James Rollins - The Blood Gospel

“What does this mean for Bathory, Erin?” Jordan asked.

Her eyes told Rhun all he needed to know. “It means that Bathory has both ingredients necessary to open the book.”

57

October 28, 5:05 P.M., CET

Vatican City, Italy

Standing outside the surgery room, Erin wished that she had better news. The Belial had the book and the means to open it. Would that be enough for them to transfigure it? Had evil already won?

Nate slumped and sat on the floor next to her. Fresh blood soaked his pant leg. She had never seen him so pale. He leaned his head back against the wall.

Jordan pulled a water bottle out of his coat pocket and pressed it into the kid’s hands.

Nate downed it in one long swallow. How long had it been since he’d had a drink? It had never even occurred to Erin to ask if he was thirsty, and she’d basically had him sprinting from the moment he had been tossed into her cell.

Bernard made eye contact with a Swiss Guardsman. He pointed at Nate. “This man must be taken to medical care. The woman, too.”

“Take Nate now,” Erin said. “I’ll follow along in a minute.”

Bernard hesitated, then nodded in agreement. The guardsman helped Nate to his feet.

“I’m fine.” Nate pulled himself up straighter, but his back began to slide down the dark oak paneling.

“Of course you are,” she said. “So am I. But let’s just humor them. I’ll be right behind you.”

Nate raised a skeptical eyebrow but didn’t protest as two guardsmen herded him down the hall. The kid was tough. He’d be fine. She tried not to think of watching Heinrich being carried away. She would see Nate again soon.

Jordan pulled out his first-aid kit. “Sure you don’t want to go with the kid?”

“The neck looks more dramatic than it is,” she said.

“Looks pretty dramatic.” Jordan pulled out an alcohol wipe, the smell all too familiar to Erin.

She gritted her teeth when he reached for her, but the touch of his hands on her neck was featherlight.

“So what’s next?” His familiar blue eyes looked into hers.

Her heart sped up. “Next?”

“What will Bathory do now? Where will she open the book?” From the way he asked, it sounded as if he thought she knew the answer.

She tried to talk, not to think about how close he stood, how gently he touched her throat. “The book cares very much about how it is to be opened and where.”

“You make it sound like a person.” Jordan stroked hair back from her neck and cleaned the side, stroking the wipe down from her jawline to her collarbone.

She shivered and shifted her feet to cover the movement. “I wonder if it doesn’t have some kind of awareness, some part of its maker tied to it.”

“I agree.” Bernard straightened the scarlet zucchetto he was wearing atop his white hair. “Always that has been my interpretation of the prophecy. And the book must be opened in Rome. But where in Rome?”

“If holy ground is important to the Sanguinists,” Erin said, sensing she was onto something, “it matters to the book, too. What’s the holiest place in Rome? Saint Peter’s tomb.” She stepped away from Jordan. She needed to think, which meant moving clear of his warmth, his musky scent. “But if the Belial wanted to open the book down there, they would have taken the pope’s blood first, then the bone so they could open it right there where the bones are.”

“Makes sense,” Jordan said. “Why break in twice, once to steal the bones and once to open the book?”

A bell tolled. Rhun and Bernard exchanged a glance.

“What does that mean?” Jordan pulled out a roll of gauze.

“The Swiss Guard are sounding the alarm,” Bernard answered. “They are evacuating tourists from Vatican City.”

“Then Bathory doesn’t have much time.” If only she had a better idea of where that witch might be. Then a ray of hope dawned. “Wait! The basilica. It’s built above Peter’s tomb. The holiest part of the holiest church in Rome.”

Before she even finished her sentence, Rhun and Bernard vanished from her side, like a pair of apparitions. They fled down the hall with eerie speed. No one watching them would think for a second that they were human.

Jordan shook his head. “Guess they’re giving up the secret identity thing.” He lifted an eyebrow and held out a hand. “Feel like one more run?”

She nodded and let him pull her to her feet.

He broke into a jog after collecting his Heckler & Koch submachine gun, which Nadia had been kind enough to return from Germany, along with his Colt pistol. Erin followed Jordan through the spacious halls of the Apostolic Palace and toward the square. No one tried to stop them.

They bounded down a flight of stairs, taking two at a time, to the wide hall that led to a bronze door and out to St. Peter’s Square.

Ahead, two Swiss Guards in formal blue-, red-, and yellow-striped tunics and tights swung the doors open for Rhun and the Cardinal.

Jordan sped up, trying to catch them.

“We’re with those two!” Jordan yelled.

“Let them pass,” the Cardinal called over his shoulder, already out onto the square.

The guardsmen stood aside as the couple ran through.

Behind them, the doors slammed closed with a resounding thud . No one would be allowed to enter again so easily.

Erin hurried down the steps, already out of breath. Marble pillars rose on either side of her, climbing more than twenty-five feet into the air. The scale of everything made her feel like a child who had broken into the home of a giant.

They raced down into the open square, where Jordan skidded to a halt.

The plaza teemed with people. They streamed from the basilica and the colonnades; they parted in riptides around the obelisk and the fountains, all heading for the exit and the streets. The setting sun washed their faces a warm orange.

Swiss Guard troops jostled them forward, as if they were herding cattle.

Far ahead, Bernard and Rhun’s progress had slowed as they tried to force their way forward against that current of humanity.

“Grab my belt!” Jordan yelled over his shoulder.

Erin wrapped her fingers around the thick leather.

Jordan pushed himself out into the square like a fullback. Instead of cutting straight through the crowd like the Sanguinists, he hugged its edges, one arm up. The crowd rippled to the side around him.

Erin kept pace, trying to match his stride. Jordan’s left shoulder knocked against a fleeing tourist. It was his wounded side, but he didn’t even flinch.

Reaching the basilica, he cut left toward the door. Just ahead, Rhun and the Cardinal sprinted through the entrance in a flash of scarlet and black.

Erin glanced up. Above the massive dome of the basilica, the sky glowed amber orange.

The sun had set.

Distracted by what that implied, she didn’t see the monk until it was too late. He slammed into her, knocking her hand off Jordan’s belt. The monk muttered what sounded like an apology in Polish, his hands reaching to pat her shoulder.

“It’s okay,” she said.

Jordan didn’t seem to notice that she was gone as he pushed through the door ahead of her. The two Swiss Guardsmen manning the doors were too distracted by the tourists coming out, but they collected their wits enough to collar her when she tried to follow.

Already inside, Jordan turned back.

“Go on!” she called. He could do more good against Bathory than she could anyway.

He nodded and hurried deeper into the basilica.

“The building is being evacuated, miss.” The guardsman’s polite words contrasted with the hard fingers digging into her arm. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to—”