Innocent Blood (12 page)

“And spend eternity in the company of priests?” the countess scoffed. “Surely, you cannot imagine I would succumb to such a dreadful fate?”

A corner of Christian’s mouth twitched toward a smile, but Nadia looked ready to explode.

“The Church has other properties.” Cardinal Bernard seemed unperturbed. “Though none so well defended.”

“And what of my hunting?”

Everyone fell silent. The train rattled against the tracks, carrying everyone south.

Bernard shook his head. “You may
not
take a human life. If you do, we shall be forced to take you down like any other animal.”

“How then will I survive?”

“We have access to human blood,” Bernard said. “We could supply you with enough to satisfy your needs.”

The countess examined her cuffed hands. “So am I to become a cosseted prisoner, as was my fate in centuries past?”

Erin wondered how long she had spent locked in her own castle before Rhun imprisoned her in a coffin and spirited her to Rome. Certainly long enough to know what it meant to lose your freedom.

The cardinal leaned back. “So long as you do not kill, you may roam the world, live your life as you see fit.”

“Tied to the Church for protection.” She shook the chains that bound her. “Ever dependent upon you for the very blood that sustains my meager existence.”

“Do you have a better deal?” Nadia scoffed. “Cardinal Bernard is offering you a life of ease, when you have earned only death.”

“Yet could not the same be said for each Sanguinist in this room?” Her silver eyes locked on Nadia. “Or have none of you tasted sin?”

“We have turned from our sins,” Nadia said. “As must you.”

“Must I?”

“If you do not agree,” the cardinal said, his tone brooking no argument, “we will throw you from the train into the sunlight and assume that is God’s will.”

The countess’s eyes locked onto Bernard’s face for a full minute.

No one in the car spoke or moved.

“Very well,” the countess said. “I accept your gracious terms.”

“If she gets to name terms,” Jordan spoke up, “then so do I.”

Everyone stared at him, their faces incredulous.

Jordan pulled Erin closer to him. “We’re in this together.”

Bernard looked ready to balk.

Christian faced the cardinal. “Even if Erin is not the Woman of Learning, she still has much knowledge. We might need her. I’m certainly not part of any prophecy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t serve.”

Erin realized he was right. It didn’t matter whether or not she was the prophesied Woman of Learning. What mattered was that if she could help, she would do it. This quest wasn’t about pride, it was about saving the world.

She stared down Bernard. “I want in.”

Jordan tightened his grip on her shoulder and looked at the cardinal. “You heard her. That’s nonnegotiable. Or I walk. And I have no aversion to sunlight.”

Nadia inclined her head in Erin’s direction. “I support this, too. Dr. Granger has proven herself loyal in battle and deed. While this one”—she yanked on the countess’s silver chain—“has proven the opposite.”

A wrinkle appeared in the cardinal’s forehead. “But the fulfillment of prophecy is clear about—”

Rhun raised his head, facing Bernard. “Who are you to pretend to know the will of God?”

Erin blinked, surprised by his support, from the priest who had resurrected Elizabeth Bathory to replace her.

The cardinal lifted his hands, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. “Very well. I concede. It would be foolish of me to dismiss Dr. Granger’s knowledge and keen mind. I’m sure she could assist Countess Bathory in her role as the Woman of Learning.”

Erin couldn’t decide whether to be relieved or terrified.

So, leaning against Jordan, she settled for both.

14

December 19, 11:55
A.M.
CET

South of Rome, Italy

The train rocked as it continued south to points unknown.

As trees and hills rolled past the window, Jordan rested his chin on top of Erin’s head. She smelled like lavender and coffee. Her shoulder and side pressed against his. He wished the chairs weren’t bolted to the floor so he could pull her even closer.

Time alone with her would be great, without priests and prophecies. But that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

Ideally, he would prefer that Erin stayed as far as possible from this mess, from Sanguinist priests and
strigoi
countesses. But that wasn’t going to happen either. He had spoken up for her because he knew how much she wanted to go. Additionally, if the Vatican sent her home, he wouldn’t be able to protect her.

But can I protect her here?

After Karen had been killed in action, time had stopped for him, and it hadn’t started again until he met Erin. He would always know that Karen had died alone hundreds of miles away from him. He would never let that happen again to someone he loved.

Someone he
loved . . .

He had never spoken that word aloud, but it was there inside him.

He kissed the top of Erin’s head, intending to stay close to her no matter what.

Erin hugged him tighter, but he saw her eyes studying Rhun. The priest sat with his head bowed in prayer, his thin hands clasped in front of him. Jordan didn’t like how Erin had been acting around Rhun ever since he bit her. Her eyes seldom left him when he was near. Her fingers often touched the two puncture scars on her neck—not with dread but with something akin to wistfulness. Something had happened in that tunnel, something she also hadn’t spoken aloud about yet. Jordan didn’t know what it was, but he sensed she was keeping more secrets from him than just those damned bloody visions.

