”
Elizabeth frowned at him. “You are the purest of us all, Rhun. What is the harm of trying? Does the fear of failure, of being found wanting, frighten you so? I thought you were of stronger mettle than that.”
Rhun felt shame rise in him. Elizabeth was correct. He was scared, but he also recognized that he could not shirk from this task if there was even a chance it might do good.
He reluctantly knelt on the cold stone and bowed his head. He gripped his silver pectoral cross. The searing in his palm reminded him of his unholy nature and how it ruled him. But he must try anyway. He held his palm above the indentation in the stone, and realized that he did not have another hand to hold the knife to slice his own palm.
How far I have fallen . . . a Knight with only one arm.
Sophia came to his aid, accepting a small knife from Hugh. She pricked the center of Rhun’s palm. Dark blood welled up from of the wound. Rhun turned his wrist, squeezing a fist, and spattered his cursed blood into the hollow of the stone.
Once done, he crossed himself and went through the ritual, ending with mysterium fidei.
Everyone stared.
Still, the stone did not move.
I have failed.
Despair drove him down, crushing him with certain truth.
My sins have doomed us all.
March 19, 6:22 P.M. CET
Pyrenees Mountains, France
Elizabeth stared down at Rhun, his back bowed, his head hanging. He was the very sigil of defeat. She sighed at the fragility of these Sanguinists, leaning upon their faith like a beggar’s crutch. Knock it away by casting doubt, and they fall so easily.
Sophia played the Greek chorus in this drama. “Rhun was our only hope. He was the only member of our order—going back millennia—who never drank blood before accepting Christ’s gift.”
That is not true.
At least, the archaeologist fought. “There must be another way. If we took chisel and hammer to the floor . . .”
“I will not allow the church to be desecrated in such a manner,” Hugh said. “And in any such attempt, the gem will be dumped into a river that flows through the heart of this mountain, where it will be lost forever.”
“So you booby-trapped your secret vault,” Jordan said. “Gotta say, you covered your bases well.”
As Elizabeth watched Rhun’s lips move in futile prayer, she pitied him. He had given everything for his God, and his sacrifice had been wasted. In the eyes of the Lord, he was judged as impure as any feral strigoi. This failure was his reward for centuries of service to Christ.
So Rhun would certainly find it particularly galling at who would save them now, who could open this vault when he could not.
“Step aside,” Elizabeth said, slipping the knife from Sophia’s fingers.
Elizabeth knelt beside Rhun and used a fistful of straw to scrub his blood from the receptacle in the stone.
Rhun watched her. “What are—?”
“Quiet,” she scolded.
Still on her knees, she cut her palm and studied the blood as it pooled. In its glossy surface, the reflection of her own face shone back at her.
Sorry, Rhun, I know how this will pain you.
She chanted the proper Latin words. “ ‘For this is the Chalice of My Blood, of the new and everlasting Testament.’ ”
She then turned her hand and let her blood drip into the indentation on the floor. It quickly filled the shallow reservoir. Once it was full, she chanted the final words of the incantation. “Mysterium fidei.”
With a soft scrape, the stone sank into the floor, then moved to the side.
She heard the gasps of disbelief.
Only Erin laughed.
The others turned to her.
“I get it,” Erin said. “Elizabeth was made whole when Rhun returned her soul in the desert. Then back at St. Mark’s, when Bernard stripped her of that new soul by making her a strigoi again, she wasn’t allowed to drink any blood. Instead, she was forced to drink the wine that very night.”
“And I’ve not touched a drop of blood since then,” Elizabeth added, as she turned to Rhun. “By the dictates of the Church, my being remains pure. I am the Chosen One. And here is your proof.”
She shifted aside to allow a beam of sunlight from the church’s windows to fall inside the hollow. Fiery light reflected back from the surface of a dark red gemstone hidden inside, setting its facets ablaze. The brilliance seemed t
o pour forth from the stone’s heart.
Though her eyes were dazzled, Elizabeth gazed deep into the crimson stone, stunned by its beauty. She had beheld many gems in her lifetime. In her mortal life, she had been one of the richest women in the world. But none of those gems had held the same fascination as this one.
She was not the only one so captured.
Jordan crashed to his knees, the light dappling his face, looking like fresh blood.
