“Hold tight!” Christian called out.
Instead, Rhun stepped free of the door, moving to the bow. He heard sand and rock grind under the fins—and the ship jerked to a sudden halt. Thrown forward, Rhun leaped high, using the momentum to fly over the bow rail and across the remaining strip of water. He landed smoothly on the soft sand near the helicopter. He spotted a shift of shadows and fell upon it. The gunman wore a pilot’s leathers and bared the fangs of a strigoi.
Rhun slashed his karambit across the beast’s throat, slicing with the blessed steel down to bone. The pilot fell to his knees, then his face. A pool spread across the sand as black blood attempted to boil the holiness out of the cursed body, taking his life with it.
Rhun did a fast canvass of the ash-covered beach—then waved everyone to shore.
As they clambered to him, Rhun looked from the dead body to the dark sky. With day turned to night, any manner of creature could walk free.
Jordan picked up something glittering out of the black ash. “One of Iscariot’s moths.” He played the beam of his flashlight across other bits of brightness that glittered under the light, like a scatter of emeralds in dirt. “The moth in my hand looks intact. I bet the gears and clockwork couldn’t handle all this ash.”
“Still, be careful where you step,” Erin warned her companions. “They’re likely still full of poisonous blood.”
It was sound advice.
Christian especially searched the ground, looking wary.
Rhun joined him. “How do you feel?”
After a nervous lick of his lips, he said, “Better. A little wine, a little fresh air . . .” He waved sardonically to the dark snowfall. “Who wouldn’t feel as strong as an ox?”
Rhun cast him an appraising look.
Christian straightened, going serious. “I am doing . . . okay.”
Rhun certainly could not fault his handling of the ship. He had gotten them back to the coast in under twenty minutes.
Beyond Christian, Bernard searched the beach, likely looking less for evidence of Iscariot’s whereabouts as for the reinforcements he had summoned while en route. The team could not expect much immediate help, only from those Sanguinists within easy reach of Naples. Rome was too far for them to get here in time.
Erin called out, her voice muffled by her mask. She and Jordan had moved closer to the cliffs. “Footprints! Over here in the sand!”
Rhun joined them, bringing Christian and Bernard.
She pointed as Jordan swept his flashlight. Even dusted with ash, the fresh tracks were plain, crisply impressed into the soft sand. She glanced up, her face streaming with sweat. The very air here burned. “Looks like they headed into that nest of boulders.”
Rhun nodded and took the lead. He forced his way between the rocks until he reached the mouth of a narrow tunnel that broke into the cliff face. Despite the ash fouling the air and caking his nostrils, he smelled the breath of brimstone coming from this tunnel.
Jordan shone his light inside, revealing a long throat of black rock, streaked with yellow veins of sulfur.
“This must lead beneath the volcanic hill,” Erin said. “Likely burrowing toward the ruins of Cumae and the sibyl’s throne to the northeast.”
And below it, the gates of Hell.
Bernard touched Christian’s shoulder. “You remain here with Erin and Jordan. Await the arrival of those I’ve summoned. Once here, follow our path.” He nicked a finger with a blade. “I’ll leave blood for you to follow.”
Erin stepped up. “I agree Christian should stay here, to lead the others, but I’m coming now. I know the sibyl and her local history better than anyone. You may need that knowledge in that maze below.”
Jordan nodded. “What she said. I’m coming, too.”
Bernard conceded, too easily. Rhun wanted to argue more stridently, but he also knew how futile it was to thwart Erin.
They headed inside, leaving Christian to guard their rear, to ready any reinforcements.
Rhun led the way, trailed by Bernard. He noticed how Jordan kept Erin safely ahead of him. Free of the rain of ash, the two had tugged off their masks, breathing easier, but their faces streamed with salt and sweat.
Rhun shifted farther ahead, needing no light. He sniffed at the air as he came to any crossroads. Through the stink of sulfur, Rhun’s sharp nose picked out other scents: older sweat, a familiar perfume, a musky cologne. The distinct trail led him through the darkness as surely as any map.
