Innocent Blood (37 page)

50

December 20, 3:28
P.M.
EET

Siwa, Egypt

If I only had their ears . . .

Jordan cocked his head, trying to discern any sign of a helicopter’s approach, but all he heard was the swish of wind across sand. He tried his eyes, but he found only a featureless tan horizon, sand dunes spreading in all directions, and a few flat-topped hills in the distance. Above him, the sky had turned a dark gray, the sun a wan brightness through the murk, sitting low this time in winter.

Jordan sized up their team’s ability to resist an attack—in case it was an assault force winging their way.

Who am I kidding?
he thought.
Of course it’s an attack
.

His team certainly had no cover out here in the open, and the two Sanguinists were their best defense—and offense, for that matter.

But how many were coming?

If it was Iscariot, the bastard had boundless resources: men,
strigoi,
even the monstrous
blasphemare
.

He turned to Christian. “How about flying to someplace more defensible?”

“The bird is almost out of gas, but even if it weren’t, it’s not fast enough to outrun the machine that approaches.”

Jordan pictured the hellfire missiles shot at them.

“I see,” he said with a sigh.

He swung his machine pistol up from his shoulder. He had little ammunition left. Erin checked her pistol and shrugged. Same boat as him.

Jordan gave her what he hoped was a reassuring grin.

From the expression on her face, he failed.

Then he heard a distant
whump-whump
. His eyes picked out a dark mote in the glare off the sands. A small commercial helicopter swept toward them, coming in low and fast. It could hold at best five or six enemies. And it certainly had no missiles.

That was at least a small blessing.

The pilot seemed to be pushing the craft beyond its limits. White smoke trailed behind it. Jordan widened his stance and lifted his pistol, aiming for the cockpit. If he could take out the pilot, maybe the chopper would crash and solve all his problems.

As the helicopter sped closer, Jordan sighted on the right side of the bubble-shaped front, where the pilot should be seated. He moved his finger to the trigger.

“Wait!” Christian pushed his gun barrel down.

Jordan backed a step. “Why?”

“It’s Bernard,” Rhun answered. “In front, next to the pilot.”

Okay
,
now I want their eyes
,
too.

Jordan wouldn’t have recognized his own mother at that distance.

“Is that good news or bad news?” he asked.

“He’s not likely to shoot us, if that’s what you’re asking,” Christian said. “But I don’t think he’s going to be happy with us either.”

“So mostly good news, then.”

The helicopter aimed straight for them and made a rough landing at the crater’s rim, teetering at the edge, smoke boiling out of the back of the engine as it coughed to a stop.

Bernard hopped out, accompanied by a massive pilot, a true beast of a man in a flight suit. The latter ripped off his helmet, revealing a shock of dark red hair. From the cabin behind them, two women joined them. The first out had her long gray hair tied in an efficient braid, wearing Sanguinist armor. The second wore jeans and a silver shirt, covered by a long cloak. That cloak billowed into wings as the woman broke away from the others. Jordan noted the flash of chains binding her wrists.

Bathory.

She came scary quick, swooping down the slope, half skidding on her backside, showing little concern about the indignity of her approach. Her face was a mask of concern, her eyes fixed to one member of their group.

“Elizabeth!” Tommy ran up to meet her and hugged her hard.

She tolerated it for a moment—then roughly pushed his chin up, examining his neck.

“You look well,” she said, but her terseness belied her true feelings.

Jordan leaned to Erin. “I don’t get what the boy sees in her.”

Bernard reached them, eyeing Tommy, too. “You were able to heal them both,” he said gruffly, glancing at Arella. “Very good.”

The two other Sanguinists flanked behind him, backing him up, both stone-faced.

Bernard pointed to the large man. He was even larger up close, a true tank of a man, with a barrel chest and thick arms covered in mats of curly red hair.

“This is Agmundr.”

The newcomer thumped a meaty fist against his chest and flashed a grin at Christian. He lifted his other arm proudly toward the smoking aircraft.

Christian sighed and shook his head. “So it looks like you trashed another helicopter. I thought I taught you better, Agmundr. It’s not a Viking warship. It’s a finely tuned piece of machinery.”

