James Rollins - Blood Infernal

Erin looked off into space, mumbling, “It can’t be just a coincidence.”

Jordan touched her shoulder. “What?”

She faced the others. “Those three frescoes in Kelly’s alchemy room. Arbor, Sanguis , and Aqua . Representing garden, blood , and water .”

Christian rubbed his chin. “Symbols that mirrored Leopold’s last words.”

“And Legion is seeking three stones,” Erin added. “Perhaps they mirror the same. Arbor, Sanguis , and Aqua .”

Jordan pulled out the two halves of the emerald-hued diamond. “You think this might be arbor . It is green like a garden.”

She nodded. “And we know it’s not a simple diamond. There’s that strange symbol infused into it. Plus it was capable of holding the smoky spirits of over six hundred strigoi .”

“And eventually Legion himself,” Christian added.

Erin touched the diamond with a fingertip. “Maybe that’s why Leopold described the garden —this stone — as defiled . It was polluted with evil.”

“If you are correct,” Elizabeth said from the pew, “then there must be two more gems. Sanguis and Aqua .”

Erin heard a tick in the countess’s voice and turned toward her. “Do you know anything about them?”

“I do not,” Elizabeth said, but her expression remained thoughtful. “But perhaps we should ask the man who sent John Dee the green one.”

Erin turned to her. “Who was that?”

Elizabeth held up a yellowed sheet of old paper with a smile. “This is a letter to Dee from the man who sent him that stone.”

Erin crossed to see it, but she found the page was written in Enochian.

Elizabeth used a finger to underline a set of symbols.

“This is his name,” Elizabeth said. “Hugh de Payens.”

The name struck Erin as familiar, but she could not place it. Exhaustion made it harder to think.

Christian stepped closer, his face pinched. “That cannot be.”

“Why not?” Jordan asked.

“Hugh de Payens was a Sanguinist,” Christian explained. “From the time of the Crusades.”

Erin suddenly remembered the man’s name and his prominent place in history. “Hugh de Payens… wasn’t he the one who, along with Bernard of Clairvaux, formed the Knights Templar?”

“One and the same,” Christian said. “But he actually formed the Sanguinist Order of those Knights. Nine knights bound together by blood.”

Erin frowned, reminded yet again that the history she had been taught was nothing but a play of shadows and lights, and that the truth lay somewhere in between.

“But Hugh de Payens died during the Second Crusades,” Christian added.

“Who told you this?” Elizabeth asked. “Because the date of this letter from Dee is dated 1601, four centuries after the Second Crusade.”

“I heard this story from Hugh’s fellow founder of the Knights Templar, Bernard of Clairvaux, a man who witnessed that noble death.” Christian lifted an eyebrow toward Erin. “Or, as you better know him, Cardinal Bernard .”

Erin’s eyes widened. “Bernard is the Bernard of Clairvaux?”

It made a certain sense. She had known the cardinal had fought during the Crusades and had been in a high-ranking position in the Church ever since.

“It sounds like Bernard has not been entirely truthful,” Elizabeth said with a wry smile, tapping a finger on the letter. “Again.”

“That can wait for now.” Erin nodded to the paper. “What does the note say?”

Elizabeth’s eyes scanned down the page, translating the archaic letters. A smile grew on her face. “It seems Hugh wished me to have the stone if anything happened to John Dee. The alchemist must have shared the nature of my work with his secret benefactor.”

“So if Dee failed,” Jordan said, “that guy wanted you to finish his work?”

“It would seem so. The plan was for Edward Kelly to take possession of the stone upon Dee’s death, to protect it and bring it to me. This must be why Emperor Rudolf gave the stone and the bell to Kelly.” Elizabeth scowled. “But that greedy charlatan kept them both for himself. He probably secretly sold the diamond. It is worth a king’s ransom.”

“Still, after that,” Erin said, “the cursed gem somehow found its way through history back to you.”

“Fate is not to be thwarted,” Elizabeth said.

Erin had to force herself not to roll her eyes. “Does that letter say anything about the other two stones?”

“Not a word.”

“So, a dead end,” Jordan said.

“Unless Hugh de Payens still lives,” Erin said. “We know he didn’t die when Bernard said he did. So maybe he’s still knocking around.”

Jordan sighed loudly. “If so, how do we find him?”

Erin put her fists on her hips. “We ask his oldest friend. Bernard of Clairvaux.” She turned to Christian and Sophia. “Where is the cardinal?”

“He was sent to Castel Gandolfo,” Christian said. “Awaiting his sentence.”

“Let us pray,” Sophia added, “that they haven’t already put him to death for his sins.”

Erin agreed.

They couldn’t afford for anything else to go wrong.

The wolf digs through smoke and fiery embers.

Its massive paws churn up mud and push aside broken beams. Rough rocks rip its pads to bloody shreds. Sparks fall and burn through its thick pelt.

A knot of blackness grips the thunder of its heart, drawing it ever deeper.

There are no words, no commands, only yearning.

The source of that black desire waits below, curled tightly around the tiniest flicker of flame, nestled within the cold carcass that holds it safe.

The wolf burrows toward it.

One craving draws it ever deeper into the fiery ruins.

Free me .

Erin thrashed wildly out of a nightmare of fire and demons.

She woke into a room shining with the light of a new day. It took her a few panicked breaths to recognize the simple room, to recall their midnight flight from Prague to this idyllic countryside south of Rome. She was in the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. She drank in the familiarity: the plain white walls, the wood floor that shone in the morning sunlight like warm honey, the solid mahogany bed with a crucifix hanging above the headboard. She and Jordan had stayed in this very room the last time they had come here.

I’m safe…

Maybe that wasn’t exactly true, but it was the safest she had felt in a long time.

The windows were secured with thick wooden shutters, but a pair of them had their slats opened enough to let in the sunrise. She welcomed the golden light after the long night of terror. They had taken a private jet — a Citation X — that whisked them under papal orders from that medieval city to here. They had landed, exhausted and worn, bloodied and bruised.

Her first thought was of Rhun.

Upon landing, he had been rushed by stretcher to a Sanguines infirmary. Erin had wanted to follow, but she could barely stand. Jordan had half-carried her here in the middle of the night. They had both collapsed in bed, limbs wrapped around each other. For once, she had not worried about the heat from his naked skin, curling against it like a warm fire.