James Rollins: Blood Infernal

She pulled the map out of her pocket. On the back, Christian had drawn a schematic of the tunnels that led down to the Sanctuary itself. Knowing there was no turning back, she gathered her heavy skirt in one hand and set off. She had at least a mile to cover before she reached the Sanctuary gate.

Her light bounced up and down as she hurried, its narrow beam moving ahead of her, revealing mouths of secondary tunnels. She counted them under her breath.

One wrong turn, and I could be lost down in this maze for days .

The fear made her move faster as she descended narrow staircases and traversed the maze of tunnels. The tiny vial of Christian’s blood bumped against her thigh, reminding her that the price for knowledge was sometimes blood. It was a message that had been drilled into her as a child, made acutely real when her father discovered a book hidden under her mattress. Her father’s rough voice echoed in her ears, drawing her into the past.

“What happened to Eve when she ate from the tree of knowledge?” her father asked, towering over the nine-year-old version of herself, his powerful farmer’s hands clenched into threatening fists at his sides.

She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer his question and decided to stay silent. He was always angrier over things she said than when she kept her mouth shut.

The book— The Farmer’s Almanac —lay open on the well-swept floorboards, lamplight shining on its creamy pages. Until today, she’d only ever read the Bible, because her father said that it contained all the knowledge that she would ever need.

But within the pages of the almanac, she had discovered new knowledge: when to plant seeds, when to harvest crops, the dates of the phases of the moon. It had even contained a few jokes, which proved her downfall. She had laughed too loudly and had been caught, sitting cross-legged under her desk reading.

“What happened to Eve?” he had pressed her, his voice low and dangerous.

She decided to try to protect herself with Biblical quotes, keeping her manner timid. “ ‘And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.’ ”

“What was their punishment?” her father continued.

“ ‘Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.’ ”

“And that is the lesson you will learn by my hand.”

Her father forced her to choose a willow switch and ordered her to kneel in front of him. Obedient, she dropped to her mother’s clean floor and lifted her dress over her head. Her mother had sewn it for her, and she didn’t want it to get dirty. She folded it carefully and placed it on the floor next to her. Then she gripped her cold knees and waited for the blows to come.

He always let her wait a long time for the first one, as if he knew that the anticipation of the pain was almost as bad as the blow itself. Goose bumps rose up on her back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the almanac, and she wasn’t sorry.

The first blow cracked across her skin, and she bit her lips to keep from crying out. If she did, he would add more blows. He switched her bare back until blood ran down and soaked into her underwear. Later she would have to clean the bright red spatters off the walls and floor. But first she had to endure the lashes, waiting until her father decided that she’d shed enough blood .

Erin shuddered at the memory, the dark tunnels somehow making it more real. Her back twinged even now, as if remembering the old pain and the lesson learned.

The price of knowledge was blood and pain .

Even before her back had healed, she had returned to her father’s office and read the rest of the almanac in secret. One section contained a weather forecast. For a year she’d tracked it to see if the authors knew what the weather would do, and they were often wrong. And she realized that things in books could be wrong .

Even the Bible.

Back then, the fear of punishment hadn’t stopped her.

And it won’t stop me now .

Her feet pounded the stone, carrying her along until at last she reached the door to the Sanctuary. It was not the main entrance into their territory, but a rarely used back door, one that opened not far from their library. This gateway looked like a blank wall with a small alcove that held a stone basin, not unlike a small bowl or cup.

She knew what she must do.

The secret gate could only be opened by the blood of a Sanguinist.

She reached to her pocket and retrieved Christian’s glass vial. She studied the black blood roiling inside. Sanguinist blood was thicker and darker than any human’s. It could move with a will of its own, flowing through veins without the need of a beating heart. That was about all she knew about the essence that sustained both the Sanguinists and the strigoi , but she suddenly wanted to know more, to tease out the secrets of that blood.

But not now.

She emptied the vial’s dark contents into the stone basin, while speaking words in Latin. “For this is the Chalice of My Blood, of the new and everlasting Testament.”

The blood swirled within the cup, stirring on its own, proving its unnatural state.

She held her breath. Would the gate reject Christian’s blood?

The answer came as the dark pool seeped into the stone, vanishing away, leaving no trace.

She let out a sigh, whispering the final words, “ Mysterium fidei .”

She took a step back from the sealed wall, her heart pounding in her throat. Surely any Sanguinists nearby would hear that telltale beat and know she was standing at their threshold.

Stone ground heavily on stone, slowly opening a passage before her.

She took a step toward that waiting darkness, remembering her father’s painful lesson. The price of knowledge was blood and pain .

So be it.

Why am I always stuck underground?

Sergeant Jordan Stone dragged himself forward with his elbows through the cramped tunnel. Rock pressed tightly on him from all sides, and the only way to move forward was to wriggle like a worm. As he struggled, dirt sifted into his hair and fell into his eyes.

At least I’m still moving.

He pushed forward another few inches.

A heavily accented voice called from the tunnel ahead, encouraging him. “You’re almost through!”

That would be Baako. He pictured the tall Sanguinist who hailed from somewhere in Africa. Last week, when Jordan had inquired about his exact country of origin, Baako had been vague, saying only, Like many nations in Africa, the one I come from has borne many names, and likely will bear many more .

It was a typical Sanguinist answer: dramatic and basically useless.

Jordan stared ahead. He could vaguely make out a dull glow, a promise that this damned tunnel did indeed reach an inner cavern. He fought toward that light.

Earlier today, Baako had climbed down this recently discovered tunnel, returning with the news that the shaft led straight to the sibyl’s temple. A horrific battle had been fought in that cavern a few months back, when an innocent boy had been used as a sacrificial lamb in an attempt to open a gate to Hell. The effort had failed, and afterward a giant earthquake had sealed the place up.

As he crawled, another voice in a lilting Indian accent urged him from behind, poking fun at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t have had such a big breakfast.”

He glanced back toward Sophia, making out her lithe shadowy form. Unlike the dour Baako, this particular Sanguinist always seemed on the verge of laughter, a perpetual shadow of a smile on her lips, her dark eyes shining with amusement. He usually appreciated her good humor.