The Blood Gospel (60 page)

Erin shone the light straight up. The shaft didn’t lead to the arena, as she’d hoped. It ended in what looked like a metal plate, trapping them inside. They couldn’t climb straight out.

She sagged back against the wall, catching herself before she slipped onto Nate.

Then she checked the walls of the shaft and her eyes lit upon a secondary shaft that opened off the side. It had probably housed a second tier of animal cages. It might lead somewhere.

And even that slim hope was better than staying here.

“Nate!” she called, and pointed the beam toward the secondary shaft. “Look!”

He smiled. “Let’s get going.”

With proper illumination and renewed determination, they chimneyed up the vertical slot and reached the side passageway. It was more like a small anteroom than a cross shaft.

She played her light around the cell. Bars had once sealed the way out, but now only piles of rust and the stumps of rods remained.

Erin climbed over them into the next passageway.

She squinted and covered her hand over the flashlight to darken the way.

Far ahead, a thin line of pale yellow light beckoned.

A way out.

October 28, 4:30
P.M
., CET

Vatican City, Italy

Cardinal Bernard swept through the halls of the Apostolic Palace like a thundercloud.

Rhun followed, herded by a cadre of Swiss Guards with their weapons drawn. Nadia walked on his left, seemingly unconcerned; Jordan tromped on his right, looking more angry than worried. Rhun was grateful to have them both beside him.

Cardinal Bernard’s straight back conveyed his wrath. His scarlet cassock twitched behind him. He was no doubt furious that Nadia had lied to him about Rhun’s death.

Rhun looked back at the line of Swiss Guardsmen. At the tail end marched Father Ambrose, not bothering to hide his gleeful smirk.

With Nadia’s help, Rhun could have easily overpowered them all, but he had no wish to escape. He wanted to make Bernard understand what had happened and to enlist his aid in recovering Erin and the book. He prayed that there was still time.

Bernard unlocked the door to a receiving room and led them in.

The Cardinal crossed and dropped heavily at a round mahogany table, then gestured for Rhun to sit at his right, his usual place. Perhaps he was not so angry, after all, Rhun thought as he pulled out a spindly antique chair, its cushion covered in amber fabric, and sat.

“Rhun.” Bernard’s stern tone dispelled that momentary hope. “You lied to me. To
me
.”

“
I
lied to you,” Nadia corrected. “The blame rests on my shoulders.”

Bernard waved a hand at her dismissively. “He allowed it to happen.”

“I did.” Rhun bowed his head. “I take full responsibility.”

Nadia folded her arms. “Very well. If I bear no responsibility, may I leave?”

“No one leaves until this situation is explained to my satisfaction.”

“Do you want a confession?” Rhun asked. “None of that matters now. The Belial have the book.”

Bernard sat back in his chair. “I see.”

“The Belial are in Rome.” Rhun placed his palms on the gleaming table as if to stand. “We must search for them.”

“Stay,” Bernard ordered, as if Rhun were a dog. “First, tell me how this came to be.”

Rhun bristled. He fingered his rosary, seeking to calm himself before he recounted the events in Russia. He spoke quickly, but Bernard slowed him down with question after question, picking at the story for flaws. His theologian’s mind sought inconsistencies, tried to uncover lies.

And all the while minutes ticked away.

No longer able to sit as he told the story, Rhun began to pace, stopping to stare out the window at the darkening square below. Out on the plaza, people were reaching for jackets, gathering up belongings. Sunset was close, another half hour or so away; then the
strigoi
would be free. Every second decreased the chances that Rhun and Jordan would find Erin alive or recover the book. Still, the Cardinal pressed him.

“If you’re going to interrogate us all day,” Jordan broke in, “how about you send out a team to look for Erin and the book, just in case we haven’t come all this way simply to spin you a tale?”

“You do not speak to the Cardinal that way!” Ambrose glared at him.

“Don’t I?” Jordan pushed back from the table, clearly ready to make short work of Ambrose. Nadia shifted in her seat. If Rhun gave the word, both she and Jordan were ready to fight.

Rhun held up a restraining hand. “Calm yourselves. We—”

A light knock sounded on the door.

Rhun listened. Five men and a woman. He smiled as he recognized one of the heartbeats. He had to resist falling to his knees and giving thanks to the Lord. That would come later.

Nadia heard it, too, catching his eye.

Jordan looked from one to the other, his handsome face contorted with confusion.

Ambrose put on his most supercilious expression and opened the door.

In walked Erin.

Bathory’s collar had left wounds and trails of dried blood on her throat. Dirt smudged her face and hands, and she looked exhausted. The young man following her looked worse.

But she was alive.

4:40
P.M
.

Jordan swept Erin into the best hug she’d had in a very long time. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest. She wished that she could rest there for a very, very long time.

“How did you get here?” Rhun spoke. “And who is your companion?”

Erin disentangled herself from a grinning Jordan. “This is Nate Highsmith. He was part of my team in Caesarea. Bathory captured him and brought him to Rome.”

Nate shook hands all around, casting a suspicious, jealous glare at Jordan after that unmistakably warm hug.

