Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series (9 page)

Unfortunately, the beast had armed itself, too—not only grabbing Jordan, but also Baako’s sword. As they hit the wall together, his attacker shoved the stolen blade through Jordan’s stomach.

He gasped, falling to his knees.

Baako and Sophia came instantly to his aid. With an arcing blow, Sophia severed the
strigoi
’s sword arm. She drove her second blade into its stomach and ripped the monster from groin to neck.

Cold black blood spurted across Jordan’s face.

He stared down at the blade still impaled through him.

Little late, guys
.

5:28
P.M.

Rome, Italy

Pain shredded the darkness around Leopold, casting him back into the world, back in to that blood-soaked room. He clutched his belly, expecting to feel rent flesh and spilling guts. Instead, his fingers discovered smooth skin and a round intact belly, still full of blood from the demon’s last feeding.

Leopold rubbed his naked abdomen, still feeling a ghost of that pain.

He saw the same blood-soaked abattoir as before—but he also saw into another chamber overlapping this one: a dark cavern with an altar in the middle.

I know that place
.

It was the sibyl’s temple, hidden at the heart of a volcanic mountain in Cumae, the same place where Leopold had loosed the demon Legion into this world.

But how am I seeing this vision?

It was as if he were viewing the scene through another’s eyes. As he watched, clawed hands rose up and clutched a belly pouring forth with oily black blood, while loops of viscera tumbled forth.

But it wasn’t just
sight
he shared with this other—he also
felt
that pain.

Then that distant form collapsed on its side. It had to be a
strigoi
, likely a member of Legion’s army, perhaps one that the demon had enslaved. Leopold pictured the black brand on the chest of the
strigoi
here.

Did that mark serve as some sort of psychic link? Would it end as this beast died?

Black smoke billowed around him, preparing to drag him away. Yet, he still saw into that cavern temple, the link still intact as the
strigoi
faded. Even while dying, the beast searched the cavern, as if looking for some way to save itself.

Instead, its gaze fell upon the altar, focusing upon two pieces of an emerald stone.

The green diamond.

Is that what you were sent to fetch?

Somewhere deep inside Leopold’s possessed soul, he sensed that longing from Legion. Leopold vaguely remembered tunneling out of that temple, his limbs impossibly strengthened by the demon that possessed him, but the monster had also been frantic to escape that mountain, to be free of that prison of volcanic rock. After centuries of being locked away inside that gemstone, it plainly could not stand to be trapped a moment longer, and in its haste, it forgot to take the stone with it.

But why does it need that stone?

The diamond shone brightly atop the altar, as if to mock Legion’s failure. But the
strigoi
’s eyes had begun to glaze, fogging the view. There was little life left. That gaze shifted to movement nearby, a scuffling of legs. Those limbs parted enough to reveal a man kneeling on the rock, a blade through his belly.

Through that link, Leopold looked into the man’s blue eyes.

Recognition rang through him.

Jordan . . .

With that thought, Legion stirred to life again, rising from the ashes of the
strigoi
who was dying in that cavern. Darkness swelled up inside Leopold. Within that tide, he felt the demon’s attention swing toward him. He could feel it picking through his memories. He tried his best to bottle up his knowledge.

About Jordan, about the others.

But he failed.

As he fell into nothingness, he felt his own lips move, heard his own voice, but it was not Leopold, but Legion, who spoke Jordan’s other name, his truer name.

“The Warrior of Man . . .”

Dear Lord, what have I done?

Leopold fled away, down the only path still open to him for a few breaths more, down that fading link.

5:31
P
.
M
.

Cumae, Italy

Sprawled in a pool of his own blood, Jordan stared up at the cavern roof. Baako kept his large hands pressed onto Jordan’s wound, while Sophia tossed aside the long blade. Jordan had barely felt the impaled sword being yanked free. A strange numbness kept his belly cold, making the bloody pool under him feel hot.

Baako knelt over him, offering a reassuring smile. “We’ll get you stabilized and back to Rome in no time.”

“You’re . . . a bad liar,” Jordan grunted.

He would never survive being dragged up that tunnel with his stomach sliced open. He doubted if he’d even make it across the room.

Knowing this, a vision of Erin’s face shimmered in his head, her brown eyes laughing, a smile on her lips. Other memories overlapped: a lock of wet blond hair falling across her cheek, her bathrobe falling open, revealing her warm body.

I don’t want to die in a hole, away from you
.

For that matter, he didn’t want to die at all.

He wished Erin were here right now, holding his hand, telling him it would be all right, even if it wouldn’t. He wanted to see her one more time, tell her that he loved her, and make her feel it. He knew she was afraid of love, believing it would melt away like snow, that it couldn’t last.

And now I’m proving it to her
.

He clutched Baako’s iron-strong arm. “Tell Erin . . . I’ll always love her.”

Baako kept pressure on his wound. “You can tell her yourself.”

“And my family . . .”

They would need to know, too. His mother would be devastated, his sisters and brothers would mourn him, and his nieces and nephews would barely remember him in a few years.

Should’ve called my mother more often
.

Because whatever malaise of emotions that had afflicted him of late extended beyond Erin to his family, too. He’d cut himself off from them all.

He clenched his teeth, not wanting to die, if only to make amends to everyone. But the spreading pool of warm blood told him that his wounded body didn’t care about his future plans of babies and kids and sitting in rocking chairs on a porch, watching the corn grow.

He turned his head, as Sophia checked on his attacker.

At least, I don’t look as bad as that guy
.

The
strigoi
didn’t have long to live, either. Strangely, the creature’s eyes stared directly at him. Those cold bloodless lips moved, as if speaking.

Sophia leaned closer, one eyebrow arching high. “What was that?”

