James Rollins - Blood Infernal

Jordan knew whom he faced.

The king of that bottomless pit.

Lucifer himself.

And Jordan could not help but find this dark angel—

— so beautiful .

Erin marveled at the perfection of the figure on the throne. Every muscle in his arms and chest was flawlessly defined, his wings blazed with black fire. But it was his face that drew her full attention. Cheekbones rose high, sculpted into graceful arches, flanking a straight narrow nose. Higher still, long lashes fringed eyes that shone with a dark majesty, seeing everything and nothing.

She found it impossible to look away.

One of their group was not so afflicted and awed.

“Why do you wait?” Elizabeth yelled from across the lake, breaking the spell.

Erin watched Rhun shake free of the trance and shout to the north side of the lake. “Christian, Sophia! Go!”

The pair set off from the rocky bank, hauling the heavy chest between them. As Xao had promised, the pair of Sanguinists passed through that outer plane of the fiery pyramid with no trouble, though once out on the ice, the malevolence clearly weakened them, setting their legs to stumbling. The new cracks in the ice also made the trek more treacherous, forcing the pair to take a circuitous route through the damage, slowing them even more.

As fear rang through her, Erin turned to Jordan, wishing he was beside her.

Jordan noted her attention and cupped his mouth to shout something to her — but a length of silver flashed into view behind his shoulders.

Erin screamed a warning. “Jordan! Watch—”

Then cold hard fingers clamped around her neck, strangling away her words.

Jordan was moving as soon as he heard Erin’s shout, responding with years of instinct as a soldier. He ducked low — as a long curved blade swept over his head.

While the sword missed its intended target, the steel still struck the emerald stone a glancing blow, knocking the gem loose, causing it to roll drunkenly along the rim of the granite chalice. Jordan hit the ground at the base of the pillar and twisted to one hip, bringing up the Colt and firing into the chest of the monk who wielded the sword.

Knowing his adversary was a strigoi , Jordan unloaded his entire magazine. The monk went flying backward, falling out of the emerald bubble. The monk landed on his back in the snow, his chest smoking from the silver rounds, black blood pouring from beneath his body.

Jordan spun around, his body thrumming with warning, still attuned to the stone.

He lunged with his arm outstretched as the rolling gem rocked free of its perch and plummeted downward. Unfortunately only his fingers brushed its facets before it landed into a bank of snow at the foot of the plinth.

As it struck, a resounding boom shook the ground. He crawled toward the gem as it continued to blaze from the snowbank. But the damage had been done. While the emerald bubble around him remained intact, still blazing with fire, one of the columns of the pyramid had been dislodged from its foundation.

Must get it back up there, before it’s too—

A series of sharp pops exploded near at hand, ringing out as loud as rifle fire, echoing from the lake’s surface.

Jordan looked up and watched the ice shatter, breaking apart like a dropped mirror. But what that mirror was intended to reflect was something much darker, something not meant for this world.

And it burst free.

Creatures boiled to the surface of the lake: lumbering, slithering, and shoving through the ice. The horde clambered toward shore, mostly toward him and the broken foot of the pyramid, sensing a way to escape.

Jordan flinched away, responding with the lizard part of his brain, refusing to accept what he was seeing, but unable to deny it at the same time. His stomach roiled at the sight, at horrors his mind could not fully grasp. But when his fingers reached back and brushed the inside surface of the flaming sphere that surrounded him, agony shot up his arm to his chest. He yanked his hand back. Smoke rising from his blackened fingertips.

He realized he was trapped in this sphere, unable to escape, remembering the monk’s warning.

It would be death to those whose heart still beats to pierce that brilliant veil .

But the abominations that crawled out of the lake had no such hearts, no such limitations.

Something sloshed out of the lake to the right, lumbering forth like an ordinary person, but with a flat black face, showing no eyes or mouth — yet still it screamed, howling at the world. To his left, a massive creature bounded to the rocks, clinging there, with cloven hoofs and a malformed head, then it leaped away.

He wanted to cover his eyes, but he feared the unknown even more.

Directly ahead of him, a black crocodilian shape slithered and clawed its way from the broken ice. But it had no head, only a puckered sucker at the front, showing a ring of teeth. It left a glistening trail of bile-colored slime behind it. Seeming to sense him, it clawed faster in his direction, passing unharmed through the emerald veil of his bubble, bringing with it the stench of sulfur and rotted meat.

Jordan’s mind struggled with the impossibility of it, tipping toward insanity. Still, one greater fear kept him grounded, momentarily anchored.

Erin .

But trapped here, Jordan could never reach her.

Only one person could.

Rhun lashed out with his karambit , parrying aside the monk’s sword — but the impact staggered him. This enemy was far more powerful and faster than any strigoi that Rhun had ever fought, its strength likely fueled by the malevolence wafting off the lake and the looming presence of its master of darkness, Lucifer.

To keep his feet after that blow, Rhun stumbled out of the blue veil of light. Beyond that sphere, the air reeked of death and pestilence. Revulsion crawled along his skin like a thousand spiders.

The monk pursued him, his long sword flashing down in a streak of reflected blue, but that strike never landed. Instead, something struck the monk in the side, knocking him down. The cub rolled away, but twisted back around, hissing loudly. The monk rose with the speed of a striking cobra, thrusting his blade at the cub’s throat — but instead, the monk toppled forward, his head flying off his body, while his sword harmlessly impaled a snowbank next to the cat.

Elizabeth stood there, dark blood dripping from her blade.

Again, she had saved his life, probably the cat’s, too, but he had no time to thank her.

During the heated skirmish, he had seen Jordan dispatch the monk alongside him, his pistol blazing. He also saw the gem fall, causing the lake to shatter on that side, allowing hell to break loose into this world. Even now beasts were clambering along the banks, spreading wider. Others bounded across the ice, gibbering around the foot of their master. Several spotted Christian and Sophia with the chest and went in pursuit, either enraged by the holiness of the chains or perhaps commanded by that dark angel himself.

“Defend the stone,” Rhun commanded Elizabeth.

He had to reach Erin. A moment ago, he had watched her get attacked as she tried to warn Jordan, and even now she still struggled in the iron grip of Xao. The monk’s fingers were wrapped around her throat, lifting her high, until only her toes brushed the snow.

Rhun raced along the shoreline toward her. A reptilian creature lunged off the ice at him, but Rhun smoothly stepped aside, striking out and decapitating its scaly head with a single stroke. Yellow smoke boiled out of the stump, while a splatter of blood dissolved through his parka and burned his skin like acid.