James Rollins - Innocent Blood

“I am.”

She shrugged. The small gesture shed her thin shift from her shoulders. It whispered to the rough stone floor. Torchlight revealed a body of such perfection that he forgot his vows and stared baldly, his eyes lingering on the curve of her full breasts, on her belly, on the long muscular line of her thighs.

She turned and dove into the dark water, barely causing a ripple.

Alone now, he hurriedly unbuckled his belt, yanked off his bloody boots, and tore off his robe. Once naked, he sprang to follow, diving deep. Icy water washed away the blood on his skin, and baptized him into innocence.

He blew the air from his lungs, for he had no need for it as a Sanguinist. He sank quickly, swimming after her. Far below him, bare limbs shone white for a flash — then she flitted to the side, quick as a fish, and vanished.

He kicked deeper, but she had disappeared. He touched his cross and prayed for guidance. Should he search for her or continue his mission?

The answer was a simple one.

He turned and swam onward, through twisting passages, following the map in his head, one learned from those ancient scraps of papyrus, toward the secret hidden deep beneath Jerusalem.

He moved as swiftly as he dared, into utter darkness, through complex passageways. A mortal man would have died many times over. One hand brushed rock, counting passages. Twice, he reached dead ends and had to backtrack. He fought panic, telling himself that he had misread the map, promising himself that the place he searched for existed.

His despair grew to a sharp point — then a figure swept past him in the icy water, felt as a flow across his skin, heading back the way he had come. Startled, he went for his sword, remembering too late that he had left it in a pile with his robes.

He reached for her, but he knew she was gone.

Turning in the direction from whence she had come, he kicked with renewed vigor. He pushed through the rising dread that he would swim forever in the darkness and never find what he sought.

He finally reached a large cavern, its walls sweeping wide to either side.

Though blind, he knew he had found the right place. The water here felt warmer, burning with a holiness that itched his skin. Swimming to the side, he lifted trembling hands and explored the wall.

Under his palms, he felt a design carved into the rock.

At last…

His fingertips crawled across the stone, seeking to understand the images etched there.

Images that might save them.

Images that might lead him to the sacred weapon.

Under his fingers, he felt the shape of a cross, found a figure crucified there — and rising above it, the same man, his face raised high, his arms outstretched toward heaven. Between the bodies, a line connected this rising soul to the nailed body below.

As he followed this path, his fingertips burned with fire, warning him the line was made of purest silver. From the cross, the fiery path flowed along the curved wall of the cavern to a neighboring carving. Here, he found a cluster of men with swords, come to arrest Christ. The Savior’s hand touched one of the men on the side of the head.

Bernard knew what this depicted.

The healing of Malchus .

It was the last miracle that Christ performed before His resurrection.

Swimming along the wall, Bernard traced the silver line through the many miracles that Jesus had performed during His lifetime: the multiplication of the fishes, the raising of the dead, the curing of the lepers. He drew each in his mind, as if he had seen them. He strove to contain his hope, his elation.

At last, he came to the depiction of the wedding at Cana, when Christ turned water into wine. It was the Savior’s first recorded miracle.

Still, the silver path headed outward again from Cana, burning through the darkness.

But to where? Would it reveal unknown miracles?

Bernard quested along it — only to discover a wide swath of crumbling rock under his fingers. Frantic, he swept his palms along the wall in larger and larger arcs. Shards of twisted silver embedded in the stone scored his skin with fire. The pain brought him to his senses, forcing him to face his greatest fear.

This portion of the carving had been destroyed.

He spread both hands across the wall, groping for more of the design. According to those ancient pieces of papyrus, this history of Christ’s miracles was supposed to reveal the hiding place of the most sacred weapon of all — one that could destroy even the most powerful damned soul with a touch.

He hung in the water, knowing the truth.

The secret had been destroyed.

And he knew by whom.

Her words echoed in his head.

Knowledge? Here you will find only disappointment.

Finding him unworthy, she must have come straight here and defaced the sacred picture before he could see it. His tears mingled with the cold water — not for what was lost, but from a harsher truth.

I have failed.

Every death this day has been in vain.

An edge of panic kept her tense.

As Dr. Erin Granger entered the lecture hall on the Stanford campus, she glanced across its breadth to make sure she was alone. She even crouched and searched under the empty seats, making certain no one was hiding there. She kept one hand on the Glock 19 in her ankle holster.

It was a beautiful winter morning, the sun hanging in a crisp, cloud-studded blue sky. With bright light streaming through the tall windows, she had little to fear from the dark creatures that haunted her nightmares.

Still, after all that had befallen her, she knew that her fellow man was just as capable of evil.

Straightening again, she reached the lectern in front of the classroom and let out a quiet sigh of relief. She knew her fears were illogical, but that didn’t stop her from checking that the hall was safe before her students trooped in. As annoying as college kids could be, she would fight to the death to keep each one of them from harm.

She wouldn’t fail a student again.

Erin’s fingers tightened on the scuffed leather satchel in her hand. She had to force her fingers to open and place her bag next to the lectern. With her gaze still roaming the room, she unbuckled the satchel and pulled out her notes for the lecture. Usually she memorized her presentations, but she had taken over this class for a professor on maternity leave. It was an interesting topic, and it kept her from dwelling on the events that had upended her life, starting with the loss of her two graduate students in Israel a couple of months before.

Heinrich and Amy.

The German student had died from injuries sustained following an earthquake. Amy’s death had come later, murdered because Erin had unwittingly sent forbidden information to her student, knowledge that had gotten the young woman killed.

She rubbed her palms, as if trying to wipe away that blood, that responsibility. The room seemed suddenly colder. It couldn’t have been more than fifty degrees outside and not much warmer in the classroom. Still, the shivers that swept through her as she prepared her papers had nothing to do with the room’s poor heating system.

Returned again to Stanford, she should have felt good to be home, wrapped in the familiar, in the daily routines of a semester winding toward Christmas break.