James Rollins - Innocent Blood

“I suspect he always sought death,” Rhun said.

“So then what do we do?” Jordan asked. “From here I mean?”

Erin saw how his eyes could not even meet the boy’s.

Tommy shifted, apparently to keep his back to Elizabeth, glancing over his shoulder to be sure, to keep her from seeing. Tommy noted Erin’s attention. “She will try to stop it from happening.”

Tommy lifted the tip of Jordan’s sword and placed it to his chest. He looked up at Jordan, trying to smile, but his lower lip trembled with his fear, struggling to look so brave, so sure in the face of the unknown.

Jordan finally found the boy’s face, too. Erin had never seen such agony and heartbreak etched in the hard, wry planes of his face.

“I can’t do this,” he moaned.

“I know that, too,” Tommy said quietly, his voice quavering. His eyes looked toward the west, to the sun, to the last light he would ever see.

A wail rose from beside the well. “Noooo…”

Elizabeth rushed toward them, suddenly sensing what was about to happen.

Tommy sighed and thrust himself upon the sword — taking the last light of the day with him as he died.

Rhun caught Elisabeta around the waist as she ran up to them.

Tommy collapsed to the ground, sliding off the blade, spilling red blood across the dark sand. A bright golden brilliance pooled there, too. Across the crater, a similar radiance shone from that side, a darker gold that framed the figures of Judas and Arella.

“Why?” Elisabeta sobbed, clutching him.

Rhun drew her down next to the boy.

The sword had pierced his heart clean through. Rhun heard now its last feeble quiver, then it stopped.

Jordan crashed to his knees across from him, dropping his sword, clutching his left side.

Erin leaned down. “What’s wrong—?”

Rhun felt it a moment before it happened — a welling of great power beyond measure — and threw his arm over his eyes, shielding Elisabeta with his body.

Then came a bright explosion.

Glory seared his eyes.

His blood boiled in his veins.

Elisabeta screamed in his arms, the sound echoed by the others in a chorus of pain and fear.

Brought low by this radiance, on his knees, Rhun begged for forgiveness as he prayed through the pain. His every sin was a blight against that holy brilliance, nothing could be hidden from it. His greatest sin was a blackness without boundaries, capable of consuming him fully. Even this light could not vanquish it.

Please, stop…

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the light gave way to a merciful darkness. He opened his eyes. Lifeless bodies of strigoi and blasphemare were scattered around the crater; even those that had fled beyond it had fallen dead at the explosion. Rhun stirred as pain still raged in his body.

It burned with the holiest of fires.

He searched the crater. Erin was crouched over a fallen Tommy, with Jordan kneeling next to her, holding his shoulder. They both looked shaken up, but unharmed by the brilliance. Being untainted, they had likely been spared the brunt of its force.

Elisabeta lay crumpled in his arms, unmoving.

She was strigoi, without even the acceptance of Christ’s love to shield her from that fire. Like the other damned creatures, she must be dead.

Please, he prayed, not Elisabeta .

He gathered her to his chest. He had stolen her from her time, from her castle, imprisoned her for hundreds of years, only to have her die in a lonely desert far from anything or anyone she had ever loved.

How many times had his actions cursed her?

He stroked short curly hair from her white forehead and brushed sand from her pale cheeks. Long ago, he had held her just so while she lay dying on a stone floor at Čachtice. He should have let her go then, but even now, deep down he knew he would do anything to have her back.

Even sin again.

As if in response to this blasphemous thought, she stirred. Her silver eyes fluttered open, and her lips warmed into a hesitant smile. Her gaze was momentarily lost, displaced in time and place.

Still, in that moment, he knew the truth.

In spite of everything, she loved him.

He touched a palm to her cheek. But how had she survived the burning brilliance in her cursed state? Had his body shielded her? Or was it his love for her?

Either way, joy filled him as he fell into her silver eyes, letting the desert fade around them. For the moment, she was all that mattered. Her hand rose. Soft fingertips touched his cheek.

“My love…” she whispered.

Erin looked away from Rhun and the countess. Her gaze was still dazzled by that blast of light, swearing for a moment she saw a sweep of wings sailing upward from the sands. She gazed up at the stars.

Stars.

She straightened and turned in a slow circle, watching the pall clear from the night sky, spreading outward in all directions. She pictured the darkness being swept clean, all the way back to Cumae.

Had they succeeded in closing that opening gate?

Jordan stood up next to her. He flexed and stretched his left arm, shaking the limb a bit, reminding her of a more immediate concern. She remembered him crashing to his knees and clutching his side, like he was having a heart attack.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He looked down at the boy, at the blood.

“When he fell, it felt like something was ripped out of me. I swore I was dying.”

Again.

She examined Tommy’s pale face. His eyes were closed as if he were merely slumbering. Back in Stockholm, the boy’s touch, his blood, had resurrected and healed Jordan. She noted the pool of blood here no longer glowed. It simply seeped coldly into the sand.

She reached over and squeezed Jordan’s hand, feeling the heat there, glad of it. “I think whatever angelic essence Tommy imbued in you was stripped back out during that blast of light.”

“Where’s the sword?” Jordan asked, glancing around at his feet.

It was gone, too.

She again pictured those wings of light. “I think it’s been restored to its original master.”

Bernard joined them, his eyes on the skies. “We have been spared.”

She hoped he was right, but not all of them had been so lucky.

She dropped to a knee and touched Tommy’s blood-soaked shirt. She brought her fingers to his young face, looking even younger in death, his features relaxed, finally at peace. His skin was still warm under her fingertips.

Warm.

She placed her full palm to his throat, remembering doing the same with Jordan. “He’s still warm.” She reached down and tore open his shirt, ripping buttons. “His wound is gone!”

Tommy suddenly jerked, sitting half up, pushing away from her, clearly startled, his gaze sweeping over them. The fear there faded to recognition.

“Hey…” he said and stared down at his bare chest.

His fingers probed there, too.

Elizabeth burst away from Rhun and landed on her knees, taking his other hand. “Are you fine, boy?”

He squeezed her fingers, shifting closer to her, still scared.

“I… I don’t know. I think so.”

Jordan smiled. “You look fine to me, kiddo.”

Christian joined them with Wingu. The pair had finished a fast canvass of the crater and its rim to make sure all was safe. “I can hear his heartbeat.”

Rhun and Bernard confirmed this with nods.

Relief shattered through Erin. “Thank God.”

“Or in this case, maybe thank Michael .” Jordan slipped an arm around her.

The countess scolded Tommy. “Don’t ever do something like that again!”