The passageways twisted and turned. His shoulders scraped the sides, but he did not slow. Bernard kept to his heels or strode alongside when he could. Plainly Bernard had noted the trail ahead, too, while in turn marking their own path with drops of blood.
Rhun tuned out that crimson note, while trying his best not to listen to the frightened beat of Erin’s heart. Yet, despite her fear, she kept going, unflagging in her determination and will. Jordan’s heart also raced, but Rhun knew it was more in fear for her safety than his own.
Behind him, the beams of their flashlight bumped along, illuminating the way in short bursts. As they moved ever deeper, he noted tendrils of blackness snaking along the ceiling, looking like the smoky curl of living vines. The deeper they went, the thicker the tendrils grew, seeming to rise from the depths below.
He wafted a tendril to his face and coughed its foulness back out as he sniffed. It reeked of sulfur, but also of rotting flesh, of corruption, of the darkness of an ancient crypt.
He shared a worried glance with Bernard.
Then Bernard’s gaze snapped forward.
Distracted, with his senses addled by the dark smoke, Rhun almost missed it. A scuff of bare feet, a whisper of cloth—then the others were upon them, blades flashing in the dark.
Strigoi.
A trap.
Rhun and Bernard met the sudden charge with silver and swiftness, their movements a synchronized blur. The two had fought alongside each other many times in their long lives. They felled the first two easily enough—but more surged from tunnels ahead, stirring the darkness with their damnation, filling it with the hiss of their ferocity.
Luckily, the tunnels were narrow, limiting how many could reach them at any one time. Instead, the pack seemed more determined to hold them back, to wear the Sanguinists down. Perhaps, for Iscariot to be victorious, it did not require killing the Sanguinists. He merely had to hold them in check, to buy himself enough time to complete his task here.
Which offered Rhun hope.
If Iscariot sent these beasts to thwart them, there must be something worth thwarting.
Maybe we are not too late.
Rhun gritted his teeth and fought on.
Gunfire erupted behind them. A glance back showed more strigoi appearing to their rear. Either they had lain in wait, or others had circled this maze to come behind them. Jordan’s machine pistol tore through the first bodies. Erin had a pistol out, too, popping past the soldier’s shoulder.
“Help them,” Bernard said. “I can hold the front.”
But for how long?
Rhun turned and added his blade to the battle in the rear, the trio working efficiently together. Erin slowed them with well-placed shots to knees and legs. Jordan strafed heads, blasting apart skulls. Rhun took out anything that got close.
They held their own, but time ticked away.
Surely that was Iscariot’s goal.
Then past the mass of strigoi, figures in black robes swept into view, cutting through the rearguard, their silver crosses flashing in the darkness.
Sanguinist reinforcements.
Christian led them, blades in both hands. He cut a swath through the remaining strigoi to join them. Jordan clapped him happily on the shoulder.
More Sanguinists swept past to join Bernard.
Rhun followed.
Bernard pointed to the surrounding labyrinth of passages. “Spread out. Clear our flanks!”
Moving again, Rhun redoubled his efforts, slashing strigoi and forcing the party ever f
orward. Ahead the tunnel widened, revealing a subterranean river, a bridge, and a torchlit cavern beyond.
Rhun and Bernard drove the remaining strigoi over the edge of the river and into the boiling water below, where they were swept away. The Sanguinist reinforcements swelled behind them, bolstering their rear.
Erin joined Rhun, pointing through the sulfurous steam of the river. Vague shapes moved out there, but there was no mistaking the silhouette of a sacrifice.
“Hurry!”
Together, the team raced across the slick stone of the arched bridge.
As soon as Rhun’s foot touched the floor on the other side, the very air changed, going as cold as a tomb in the dead of winter. Erin and Jordan’s breath blew white as they gasped at the change. But far more chilling was the horrific sight that awaited them.
In the room’s center, a pale shape lay pinned under ropes atop a black stone. A cloud of dark fog enveloped him completely, churning and swirling, reaching the arched roof and stretching to every tunnel, snaking out tendrils, questing for the open air.