But there was nothing he could do to draw her out. Whatever she was working through was clearly private, and he would give her that latitude. For now the best plan was simply to get this mission done—then get Erin as far from Rhun as possible.

To that end . . .

Jordan stirred, keeping one arm tightly around Erin. “Anybody have any idea
where
we can find the First Angel? Or even begin looking?”

Erin sat straighter. “It depends on
who
the First Angel is.”

Seated at a neighboring table, the countess lifted her hands, rattling her handcuffs. “Does not the Bible teach us that the First Angel is the Morning Star, the first light of day, the son of the dawn?”

“You’re talking about Lucifer,” Erin said. “He went by those names, and he was indeed the first angel to
fall
. But the Bible mentions many other angels
before
him. The first angel mentioned in Genesis came to the slave Hagar and told her to go back to her mistress and bear her master’s child.”

“True.” The countess had the coldest smile that Jordan had ever seen. “Yet how could we hope to find an angel without a name?”

“That’s a good point,” Erin said.

Bathory inclined her head, accepting the compliment.

Jordan noted both Rhun and Bernard studying this exchange between the two women. Christian also caught Jordan’s eye, as if to say,
See, I told you they would work well together.

In the shadows, Bathory closed her silver eyes, as if in thought. Long black lashes rested against her ashen cheeks.

Erin stared out the window toward the sunlight, as the train rattled past winter fields dotted with giant round bales of hay.

The countess opened her eyes again. “Perhaps we had best focus our search on angels that have names. The first angel mentioned by
name
in the Bible is Gabriel, the primary messenger of God. Could that be the First Angel that we seek?”

The priests at the table looked uncertain. Erin remained curiously quiet, gazing out the window.

“Gabriel the messenger?” Nadia raised an eyebrow, still standing behind Bathory holding the countess’s leash. “In a war, I would think the archangel Michael would be a better ally.”

Jordan surveyed the train car, suddenly recognizing the strangeness of this discussion. Even if they settled on a biblical angel, how were they going to find one and bring it the book?

“Don’t angels live in another dimension or something?” Jordan asked. “One that humans can’t get to? How are we supposed to reach an angel there?”

“Angels dwell in Heaven.” Rhun had returned his attention to his folded hands. “Yet they may travel freely to Earth.”

“Then I don’t suppose you guys have some sort of angelic phone?” Jordan asked, only half joking. After all he had experienced since learning of
strigoi
and Sanguinists, who knew what other secrets the Church was keeping?

“It is called prayer,” Cardinal Bernard said, frowning at his flippancy. “And I have spent many hours on my knees praying for the First Angel to reveal himself. But I do not think that this angel will do so. Not to me. He will reveal himself only to the trio of prophecy.”

“If you are right, my dear cardinal,” Bathory said, “then we should begin praying to Lucifer immediately. For surely only a
fallen
angel would reveal himself to the likes of your flawed trio.”

Erin finally spoke, still staring out the window with that faraway look that meant she was in deep thought. “I don’t think we’re looking for Gabriel or Michael or Lucifer. I think we are searching for the First Angel from Revelation.”

The countess laughed, almost clapping her hands. “The angel who sounds the trumpet and ends the world. Ah, what an enticing theory!”

Erin quoted from memory. “
The first angel sounded
,
and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth
:
and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.
”

Armageddon.

Those were the stakes.

Jordan tried to picture hail and fire mixed with blood and sighed. “So where do we find him?”

Erin turned back to face the car. “I think the answer is found in an earlier passage from Revelation, from before the trumpet sounds. There is a line that reads,
And another angel came and stood at the altar.
Then after another few lines, it continues,
The smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.
”

Jordan grinned. “Well, at least that part is easy enough to interpret.”

And he meant it.

He enjoyed the look of surprise on the Sanguinist priests’ faces.

“It doesn’t take a biblical scholar to figure that one out,” Jordan continued. “Smoke from the angel’s hand? Incense? Thunder? Earthquake?”

The others eyed him with confused expressions. The countess merely looked amused. He was supposed to be the muscle, not the brains.

Erin touched the back of his wrist, allowing him to reveal what she had already figured out.

He took her fingers and squeezed them. “That sounds exactly like what happened at Masada. Remember the boy who survived? He had said he thought he smelled incense and cinnamon in the smoke. We even found traces of cinnamon in the gas samples. And the boy also mentioned that the smoke touched his hand before everyone died from the gas and the earthquake.”

“
The smoke of the incense
,
which came with the prayers of the saints
,
ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand,
” Rhun repeated, his voice reverential.

“Everyone on that mountaintop died.” Jordan’s words came faster now. “Only something
inhuman,
like an angel, could have survived that poisonous assault.”

Erin gave him a smile that warmed him to his toes. “The events match the biblical passage. More important, it points to someone whom we could actually hope to find.”

