Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series (51 page)

Jordan felt himself a part of that song, yet still an observer.

Then through that majesty, a command rang forth, reaching his ears.

“Now,” Erin called. “On three.”

Jordan tore his gaze away from the emerald depths of his stone to see Erin standing before her pillar, her arms upraised, bearing aloft a shining red gem that defied the darkness of the eclipse.

Jordan’s heart ached at the sight of her, allowing the song to fade enough to listen and obey. She looked like some ancient tribal goddess, her figure lit by that crimson shine, turning her golden hair to fire.

To the west, Rhun also held his stone aloft.

“
One
.” Erin’s clear voice ran across the lake.

“
Two
,” Rhun answered her, as if they had rehearsed it.

Jordan added finality to this moment. “
Three
.”

11:59
A
.
M
.

Erin lowered the
Sanguis
stone into the chalice before her.

As soon as its facets touched the granite, the ruby gem burst forth with a blazing light, echoing the crimson fire of the eclipsing sun. Flames ignited from the gem’s surface and danced around the stone chalice. Heat and holiness washed across Erin’s face. She feared if she got too close it would burn her to ash.

Xao showed no such worry. He stepped to her side and held his palms before those flames. As he basked his cold flesh in front of that warm fire, the monk chanted loudly in Sanskrit. She heard it echoed by his brothers.

As the moon fully eclipsed the sun, sinking the valley into a shadowy twilight, the gem fought back against the darkness. The flames flared higher, wafting wildly, as if stoked by some great bellows into a fiery whirlwind. Erin wanted to run from that inferno, but she knew her place was here.

Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the flames were sucked back into the stone, setting it to shining even brighter, as if a piece of the sun rested within that chalice. Then the fires ignited again—not along the gem’s facets this time, but all around her.

Erin craned her neck, looking everywhere, realizing those flames defined a ruby bubble that surrounded her, its surface chased by crimson fire. It was as if the gem itself had suddenly expanded, swallowing her whole.

And I am but a flaw in its heart.

A glance across the lake’s dark surface revealed Rhun standing in a sphere running with blue fire—Jordan in a globe of emerald.

She took a step toward them, but Xao was still next to her and placed a hand on her shoulder, holding her firmly. She stared at the liquid fire roiling over the sphere’s surface, remembering the monk’s warning about the danger of humans crossing these barriers of light, how they would be consumed by that fire.

Or maybe Xao was cautioning her to watch what was still to come.

The flames suddenly swirled and gathered near the top of her bubble—then shot skyward, angling out over the lake. Similar spears of fire—blazing azure and emerald—ignited from the other spheres, lancing upward to meet the ruby column.

All three crashed together above the center of the lake, ringing out with a resounding note that staggered Erin, but Xao helped her hold her feet. She gaped at that giant pyramid of fire. At the top, those three infernos whipped into a great maelstrom, swirling their flames together, blending and merging their colors, revealing a slurry of every combination of light. Then that spinning grew even more intense, moving too quickly for the human eye to follow, until all colors became one, creating a pool of pure white fire.

Erin remembered the reversed symbol she had shown Jordan and Elizabeth.

Here it is, brought to life
.

Then from that pool above, a column of light shot down to the lake below, striking the black ice. The ice broke with the impact, cracks shooting across the lake. The ground bucked underfoot.

In its wake, the world went quiet.

Erin heard no breath of wind, no creak of tree limbs, no sound of any life.

Except for the pounding of her own heart in her throat.

She watched as the white column of light expanded outward across the ice, forming a cone shining down from above, creating a pyramid inside a pyramid. Within that conical blaze of brilliance, the black ice rippled like water under a stiff breeze.

Erin remembered the mural at the Faust House, showing all manner of monsters heaving into this world. She steeled herself against what was to come—but even then, she knew she would be unprepared.

12:01
P
.
M
.

With his skin prickling with warning, Jordan’s hand went to the Colt 1911 holstered under the edge of his parka. He knew the weapon would likely do squat against what he felt rising from the dark depths of that lake, but he wanted to feel its solidity in his hand, a counterpoint to that hole in the world wavering before him.

To his left, Erin looked scared, locked within her fiery sphere. She must have felt his eyes on her, because she turned her head to look at him. He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile, and she mustered up a small smile in return.

To his right, Rhun stood with one of the monks in a sphere running with blue flames. Behind him, Elizabeth had drawn her sword. The lion paced beyond the sphere, apparently caught outside it when the gem ignited, the only one of them wise enough not to get trapped.

And Jordan knew he was trapped, sensing he dared not pass out of this barrier of emerald light, that he would be burned to ash if he tried. So all he could do was grip his weapon harder in his hand.

Out in the center of the lake, that rippling darkness began to steam forth with shadows and smoke, slowly filling the confines of that white cone of brilliance. Eventually he could no longer see through it to the lake’s north side, where Christian and Sophia waited with the chest of silver chains.

As he watched, that darkness began to coalesce at the core, shadow and smoke becoming substance. A dark figure formed there, rising two stories tall, seated on a throne of obsidian. It features were blackened, its naked skin running with shadows as dark as pitch. From behind strong shoulders, a set of massive wings unfurled, feathered with black flames. Where those fiery tips brushed the light, black bolts of lightning chased across the inner surface of the cone—but the barrier held.

The winged creature shifted up from his throne, straining against the coils of silver chain, its body weighted from the waist down.

Jordan knew whom he faced.

The king of that bottomless pit.

Lucifer himself.