“It sings,” he moaned.
6:27 P.M.
Jordan’s heart sang to the fiery stone, and it answered in a holy symphony, drawing him ever deeper into its melody, into its light. Around him, the world faded to shadows before such brilliance.
How could it not?
Distantly he heard the others chattering, but their words were mere undertones before the glory of that singing.
“Can’t you hear it?” he asked, trying to get them to listen.
A sharper voice cut through the melody, ringing between the individual notes. “Erin Granger, take the stone! Cover it from the light before he’s lost to it forever!”
He recognized the voice of the hermit.
Then moments later, the radiance dimmed, muffling that eternal song. The world found its substance, weight, and shadows. He saw a woman wrapping the gem in white linen, dousing its fire. Her eyes looked upon him with fear and worry.
Another carried a bag to her, and she stuffed the treasure into it. The sound of the zipper closing was loud in the quiet church.
Jordan’s arms lifted toward the woman, toward the pack. He ached to take the stone from its hiding place, to bare it to the sunlight, to hear its song to the end.
The woman took another step back. “Did any of you hear singing?” she asked.
A chorus of denial answered her.
Slowly, more of the world grew solid around him. But if he strained, he could still hear a faint whisper of that song from the pack, even an echo from his own pocket. That echo was a darker emerald, full of verdant life, and the promise of root and leaf, flower and stem.
“Jordan,” a sweet voice said at his ear. “Can you hear me?”
Yes.
“Jordan, answer me. Please.” Then softer as she turned away. “What’s wrong with him?”
“He is unbalanced.” The hermit again.
“What does that mean?”
“He was touched by angelic blood. While it protects him and heals him, it also consumes more of his humanity each time it saves him. You can see a map of this war written on his skin. If the angelic force prevails, he will be lost to you forever.”
A hand touched his forehead, as icy as snowmelt against his hot skin.
“How can we help him?” Her name is . . . Erin.
“Do not let him forget his own humanity.”
“What exactly does that mean? What do we do?”
He heard a change in that faint song, drawing his attention away. It was a whisper of minor chords, a darker thread woven through the song, inserting deeper notes of warning.
He forced his lips to move. “Someone’s coming.”
Silence followed, letting him listen more closely.
“Impossible,” the hermit started again. “I have guards posted all around. In the shadows of the forest, in the dark tunnels. They would have warned me. You are safe.”
The black notes beat louder in his head.
The lion growled, its white fur bristling with warning.
Jordan stood, strode to a wall, and grabbed a long-handled weapon.
“Put down the hoe,” the hermit said. “There is no need for violence.”
Jordan turned to face the deep shadows at the rear of the church.
Too late.
He is here.
6:48 P.M.
Legion stepped into the dark tunnel from the shadowy bower of the old forest. Others led him, those he found lurking in the woods, those of a corrupted nature who had thought to find peace on this mountaintop. Instead, they ended with Legion’s palm resting upon their cheek, where he branded them, claimed them. He took in their memories, their knowledge of the lair of the hermit, learning the secret ways into that mountain.
Earlier in the day, after gaining knowledge of this place through the eyes and ears of Father Gregory, Legion had left Prague, his still-weak body carried by those who bore his mark. A trio of branded Sanguinists had secured a vessel, a helicopter with windows shaded against the sun so he could be whisked over lands bright with the new day.
They had landed on the far side of the mountain from where the enemy’s helicopter sat. From there, this old forest protected him from the sun’s touch. As he had climbed, he had basked in the scent of the rich loam, the mold of decaying wood, the sweetness of leaf and bark. His eyes drank in the dark emerald of the canopy, the soft petals of flowers. His ears heard every rustle, chirp, and scurry of life, reminding him of the paradise this world could be, if untouched by the molestation of man.
I will return this to a true garden, he had thought. I will reap and weed and burn until it is paradise once again.
In that forest, he had discovered the hermit’s guardians—both beast and strigoi—those loyal to a man who promised a path to serenity. It only took a touch to free them from such conceit, to make them his own, so no alarm would be raised.
Legion entered their tunnels now, amused that the enemy had sought such a refuge, surrounding themselves with the corrupted, those who could so easily be turned against them. He continued into the mountain, spreading with every touch, a storm growing within the dark heart of this mountain.