The
strigoi
drew in a deeper, shuddering breath and, in an accent that Jordan knew well, it spoke. “Jordan,
mein Freund
. . . I’m sorry.”

Sophia pulled her hand back from the creature’s body. Jordan was equally shocked.

Leopold
.

But how?

The
strigoi
shuddered and went still.

Sophia sat back and shook her head. The beast was dead, taking with it any further explanation.

Jordan struggled to understand, but the world faded as he bled away the last of his life. He felt himself falling away, the room receding, but instead of into darkness, it was into brilliance that he plummeted. He wanted to raise his hand against it, especially as it grew brighter, burning into him. He screwed his eyelids closed, but it didn’t help.

He had felt such a burning light only once before, when he’d been struck by lightning as a teenager. He had survived the bolt, but it had left its mark, burning in a fractal pattern of scar tissue across his shoulder and upper chest. Those strange vinelike designs were called Lichtenberg figures, or sometimes, lightning flowers.

Now ribbons of liquid fire radiated along those scars, filling them completely—then stretching even farther. Tendrils of heat grew outward, rooting into his stomach, where a searing agony exploded. The fire writhed in his gut like a living thing.

Is this what death truly felt like?

But he didn’t feel himself weakening. Instead, he felt inexplicably
stronger
.

He took another breath, then another.

Slowly the room slipped back into focus. Nothing seemed to have changed. He still lay in a pool of his own cooling blood. Baako continued to press hard against his wound.

Jordan met the African’s concerned gaze and pushed at his hands. “I think I’m okay.”

Better than okay
.

Baako shifted his palms and glanced at the spot where the sword had impaled Jordan. Strong fingers wiped the residual blood away.

A low whistle escaped Baako.

Sophia joined him. “What is it?”

Baako glanced up at her. “It’s stopped bleeding. I swear the wound even looks smaller.”

Sophia examined him, too. Only her expression grew more worried than relieved. “You should be dead,” she said baldly, gesturing to the spread of blood. “You received a mortal wound. I’ve seen many over the past centuries.”

Jordan pushed up into a seated position. “People have counted me out before. I even died once. No, make that
twice
. But who’s keeping track?”

Baako sighed. “You
healed
, just as the book said you would.”

Sophia quoted from the Blood Gospel.
“ ‘The Warrior of Man is likewise bound to the angels to whom he owes his mortal life
.’ ”

Baako clapped him on the shoulder. “It seems those angels are still watching over you.”

Or they’re not done with me yet
.

Sophia returned her attention to the dead
strigoi
. “It knew your name.”

Jordan was glad for the distraction, remembering the last words spoken from those dying lips.

Jordan,
mein Freund
. . . I’m sorry.

“That voice,” he said. “I swear it was Brother Leopold’s.”

“If you’re right,” Sophia said, “that is one miracle that can wait. We should get you to the medics at camp.”

Jordan fingered open his shirt. The wound was now just a sticky scab. He wagered even that would be gone in a few hours. Still, he pictured that sword piercing through him, which raised another mystery.

“Have you guys ever seen a
strigoi
move like that?”

Baako looked to Sophia, as if she had more experience.

“Never,” she answered.

“It was not just fast,” Baako said. “But strong, too.”

Sophia moved to the dead creature’s side, rolled it to its back, and began to strip away its clothes. Three bullet holes decorated the corpse’s center mass. Jordan was pretty impressed that he’d hit the creature at all. As Sophia peeled the shirt away, Jordan sucked in a surprised breath.

Emblazoned on the
strigoi’s
pale chest was the imprint of a black hand. Jordan had seen one like it once before—burned on the neck of the now dead Bathory Darabont. Her mark had bound her to her former master, branding her as one of his own.

The presence of it here now meant only one thing.

“Someone sent this creature down here.”

5:28
P
.
M
.

Rome, Italy

I am Legion . . .

He stood before a silvered mirror, drawing himself fully back into his vessel to center himself after his sojourn to that dread cavern. In that reflection, he saw an unremarkable body: weak limbs, sunken chest, soft belly. But his mark graced this one’s form, painting his skin as dark as the void between stars. Eyes as blackened as dead suns stared back out of that mirror.

He let those eyes close and searched the shadows that made up his true essence. Six hundred and sixty-six spirits. He let those tendrils run through his awareness, reading what still remained, looking for answers. He caught glimpses of a common pain from the past, of a glass prison, of a white-bearded figure staring inward with disgust.

But from such pain came his birth.

I am many . . . I am plural . . . I am Legion
.

Within those swirls of darkness that made up his being, a single flame glowed, flickering in those endless shadows. He drew closer to that fire, reading the smoke that came from it as the spirit that sustained it slowly smothered.

He knew that one’s name, the vessel that he possessed.

Leopold
.

It was from the smoke of that weakening flame that Legion had learned the ways of this present world. He had rifled through those memories, those experiences, to ready himself for the war to come. He had built an army, enslaving others with merely a touch of his hand. He let the strength of his darkness flow into them. With each touch, his eyes and ears in this world multiplied, allowing his awareness to grow ever larger across the land.

He had one purpose.

He pictured a being of immensely dark angelic power, seated on a black throne.

Centuries ago, those six-hundred-and-sixty-six spirits had been woven by that black angel, securing Legion inside that gemstone. He was left there as a harbinger for what was to come, a dark seed waiting to take root in this new world and spread.

When he was finally freed from the gem, he attached himself to the creature who broke that stone.
Leopold
. Legion rooted himself deep into his new vessel, attaching himself to Leopold, taking possession, the two becoming one. The vessel was the pot from which he could grow into this world, spreading his branches far and wide, claiming others, branding them, enslaving them. And while his foothold in this world depended on Leopold living, he could still travel along those branches and control them from afar.