James Rollins - The Blood Gospel

She trembled from cold and loneliness, consumed by the ache of all that she had lost.

“Erin.” Rhun lifted her into his lap and rocked her, his hands stroking through her hair, running along her back.

She forced herself to open her eyes, to look into his, to say the impossible. “Go.”

He held her so tightly that it hurt.

“Go,” she insisted.

“Will you be all right?”

He heard her heartbeat. He knew that she wouldn’t be. “Don’t waste my blood, Rhun. Don’t let this be in vain.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t—”

“I forgive you,” she breathed out. “Now go.”

He tore off his pectoral cross and laid it upon her chest. She felt the weight of it over her heart. It felt warm.

“May God protect you,” he whispered. “As I could not.”

He lowered her onto the filthy stone floor, covered her with his cassock, and left her.

61

October 28, 5:44 P.M., CET

Necropolis below St. Peter’s Basilica, Italy

On the hunt, Rhun ran.

Erin’s blood pulsed warm and strong through his veins. Her life sang within him. He had never felt such power surge through his limbs. He could run forever. He could defeat any foe.

His shoes skimmed the stone floor, not seeming to need even to touch it. Fast, and faster still. Air caressed his face, tendrils of wind stroked through his hair.

Even in his rapture, he grieved for Erin. She had given everything for the Gospel. And for him. Her learning, her compassion—they lay waning behind him. It should have been his darkness dying on the floor, not her light.

He would not waste her sacrifice.

Mourning would come later.

The musky odor of grimwolf painted the trail before him. In that scent, he read each heavy-pawed footfall, smelled each drop of blood, even as the creature healed and the drops grew smaller.

It could never escape him.

He would find them. He would retrieve the book. He would honor Erin’s sacrifice.

She would not be forgotten, not for one of all his endless days to come.

5:55 P.M.

Jordan jogged along the tunnel, searching for Erin.

Leopold kept close behind.

The two had fought their way through the first wave of strigoi in order to open a path to this tunnel. Jordan hoped that Erin and Rhun had reached Bathory and retrieved the book.

After all of this bloodshed and horror, he just wanted to go home.

And when he pictured home—he pictured Erin’s face.

“There!” Leopold said, pointing ahead, spotting with his sharper eyes a body crumpled along the side of the tunnel.

Don’t let it be Erin. Don’t let it be Erin.

Jordan hurried forward, for once outpacing a Sanguinist. He led with his flashlight, sweeping his beam across the still figure.

Oh no …

With his heart thundering in his ears, he crashed next to her, reaching immediately for her throat to take her pulse. Her skin was cold, but a weak heartbeat throbbed in her neck.

“She’s alive,” he told Leopold.

“But barely.”

The young monk knelt and tore open Erin’s grimwolf jacket. Blood stained her white shirt, running down to her waist. Leopold drew a balm from his robes. As he opened the container, Jordan noticed that it stank like the ointment Nadia had used on his own bite wounds.

But would it be enough?

Leopold intoned a prayer in Latin as he spread it over Erin’s wound.

Jordan watched, holding his breath, shaking all over.

Within seconds, the bleeding slowed, then stopped.

Still, Erin lay unconscious on the ground, ghost white against the dark stone.

Leopold examined her arms and legs, probably looking for more bites. “Only her neck.”

Jordan shrugged off his coat and spread it over her body to warm her. He rubbed her cold hands. “Erin?”

Her eyelids fluttered as if she were dreaming—then slowly opened. “Jordan?”

“Right here.” He caressed her icy cheek. “You’re going to be fine.”

Her lips curved up ever so slightly. “Liar.”

“I never lie,” he said. “Eagle Scout, remember?”

But he did lie. She wasn’t going to be fine at all.

Leopold reached Jordan and touched a bite on his arm from which blood was oozing; the bite was from one of Rasputin’s minions and the wound had been torn open again during the struggle in the basilica. “Your blood type?”

“O negative. Universal donor.” Jordan’s heart leaped and he turned to the monk. “Can you do a direct transfusion from me to her?”

Leopold pulled his first-aid kit out of his pocket, muttering instructions. His hands moved with impossible swiftness, breaking apart a syringe, hooking it up to a tube, and placing a second tube on the other end.

As the young monk worked, Jordan stroked wisps of hair off Erin’s face. His hands lingered on her forehead, her cheeks. “Hang in there.”

He couldn’t tell if she heard him or not. What had attacked her? And where was Rhun? He looked up the tunnel, expecting to see the priest’s body. But the tunnel was empty. Had Rhun been taken?

Leopold ripped open an alcohol patch and swabbed Erin’s arm, then used another for Jordan’s.

“I must ask you to be silent, Jordan.” Leopold’s tone was no-nonsense. “I must hear both your heartbeats to see how much blood passes between you. I don’t want to kill you in this process.”

“Just save her.” Jordan leaned against the stone wall, watching Erin’s pale face.

Leopold stuck a needle in her arm, then Jordan’s. He barely felt it.

Time passed, interminable, in the dark.

To the side, Leopold attached a bandage to Erin’s neck. “We are fortunate. It’s a simple wound. Strigoi are not usually so careful when they feed.”

Jordan shivered at the thought of one of those monsters at Erin’s throat.

I should have been guarding her better.

After several minutes, Leopold pulled the needle from Jordan’s arm and taped a cotton ball over the hole. “That is all you can spare.”

“I can spare whatever she needs.” He pushed up straighter. “Do this right.”

Light glinted off Leopold’s round glasses as he shook his head. “You cannot bully me, Sergeant.”

Before Jordan could come up with a better argument, Erin opened her eyes; she looked bleary but still she seemed stronger than she’d been a few minutes ago. “Hey.”

Jordan slumped next to her against the wall and smiled. “Welcome back.”

“Her pulse is strong,” Leopold said. “With a little rest, she should be fine.”

Jordan asked a question, knowing the answer. “Who did this to you?”

Erin closed her eyes, refusing to speak.

Jordan lifted his hand, revealing what he’d found as Leopold ripped off her coat. He showed her the pectoral cross. “Rhun?”

Leopold flinched, aghast.

“Erin?” Jordan tried to control his anger so she wouldn’t hear it. “Did Rhun do this to you?”

“He had to.” Her fingertips traced the bandage at her neck. “Jordan, I begged him to.”

He barely heard her words as fury engulfed him.

That bastard had drained Erin and left her alone to die.

She struggled to sit up, to explain.

Jordan scooped her up in his arms and cradled her against his chest. He wrapped her in his arms. She was still so cold but had a little color back.

“We had to do this, Jordan, to heal him so he could keep Bathory from getting away with the Gospel. Rhun was almost dead.”

Jordan pulled her closer as she dropped her head against his shoulder.

Leopold readjusted the coat over them both, then turned his back. Crouched next to them, he swung his head from one side of the tunnel to the other.