With every step deeper into the hermit’s lair, his eyes multiplied, his voice expanded. His enslaved called others to him. They came to him, like moths to his cold flame, swelling his ranks further.
He followed his forces ever deeper—until he heard familiar heartbeats.
The Woman’s frantic flutter, the Warrior’s thunderous beat.
Here was the pair who came so close to destroying his vessel.
Fury fired through him as he lifted an arm.
Go, he commanded.
His storm raged through the tunnels, preparing to break upon those below. He knew the others had already obtained the second stone. Its fiery song had echoed up to him as he fell toward it. Knowing that the stone had been found, he no longer needed any of these others, not even the Knight.
Legion cast out his final order, filling his desire into his army’s silent hearts.
Kill them all.
6:50 P.M.
With the cub at his side, Rhun snatched a scythe from among the garden tools.
Sophia grabbed a wood axe in one hand, a hammer in the other.
Elizabeth raised a shovel.
Rhun turned, just as figures boiled out of a tunnel at the rear of the church, falling upon those strigoi and blasphemare gathered there, like a wave crashing on rocks.
If not for Jordan’s warning moments ago, they would have been unprepared, ambushed before they could react.
One of the attackers broke through the fighting, flying through the air toward Erin. She was down on one knee, pulling up the backpack holding the stone and gospel, protecting them both.
Rhun swept to her side, swinging high with the scythe, cleaving through the leg of the beast and knocking its body away. The strigoi crashed to the floor, black blood pouring from its severed limb. Still, it struggled to come at them, clawing and kicking, a furious scream ripping from its throat, exposing a black handprint branded on its pale cheek.
The mark of Legion.
Then Jordan appeared, moving as swiftly as a striking hawk. He swung down with his hoe and split the creature’s skull.
Rhun pulled Erin to her feet, as Jordan spun away, breaking his weapon over the back of a blasphemare panther. Then he twisted around to stab the splintered end through the animal’s eye. Before Rhun could even react, Jordan turned and ripped the scythe from his hand.
Rhun did not protest, retreating instead with Erin, knowing he
had to keep her and what she carried safe.
Sophia and Elizabeth guarded his sides, while Jordan took the fight to the enemy as more beasts and strigoi flooded into the back of the church. Their numbers were overwhelming. It was a fight they could not win.
Then light burst brighter behind Rhun’s back, accompanied by a great roaring.
“To me!” Hugh shouted.
Rhun glanced back to see Hugh drag the second of the church’s double doors open, revealing the thunderous cascade of water beyond the threshold. Rhun also noted how shadowy that light appeared. While a few minutes of the day remained, Hugh’s church faced east. With the sun setting to the west, the shoulder of the mountain shadowed the threshold. The light was too meager to offer true protection.
Proving this to be true, another strigoi broke through and came at them.
But a flash of white shot through the air and tackled the thin form to the floor, raking its face and throat with silver claws, as if trying to erase Legion’s mark from that flesh.
Hugh grabbed Rhun’s elbow and shoved a rolled sheet of leathery vellum at him. “An ancient map, etched on calfskin. It will show you the way to the valley.”
Rhun accepted the scroll and shoved it through the belt of his pants to secure it. He then grabbed Erin around the waist, knowing there was only one way to survive this assault.
“We must jump,” he said.
Erin twisted in his grip, facing the dark church and the war inside. “Jordan . . .”
Rhun spotted the man, a rock in the middle of a black maelstrom. Jordan moved with incredible speed and ferocity, bleeding from a thousand cuts, spattering that darkness with his holy blood, burning and cutting a swath around him with his scythe.
But even the Warrior of Man could not stand long before such a storm.
As Rhun watched, Jordan collapsed to one knee, about to be swamped.
“We’ll get him,” Sophia said, waving to Elizabeth.
Hugh whistled, and from the shadows, the pack of black dogs appeared. “Defend them,” Hugh ordered, pointing to the two women. “The Warrior of Man must not fall.”
The pack took off with Sophia and Elizabeth.
Rhun tightened his hold on Erin. “They will not fail,” he promised her.
She stared up at him, her eyes shining with fear, but she trusted him enough to nod.
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