The Blood Gospel (35 page)

Harmsfeld, Germany

When the motorcycle finally slowed, Erin risked opening her eyes. For most of the journey, she had ridden blind, sheltered behind Rhun’s broad back, but she was still left windburned and rattled.

Ahead, a spatter of lights revealed the reason for Rhun’s slowing pace. They had reached the mountain hamlet of Harmsfeld. He slowed their pace to a crawl as he crept through the center of the sleeping village. The small Bavarian town looked like it had just emerged from a medieval time capsule, complete with dark houses with red tile roofs, stacked stone walls, and painted wooden flower boxes adorning most windows. A single church with a Gothic-style steeple marked a village square, a space that probably converted into a farmers’ market during the day.

She searched past Rhun’s shoulder for the other two bikes, but she saw no sign of them on the cobblestone street, a testament to the more cautious pace Rhun had set with her as his passenger.

Still, she felt like she’d left her stomach in the parking lot of Ettal Abbey.

As they left the village, a silvery expanse of lake appeared. Its still surface held a perfect reflection of the starlit skies above, the surrounding forest hugging its banks, and the craggy peaks that enclosed the valley.

Erin spotted the others, parked beside a beach next to a wooden dock. Its ash-gray pilings were darker than the waters that gently lapped at them.

Rhun roared up next to the other bikes and finally braked to a stop. She forced her hands to unclench from the front of his jacket, unhooking her arms from him and climbing off the bike on shaky legs. She tottered forward like an old lady.

Near the dock, the other three pushed a wooden dory across the mud and into the moonlit water. Jordan’s excited tone echoed off the water to her, expressing how much he had enjoyed his ride. Something he said caused Nadia to laugh, the sound unexpectedly carefree.

Jordan noted Erin’s bowlegged approach and called to her. “How was it?”

She gave him the shakiest thumbs-up of her life, which drew a laugh from him.

Rhun glided past her like a shadow.

Nadia eyed the two of them as they reached the shoreline, as if trying to read some secret message.

Emmanuel simply gave the small rowboat a final heave into the water, set it to floating, and climbed on board. He moved to the front, then sat there as unmoving as the figurehead on a pirate ship.

Nadia leaped as lithely as some jungle cat into the boat.

Jordan stayed on the beach to help Erin into the dory. She took hold of his hand and climbed in, noticing the white paint was peeling off the wide wooden planks of the seats. It didn’t look like the most seaworthy of boats. She freed her flashlight, turned it on, and shone it at the bottom of the boat.

No water inside.

Yet.

“Did you have an enjoyable ride?” Nadia asked, and moved to the side so Erin could join her on the middle seat.

Rhun and Jordan sat on the plank behind them while Emmanuel continued his lone vigil at the bow.

“On the way back, I think I’ll call a cab,” Erin said.

“Or you can ride with me on the way back,” Jordan said, staring longingly back toward where they had hidden the three Ducati bikes. “That is, if we’re not over deadline.”

Rhun dug his paddle into the water so hard that the boat lurched to the side.

Nadia glanced at him and whispered something in a teasing undertone too faint for Erin to discern. Rhun’s back stiffened, which broadened Nadia’s smile.

The female Sanguinist then handed Erin a heavy wooden paddle. “I believe we four must paddle while Emmanuel rests.”

Emmanuel ignored her and settled back against the gunwale.

Soon Erin was stroking her paddle through the water, trying to settle into the rhythm of the others. As they glided across the surface, fog rolled thicker over the lake, swallowing them up and dimming the moonlight. The dory now bobbed through a ghostly world where Erin could see only a few yards ahead.

Jordan touched her back, and she jumped.

“Sorry,” he said. “Look down.”

He angled his small flashlight into the dark water. The beam stretched down through the murk like a probing finger. Far below, the mottled light traced across a human form. Erin held her breath and leaned closer to the surface. Emerald-green algae draped from an uplifted arm, the curve of a cheek. It was a statue of a man on a rearing horse. Underneath it rested the huge bowl of a fountain.

Fascinated, she freed her own flashlight and played it in a wider circle, revealing the uncanny sight of rectangular forms of ruined houses and lonely stone hearths.

Nadia explained, “According to Brother Leopold, the local Nazis—likely of the
Ahnenerbe
—had this lake enlarged, damming the river on the far side and flooding the town below. Some claim the Nazis sealed anyone who protested in their own homes, along with their families, drowning them as punishment.”

Below, a school of silvery fish ghosted through Erin’s light. She shivered, wondering how many people had died and were entombed down there.

Jordan’s voice took on a somber tone. “They must have done it to hide the entrance to the bunker beneath the lake.”

Erin had seen enough and switched off her light.

“I assume you both can swim?” Nadia asked.

Erin nodded, although she knew she wasn’t the strongest swimmer. She had learned the basics in college, mostly to appease her roommate, who was convinced she would fall off a dock someday and drown. Erin conceded the practicality of the skill, took the class, but still hated the water.

Jordan, predictably, had better credentials. “I was a lifeguard in high school. Done a bit of training since. I think I’ll be okay.”

Erin had never thought to ask how deep the entrance was to the bunker. What if she couldn’t make it all the way down and had to wait in the boat? Or what if the entire place was simply flooded?

Emmanuel spoke his first word since leaving the abbey, a command that startled Erin with its fierceness. “Stop.”

He pointed into black water in front of the boat.

Jordan shifted forward and shone his flashlight into the water to reveal a rounded arch far below, its crest velvet with algae.

Emmanuel lowered the anchor into the water so slowly that it barely made a splash. Once the dory was secure, he slipped off his cassock, balled it up, and secured it under his leather armor. Then, quick as a fish, he dove and followed the anchor line down.

