James Rollins - Blood Infernal

“The laboratory that we seek is not there. We must go to the town center, by the Orloj,” Elizabeth said, intending to bide her time.

I will wait and watch .

Her time would come.

As would Bernard’s.

Erin hiked her backpack higher as they headed toward the terminal exit, very conscious that she carried the Blood Gospel over her shoulder. She worried that she should have left the book in Rome, where it could be locked up safely, but with the book bound to her, she refused to let it out of her sight.

It felt like a part of her now.

Ahead, Rhun walked alongside the countess, as graceful as a panther in his dark jeans and long black coat. Elizabeth, in turn, glided with a measure of command in her step. The two made a handsome couple, and a pang of jealousy struck Erin with unexpected force. It surprised her. Did she want to be the woman at Rhun’s side, even if such a thing were possible?

She looked up at Jordan. His blue eyes scanned the room, always looking for danger, but his shoulders were down and relaxed. Golden stubble covered his square jaw. She remembered the scratchy feel of those whiskers against her stomach, her breasts.

Jordan caught her looking, and she blushed and looked down at the floor.

As they stepped out into the cool afternoon, Elizabeth shifted her wimple to better cover her face. Rhun’s jacket was hooded, but he didn’t bother to pull it up.

Erin leaned toward Christian. “Why does the sunlight seem to bother Elizabeth more?”

“She is new to the cloth,” Christian explained. “I don’t know if it’s simply the passing of time or the many years of penance, but I do know that Sanguinists become more inured to the light as they get older.”

“How could you not know exactly how it works?” Erin asked, surprised by the Sanguinists’ lack of curiosity about their own nature. “You can’t check your brain at the door. What’s wrong with finding out what’s been done to you?”

Sophia answered from Christian’s other side. “ ‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding,’ ” she quoted, a touch sharply. “That is not to be questioned.”

“Being a Sanguinist is not a scientific process of discovery,” Christian added. “Our journey is about faith. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Not the proving of such things.”

Jordan rolled his eyes. “Maybe if you had all asked more questions earlier, we wouldn’t be in such a mess now.”

No one disagreed, and Christian pointed ahead to a small coffeehouse with an outdoor patio. “How about a little refueling? We’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

Only Erin and Jordan needed that refueling , but Christian was right. A little caffeine would be good… and a lot would be even better.

Christian went inside to place an order, while Jordan pushed two small round tables together under a patio umbrella. Christian returned shortly with a tray holding two coffees in wide-lipped ceramic mugs and a pile of pastries. Before placing the tray down, he leaned forward and inhaled the steamy aroma from the cups.

He sighed with appreciation.

Erin smiled, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sophia’s lips pinch with disdain. The Sanguinists considered any trace of humanity a weakness. But Erin found the lingering traces of Christian’s humanity endearing, making her trust him more, not less.

Erin held the mug in her palms, letting it warm her, to steady her. She stared around at the others. “What’s the plan from here? It feels like we’re tapping through the dark, like a blind man. It’s time to change that. It’s time we started asking the hard questions. Like understanding the nature of Sanguinists and strigoi . That seems to be critical to our quest.”

Jordan nodded, looking pointedly at Christian and Sophia. “The less we understand, the more likely we are to fail.”

“I agree,” Elizabeth said. “Ignorance has not served us in the past, and it will not serve us now. There are things that the Church should know. They have had two thousand years to study such matters, yet they cannot answer the simplest questions. Like what animates a strigoi ?”

“Or another question: How do you change when you take the vow of a Sanguinist?” Erin added. “How does the wine sustain you?”

Her questions erupted into a brief, but heated discussion. Rhun and Sophia took the side of faith and God. Erin, Jordan, and Elizabeth argued for the scientific method and reason. Christian played reluctant referee, trying to find common ground.

In the end, they all ended up even farther apart.

Erin shoved her empty mug away. All that was left on her plate were pastry crumbs. Jordan had taken only a single bite of his apple Danish, but it looked like he’d had enough — if not of the pastry and coffee, then at least of the conversation.

“We should be going,” he said, standing up.

Sophia checked her watch. “Jordan is right. We’ve wasted enough time.”

Erin bit back a sharp retort, knowing it would get them nowhere.

Surprisingly, Elizabeth offered a more conciliatory response. “Perhaps we’ll discover the answers to these questions in John Dee’s laboratory.”

Erin stood up.

We’d better find them… or the world is doomed .

Rhun stood beside Elizabeth in the center of Prague’s old town square. Clouds had rolled in, and a light rain had begun to fall, pebbling against the cobblestones. She had stopped, staring up at the golden face of the astronomical clock, the famous Orloj. Then she turned her attention to the surrounding buildings.

“So exactly where is this guy’s lab?” Jordan asked.

“I just need to get my bearings,” Elizabeth said. “Much has changed, but fortunately for us, much has not.”

Rhun studied the clock’s many overlapping dials and symbols. It was already almost four in the afternoon, which left them another two and a half hours of daylight.

Erin huddled in a light blue jacket. “I would’ve thought John Dee’s lab would be somewhere in the Alchemist’s Alley, off by Prague Castle.”

“And you would have been wrong,” Elizabeth said, in a troublesomely haughty tone. “Many alchemists had workshops in that alley, but the most secret work was done not far from here.”

“So then where was Dee’s laboratory?” asked Sophia.

Elizabeth paced slowly away from the clock tower and into the square. She turned in a slow circle, like a compass trying to find true north. Eventually, she pointed down a narrow street that led off the square. Tall apartment buildings flanked both sides.

“Unless it has been destroyed, his laboratory lies that way.”

Erin’s brow creased with worry. Rhun understood her concern. If it was gone, they would not only have made this trip for naught, but they would be lost, with no way forward.

Elizabeth headed off, forcing them to follow her. Sophia hurried to keep abreast of her, while Rhun hung back with the others.

Erin stared around, clearly taking in the history, but her mind was on a more recent event.

“Back in 2002,” she said, with a wave of her arm, “Prague was hard hit by a flood. The Vltava River broke its banks and flooded the capital. When those waters receded, sections of the city streets — including this one, if I’m not mistaken — collapsed into medieval-era tunnels, revealing long-lost rooms, workshops … even alchemy labs.” Erin looked at them, then at the wet stones under her feet. “Over the years, probably a million people walked over those tunnels without knowing what was there. It caused quite a stir in the archaeological community at the time.”