The Blood Gospel (33 page)

One of the monk’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. He looked to them for further explanation, but when none came he simply sighed and concluded, “The Nazis’ evil ranged far.”

Erin felt guilty for not being more open with the enthusiastic monk. She knew Brother Leopold had been told nothing about the search for the Blood Gospel, only that they needed help with the medallion found in the desert.

“Do you think you can figure out whom the medal might have once belonged to?” she asked. “If we knew that, we might know where to continue our search.”

“That may be difficult. I see no identifying marks.”

She tried not to look crestfallen, but how could she not?

Jordan must have caught her tone because he squeezed her shoulder and changed the subject. He read a few of the titles off the maps, pronouncing the German names correctly.

“You speak German?” she asked.

“A little,” Jordan said. “And a little Arabic. And a little English.”

Rhun shifted, drawing Erin’s attention to him. She wondered how many languages he spoke.

Jordan faced Brother Leopold. “How did you come upon such a comprehensive collection of maps?”

“Some have been in my possession since they were drawn.” The monk stroked wooden rosary beads hanging from his belt. “I am ashamed to say that I was a member of the National Socialist Party, when I was human.”

Jordan’s eyes widened. “You—”

Equally surprised, Erin tried to picture the round monk with the open face as a Nazi.

Rhun interrupted. “Perhaps we should turn our attention to the
Ahnenerbe
?”

“Of course.” Brother Leopold sat on his creaky leather chair. “I merely wish your two companions to understand that my knowledge of such matters is not esoteric. Since becoming a Sanguinist, I have learned more about the activities of the Nazis and have dedicated my continuing existence and my studies to the undoing of their evil and to ensure that such malevolence never rises again.”

“To that end,” Rhun asked, “have you seen any medallions like this before?”

“I’ve seen similar.” Brother Leopold rummaged through a desk drawer and pulled out a tiny wooden box with a glass lid. “Here are some badges of the
Ahnenerbe
. Most of these were collected by Father Piers, a mentor of mine and the priest who converted me to the cloth. He knew far more about the Nazi occult practices than anyone—probably more than the Germans knew themselves.”

Erin remembered Cardinal Bernard mentioning the deceased priest’s name back in Jerusalem. Over the centuries, many famous historians had died, taking their undocumented knowledge with them to the grave. That kind of tragedy was not limited to human scholars.

The monk directed her attention back to the display box. “I think you’ll appreciate the shape of the medal in the center.”

He tapped the glass over a pewter badge in the shape of the Odal rune, with a swastika in the middle and two legs extending out from the bottom like tiny feet.

She read the words that marched around its edges. “
Volk
.
Sippe
.”

“‘Folk’ and ‘tribe,’” he translated. “The
Ahnenerbe
believed that Germans descended from the Aryan race, a people that they believed settled Atlantis before moving north.”

“Atlantis?” Jordan shook his head.

Erin’s eye caught on another pin in the case. The emblem appeared to be a pedestal holding up an open book. “What’s this one?”

“Ah, that one represents the importance of
Ahnenerbe
in documenting Aryan history and heritage, but there are some who say it represents a great mystery, some occult book of deep power held by them.”

Erin matched glances with Rhun.

Could this be some hint of their possession of the Blood Gospel?

The monk shoved aside a stack of Nazi-era documents to reveal a modern keyboard. He began typing, and the wall of glass beside his desk bloomed to light, revealing it to be a giant computer monitor. Across the large screen, data scrolled at startling speeds. It appeared the Sanguinists had their share of both ancient and
modern
toys.

“If you’re looking for a lost
Ahnenerbe
artifact,” Leopold said as his fingers flew over the keyboard, “this is a map of Germany. I’ve been working on it for the better part of sixty years. The red arrows you see represent
suspected
Nazi bunkers and repositories. Green ones have been cleared.” He sighed. “Sadly there are more red arrows than green.”

Erin felt a sinking in her gut. Barely an inch of the map didn’t contain an arrow.

And yes, most were depressingly red.

“If all these are not cleared,” Erin said, “how come you know they’re even there? What do you mean by
suspected
Nazi bunkers?”

“We hear stories of them. Local folklore. Sometimes we can guess from half-destroyed Nazi documents.”

Jordan squinted at the screen. “But that’s not the only way you’re pinpointing these places, is it?” He nodded to the crowded screen. “From the sophistication of this survey, I’m guessing you must be using satellite telemetry and ground-penetrating radar to identify hidden, underground structures.”

Brother Leopold smiled. “It almost feels like cheating. But in the end, all that wonderful technology has only succeeded in adding more red arrows to the screen. The only way to know if there’s anything really there—or if those hidden structures contain anything significant—is to search them in person, one by one.”

Rhun’s eyes flicked from side to side as he scanned the map from top to bottom. “What we seek could be in any of those hundreds of locations.”