“It vexed me.” Agmundr’s voice rumbled out in a deep-throated Nordic accent. “Too slow.”

“Everything vexes you,” Christian scolded, but they grasped each other’s forearm in a warm shake, earning Christian a slap on the back that almost dropped him to his knees. Jordan liked this Agmundr.

Bernard indicated the other Sanguinist. “And this is Wingu.”

The woman was black and stood taller than Jordan. Up close now, he saw her gray braid was decorated with feathers and wound by a colorful bead tie. Her face was stern, pocked with tribal scarring, small dots across her cheeks.

She gave them a simple nod, but her dark eyes took in everything.

“We have little time for pleasantries,” Bernard said, scanning the skies behind him. “We must bring the boy to the book. If he can be healed here, perhaps he can bless it here.”

“It
is
a holy site,” Erin said. “Possibly holier than St. Peter’s.”

Bernard frowned at the crater.

“This is where Christ performed his first miracle,” Erin explained. “When he was a child.”

Wingu spoke in a deep whisper, “I can sense great holiness here.”

Bernard slowly nodded, clearly feeling something, too, but he straightened and motioned to Tommy. “Then let us see if the book can be blessed upon this ground.”

Bathory let Tommy join them, but she looked reluctant. Not that she could do anything about it. Though she could walk under this ash-shrouded sky, she was clearly drained by the sun overhead, or maybe it was the holiness underfoot. Either way, she must know she could not resist the Sanguinists gathered here, on holy ground that gave them strength.

Bathory studied the pictures as she stepped across the ribbon of art. Her interest finally drew Bernard’s attention to the same. He did a double take, then moved closer himself, turning in a circle, his gaze sweeping from panel to panel, as if he were speed-reading.

He turned to Arella. “This is the story you destroyed in Jerusalem.” He strode to the last panel, bending a knee to touch the sword depicted there. His voice was full of anguish. “Why did you keep this from me?”

“The world was not ready,” she explained simply.

“Who are you to judge what the world is ready for?” Bernard stood, moving toward Arella with a hand on the hilt of his own sword.

Jordan touched his rifle.

Rhun blocked Bernard. “Stand down, old friend. Leave the past to the past. We must now face the present and the future.”

“If we could’ve possessed such a weapon . . .” Bernard shook his head, as distraught as Jordan had ever seen him. “Imagine the suffering we could have spared the world.”

“And all you would’ve wreaked,” Arella said. “I walked the mosque after you left Jerusalem. I saw what your forces did in the name of God. You were not ready. The world was not ready.”

Rhun touched his pectoral cross. “We have no time for this,” he reminded them. “The sun will be setting in another hour.”

His words seemed to finally break through Bernard’s anger and anguish. “You are right.” He reached to his armor and removed the Blood Gospel again and held it out. “Please, my child. Before it’s too late. You must bless this book.”

Looking worried, Tommy took it. The book looked huge in his small hands. “This didn’t work last time. And remember, I’m not the First Angel.”

Bernard gave them a baffled look. It seemed the cardinal was suffering one long day of surprises, most of them bad. Jordan knew how that felt. “What does he mean?”

Erin ignored him. “Try anyway,” she urged the boy. “You can’t do any harm.”

“Okay,” Tommy said doubtfully. He opened the book and lifted his palm over the pages. “I, Thomas Bolar, bless this book.”

Everyone leaned forward, as if expecting a miracle.

Again nothing.

No golden light, no new words.

It seemed this blasted place had worn out its potential for miracles.

4:04
P.M.

“As Tommy said,” Erin offered, sensing the defeat among the Sanguinists, “he’s not the First Angel.”

“Then who is?” Bernard asked.

Erin knew she was missing something, but she felt as if she were struggling with a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, shifting pieces blindly. “Arella said Tommy carries the best of the First Angel
inside
him. So I think he’s still key to this puzzle.”

Rhun stood a little straighter upon hearing this. She imagined he had been thinking of all the lives spent to bring Tommy here.

They can’t have died in vain.

Still, she let that go. It was the Sanguinists’ job to wallow in sin and redemption. She had a real problem that needed solving, and she could not let herself be distracted.