“The boy,” Rhun said, sounding unconvinced. “I spoke to him atop that mountain that day. He seemed like just an ordinary child. In shock, grief-stricken after the death of his mother and father. And he was born of the flesh. How could he be an angel?”

“Remember, Christ was also born of the flesh,” Cardinal Bernard countered. “This boy seems like a fine starting point to begin our search.”

Jordan nodded. “So where is he? Does anybody know? The last I recall, he was being evacuated off that mountaintop by helicopter, by the Israeli army. They were taking him to one of their hospitals. It shouldn’t be hard to track him from there.”

“It will be harder than you think,” Bernard said, suddenly looking worried.

That was never a good thing.

12:05
P.M.

“Why would it be harder?” Erin asked, sensing she wasn’t going to like the answer.

Bernard sighed regretfully. “Because he is no longer in the custody of the Israelis.”

“Then where is he?” she asked.

Instead of answering, the cardinal turned to Brother Leopold. The German monk had remained silent near the back of the car. “Leopold, you are the most skilled with computers. My laptop is with my luggage. Father Ambrose has my passwords. I need to access my files at the Vatican. Can you help me?”

Leopold nodded. “I can certainly try.”

The monk rushed out of the dining car and headed into the galley.

Bernard turned back to the others. “We were keeping tabs on the boy, staying in contact with the Israelis who were studying him at a military hospital. His name is Thomas Bolar. The medical staff was trying to discover how he had survived the poison gas. And then—”

Leopold burst back into the car, returning with a simple black laptop in hand. He crossed to them, set it on the table, and booted it up. Adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses, Leopold typed with the speed only a Sanguinist could manage. His fingers were a blur across the keyboard, accessing the Internet, punching in passwords, connecting to a Vatican server.

Bernard looked over his shoulder, directing him every now and again.

Erin found it odd to watch these ancient men in priestly garb engaging with modern technology. It seemed like Sanguinists should be haunting churches and graveyards, not surfing the Internet. But Leopold seemed to know what he was doing. In a few minutes, he had a window open on the screen containing a grainy gray video.

Erin crowded closer to see, as did everyone else.

Only the countess hung back. From her uneasy expression, such technology must unnerve her. She had not lived through the long years like the others so that she could assimilate the changes over time. Erin wondered what it must be like to be thrust from the sixteenth century into the twenty-first. She had to hand it to the woman. As far as Erin could tell, the countess seemed to be taking it in stride, showing a surprising resilience and toughness. Erin needed to be mindful of that in her dealings with her in the future.

For now, she kept her attention fixed to the laptop.

“This is surveillance video taken from the Israeli medical facility,” Bernard said. “You should watch this, then I’ll explain more.”

On the screen, a boy sat in a hospital bed. He was dressed in a thin hospital gown, tied in the back. As they watched, the boy wiped tears from his eyes, then got up and dragged his IV pole to the window. He leaned his head against the glass and looked out into the night.

Erin felt for the boy—both his parents had died in his arms, and now he was trapped alone in a military hospital. She was glad that Rhun had taken time to spend a few minutes talking to the child, comforting him, before everything went to hell.

Suddenly, another small figure stood next to the boy at the window. The newcomer’s face was turned away from the camera. He had appeared out of nowhere, as if someone had cut out a piece of the video.

The stranger wore a dark suit coat and slacks. Thomas shrank back from him, clearly afraid. In a move too fast to follow, a knife flashed under the lights. The boy clutched his throat, blood gushing out, drenching his hospital robe.

Erin’s shoulders inched up, but she didn’t look away from the screen. Jordan pulled her closer to his side, supporting her. He must have seen his share of bloodshed and the murder of children in Afghanistan and knew how hard it was to watch such cruelty.

On the screen, Thomas stumbled away from the stranger. He yanked off a trail of wires attached to his chest. Lights flashed on the bedside machines. An alarm. The kid was trying to call for help.

Smart.

Two Israeli soldiers ran into the room, their weapons up and ready.

The stranger hurled a chair through the window, grabbed Thomas, and threw the boy out the window before the soldiers could open fire.

From the attacker’s speed, he had to be
strigoi
.

The stranger turned to face the soldiers, finally showing his face. He looked to be a boy himself, no more than fourteen. He sketched a quick bow to the soldiers before jumping out the window himself.

“How far was the drop?” Jordan asked, watching the soldiers rush to the window and begin silently firing below.

“Four stories,” the cardinal answered.

“So Thomas must be dead,” Jordan said. “He can’t be the First Angel.”

Erin wasn’t so sure. She glanced to Bernard as he whispered to Leopold. If Thomas was dead, why waste everyone’s time showing this video?

“The boy survived the fall,” the cardinal explained and pointed to the screen.

Another video file appeared, this one from a parking lot camera on the ground.

Caught from this angle, Thomas fell through the air, his blood-soaked hospital gown fluttering around his body like wings before he crashed headlong to the black asphalt. Shards of broken glass sparkled and danced around him.

As they watched, the boy stirred, plainly alive.