Brother Leopold pushed back his chair and crossed his legs. “I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you.”

Rhun twitched. Erin sensed his impatience. The Belial were on the trail of the book as avidly as she and Jordan and Rhun were. Every minute mattered.

Jordan tapped one of the red arrows. “Then it’s grunt work from here, guys. We go through the sites and assign them high and low probabilities and work through them. Use a grid pattern. It won’t be quick, but it’ll be thorough.”

His idea sounded logical—but it felt wrong.

3:42
A.M
.

Jordan watched Erin step to the desk and remove the medallion from under the magnifying lens. He could tell she was frustrated from the pinch of her brows and the stiffness of her back. He didn’t like the idea of searching hundreds of sites either, but what other choice did they have?

As Erin turned in his direction, a light flickered deep in her eyes. That usually meant things were about to change, not always for the better.

He touched her shoulder. “Erin, you got something?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed the rune on the back of the medal with her thumbs.

Rhun cocked his head, his eyes fixed on Erin with an intensity that somehow rankled Jordan; as if that gaze would consume her.

Jordan shifted to stand between them. “Talk it out,” he said. “Maybe we can help.”

Erin’s brown eyes remained far away. “Symbols were crucial to the
Ahnenerbe
. Why
that
symbol on the stolen badge?”

Leopold’s chair creaked. “The Odal rune indicates
inheritance
. If the Odal rune was written next to a person’s name or an object, it meant
ownership
.”

“Like writing your name on your sneakers,” Jordan said. He looked over at the badge with the swastika in the center of the rune. “So does that emblem mean the
Ahnenerbe
owned the Nazis?”

He knew he probably sounded like an idiot to the scholars, but sometimes an idiot’s perspective ended up getting more things done.

“I think it’s more like the
Ahnenerbe
thought they owned the
Third Reich
,” Erin clarified. “They believed they were the true protectors of Aryan heritage.”

“But what does that signify?” Rhun pressed her, leaning toward her as if trying to draw the answer from her physically.

Erin leaned back. “I’m not sure, but at the end of the war, Berlin was being bombed. The Third Reich was on the run.” Her words came out slowly, as if she searched for words to a once-familiar story. “And the
Ahnenerbe
scientists would have known that the war was over long before the formal surrender.”

Leopold nodded. “They would have. But they thought in terms of centuries. To them, the
present
was a pale thing of little importance. They were interested in the history of the Aryan race going back
ten thousand years
—and forward the same number of millennia.”

“To the
Fourth Reich
!” Erin said, her eyes lighting up. “That group would have been planning for the long term. They would have wanted to keep their most important objects hidden until the coming of the Fourth Reich.”

“Which means that they would have hidden them somewhere
unknown
to the leaders of the Third Reich,” Leopold said, swinging back to his deck. “So we can eliminate any bunkers documented by the Nazi government.”

The monk tapped hurriedly at his keyboard and half the red arrows vanished.

“That helped,” Jordan said.

“There are still too many,” Erin concluded, and began to pace the small office, plainly trying to discharge nervous energy and stay focused.

Rhun did not move, but he tracked her with his eyes.

Erin pointed at the screen but didn’t glance at it. “Where would they hide their more precious artifacts to ensure that some future Aryan scientists could find them?”

“How about Atlantis?” Jordan asked with a roll of his eyes. “With the mermaids?”

She slapped her forehead with her palm. “Of course!”

All three men looked at her as if she were mad.

“Erin,” Rhun warned, his voice gentle. “I must remind you that the Nazis did not know the location of Atlantis.”

She waved such details aside. “Legend has it that the Fourth Reich would rise like Atlantis from the sea, returning the Aryan race to supremacy.” She faced Leopold. “What if the last of the
Ahnenerbe
tried to hedge that bet, to force the prophecy to be true?”

Rhun stirred next to Jordan, as if something Erin said had disturbed him.

Erin forged on. “To match that legend, they might have hidden their most important and significant artifacts near water. Trapped and surrounded by Allied forces, the last of the
Ahnenerbe
couldn’t reach the sea at the end of the war—and they would’ve wanted to keep their treasures buried in the soil of the Fatherland anyway. So they might have sought the next best thing.”

Leopold’s voice grew hushed. “A German body of water.”

“A lake,” Erin said.

Leopold typed in a command and all but a dozen red arrows disappeared, marking unexplored lakeside bunkers.

Jordan’s fist tightened with excitement.

Even Rhun came dangerously close to smiling.

“Let me bring up a satellite view of each one,” Leopold said.

In a few minutes, a checkerboard of images filled the large screen, displaying ground-penetrating images of each of the suspected bunkers.

“
Mein Gott in Himmel
,” Leopold swore, reverting to his native tongue in shock.

They all moved closer to the screen. They all saw it.