The place reeked of doom and corruption.
The familiar gray figure of Iscariot stood limned against that dread force, a triumphant expression on his face.
Beyond the altar, a woman hung from the wall, her dark skin shining, her eyes seemingly aglow.
“It is she!” Bernard said, clutching his sleeve.
Rhun ignored the cardinal, spying the one final figure in this grim theater.
To the right, Elisabeta lay on the floor, in a pool of black blood, but little of it seemed to be her own. She struggled beneath a half dozen strigoi. Others were dead around her. A handful of moths lay twitching on the cold stone, their wings frosted brittle by the cold.
Her eyes found his, full of terror—but not for her own life.
“Save the boy!”
7:52 A.M.
Jordan drew closer to Erin, taking swift inventory.
In that moment of stunned incapacitation, a flurry of strigoi rushed from the closest tunnels to either side. Bernard took those on the left; Rhun charged to the right.
Jordan pushed Erin forward, out of those pincers.
He aimed for the only other direct threat in the room.
He had his machine pistol up and rushed the gray-suited figure. As Iscariot turned, Jordan skipped any witty repartee. He fired three fast bursts into the man’s chest, clustered on his heart.
Iscariot collapsed backward onto the floor, bright red blood soaking through his jacket and white shirt, spreading across the stone.
“Owed you that, bastard,” he mumbled, rubbing his own chest.
Still, he kept his weapon trained on the man. Iscariot was immortal, would likely heal, but how long would it take? It had taken the boy some time to recuperate. He hoped for the same here, but he kept watch. A trail of crimson blood ran across the black rock as if aiming for that black swirl.
The blood froze before reaching it.
Erin stepped in that direction, plainly wanting to help the boy.
He stopped her with a hand on her arm. “Hold on.”
She glanced at him. “Do you think it’s poisonous?”
“I think it’s something way beyond that,” he said. “Let me go first.”
As he moved closer, he felt the ever-present burn in his shoulder go cooler. With every step, his legs turned leaden. It was as if whatever force roiled up from below could stanch that fire inside him—and take all his strength with it. His chest suddenly ached, drawing his fingers to where he had been shot. He looked down, expecting blood.
“Jordan?”
“I can’t . . .”
He fell to his knees.
7:53 A.M.
Rhun heard the gunshots, watched Iscariot fall, incapacitated for now. Behind him, Bernard fought before the mouth of a tunnel, keeping strigoi bottled on that side. Rhun leaped over those holding Elisabeta captive. While in the air, he reached down and ripped two of her assailants off her, tossing them forward into the pack coming at him.
He crushed moths under his heels as he landed, the creations strangely weakened by the inimical cold.
Then he barreled into the pack, his blade flashing.
Strigoi fell, blood pouring over rock.
Claws ripped and teeth gnashed at him, but he fought on and drove the pack back to the tunnels. Finally, they seemed to lose their will and fled into the darkness.
Taking advantage of the lull, he swung around. Elisabeta fought her four remaining captors, whirling like a trapped lioness, weeping from a hundred cuts, as did her assailants.
For the moment, it was a stalemate.
He leaped forward to break it.
45
December 20, 7:54 A.M. CET
Cumae, Italy
Erin pulled Jordan back from the cold pyre of black smoke. He regained his strength enough to stand, but he still rubbed his chest. Was he exerting himself too much after his recent ordeal? She was relieved to feel his clammy hand grow warmer in hers.
A voice rose from beyond the cloud. “You can go no nearer.”
It came from the woman chained to the wall. She wore a simple white dress and leather sandals, looking like she had stepped off an ancient Greek urn.
Erin circled the black cloud enough to see her face better. Unmistakably, it was the woman from the drawing, from Iscariot’s oil painting, and likely the woman Bernard saw in Jerusalem. She was tied to an iron ring mounted in the stone, seemingly as much a prisoner as the boy.
But what was she?
