Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series (32 page)

“Except his eternal soul.” Sophia tried to shove him aside, but Elizabeth joined him, bodily keeping the nun from Erin.

Elizabeth met Erin’s eyes. “Do it.”

With a nod, Erin drew the blade across her palm. The archaeologist winced at the pain, but remained steady. The smell of fresh blood—pushed forth by a strongly beating heart full of life—filled the small chapel.

Elizabeth felt the two Sanguinists stir, gasping at the scent. Their still-wounded bodies called for them to drink the life offered in that crimson pool in Erin’s palm. Elizabeth smelled it, too, drawing its sweetness inside, but she had not denied herself for as long as these others had. She could withstand it.

And this blood is not meant for me
.

Erin leaned over Rhun’s naked form. She dipped her fingers into the darkness pooled in her palm and reached down to gently paint her hot blood over Rhun’s cold skin. Again Rhun’s flesh twitched with each touch, but it was not pain that shivered through him.

It was pleasure.

His lips parted, letting out the softest moan.

Elizabeth remembered hearing that same note in her ear, long ago, remembering him atop her, clasping to her.

Erin continued her labors, working meticulously, missing no wound. Finally, she stared down at the ragged stump of bone, muscle, and slowly weeping black blood. Erin turned toward Elizabeth, as if asking permission.

She gave the archaeologist the smallest nod.

Do it
.

Erin massaged her forearm with her good hand, milking more blood into her palm. Only after trickles of crimson spilled from her overfilled fingers did she grasp the end of Rhun’s arm, pouring her life over that savage wound.

Rhun convulsed, his back arching high, while Erin kept her grip on his arm.

A cry escaped him, a gasp of ecstasy so raw that Sophia turned away from it.

Or maybe the nun shied away from the harder evidence of Rhun’s pleasure. The loincloth did little to hide his rising ardor, revealing the man inside the beast, the lust that the white collar of his station could never fully restrain.

Elizabeth remembered that, too, falling instantly into the past, feeling him deep inside her, swelling there, the two of them becoming one.

As Rhun crashed back down to the stone floor, Erin finally let go. Rhun lay there, his entire body quaking softly, spent but clearly stronger for it.

The many small cuts had closed.

Even the ruins of his arm had stopped bleeding, the flesh already hiding bone.

Christian let out a long sigh. “I think he’ll make it . . . with more rest.”

Even Sophia acknowledged this. “The wine should help him the rest of the way to healing.”

Erin stayed kneeling. Jordan came to her and tended to her life-giving wound, bandaging it up. Erin leaned into his tender ministrations.

“His arm,” Erin asked, her gaze still on Rhun. “Will it . . . will it . . . ?”

Jordan finished for her, his voice firm. “Will it grow back?”

“In time . . . many months, if not years,” Christian said. “For that miracle, he will still need much more rest.”

“What does that mean for our quest?” Jordan said.

No one had an answer, only more questions.

“We don’t even know where to go,” Sophia said, defeat in her voice. “We learned nothing from all this bloodshed.”

Erin shook her head. “That’s not true.”

Eyes turned to her.

She spoke with certainty. “I know what we’re looking for.”

8:33
P
.
M
.

“What do you mean?” Christian asked.

“Give me a moment.” Erin stood up, helped by Jordan, but she pushed free of his arms. She needed some distance from him, from everyone. She shuddered, remembering what she had felt when she had held Rhun’s arm. For a few breaths, she had felt his aching passion, the strain of his lust, the wracking pleasure of her blood suffusing through him, dissolving her into him, the two becoming one.

She closed a fist over her bandaged palm, cutting off that memory.

Jordan touched her shoulder. “Erin?”

His blue eyes looked at her with concern. She paced away, needing to keep moving.

I did what I had to . . . nothing more
.

Still, a pang of guilt shot through her. She and Rhun had shared another intimacy in this church in front of everyone.

She crossed to her pack and opened it with trembling fingers. She reached inside and let her palm rest on the case holding the Blood Gospel. She took strength from its presence, then pulled out the sheaves of papers she had recovered from inside the bell. She stacked them on the pew.

“I believe these are Dee’s old notes,” she said. “But I can’t say for sure as they look to be written in Enochian.”

Elizabeth rose and joined her. “Let me see.” She gave them a cursory look, flipping through. “These are indeed Dee’s. I recognize the handwriting.”

“Can you translate the Enochian?” Erin asked.

“Of course.” Elizabeth settled into the pew. “But it will take time.”

“For now, can you skim through for any reference to the green diamond?”

“Yes, but why?”

Christian echoed her question. “Erin, what do you know?”

She faced him, letting the grief center her. “Very little. But before Leopold died, he broke free of the demon that possessed him.”

“What demon?” Sophia asked.

Erin took a deeper breath, remembering that only she had heard Leopold’s final words. “He called it
Legion
.”

Christian glanced to Sophia. “There was such a demon mentioned in the Bible.”

Sophia nodded. “Christ cast it out, but not before confronting it, demanding its name. ‘
And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many
.’ ”

“
For we are many
,” Erin repeated, considering those words. “Could that be this demon’s nature? To possess many.”

“It certainly seemed capable of enslaving others to its will,” Elizabeth said, as she began to peruse the stack of old papers. “Even Sister Abigail.”

“But not us,” Jordan said, waving to Erin. “I grappled with him, but he couldn’t possess me.”

“It could be that he can only control those who are already tainted,” Sophia said with a worried expression. “A weed needs soil to grow in. Perhaps he needs that darkness to be already there before he can root into someone.”

