The Blood Gospel (47 page)

“Great. Can’t wait to meet the guy. Must be a real charmer.”

“He is,” Rhun added. “So beware.”

Jordan made an involuntary move for his holster, but they had been forced to leave their weapons in Germany. They flew here by commercial airlines, using false papers prepared by Nadia. But there was no way to smuggle in their weapons.

“What did this Vitandus do?” Erin asked, stamping her cold feet against the stone as if that would warm them. “Who is he?”

Rhun kept his gaze on the bare trees, watchful, wary, with a frightened cast to his eyes. He responded matter-of-factly—though the answer stunned her.

“You know the man better as Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.”

4:52
P.M
.

Moving slowly down the tiled path, Rhun fingered his icy rosary and offered a prayer that Grigori would not order them immediately slaughtered, as he had murdered every Sanguinist sent to Russia since 1945. Perhaps the tube that Nadia had handed him offered some hope. She had instructed him to give it to Grigori unopened.

But what was it?

Did he bear a gift or a weapon?

Erin broke into his worries. “Rasputin?” Disbelief rang in her voice, shone in her narrowed eyes. “The Mad Monk of Russia? Confidant to the Romanovs?”

“The same,” he answered.

Such details were what most historians noted about Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. He had been a mystic monk rumored to have healing powers, his fate tied to Czar Nicholas II and his family. In the early 1900s, he had used those powers to ingratiate himself with the czar and his family, seemingly the only one capable of helping their son through his painful illness of hemophilia. For such tender care, they had overlooked his sexual eccentricities and political machinations, until eventually a British secret-service agent and a group of nobles had assassinated him.

Or so it was thought.

Rhun, of course, knew far more.

He drew in a deep breath of cold air. He smelled the fresh tang of snow, the underlying carpet of frostbitten leaves, and the faint tinge of old death.

Here was Russia.

He had not breathed its scent in a hundred years.

Jordan, meanwhile, surveyed the park, ever vigilant as he strode at Rhun’s side.

Rhun followed his gaze. The soldier’s eyes lingered on the dark tree trunks, the low stone wall, the plinth supporting a statue, all places where enemies might hide. He appreciated Jordan’s wariness and suspicion, two valuable traits while standing on Russian soil. But their adversary had not yet arrived. For perhaps another few moments they were still safe.

They stopped at the grim dark statue of a woman staring into the distance, proffering a wreath to the lost citizens of St. Petersburg: the symbol of a mourning motherland.

Jordan blew into his hands to warm them, a gesture that spoke to his humanness and the fire burning inside him. He faced Rhun. “I thought Rasputin died during World War One?”

Erin answered him. “He was assassinated. Poisoned with cyanide, shot four times, beaten with a club, wrapped in a rug, and thrown in the Neva River, where he supposedly drowned.”

“And this guy survived all that?” Jordan said with thick sarcasm. “Sounds like a
strigoi
to me.”

Erin shook her head. “There are plenty of pictures of him in daylight.”

Rhun tried to focus past their endless chatter. He heard a creature rustle among the trees a few yards off. But it was only a field mouse searching for grain before winter buried everything in snow. He hoped that the creature might find some.

“Then what is he?” Jordan asked.

Rhun sighed, knowing only answers would silence them. “Grigori was once a Sanguinist. He and Piers and I served as a triad for many years, before he was defrocked.”

Jordan frowned. “So your order defrocked this guy, then punished him with eternal banishment?”

“An order of Vitandus,” Erin reminded him.

The soldier nodded. “No wonder this guy doesn’t like the Church. Maybe you need to work on your PR.”

Rhun turned his back on them. “That is not the entire reason for his hatred of the Church.”

He touched his pectoral cross. Grigori had
many
reasons—hundreds of thousands of reasons—to hate the Church, reasons that Rhun understood far too well.

“So why was Rasputin excommunicated?” Erin asked.

He could still hear the doubt in her voice as she spoke Grigori’s name. She would not believe the truth until she could touch it. In this case, she might regret needing such reassurances.

Jordan pressed Rhun with more questions. “And what happens to an excommunicated Sanguinist? Can he still perform holy rites?”

“A priest is said to have an indelible mark on his soul,” Erin said. “So I’m guessing he can still consecrate wine?”

Rhun rubbed his eyes—with such short lives, their impatience was understandable, their need for answers insatiable. He wished for silence, but it was not to be.

“Grigori can consecrate wine,” Rhun answered tiredly. “But unlike wine blessed by a priest from the true Church, it does not have the same sustaining power of Christ’s blood. Because of that, he is forever trapped in a state between cursed
strigoi
and blessed Sanguinist.”

Erin brushed her hair out of her face. “What does that mean for his soul?”

“At the moment,” Jordan said, “I’m more concerned about what it means for his
body
. Like can he come out during the day?”

“He can and does and will.”

And soon
.

“So why do we need his permission to be here?” Jordan asked.

“We need his permission because he has not let a Sanguinist leave Russian soil alive for many decades. He knows we are here. He will have us brought to him when it is time.”

Jordan turned on him, his heart spiking with anger. “And you couldn’t have told us this sooner? How much danger are we in?”

Rhun faced his fury. “I believe that we stand a good chance of leaving Russia alive. Unlike the others who have come here, the Vitandus and I have a more nuanced relationship because of our shared past.”

Jordan’s hand strayed to the side where his weapon usually hung. “So the men in the black rattletrap who have been following us since the airport … they belong to a Russian
strigoi
mobster with a shoot-on-sight order for all Sanguinists?”

Erin jerked her head toward the distant street. “We’re being followed?”

Jordan simply glared. “I had hoped they were Rhun’s people.”

