The Blood Gospel (45 page)

He selected three breakfasts with coffee and tea because he had no idea what Erin ate or drank. He picked up the phone and dialed, but before anyone answered, Erin turned on the water for the shower. Jordan pictured her stepping over the tile threshold, her hair loose and falling halfway down her bare back, water tracing its way down the curves of her—

“
Darf ich Ihnen behilflich sein?
” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Jordan turned his back to the bathroom door and ordered breakfast in German.

While he waited, he spread their coats to dry over the radiator, trying not to think about Erin in the shower, face upturned to the water and steam rising around her.

He had to find something else to do. He sat on the bed and cleaned his weapons, one at a time, keeping the other always near to hand. After that, he cleaned Erin’s Sig Sauer.

Nadia knocked on the door and thrust a paper bag into his hands without a word. As he closed the door, he opened the bag to find basic toiletries and a change of clothes for both of them.

Warm sweaters
, so he guessed he wasn’t flying back to Jerusalem.

Room service arrived, and Jordan started his breakfast before Erin finished her shower.

Moments later, the flow of water shut off with a clunking sound. He kept glancing at the door, trying his best not to picture Erin buffing her naked form.

He failed.

He waited for her to come out. When she finally did, she stepped into the room in a cloud of steam. She wore a white terrycloth robe she must have found in the bathroom and had rebandaged her hand. Her face and neck were flushed from the hot water. He wished he could see how far down her body that flush extended.

As she approached, Jordan adjusted the napkin on his lap.

“I tried to save you some hot water,” she said.

“I … um … tried to save you some breakfast.” Jordan took a big sip of his steaming coffee.

Erin walked over and looked down at the remains of the food. She smelled like soap and clean laundry. “Here’s hoping I did a better job than you.”

He kept his eyes studiously averted from the front of her robe and hurried to the bathroom. He showered and shaved quickly. After he brushed his hair and pulled on a clean pair of khakis and a long-sleeved shirt, he felt ready to take on the world.

Or at least to take a long nap.

Erin was just finishing up breakfast when Jordan came out of the bathroom. He lay down on the bed and sighed. A real bed.

“I could sleep on the floor,” Erin said.

“Neither of us is taking the floor,” Jordan answered. “I promise to stay on my side, if you promise to stay on yours.”

Erin looked at the floor, as if considering the other option.

Jordan rolled back to his feet and retrieved his dry coat from the radiator. “During times of dire need, didn’t maidens once sleep with a sword between them and their knight protector?” He spread the coat across the middle of the bed and held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor, I won’t cross this moat of leather unless you ask me to.”

She eyed him skeptically. “Were you ever a Boy Scout?”

He flopped down on the side of the bed closest to the door. “Eagle Scout.”

After a short time, they both settled to their respective sides of the bed. Jordan thought he’d be awake thinking about Erin lying inches away, but he fell asleep almost immediately, still in his clothes.

He awoke sitting up, one hand on his gun. He took in the sunlit room with a single glance. Nothing out of place. Door closed. Window closed. Bathroom empty. What had woken him up?

Next to him, Erin whimpered.

He turned to check on her. Still in her robe, she lay on her side facing him, her hands clasped under one cheek. She gasped in her sleep. He wanted to reach over the coat and touch her, but he didn’t want to break his promise. One wrong move with Erin, and he would be finished.

“Hush,” he whispered, as if she were his niece Abigail, famous in the family for her nightmares about giant tarantulas.

Erin let out one long breath and seemed to sink deeper into sleep.

She had plenty of food for bad dreams:
strigoi
, bats, and—

With a scream, Erin sat bolt upright.

“I’m right here,” Jordan said, sitting up with her. “We’re safe.”

She looked over at him, eyes wide.

“It’s Jordan, remember?” he said.

She drew in a ragged breath and scooted back to lean against the headboard. “I remember.”

Careful to stay on his side of the coat, Jordan did the same. “Bad dreams?”

“Bad reality.”

“Should I be insulted?” Maybe that would lighten the mood.

“I didn’t mean you. You’re … well … fine. But the rest of the situation …”

Jordan
was
insulted at being relegated to merely
fine
, but decided this wasn’t the time to make a smart-aleck comment about it. “At least we got some sleep and food. I haven’t felt so good since before Masada.”

He stopped talking. Masada. Where his team had died. All of them. He named them in his head, intending to never forget them: Sanderson. McKay. Cooper. Tyson. All of them, except McKay, younger than he. Tyson had a two-year-old daughter who would never see her mother again. McKay had three kids, an ex-wife, and a dog named Chipper. Cooper used his army pay to support his frail elderly mother and a long string of girlfriends. Sanderson hadn’t even had time to start a relationship. He was just a kid. Jordan rested his head against the headboard. “It’s been a very long twenty-four hours.”

“I wonder what comes next,” Erin said.

“Another field trip with our fun tour guides, Rhun and Nadia.”

“Nadia’s not much fun.” Erin pulled the covers up past her waist. “I think she would’ve killed me in that church.”

“I thought she was bluffing.”

Erin put one hand up to her throat. “I don’t think Nadia bluffs.”

Jordan didn’t think so either. “I get the feeling that if she wanted to, she could just crush us like bugs and hire someone to clean up the greasy spots.”

Erin grinned. “That’s supposed to be reassuring?”

He glanced over at her. “At least we have each other.” It sounded so cheesy he wished he could take it back.

“But I barely know you,” she said.

“What do you want to know?” He stuck a pillow behind his head. “I’m human. Thirty-five. Career army. Born in Iowa. Third son. My mom had five kids. My favorite color is green.”

