The Blood Gospel (54 page)

She recalled the words of Father Piers, spoken first in German, then translated by Jordan.

Es ist noch kein Buch
.

It is not a book.

Is this what Piers meant? Or was this artifact just a piece of lead that had been contaminated by the fragments when it was tossed into the pillowcase with them?

Something about the fragments also nagged at her, something she’d never really had a chance to investigate. But now that she had more pieces of the puzzle …

She turned and handed the lead block to Jordan. “Hold this. I want to try something.”

She then gathered the broken bits of rubble into one of the ancient sheets and took them out into the hall, where she had more room. With the fragments still in her pockets, she might have enough pieces to reassemble the casing more fully. Maybe then she could read the Aramaic lettering impressed on one side of the fragments. At the moment it seemed like a better idea than poking through more piles of rotting junk.

She gestured for Rasputin’s forces to move aside, then spread the sheet across the floor. Grigori’s acolytes gathered around, watching her. She ignored their presence and lifted out the fragments. As she set about arranging the pieces into their original form, concentrating fully on her task, the sounds of Jordan and the priests rummaging next door receded.

Her world became the puzzle.

Sometime later, a hand touched her shoulder, making her jump.

“We found nothing else in there,” Jordan said. “We’re ready to move on to the next room.”

“I need another minute.”

Jordan crouched down beside her. “What do you have there?”

Bare overhead bulbs illuminated the fragments. She had organized them into a square of about one foot by one foot. Fitted together, they revealed a bas-relief of a drawing and impressions of Aramaic letters.

The left side of the bas-relief depicted what looked like a skeleton topped by the Alpha symbol. The right showed the profile of a well-fleshed man with the Omega symbol crowning his head. The two figures were crossed together in an eternal embrace, while a braided rope looped from around the man’s throat to the lower vertebrae of the skeleton, binding them together.

“What does that mean?” Jordan asked.

Erin blew out her breath in frustration. “I have no idea.”

Jordan traced it with his finger, his voice sharpening. “I’ve seen this skeleton.”

“What? Where?” She ran back over the places they had been together: the tomb in Masada, the bunker, and the Russian church.

“This way!” He uncoiled like a spring. He sprinted back into the room he had just vacated, almost bowling over Rasputin in his haste.

Erin rushed after him, drawing both Rasputin and Rhun with her.

“Such a volatile pair.” Rasputin spoke from behind her. “So hot-blooded.”

She hoped that blood would stay right where it belonged.

Jordan crossed back to the basket and lifted that strange block of lead. Black blast marks covered its surface. He rubbed the scorched area with his leather sleeve. “Look!”

Erin leaned at his shoulder, only now seeing a faint pattern underneath the blast marks.

He spat on his fingers and used them to rub away a circle of the soot.

A skull grinned back at them from the lead, its backbone trailing down at an angle.

It matched the picture on the fragments. Erin pictured a slurry of lime and ash being poured over this lead sculpture and drying like clay, hardening to create an impression of the design on the lead box’s top.

Jordan stared up at her, laying a palm atop the lead surface. “Is this another box? First concrete, now lead. Could the Gospel be inside of that?”

8:47
P.M
.

Rhun heard Jordan’s words, wanting to disbelieve. It seemed impossible. He reached one tentative hand toward the block, realizing he was acting just like Erin—needing to
touch
it to make it real.

Did this truly hold the
G
ospel of Christ?

After so many centuries of searching, he had thought he would never find it, had assumed his sin with Elisabeta had made him
unworthy
of finding it.

Jordan passed the heavy leaden block to Erin’s outstretched hands. She polished away more of the soot with a grimy tablecloth.

“I don’t see any seams.” She hefted it. “And it feels solid. It looks more like a sculpture than a box.”

Rhun longed to take it from her and test the truth for himself, but he kept still.

“I bet the Germans believed there was something in there.” Jordan tapped the blast marks. “It looks like they tried to blast it again and again. That’s why the sensor readings are so high.”

Grigori jostled against Rhun, wanting to examine the object himself. If the book was still encased within this block of lead, Grigori must not have it. He placed himself between Grigori and Erin.

“Have no fear, Rhun,” Grigori said. “I have no illusion that I am part of the prophecy.”

Only now did Rhun even remember the prophecy. He had never truly believed its words, especially after Elisabeta. Yet now …

“All three of you touch it,” Grigori said. “See if it reveals itself to you.”

“Could it be that simple?” Jordan put a palm on the block.

Erin rested her smaller hand next to his.

Rhun hesitated, loath to attempt such an act in front of Grigori.

As if reading his thoughts, Grigori beckoned with one hand. His dark followers crowded into the room. Their threat made real.

Rhun placed his hand next to Jordan’s and Erin’s.

8:50
P.M
.

Erin stood, afraid to move.

The cold of Rhun’s hand chilled one side of her hand; the warmth of Jordan’s bathed the other. She couldn’t believe that she, who had devoted her life to science, was standing with her hand on a block of lead expecting miracles. What had happened to her over the last day and a half? If Jordan and Rhun hadn’t been standing next to her, she would have taken her hand off the block and jammed it into her pocket.

But they were there, so she stayed put, trying to convince herself that she was just humoring them, even though she knew better.

As she waited, icy cold seeped into her palm. It felt dead, like a corpse. The irrational thought would not leave her mind. The book was
dead
, and it would not come back to life on Russian soil.

She remembered the Cardinal’s words:
The book can only be opened in Rome
.

“Well, that was disappointing,” Jordan said, taking his hand back, the first to break the circle and admit defeat.