“I have no people,” Rhun said. “The Church does not know we are here. After the attack at Masada and then the events in Germany, I suspect the Belial have a traitor in the Sanguinist fold. So I had Nadia declare us all dead.”

A muscle twitched in the soldier’s jaw. “Oh, this just gets better and better.”

A new voice interrupted, scolding in tone but amused nonetheless. “Such vehemence is unbecoming here.”

They all turned as a man in the long dark robe of a Russian Orthodox priest circled around the bronze statue and approached on stocky legs. The edges of his robe swept the tiles. Around his neck he wore a pectoral cross, a triple-barred crucifix of the same Church.

He smiled as he closed upon them. His once-long hair had been cut an inch above his shoulders and was combed back to reveal a broad face and cunning blue eyes. His sable-brown beard was neatly trimmed, which it had not been during the years Rhun had spent with him.

Erin smothered a gasp.

Grigori, Rhun realized, must still look enough like his century-old photographs to put an end to her lingering doubt. He prayed that she and Jordan would remember his admonition to tell Rasputin nothing.

Rhun greeted him with the slightest bow of his head. “Grigori.”

“My dear Rhun.” Grigori inclined his square head toward Erin and Jordan. “You have new companions.”

Rhun did not introduce them. “I do.”

“As usual, you have chosen a wise meeting place.” Grigori gestured toward the mounds to either side of the path with one powerful hand. “I might have killed you elsewhere, but not here. Not among the bones of half a million of my countrymen.”

Jordan swiveled his head around, as if looking for those bones.

“He did not tell you where you are, perhaps?” Grigori clucked his tongue. “Ever the poor host, Father Korza. You are at Piskariovskoye Cemetery. It commemorates the lives of those lost during the siege of Leningrad. These mounds you see are mass graves. Precisely one hundred and eighty-six of them.”

Erin stared aghast at the spread of grassy hummocks.

“They contain the bones of half a million Russians. Four hundred and twenty thousand civilians. They died during the years that the Nazis surrounded our city. When we fought and prayed for help. But help did not come, did it, Rhun?”

Rhun said nothing. If he said anything, it would fan to life the flame of Grigori’s smoldering temper.

“Four years of unending slaughter. And yet do any of these graves weigh on your Cardinal’s conscience?”

“I am sorry,” Erin said. “For your losses.”

“Even the child can apologize, Rhun. Do you see?” Grigori pointed back toward a car idling near the entrance to the cemetery. “Shall we move your poor companions out of the cold? I can see that they suffer under its bite.”

Rhun spared Erin and Jordan a quick glance. They did, indeed, look very cold. He had so little to do with humans that he often forgot their fragility.

“Will you guarantee our safety?”

“No more than you will guarantee mine.” Wind whipped Grigori’s dark hair across his white face. “You must know that the time of your death is at my choosing now.”

5:12
P.M
.

Jordan wrapped an arm around Erin’s shoulder. She didn’t lean into it, but she didn’t move away from it either. He faced Rhun and Rasputin, sensing between them the tension of old hostilities mixed with a measure of respect, maybe even dark friendship.

He kept his tone light. “How about we all talk about our imminent demise someplace
warm
?”

Rasputin’s eyebrows rose high at his words, then he threw back his head and laughed. It sounded deep and merry and completely out of place in a snowy graveyard, especially after the threat to kill them. Jordan could see why they called him the
Mad
Monk.

“I like this one.” Rasputin clapped a broad hand on Jordan’s back, almost knocking him off his feet. He smiled at Erin. “But not quite as much as the beauty here.”

Jordan didn’t like the sound of that.

Rhun stepped between them. “Perhaps my companion is right. We could find a more amenable location for our conversation.”

Rasputin shrugged heavily and led them back down the path to the waiting car. Once there, he indicated that Jordan and Erin should take the front seat. He and Rhun took the back.

Jordan opened the door to a wave of warmth. It smelled like vodka and cigarettes. He climbed in before Erin, to sit between her and Rasputin’s driver.

The driver held out his hand. He looked around fourteen, and his snow-white hand felt colder than Jordan’s.

“Name’s Sergei.”

“Are you old enough to drive?” It slipped out before Jordan could stop it.

“I am older than you.” The boy spoke with a slight Russian accent. “Perhaps older than your mother.”

Jordan suddenly missed his submachine gun, his dagger, and the days when all his enemies were human.

October 27, 5:15
P.M
., MST

St. Petersburg, Russia

As the large sedan wound away from the cemetery, Erin held her outstretched fingers over the car’s heater vent. Jordan had one arm across the back of the seat behind her. He was the only one in the car whom she trusted—and in truth, she barely knew him.

But at least he was
human
.

Right now that meant one hell of a lot.

Rhun and Rasputin spoke in measured tones in the backseat. As civil as they sounded, she could tell that they were arguing, even if she didn’t understand a word of Russian.

The car screeched through the late-afternoon streets, bright Russian facades peeking like fairy-tale houses through plumes of swirling snow. They had at best another hour of daylight. If the Belial had followed them to Russia, would they attack again after nightfall? Was Rasputin at war with them, as he seemed to be with the Sanguinists?

Any answers would have to wait until she could get Rhun away from Rasputin.

After another ten minutes, the car slowed to a stop in front of a magnificent Russian-style church. Erin pushed her face closer to the window to see.

Onion-shaped domes topped with golden crosses soared into the sky, each dome more fantastical than the last—two gilt, one with bright swirls of color, others blue and encrusted with designs of gold and white and green. The facade sported columns, raised squares, arches, and an enormous mosaic of Jesus bathed in a golden light. Such fanciful opulence stole her breath away.