Erin smiled and shook her head.

“Not good enough?” Jordan decided to go for it, just tell the truth. “My wife—Karen—was also in the army. She died about a year ago. Killed in action.” His voice tightened around that knot of grief, but he forged on. “No kids, but I wanted three. Now your turn. Kids? Husband? Siblings?”

“I can’t play this game.” He saw a quick flash of pain in her eyes before she glanced away.

Family was off-limits. Got it. He picked an easier question. “Not even your favorite color? That’s not a state secret, right?”

She turned back with a slight smile, as if she appreciated the effort. “Sepia.”

“Sepia?” He looked over at her. “That’s brown, right?”

“It’s a brown gray. It was originally made from the ink sac of a cuttlefish.
Sepia
is the Latinized form of ‘cuttlefish.’ ”

Her earnest amber eyes stared over into his. Or were they
sepia
?

“See. That’s a start.” He shifted on the bed, trying to come up with another question. “Let’s say today was Saturday, and you were home. What would you be doing?”

She looked down at the grimwolf jacket, almost as if she were embarrassed. “I’d be eating Lucky Charms and watching cartoons.”

“I didn’t see that answer coming.” He imagined her sitting in pajamas with a bowl of cereal in her lap and cartoons on TV. Not a bad way to start a weekend.

“My roommate in college, Wendy, got me into it. She said I had a lot of cartoons to catch up on.”

After her freaky childhood, it sounded like Wendy had a point.

“So,” Erin said. “Your turn. What would you be doing on a lazy Saturday morning?”

“Sleeping.” He wished he had a cooler answer.

She looked sheepish. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

“I’m not.” He reached over and smoothed a damp strand of hair back from her cheek, ready to back off if she gave any sign that she wanted him to stop.

Instead, she closed her eyes and rested her head against his hand.

He leaned across the grimwolf leather jacket and kissed her. He did it without thinking, as if his lips were meant to be there.

She let out a tiny sigh and slid her arms around his neck.

10:04
A.M
.

Rhun awoke to the lemony smell of chemical cleaning fluid. He laid a palm against his aching chest, remembering.

He pushed himself up on an elbow. He was in a bedroom with white curtains drawn against the light. A few steps away a woman was lying on the wooden floor. Nadia. He remembered now. Nadia. Emmanuel. The bunker. He listened for Erin’s and Jordan’s heartbeats, heard them on the other side of a wall. The soft rumble of their voices comforted him.

He used the headboard to lift himself to his feet.

Nadia stirred, stretching like a waking cat. “Better?”

Rhun stood, swaying. “Were you hurt?”

“Only my leg.” She stood, too, more easily than he had. “It will mend.”

Rhun envied her. “Were the others wounded?”

“The soldier has luck,” she said. “The woman is a talented shooter, even with a pistol, and she had the sense to stay low.”

“Piers?” Rhun looked around the darkened room.

“Gone.” Nadia explained all that had happened since Rhun was shot in the forest.

Rhun circled to the most disturbing question. “How did the Belial know where we were, where to ambush us?”

His team’s departure from Jerusalem had been known only by the Cardinal and his innermost circle.

Nadia sighed, concerned. “I think the best course of action is for me to return to the abbey with news of Emmanuel’s death, to claim you and the others died, too. That will give you time to operate outside the range of the Church and any spies, to hide your next steps on the way to the Blood Gospel.”

Rhun nodded. They needed to keep their search secret from the Belial. “What about Piers? What will you say about him?”

“I’ll tell them what I found,” she said. “A shame that I only noticed
German
soldiers in the bunker. And
strigoi
, of course.”

“So you will not tell them of the Russian soldiers?”

“If the Church learns that Russian soldiers from St. Petersburg had been in the same bunker as the Blood Gospel, they will send more than a
team
to Russia. It will be all-out war.”

Rhun nodded. No Sanguinist had ever returned from St. Petersburg alive since the traitorous Vitandus took command there. To retrieve anything from Russia, the Church would have to send an army. And every casualty would weaken their order in the battle they must eventually fight against the Belial.

“We must go alone,” Rhun said. “Both to prevent a war and for any hope of recovering the book.”

“And what about the humans? It will be dangerous to bring them.”

“The Vitandus may hate our order, but he maintains a strange sense of honor. It may be enough to keep them safe.”

From the other side of the wall, Rhun heard Jordan’s and Erin’s hearts beat faster.

“I can plainly see your affection for them, Rhun,” Nadia said. “Do you think that the Russian will not?”

“I can’t leave them here.” He tried to block out the sounds of Erin and Jordan. “If the Belial have agents within the Sanguinist ranks, their lives might be more at risk here than if I took them to Russia.”

“Then the matter is settled.” Nadia stood and put on her chain belt.

“I will need papers for us all,” Rhun added.

“I will get them for you in secret.”

Rhun considered the path on which he was about to embark. For the first time in his long, long life, he was about to be sundered from the Church, even if only for a time. He felt bereft.

Nadia headed toward the door. “And I will bring you something you can trade for safe passage. Something precious to the ruler of St. Petersburg.”

Even Nadia did not dare to speak
his
name.

He had once been a Sanguinist, but he had broken the Church’s laws so violently that he had been excommunicated—and not an ordinary excommunication, but a banishment that could not be undone, one so severe that all who knew him must shun him forever after.

In the end, his name had become his curse: Vitandus.

10:08
A.M
.

Erin smiled when Jordan lifted her over the leather jacket and onto his lap. She now straddled him, staring down at his impish smile. “What happened to staying on your side?”

“You’re the one who came over to my side.” He kissed her lightly on the lips and a shiver ran down her spine.