Blond hair streamed behind him as he sank away.

Erin watched his progress, judging the depth of the water.
Maybe twenty feet
. She could dive that deep, but what then? Would she have to explore the tunnels
underwater
?

Her throat closed up.

“You both wait here,” Rhun said, and signaled to Nadia.

The pair dove overboard, rocking the boat, carrying lights down with them. Erin put a hand on each gunwale to steady it, glad to be alone in the boat with Jordan.

“Not much of a swimmer, are you?” Jordan asked with a smile.

“How could you tell?”

He threaded the paddles under the seats, then straightened. “Your shoulders inch up to your ears when you get nervous.”

She made a mental note to stop doing that and gestured to the Sanguinists below. “I sure can’t swim like them.”

Through the water, she watched the trio try to shift what appeared to be a large metal hatch.

“They cheat,” Jordan said. “They don’t need to breathe, remember? Just one more weird thing to add to the list.”

“You have a list?”

He ticked items off on his fingers. “No heartbeat, free-flowing blood, allergic to silver. Did I miss anything?”

“How about the way they can sit still as statues or move twice as fast as we do?”

“There’s that. And the fact that they prey on humans.”

“Sanguinists don’t,” she reminded him. “That’s one of their laws.”

“Law or not, I can tell they still want to. That lust is still in them.” He leaned forward. “I’ve seen the way Rhun looks at you, like he’s both fascinated and hungry.”

“Quit it! He does not.”

She had to turn away, hiding her lack of conviction in her words, the memory of what had transpired in the subterranean chapel in Jerusalem still fresh in her mind.

“Just be careful around him,” Jordan added.

Erin glanced back again, hearing a catch in his voice. Was he right, or was he simply jealous? She wasn’t sure which proposition she found more worrisome.

Just then, a sleek black head popped up next to the boat. Nadia. “The door is open. The bunker is sealed with an air lock. We must enter together, close the first door, and open the second.”

She swam a yard off and waved an arm for Erin and Jordan to follow.

Always a soldier, Jordan dove immediately. He surfaced quickly, rolled onto his back, and stared at Erin with a big grin.

“Water’s fine,” he said, the shiver in his voice belying his words.

Nadia could read the true reason for Erin’s hesitation. “If you are frightened, perhaps you had best remain with the boat.”

Screw that.

Erin stood and leaped into the water. The snowmelt cold of the lake shocked her, as if trying to force reason back into her skull, to encourage her to return to the safety of the boat.

Instead, she took a deep breath and dove straight for the open door below.

5:05
A.M
.

At the bottom of the lake, Rhun heard their two heartbeats change when Erin and Jordan entered the water. He stuck his head out of the archway door and shone his waterproof flashlight up, offering them a beacon to follow. Silver moonlight from the surface silhouetted their dark forms as they kicked and pawed their way downward.

The soldier swam swiftly and economically. He could have reached the bottom in seconds, but he hung back, keeping watch on Erin.

She, on the other hand, was a terrible swimmer. Her movements were jerky with panic and her heart raced. Still, Rhun respected her for having the courage to try. Without the heavy grimwolf coat weighing her down, he doubted that she would have made it.

Once she got close enough, Rhun reached out, seized her arm, and pulled her through the archway and into the small flooded air lock. Less than a second later, Nadia and Jordan swam in.

Together, the pair tugged the outer hatch closed.

Metal thudded into place. A quick clanking sounded as they spun the door lock. Rhun’s flashlight revealed concrete walls surrounding them—and the frightened face of Erin.

He worried that her heart might explode, its pace barely pausing between beats. He had to get her out of the water before she panicked and drowned. If the bunker beyond the air lock was flooded, he would have to rush her back to the surface himself.

On the far side of the small chamber, Emmanuel worked at the steel dogs that locked down the inner hatch. As he twisted the last one, the door burst open on its own, shoved by the water pressure from inside the air lock. As the water flooded out of the chamber, they were all swept along with the draining torrent—and spilled into the dry Nazi bunker.

October 27, 5:07
A.M
., CET

Beneath Harmsfeld Lake, Germany

Erin stood shakily, soaked to the skin, her teeth already beginning to chatter.

Everyone else was on their feet, weapons drawn, sweeping their lights down the dark concrete tunnel ahead. She rested her hand on the cold stock of her own holstered pistol and pulled out her waterproof flashlight from the wet pocket of her long leather coat.

Her heart still thudded in her throat. She glanced back into the air lock. She did not want to ever have to do that again. She hoped there was some hidden
landward
exit to this bunker.

Clicking on the flashlight, she shone its beam on the floor, where drains were already reclaiming the water that had flooded in with the new arrivals. She swept the beam around the tunnel. Its rounded sides rose from a level floor, climbing fifteen feet, large enough to drive a Sherman tank down without scraping the concrete from the walls.

She imagined the teams of skeletal concentration-camp inmates working on this tunnel in near-total darkness, only to be killed when the structure was complete, their blood shed to keep its secrets.

She sniffed the air: dank and moldy, but not stale. She searched the ceiling. Likely some passive ventilation system was still intact.

She joined the others. Based on the satellite map, they should be standing in the right leg of the Odal rune. But where should they go from here?

“What now?” Jordan asked, mirroring Erin’s concern. “We just wander around looking?”

The triad of Sanguinists formed a silent wedge-shaped shield a few steps away: Emmanuel, at the head, pulled his wet cassock back over his leather armor. Nadia and Rhun flanked him. All three were clearly casting out their senses, gaining their bearings, and judging the threat level.