Her musings were interrupted as Rhun hurled a strigoi high into the air, sending it flying across the fog above the altar. Hitting that cloud, a scream ripped from the beast’s throat. The body immediately froze in a posture of agony. For a moment, Erin thought she saw smoky darkness explode from its lips and nostrils, swirling to join the blackness above Tommy. She remembered Elizabeth’s drawings in her macabre research journal, how she had described the same smoky essence connected to the strigoi.
Then the body struck the far wall and shattered like a china plate.
Aghast, Erin took a full step back.
How were they ever going to save the boy? Was the boy even alive?
As if reading her fears, the woman spoke. “I can reach him.”
Erin stared at her.
She lifted her bound arms. “Free me.”
Erin shared a look with Jordan.
Jordan shrugged, keeping his gun pointed at the fighting across the room. Rhun battled alongside both Bernard and Elizabeth to rid the cavern of the last of the strigoi.
“At this point,” he said, “any enemy of Iscariot is a friend of mine.”
Still, Erin hesitated, remembering the oil painting, with Iscariot’s arm around her, looking lovingly upon her.
“Someone has to go in there and save the boy,” Jordan reminded her.
She nodded, hurried over, and using a dagger from Jordan, she sawed at the thick rope that bound the woman’s hands to the iron ring. Jordan continued to guard over her.
The woman’s eyes met Erin’s as she worked, shining with peace amid the bloodshed.
Erin swallowed, knowing whom she sought to free, but needing confirmation. “You are the Sibyl of Cumae.”
Her chin dropped slightly in acknowledgment. “That is one of many names I’ve carried over the centuries. For the moment, I prefer Arella.”
“And you will help the boy?” She glanced to his thin form on the stone.
“I must . . . as I helped another boy long ago.”
Arella’s hands finally broke free, and she brought her palms together as if in prayer, her index fingers inches from her face.
Jordan and Erin stepped back, sensing something building within this other.
A golden light suddenly washed from the sibyl’s body, driving them farther back. A corona of that light brushed against Erin, warming the cold out of her bones, like the buttery warmth of a summer sun, smelling of grass and clover. Erin drank it in. Joy filled her, r
eminding her of the moment the Blood Gospel had transformed from a simple lead block into a tome that held the words of Christ.
She suddenly found the word to describe what she felt.
Holiness.
She was in the presence of true holiness.
Next to her, Jordan smiled, surely feeling the same. For one moment, in the midst of the battle, there was peace. She leaned against him, sharing warmth and strength and love with him.
“Is there anything we can do to help?” Erin asked.
Her grace turned fully upon Erin. “No. Neither you nor the priests can save the boy. Only I can.”
The woman—Arella—drifted from the wall and headed toward the towering pyre of cold darkness. The few wisps of blackness at the edges burned away as her radiance drew closer. Other tendrils withered back into the cloud, as if fearful of her touch.
Then she pushed into the cloud itself, her radiance shining brighter, battering back the darkness that swirled around her. Her glow swept upward to either side, feathering out into the blackness, forming a familiar shape.
Erin pictured the old drawing from the safe.
Wings.
How could such a being exist on Earth?
She realized that it had been far easier for her to believe in strigoi, in the presence of unholy evil made flesh, than to accept the presence of good. But she could not deny what she witnessed now.
Arella stepped to the altar, to the boy’s side.
The darkness closed down around her, tearing away at her brilliance.
A cry rose from the far side. “No . . . Arella . . . no . . .”
Iscariot rose to his feet, blood soaking through his shirt. He backed away, falling into a tunnel behind him and disappearing.
Jordan moved to chase after him, but Erin gripped his arm, wanting him close.
“He knows he’s lost, but the boy may need us.”
Jordan grimaced in frustration, but he nodded, keeping his gun pointed at that tunnel.
Arella knelt on the rough floor. Her wings bent and formed a protective shroud around the boy. Tommy lay on his back with a heavy net covering his body. His skin had a waxen, grayish hue, as if he had already died.
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