Jordan didn’t seem to notice, remaining all smiles. He kept looking at Erin, and she couldn’t help but smile back. When Bathory had dragged her away and left Jordan and Rhun in Rasputin’s clutches, she had feared she might never see either of them again.

Jordan quickly caught her up on what had happened in the past few hours.

In turn, she explained how she and Nate had escaped by following the tunnels out of Nero’s Circus and into Vatican City. Once here, she had demanded to see Cardinal Bernard, whereupon the Swiss Guard took them into immediate custody.

“The ruins of the Circus!” Rhun said. “Of course. That cursed warren of tunnels would offer the perfect shelter for the Belial.”

“Why?” Jordan asked.

“It’s underground, and protected from the light, so Bathory’s
strigoi
can roam freely during the day,” Rhun said. “But more important, the circus is the most unholy place in Rome, its sands forever tainted by the blood of the Christians who were martyred there. That unholiness would strengthen her forces and weaken ours.”

Cardinal Bernard gestured to one of the guardsmen and Ambrose. “Send troops to the circus. Sanguinists and humans. They must sweep the tunnels and retrieve the book. And inform His Holiness.”

The soldier and the priest nodded and left.

The Cardinal walked Erin and Nate through the events again, matching details. It took him a long time, but eventually he looked like he believed they were telling the truth.

“Describe the book to me again.” The Cardinal closed his eyes and steepled his fingers.

“It’s better if I draw you a sketch,” Erin said, and waved for paper and pen.

Nodding, the Cardinal passed her some papal stationery and a pen. Working quickly, she began drawing a crude representation of the images atop the book.

“It’s a block of lead about the size of a Gutenberg Bible,” Erin said, and quickly described the strange imagery that was etched into it: the skeleton and the man, embracing each other and bound by a braided rope, along with the inkwell-like indentations and the Greek symbols.

“Alpha and Omega,”
the Cardinal muttered as she finished. “That stands for Jesus, of course.”

“I’m not so sure.” Erin hated to pick a fight, but something told her that the Cardinal was wrong.

“Of course it does!
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.
From the Book of Revelation.” His brown eyes looked angry.

“But Alpha and Omega are also the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet.” Something moved around in the shadows of her mind. “The
first
and the
last
.”

As she finished her sketch, something nagged at her about the drawing—then she suddenly knew the answer. A cold certainty spread through her. She had seen a similar image as the one depicted on the book throughout the Apostolic Palace. That iconic symbol was found everywhere—even at the top of the piece of stationery in her hand.

She stared at the others, her eyes widening. “I think—”

Just then, a Swiss Guardsman slammed open the door behind her, making her flinch. He came running inside, his cheeks bright with panic. “Your Eminence, someone has broken into the papal tomb in the necropolis!”

Erin twisted around, meeting the guard’s eyes. “And they did something with the bones of Saint Peter, didn’t they?”

He took a full step back in surprise. “S-someone stole them.”

The Cardinal gasped, while Rhun and Nadia leaped to their feet.

“Of course they did!” Erin practically shouted, her heart racing. “Of course!”

All eyes turned to her.

“I know how to open the book!” she exclaimed.

She remembered the look on Bathory’s face when they had been talking about the transformation of the book, and about how alchemical ingredients were needed in order to catalyze the transformation of ordinary lead into the golden word of Christ.

Bathory had already figured out the Alpha and Omega.

All heads turned to Erin.

“Go ahead,” Jordan said.

“The book has the clues to open it on the cover.” Her voice trembled. “And Bathory figured it out.”

“You’d better explain quickly,” Jordan said.

Erin bent to the stationery and circled the papal seal at the top.

It depicted two keys—the gold and silver keys of Saint Peter—crossed at the middle and bound by loops of crimson rope. The papal seal and the image on the book bore an uncanny resemblance to each other—but instead of
keys
representing the popes, the book had two
figures
crossed in a similar fashion.

Erin explained: “Saint Peter hid the book two millennia ago. He must have seen the design on the Gospel, a design that was to become better and better known as the centuries passed—moving out of secrecy into the open sometime during the twelfth century when the crossed keys began to appear as heraldic symbols of the popes. But the source for that design must have come from the images inscribed on the Blood Gospel and borne by Saint Peter.”

She tapped the papal seal. “The keys represent the papacy. So do the figures. The skeleton and the man.” She pushed hair back off her face. “
Alpha
stands for
first
. Under that is the drawing of a
skeleton
.”

“Yes?” Rhun leaned in close, dark eyes staring at her as if he could read the answer in her face.

“That symbol represents the
bones
of the
first
pope.”

“Saint Peter!” the Cardinal said. “That’s why they stole his bones.”

“To be used as the first ingredient in opening the book. I believe some of Saint Peter’s ground-up bone is meant to fill that first inkwell-like hole on the cover.”

Jordan stirred. “Piers might have been trying to tell us that in Germany. He kept saying ‘book’—and ‘bones.’ ”

“Exactly.” She tapped the other half of the picture. “This depiction of a
living
man represents the current pope. The Omega pope. The last pope.”

“So they need the current pope’s bones, too?” Jordan asked, looking squeamish.

She shook her head.

“Then what do they need?” Rhun asked.