And Jordan could not help but find this dark angel—

12:03
P
.
M
.

—so beautiful
.

Erin marveled at the perfection of the figure on the throne. Every muscle in his arms and chest was flawlessly defined, his wings blazed with black fire. But it was his face that drew her full attention. Cheekbones rose high, sculpted into graceful arches, flanking a straight narrow nose. Higher still, long lashes fringed eyes that shone with a dark majesty, seeing everything and nothing.

She found it impossible to look away.

One of their group was not so afflicted and awed.

“Why do you wait?” Elizabeth yelled from across the lake, breaking the spell.

Erin watched Rhun shake free of the trance and shout to the north side of the lake. “Christian, Sophia! Go!”

The pair set off from the rocky bank, hauling the heavy chest between them. As Xao had promised, the pair of Sanguinists passed through that outer plane of the fiery pyramid with no trouble, though once out on the ice, the malevolence clearly weakened them, setting their legs to stumbling. The new cracks in the ice also made the trek more treacherous, forcing the pair to take a circuitous route through the damage, slowing them even more.

As fear rang through her, Erin turned to Jordan, wishing he was beside her.

Jordan noted her attention and cupped his mouth to shout something to her—but a length of silver flashed into view behind his shoulders.

Erin screamed a warning. “Jordan! Watch—”

Then cold hard fingers clamped around her neck, strangling away her words.

March 20, 12:04
P
.
M
.
NPT

Tsum Valley, Nepal

Jordan was moving as soon as he heard Erin’s shout, responding with years of instinct as a soldier. He ducked low—as a long curved blade swept over his head.

While the sword missed its intended target, the steel still struck the emerald stone a glancing blow, knocking the gem loose, causing it to roll drunkenly along the rim of the granite chalice. Jordan hit the ground at the base of the pillar and twisted to one hip, bringing up the Colt and firing into the chest of the monk who wielded the sword.

Knowing his adversary was a
strigoi
, Jordan unloaded his entire magazine. The monk went flying backward, falling out of the emerald bubble. The monk landed on his back in the snow, his chest smoking from the silver rounds, black blood pouring from beneath his body.

Jordan spun around, his body thrumming with warning, still attuned to the stone.

He lunged with his arm outstretched as the rolling gem rocked free of its perch and plummeted downward. Unfortunately only his fingers brushed its facets before it landed into a bank of snow at the foot of the plinth.

As it struck, a resounding
boom
shook the ground. He crawled toward the gem as it continued to blaze from the snowbank. But the damage had been done. While the emerald bubble around him remained intact, still blazing with fire, one of the columns of the pyramid had been dislodged from its foundation.

Must get it back up there, before it’s too—

A series of sharp pops exploded near at hand, ringing out as loud as rifle fire, echoing from the lake’s surface.

Jordan looked up and watched the ice shatter, breaking apart like a dropped mirror. But what that mirror was intended to reflect was something much darker, something not meant for this world.

And it burst free.

Creatures boiled to the surface of the lake: lumbering, slithering, and shoving through the ice. The horde clambered toward shore, mostly toward him and the broken foot of the pyramid, sensing a way to escape.

Jordan flinched away, responding with the lizard part of his brain, refusing to accept what he was seeing, but unable to deny it at the same time. His stomach roiled at the sight, at horrors his mind could not fully grasp. But when his fingers reached back and brushed the inside surface of the flaming sphere that surrounded him, agony shot up his arm to his chest. He yanked his hand back. Smoke rising from his blackened fingertips.

He realized he was trapped in this sphere, unable to escape, remembering the monk’s warning.

It would be death to those whose heart still beats to pierce that brilliant veil
.

But the abominations that crawled out of the lake had no such hearts, no such limitations.

Something sloshed out of the lake to the right, lumbering forth like an ordinary person, but with a flat black face, showing no eyes or mouth—yet still it screamed, howling at the world. To his left, a massive creature bounded to the rocks, clinging there, with cloven hoofs and a malformed head, then it leaped away.

He wanted to cover his eyes, but he feared the unknown even more.

Directly ahead of him, a black crocodilian shape slithered and clawed its way from the broken ice. But it had no head, only a puckered sucker at the front, showing a ring of teeth. It left a glistening trail of bile-colored slime behind it. Seeming to sense him, it clawed faster in his direction, passing unharmed through the emerald veil of his bubble, bringing with it the stench of sulfur and rotted meat.

Jordan’s mind struggled with the impossibility of it, tipping toward insanity. Still, one greater fear kept him grounded, momentarily anchored.

Erin
.

But trapped here, Jordan could never reach her.

Only one person could.

12:06
P
.
M
.

Rhun lashed out with his
karambit
, parrying aside the monk’s sword—but the impact staggered him. This enemy was far more powerful and faster than any
strigoi
that Rhun had ever fought, its strength likely fueled by the malevolence wafting off the lake and the looming presence of its master of darkness, Lucifer.

To keep his feet after that blow, Rhun stumbled out of the blue veil of light. Beyond that sphere, the air reeked of death and pestilence. Revulsion crawled along his skin like a thousand spiders.

The monk pursued him, his long sword flashing down in a streak of reflected blue, but that strike never landed. Instead, something struck the monk in the side, knocking him down. The cub rolled away, but twisted back around, hissing loudly. The monk rose with the speed of a striking cobra, thrusting his blade at the cub’s throat—but instead, the monk toppled forward, his head flying off his body, while his sword harmlessly impaled a snowbank next to the cat.