James Rollins - Blood Infernal

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.”

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.

His duty was to open the way for his master’s return, to ready this world for its purification, when the vermin known as mankind would be purged out of this earthly garden. The dark angel had promised Legion this paradise, but before he could be awarded this prize, he must first complete his task.

And now he knew there were forces aligned against him.

That he also learned from the flickering flame inside him.

Legion did not fully understand that threat, but he recognized that his vessel fought to keep certain scraps hidden from him. Moments ago, he felt that flame of Leopold’s spirit flare brighter with shock, saw it shudder in the darkness, drawing his attention. From that smoke, he learned a name, put a face to it.

The Warrior of Man .

But not just that name. Others slipped free, too, as memories burned away to smoke.

The Knight of Christ .

The Woman of Learning .

Whispers of prophecy rose with that smoke, along with an image of a book written by the very Son of God. He studied that flame now, trying to learn more.

Who else stands in my way?

Talk about an exercise in futility…

With gritted teeth, Tommy shinnied up another couple of inches on the knotted rope that hung from the center of the gymnasium. Below his toes, his classmates yelled either words of encouragement or insults. He couldn’t really tell which from up there, especially past the pounding of his heart and gasping of his breath.