Rhun followed suit, and Erin hefted the block back against her chest. Would something miraculous have happened if she had only had faith?

She shook her head.

Enough of that.

“I figured it wouldn’t be that easy,” Jordan said.

“Indeed.” Rasputin gave his personal assistant, Sergei, a meaningful look and the young acolyte backed out the door.

Erin didn’t like to think where he might be going.

“Let’s gather up the stone pieces,” Rhun said. “And be on our way.”

“Where does your
way
lead?” Rasputin blocked their exit.

“Do you mean to break your word, Grigori? Steal the book and kill us?”

Rasputin’s feet stayed planted. “If God chose you, there is nothing I could do to stop him.”

“Great!” Jordan stepped close. “Thank you for your help and—”

Five acolytes glided up swiftly and surrounded him.

“Don’t be a fool,” Rhun warned Rasputin, his tone as calm as if they were discussing travel arrangements. “You must know that you do not have the resources here to open the Gospel.”

“I do realize that, my dear Rhun.” Rasputin smiled. A chill ran up Erin’s back that had nothing to do with the Russian weather. “Larger forces are at play than you or I.”

Sergei returned to the room.

A massive beast padded in after him, the dead come back to life.

The grimwolf growled, its ears flattened menacingly, its hackles spiked along his back.

Here was a twin to the one they had killed in the desert.

From behind the wolf, a woman stepped forward, running her fingers possessively along the flank of the monster. She tossed aside a mane of fiery hair to reveal a pale and familiar face—the woman from the forest in Germany.

The one who shot Rhun.

October 27, 9:01
P.M
., MST

The Hermitage, Russia

As Rhun stared, fire lanced through his chest, igniting with the memory of the silver rounds exploding into him. The woman looked so much like his Elisabeta—the silvery-gray eyes, the high cheekbones, the perfect skin, the same tilt to her chin, even the knowing smile.

But it could not be her. Rhun closed his eyes, listened to her heart. Each beat told him that this woman was not his Elisabeta, could not be her.

Rage replaced remorse. She had used her resemblance to his beloved to trick him, to try to murder him. Her forces had killed Emmanuel, had almost killed them all.

Jordan spoke, but Rhun caught only the end of the sentence. “… the visitor who pulled you away from the church earlier today?”

“I am ever a polite host,” Rasputin said.

Rhun opened his eyes and studied the impostor. The resemblance was uncanny, but false. Like everything in Rasputin’s realm, the fair face hid an evil core.

Rasputin’s followers seemed frightened of her. They crowded against the walls, leaving a circle around her, as if they did not dare to touch her.

“I see that you are quite restored, Father Korza.” The redhead smiled coldly.

Her icy eyes flicked over Erin and lingered on Jordan. Rhun heard his heartbeat quicken under her gaze.

The grimwolf at her heels snarled, its red eyes fixed on Rhun with deep hatred. It looked enough like the one in the desert of Masada to be its littermate. If so, did it know that he had killed its brother?

Masada
.

The woman with the wolf must have been there, too, Rhun realized. She had more than Emmanuel’s blood on her fair hands.

As if reading his thoughts, she nodded. “This sudden restoration of health. Was it perhaps the blood of your companions that fortified you so?”

“I drink only the blood of Christ.”

“Not always,” she said. “Long ago, you defiled one of my ancestors.”

“I’ve heard our guest’s story,” Rasputin said, shaking a finger at Rhun. “She has good reason to be angry at you. Since your tragic mistake with Elisabeta, one woman of each generation of the Bathory line is cursed to a lifetime of pain and servitude. Each must bear a mark to prove it.”

The stranger bared her long throat, revealing a black handprint.

Still, Rhun searched for some trickery here. Did this woman truly come from the line of Bathory? Was she a descendant of the first woman believed to be the Woman of Learning?

Reading portents of that time, Cardinal Bernard had thought Elisabeta was the prophesied Woman of Learning. In the end, he was proven wrong, but had someone believed Bernard was on the right path? Had they taken command of the Bathory lineage as a precaution? Or was there some other purpose here?

The redheaded woman shifted her attention to Rasputin, but she never took her eyes off Rhun. “Let me take
him
as well as the book. I will double your fee.”

Rhun’s eyes narrowed.
Whom did this strange woman serve? Who gave her that black mark on her throat? And why?

Rhun could think of only one person powerful enough to receive favors from Rasputin. The mysterious head of the Belial. The very last person who should ever receive the book.

He studied the mark on the woman’s throat. Was he staring at the shadow of the man’s own hand, the true puppet master of the Belial? A shiver traveled through him. He prayed that Cardinal Bernard was right, that the Belial could not open the Gospel. The Nazis had not been able to. Nor had the Russians. Perhaps the book was its own best protector.

But he hated to leave that to chance.

Rhun calculated the odds. Ten
strigoi
, Rasputin, and the wolf. He could not win here, and if he tried, Erin and Jordan would likely be killed. But an opportunity could present itself later. If he let Bathory take him now, he could remain near the book, try to get it free. Knowing he had no other choice, he inclined his head in agreement.

Rasputin studied his face for several seconds before speaking, his blue eyes calculating. “No, my dear. He is too willing. I promised you the book as a gesture of goodwill toward those whom you serve. But Rhun is
mine
. You may, however, take
one
of the humans, if, in return, your master grants me the life of my choosing later.”

“That was not your promise to us, Grigori.” Rhun kept his voice calm, but still his minions tightened their grip on him. “But if someone must be taken, why not me?”