“If this demon is like a weed,” Christian asked, “could he have survived the death of Leopold?”

“I don’t know,” Erin admitted. “But Leopold said that Legion was seeking
three
stones.” She looked pointedly at Jordan. “He sent one of his enslaved down into that temple in Cumae. Maybe he wanted the remains of that green diamond.”

“Maybe,” Jordan agreed. “Or maybe he just wanted to kill me. Heck, he came pretty damned close.”

“No, I think he wanted the stone.”

“Why do you sound so sure?” Christian asked, then added with a soft smile. “Not that I’m doubting the Woman of Learning.”

“Leopold’s last words, just before he died. He mentioned something about a
garden defiled
. . . one
sewn in blood, and bathed in water
. It sounded like that was where Lucifer would rise.”

“But what garden?” Christian asked. “What does that mean?”

“Perhaps the Garden of Eden?” Sophia offered.

Erin looked off into space, mumbling, “It can’t be just a coincidence.”

Jordan touched her shoulder. “What?”

She faced the others. “Those three frescoes in Kelly’s alchemy room.
Arbor, Sanguis
, and
Aqua
. Representing
garden, blood
, and
water
.”

Christian rubbed his chin. “Symbols that mirrored Leopold’s last words.”

“And Legion is seeking
three
stones,” Erin added. “Perhaps they mirror the same.
Arbor, Sanguis
, and
Aqua
.”

Jordan pulled out the two halves of the emerald-hued diamond. “You think this might be
arbor
. It is
green
like a garden.”

She nodded. “And we know it’s not a simple diamond. There’s that strange symbol infused into it. Plus it was capable of holding the smoky spirits of over six hundred
strigoi
.”

“And eventually Legion himself,” Christian added.

Erin touched the diamond with a fingertip. “Maybe that’s why Leopold described the
garden
—this stone—as
defiled
. It was polluted with evil.”

“If you are correct,” Elizabeth said from the pew, “then there must be two more gems.
Sanguis
and
Aqua
.”

Erin heard a tick in the countess’s voice and turned toward her. “Do you know anything about them?”

“I do not,” Elizabeth said, but her expression remained thoughtful. “But perhaps we should ask the man who sent John Dee the green one.”

Erin turned to her. “Who was that?”

Elizabeth held up a yellowed sheet of old paper with a smile. “This is a letter to Dee from the man who sent him that stone.”

Erin crossed to see it, but she found the page was written in Enochian.

Elizabeth used a finger to underline a set of symbols.

“This is his name,” Elizabeth said. “Hugh de Payens.”

The name struck Erin as familiar, but she could not place it. Exhaustion made it harder to think.

Christian stepped closer, his face pinched. “That cannot be.”

“Why not?” Jordan asked.

“Hugh de Payens was a Sanguinist,” Christian explained. “From the time of the Crusades.”

Erin suddenly remembered the man’s name and his prominent place in history. “Hugh de Payens . . . wasn’t he the one who, along with Bernard of Clairvaux, formed the Knights Templar?”

“One and the same,” Christian said. “But he actually formed the
Sanguinist Order
of those Knights. Nine knights bound together by blood.”

Erin frowned, reminded yet again that the history she had been taught was nothing but a play of shadows and lights, and that the truth lay somewhere in between.

“But Hugh de Payens
died
during the Second Crusades,” Christian added.

“Who told you this?” Elizabeth asked. “Because the date of this letter from Dee is dated 1601, four centuries
after
the Second Crusade.”

“I heard this story from Hugh’s fellow founder of the Knights Templar, Bernard of Clairvaux, a man who witnessed that noble death.” Christian lifted an eyebrow toward Erin. “Or, as you better know him,
Cardinal Bernard
.”

Erin’s eyes widened. “Bernard is
the
Bernard of Clairvaux?”

It made a certain sense. She had known the cardinal had fought during the Crusades and had been in a high-ranking position in the Church ever since.

“It sounds like Bernard has not been entirely truthful,” Elizabeth said with a wry smile, tapping a finger on the letter. “Again.”

“That can wait for now.” Erin nodded to the paper. “What does the note say?”

Elizabeth’s eyes scanned down the page, translating the archaic letters. A smile grew on her face. “It seems Hugh wished
me
to have the stone if anything happened to John Dee. The alchemist must have shared the nature of my work with his secret benefactor.”

“So if Dee failed,” Jordan said, “that guy wanted you to finish his work?”

“It would seem so. The plan was for Edward Kelly to take possession of the stone upon Dee’s death, to protect it and bring it to me. This must be why Emperor Rudolf gave the stone and the bell to Kelly.” Elizabeth scowled. “But that greedy charlatan kept them both for himself. He probably secretly sold the diamond. It is worth a king’s ransom.”

“Still, after that,” Erin said, “the cursed gem somehow found its way through history back to you.”

“Fate is not to be thwarted,” Elizabeth said.

Erin had to force herself not to roll her eyes. “Does that letter say anything about the other two stones?”

“Not a word.”

“So, a dead end,” Jordan said.

“Unless Hugh de Payens still lives,” Erin said. “We know he didn’t
die
when Bernard said he did. So maybe he’s still knocking around.”

Jordan sighed loudly. “If so, how do we find him?”

Erin put her fists on her hips. “We ask his oldest friend. Bernard of Clairvaux.” She turned to Christian and Sophia. “Where is the cardinal?”

“He was sent to Castel Gandolfo,” Christian said. “Awaiting his sentence.”

“Let us pray,” Sophia added, “that they haven’t already put him to death for his sins.”

Erin agreed.

They couldn’t afford for anything else to go wrong.