The Blood Gospel (41 page)

… Elisabeta weeping in the garden under bright sunlight, hiding her face from the sun, grief-stricken, but finally seeing him, rising to meet him, her simple joy shining through tears. “Rhun Korza …”

… Elisabeta coming to him, barefoot, across the rushes, her limbs naked, her face raw with desire, her lips moving, speaking the impossible. “Rhun …”

Those arms lifted toward him, inviting him at long last.

He went to them.

A gun blast tore into his chest, the blossom of pain tremendous, shredding away the past and leaving only the present.

He stood still with his arms outstretched toward her.

She stood before him—only transformed. Her dark black hair had turned to fire. He heard her heartbeat, knowing there should be none, not here, not now.

Downslope from him, she kept her distance, sheltered by an alder. But even from here, he recognized the same curve of her cheek, the same dance to her quicksilver eyes, the same long curls tumbling to her shoulders. She even smelled as she always had.

His vision swam, overlaying two women.

Pink lips curved into the smile that had once seduced him. “Your deeds brought us here, Father Korza. Remember that.”

She lifted her smoking Glock and fired, fired, fired.

Bullets tore into his chest.

Silver.

Every one.

The world darkened, and he fell.

6:50
A.M
.

Jordan fired a volley over Rhun’s body as the priest dropped. The redhead who had shot him ducked behind a tree.

Why the hell had the fool stepped out into the open like that?

Rhun had looked like he was in a daze as he stumbled out of hiding, his arms stretched out toward the woman, his hands empty, as if surrendering to her.

Jordan kept firing his Heckler & Koch submachine gun, offering Nadia cover so she could reach Rhun.
Strigoi
crawled forward toward them, clearly not eager to stand up and be shredded apart by silver. He hoped he had enough bullets in the extended magazine to get the pair back inside.

Erin knelt on the other side of the door, her Sig Sauer in hand. She didn’t have the same firepower he did, but she was a surprisingly good shot. She shot for legs, wounding rather than killing, just as Rhun had done. For the moment it was easier to slow them than to kill them.

Nadia hooked a hand under one arm and dragged Rhun back toward the bunker.

She took a crossbow bolt in the back of her thigh, but didn’t even flinch until she had hauled Rhun’s body inside and slammed the bunker door.

“Emmanuel?” Jordan asked.

“Lost.” She clenched her jaw and yanked out the bolt. Blood boiled out and smoked down her thigh. The stench of burnt flesh drifted up.

Erin swallowed hard. Jordan understood how she felt.

“Can you walk?” he asked. “I can give you a shoulder to—”

“I can walk.”

Nadia hurried them away from the door and pulled a wineskin from her belt. She took a small, cautious sip.

A heavy object thudded against the locked door behind them, echoing inside.

Nadia ignored it, but she finally stopped and lowered Rhun to the floor. She quickly freed Rhun’s
karambit
and used the hooked blade to slice off the leather armor covering his chest.

“We must work swiftly. The Belial will come through that door at any moment.”

Erin knelt next to her. “How do you know they’ll do that?”

“They have to. They’re
strigoi
. When the sun rises, they’ll all die. They will need to go to ground.”

Nadia dug a slug out of Rhun’s chest with his
karambit
’s tip. The bullet had deformed into a grotesque five-petal flower.

“Silver hollow point,” Jordan said, immediately understanding.

The attackers had known what to expect.

Nadia dug out the other slugs, none too gently, hurrying. Six total. A human could not live with that much damage. Maybe not even a Sanguinist.

Blood pumped out and ran across the floor.

Erin put her palm on Rhun’s chest, plainly concerned. “I thought he would stop bleeding on his own.”

Jordan remembered Korza’s demonstration back in Jerusalem with his sliced palm.

Nadia pushed Erin’s hand away. “His blood is purging the silver. If it doesn’t, he’ll die.”

“But then won’t he bleed to death?” Erin asked.

Nadia’s face tightened. “He might,” she admitted, and glanced back at the door.

The
strigoi
had ceased pounding. Jordan didn’t trust the silence and apparently neither did Nadia.

She stood, hauling Rhun over one shoulder.

Erin joined her. “What do we do? Try to use the water exit?”

“It’s our only chance,” Nadia said, and pointed her free arm. “We must reach sunlight.”

They took off at a dead run. Jordan hauled Piers along in a fireman’s carry, but Nadia outpaced him. They reached the intersection of passageways—when a thunderous explosion erupted behind them.

Jordan jolted, ducking from the noise. The enemy had set charges against the door.

Without breaking stride, he turned to check on Erin. She was behind him,
too
far behind. Snarls echoed down the tunnel from the blasted doorway.

The monsters were inside—and they were pissed.

October 27, time unknown

Undisclosed location

Tommy shifted in his new bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. He had no idea where he was, when he was, but he didn’t think it was another hospital. He studied his new home, which he suspected was what this prison was supposed to be.

He filed that disturbing thought away for now.

But he had to admit that the
box
in his head was growing more and more crammed.

Something eventually had to give.

He stared around. The walls were painted silver, with no windows, but the room came equipped with three different kinds of video-game consoles and a flat-screen TV, fed by satellite and carrying American channels.

Across from the foot of his bed, a door led to a bathroom stocked with familiar brands of soap and shampoo. Another door led to a corridor, but he’d been unconscious when he was brought in, so he didn’t know where that went.

