James Rollins - Innocent Blood

Erin ignored him. “Try anyway,” she urged the boy. “You can’t do any harm.”

“Okay,” Tommy said doubtfully. He opened the book and lifted his palm over the pages. “I, Thomas Bolar, bless this book.”

Everyone leaned forward, as if expecting a miracle.

Again nothing.

No golden light, no new words.

It seemed this blasted place had worn out its potential for miracles.

“As Tommy said,” Erin offered, sensing the defeat among the Sanguinists, “he’s not the First Angel.”

“Then who is?” Bernard asked.

Erin knew she was missing something, but she felt as if she were struggling with a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, shifting pieces blindly. “Arella said Tommy carries the best of the First Angel inside him. So I think he’s still key to this puzzle.”

Rhun stood a little straighter upon hearing this. She imagined he had been thinking of all the lives spent to bring Tommy here.

They can’t have died in vain.

Still, she let that go. It was the Sanguinists’ job to wallow in sin and redemption. She had a real problem that needed solving, and she could not let herself be distracted.

“If the First Angel is inside Tommy,” Jordan said, “how do we get him out?”

“Maybe he has to be cut out,” Bernard said.

Erin scowled at him. “I think we’ll save that as a last resort.” She stared at Tommy. “Maybe an exorcism could release the angel.”

Tommy gulped, looking no happier about her suggestion than Bernard’s.

Rhun’s shoulders tightened. “You do not exorcise angels, Erin. You exorcise demons.”

“Maybe so. But maybe not.”

They were all in new territory here.

Erin looked to Arella. “And you cannot help us?”

“You have all the answers that you need.”

Erin frowned, beginning to understand the ancients’ frustration with their oracles. Sometimes they could be downright obtuse. But Erin knew the sibyl was telling her the truth. Somewhere inside Erin was the answer. As the Woman of Learning, it was up to her to puzzle it out from here. She also had to trust that Arella’s silence served a purpose, and the sibyl wasn’t playing coy just to frustrate them.

Did that mean something, too?

“Maybe we need to take Tommy to Rome after all,” Jordan said, “now that he’s better.”

“No,” Erin said. “Whatever is to come, it must happen in this place.”

She turned in a slow circle, knowing the answer lay somewhere in the sandy golden crater. Her eyes went from the panels to the uneven glass edges that looked like splashes of water frozen into ice along the crater’s rim.

“Are you sure it must happen here?” Jordan pressed.

Plainly he was seeking any excuse to escape this desert and get her somewhere safe. She appreciated that sentiment, but with the gates of Hell relentlessly opening, nowhere on Earth would be safe for much longer.

Support for her position came from the most unlikely spot.

Agmundr grunted. “The woman is right. We must stay here.”

“Why?” Erin turned to him. “What do you know?”

Agmundr pointed to the north. “Nothing mystical. That Chinook helicopter that I thought was following us…” He glanced at Bernard. “I fear we failed to outrun it after all.”

Erin looked at the smoking chopper. It looked like a horse that had been ridden into the ground.

Agmundr cocked his head. “From the sounds of its engines, it’ll be here shortly.”

Rhun and the others clearly tried to listen for it, but their blank faces told her that the Viking must have sharper hearing.

“Are you certain?” Bernard asked.

Agmundr lifted a heavy eyebrow, plainly wondering how the cardinal could doubt him.

Jordan grimaced, and Erin put her hand on his arm.

“Nothing like a little more pressure,” he said.

“I work best under pressure.”

Of course, maybe not this much pressure.

Rhun envied Erin and Jordan, appreciating how they found comfort in each other, how a simple touch could slow a troubled heart.

He glanced at Elisabeta, who pulled a protective arm around Tommy after Wingu undid her chains. In the battle to come, they would need every resource. Rhun sensed Elisabeta would do everything to keep the boy from harm.

Her gaze met his. For once, he read no animosity, only concern for the boy under her arm. How different their fates might have been if he had met her as a simple man, instead of a tainted strigoi . Then again, perhaps it would have been best if he had never met her at all.

“How many soldiers can a Chinook carry?” Christian asked, drawing Rhun back to the moment.

“It’s a troop carrier,” Jordan answered. “Fifty or so. More if you pack ’em in tight.”

Fifty?

Rhun scanned the dark sky. He finally spotted the olive-green bee against the gray sky. It was indeed a large craft with rotors front and back and a long cabin stretched between. Its engine pulsed with strength and menace.

Rhun considered their small group. The Sanguinists here were all seasoned warriors, but they numbered too few.

Jordan tracked the aircraft with his weapon, but he didn’t fire. “Armored,” the man mumbled as the craft flew closer. “Figures.”

The massive helicopter circled the crater from a distance away, sizing them up, taking account of the situation. Then it slowly settled to the ground, a good hundred yards beyond the crater rim.

It kicked up a giant cloud of sand, obscuring its form. But Rhun made out a ramp lowering from the rear of the helicopter. Shadows tromped down it. He counted two score. So less than fifty. But they looked strong, fit, and fierce, some in leather armor, others in uniforms of different armies, and a few in simple jeans and T-shirts. They were clearly no disciplined fighting force, but they did not need to be.

He listened for heartbeats from them — but found none.

All strigoi .

Rhun stepped forward, shielding Erin and Jordan behind him. He had led the pair to this moment — back inside the mountain of Masada, when he had revealed his nature to them. He had set them on this bloody path, and he could do no less than give his life to protect them now. But he feared that it would not be enough.

Then again, he was not alone this day.

Christian drew to one side of him, Bernard on the other, and flanking them all were Agmundr and Wingu. Elisabeta hung back with Tommy, crouching from the threat, showing sharp teeth.

Upon some silent signal, the entire pack of strigoi began to lope across the sand at a speed that no human could ever match, racing under this dread gray sky.

Erin’s heart skipped faster, but she held her ground. Jordan stood calm next to her, his bravery evident with every strong beat of his heart.

Rhun drew his blade and waited.

He picked out his first target: the biggest warrior, a tall man in the middle. Christian followed his gaze, nodded, and picked another for himself. Rhun watched the others choose their targets.

With discipline and training, the Sanguinists could break the first wave of attackers. Additionally, his group had the advantage of fighting on holy ground.

It might weaken the others enough.

It might.

Then another hatch dropped from the flank of the helicopter and dark beasts poured out of the shadows and into the grim light.

Rhun’s fragile hope faded.

Blasphemare.

He spotted gray jackals with long noses and large ears, howling as they ran, their cries piercing the day. Behind them came a pride of black-coated lions flowing with a sinuous grace, like oil across the sand.

Each was twisted into a fearsome and monstrous incarnation of its natural self, born of black blood and cruelty.