“If the First Angel is inside Tommy,” Jordan said, “how do we get him out?”

“Maybe he has to be cut out,” Bernard said.

Erin scowled at him. “I think we’ll save that as a last resort.” She stared at Tommy. “Maybe an exorcism could release the angel.”

Tommy gulped, looking no happier about her suggestion than Bernard’s.

Rhun’s shoulders tightened. “You do not exorcise angels, Erin. You exorcise demons.”

“Maybe so. But maybe not.”

They were all in new territory here.

Erin looked to Arella. “And you cannot help us?”

“You have all the answers that you need.”

Erin frowned, beginning to understand the ancients’ frustration with their oracles. Sometimes they could be downright obtuse. But Erin knew the sibyl was telling her the truth. Somewhere inside Erin was the answer. As the Woman of Learning, it was up to her to puzzle it out from here. She also had to trust that Arella’s silence served a purpose, and the sibyl wasn’t playing coy just to frustrate them.

Did that mean something, too?

“Maybe we need to take Tommy to Rome after all,” Jordan said, “now that he’s better.”

“No,” Erin said. “Whatever is to come, it must happen in this place.”

She turned in a slow circle, knowing the answer lay somewhere in the sandy golden crater. Her eyes went from the panels to the uneven glass edges that looked like splashes of water frozen into ice along the crater’s rim.

“Are you sure it must happen here?” Jordan pressed.

Plainly he was seeking any excuse to escape this desert and get her somewhere safe. She appreciated that sentiment, but with the gates of Hell relentlessly opening, nowhere on Earth would be safe for much longer.

Support for her position came from the most unlikely spot.

Agmundr grunted. “The woman is right. We must stay here.”

“Why?” Erin turned to him. “What do you know?”

Agmundr pointed to the north. “Nothing mystical. That Chinook helicopter that I thought was following us . . .” He glanced at Bernard. “I fear we failed to outrun it after all.”

Erin looked at the smoking chopper. It looked like a horse that had been ridden into the ground.

Agmundr cocked his head. “From the sounds of its engines, it’ll be here shortly.”

Rhun and the others clearly tried to listen for it, but their blank faces told her that the Viking must have sharper hearing.

“Are you certain?” Bernard asked.

Agmundr lifted a heavy eyebrow, plainly wondering how the cardinal could doubt him.

Jordan grimaced, and Erin put her hand on his arm.

“Nothing like a little more pressure,” he said.

“I work best under pressure.”

Of course, maybe not this much pressure.

4:08
P.M.

Rhun envied Erin and Jordan, appreciating how they found comfort in each other, how a simple touch could slow a troubled heart.

He glanced at Elisabeta, who pulled a protective arm around Tommy after Wingu undid her chains. In the battle to come, they would need every resource. Rhun sensed Elisabeta would do everything to keep the boy from harm.

Her gaze met his. For once, he read no animosity, only concern for the boy under her arm. How different their fates might have been if he had met her as a simple man, instead of a tainted
strigoi
. Then again, perhaps it would have been best if he had never met her at all.

“How many soldiers can a Chinook carry?” Christian asked, drawing Rhun back to the moment.

“It’s a troop carrier,” Jordan answered. “Fifty or so. More if you pack ’em in tight.”

Fifty?

Rhun scanned the dark sky. He finally spotted the olive-green bee against the gray sky. It was indeed a large craft with rotors front and back and a long cabin stretched between. Its engine pulsed with strength and menace.

Rhun considered their small group. The Sanguinists here were all seasoned warriors, but they numbered too few.

Jordan tracked the aircraft with his weapon, but he didn’t fire. “Armored,” the man mumbled as the craft flew closer. “Figures.”

The massive helicopter circled the crater from a distance away, sizing them up, taking account of the situation. Then it slowly settled to the ground, a good hundred yards beyond the crater rim.

It kicked up a giant cloud of sand, obscuring its form. But Rhun made out a ramp lowering from the rear of the helicopter. Shadows tromped down it. He counted two score. So less than fifty. But they looked strong, fit, and fierce, some in leather armor, others in uniforms of different armies, and a few in simple jeans and T-shirts. They were clearly no disciplined fighting force, but they did not need to be.