Some faceless doctor must have set his bones, patched his wounds, and cranked him up on pain relievers. His mouth still felt full of cotton that no amount of water could soothe. But his neck had already healed, and his bones were knitting fast, too. Whatever had happened at Masada, it had sped up his healing, curing him from far more than just cancer.

Since he’d woken up, they brought him food, whatever he asked for: burgers, fries, pizza, ice cream, and Apple Jacks cereal. And he was surprisingly hungry. He could not get enough to eat; likely his body needed the fuel to help heal itself.

Nobody told him where he was or why he was here.

He spent one entire hour crying, but no one seemed to care, and he finally realized the futility of tears and turned to more practical thoughts: thoughts of escape.

So far, he had no good plan. The walls were made of concrete, and he imagined that something in the room was a camera. The guards shoved his food through a slot in the door that led out to the corridor.

Suddenly that door opened.

Tommy sat up. He couldn’t stand very well yet.

A familiar figure strode inside, sending a chill through Tommy. It was the boy who had kidnapped him from the hospital. The strange kid walked in and flung himself into bed, sprawling next to Tommy, as if they were best chums.

This time he wore a gray silk shirt and a pair of expensive-looking gray pants.

He sure didn’t dress like a normal kid.

“Hello.” Tommy twisted to face him and held out his hand, not knowing what else to do. “I’m Tommy.”

“I know who you are.” The boy’s accent was strange and stiff.

Still, he shook Tommy’s hand, pumping it firmly, formally. He had the coldest hands that Tommy had ever felt. Had he been shipped to some country above the Arctic Circle?

The boy let go of his hand. “We are friends now, no? So you can call me Alyosha.”

Friends don’t try to kill friends.

But Tommy kept silent about that and asked a more important question. “Why am I here?”

“Is there somewhere else you would rather be?”

“Anywhere else,” he admitted. “This feels like a prison.”

The boy turned a thick gold ring around on his white finger. “As cages go, it is a gilded one, no?”

Tommy didn’t bother pointing out that he didn’t want to be in
any
cage—gilded or not—but he didn’t want to offend the kid, nor did he want to chase him off by being rude. To be honest, Tommy didn’t want to be alone again. He’d even take this weird kid’s company at the moment—especially if he could learn anything.

“When I was your age, I lived in one of the most gilded cages in the world.” The boy’s soft gray eyes traveled around the room. “But then I was set free, as you are.”

“I don’t call this
free
.” Tommy gestured around the room.

“I meant
free
of the prison of your flesh.” The boy sat up, crossed his legs, and reached for a game controller. “Many aspire to that.”

“Are you free?” Tommy reached over and picked up the other controller, as if this were the most natural thing to do.

The boy shrugged and started an Xbox game on the screen. “After a fashion.”

“What does that mean?”

Alyosha faced him as the game bloomed to life on the screen. “You are immortal, no?”

Tommy lowered his controller. “What?”

Alyosha prompted the game—
Gods of War
—to start. “You know this now, no? It was what I tried to teach you. Out in the desert. So you would understand.”

Tommy struggled to understand, seeking some frame of reference as the game’s theme music began, full of drumbeats and brass chords. “Are you immortal, Alyosha?”

“There are ways that my life can end. But if I avoid them, yes, I will live forever. So we will be friends for a very long time.”

Tommy heard a hint of the loneliness in that voice.

He spoke softly, despairing. “So I’m like you, then?”

Alyosha shifted as if this part of the conversation bothered him. “No, you are not. In all the long history of time, there has only ever been
one
other like you.
You
, my friend, are very special.”

“Is this other one still around?”

“Yes, of course, he is still around. Like you, he cannot die or take his own life.”

“Ever?”

“Until the end of time.”

Tommy took another long look around the room. Would he be a prisoner here forever? He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but some part of him knew that Alyosha had told him the truth—but maybe not the full enormity of it.

Tommy understood that on his own.

Immortality was not a blessing.

It was a curse.

October 27, 6:55
A.M
., CET

Beneath Harmsfeld Lake, Germany

With Piers hauled over his shoulder, Jordan ran several steps sideways, chased down the concrete tunnel by the screams of pursuing
strigoi
, feral and terrifying.

He yelled back to Erin, who trailed twenty yards behind.

“Hurry!”

“Keep going!” she called back, both irritated and scared.

That was Erin.

To hell with that.

By now, Nadia had reached the far leg and vanished down it, aiming for the air lock with Rhun, limp and poisoned, in her arms. Apparently she felt no obligation to wait for the two, slower humans. And she didn’t seem too fond of Piers either. She probably wasn’t coming back.

Jordan lowered Piers to the concrete and freed his submachine gun. “Sorry, old man.”

Piers opened faded blue eyes. “
Meine Kinder.
”

My children
.

“I’ll come back.” Jordan hoped he’d be able to keep that promise.

Before Jordan could come fully to standing, Piers seized his hand, his grip incredibly strong, still capable of breaking bone. “Icarops.
Sie kommen
. To help. I send them.”

From the broken doorway of the neighboring vestibule, a black cloud of bats burst forth into the tunnel, churning, squealing, and swooping over their heads.

Thousands poured into the passageway.

Jordan ducked under the wings, overwhelmed by the creatures’ stench, tasting it on the back of his tongue. He crouched with Piers against the wall.

Erin had almost reached him, one arm shielding her face against the winged onslaught.

But this time their fury was not directed at her.