Blood Infernal

by James Rollins

  The skeptical part of her—that part that still struggled with the truth about strigoi and angels and miracles unfolding before her eyes—wondered if the task was even possible.

  To reforge some ancient chalice before Lucifer broke free of Hell?

  It sounded more like an ancient myth than an act to be performed in modern times.

  But she was a member of the prophetic trio referenced in the Blood Gospel. The three individuals consisted of the Knight of Christ, the Warrior of Man, and the Woman of Learning. And as that learned woman, it was Erin’s supposed duty to discover the truth behind those cryptic words.

  The other two members of the trio awaited her solution, keeping busy with their own tasks while she worked at the Vatican libraries, trying to find answers. Neither of them was in Rome at the moment, and she missed them both, wanting them by her side, if only as a sounding board for her multitude of theories.

  Of course, it was more than that with Sergeant Jordan Stone—the Warrior of Man. In the few short months since they had first met, she had fallen for the tough and handsome soldier, with his piercing blue eyes, his easygoing humor, and his steadfast sense of duty. He could make her laugh in the most stressful moments, had saved her life countless other times.

  So what was there not to love?

  I don’t love that you’re not here.

  It was a selfish thought, but it was also true.

  During the last few weeks, he had begun to drift away from her and everything else. At first she thought that he might be upset because he had been taken away from his regular job with the army and assigned to the Sanguinists against his will. But lately she’d begun to suspect that his remoteness came from something deeper, and that she was losing him.

  Doubts plagued her.

  Maybe he doesn’t want the same kind of relationship that I do . . .

  Maybe I’m not the right woman for him . . .

  She hated even to think about that.

  The third member of the trio, Father Rhun Korza, was even more problematic. The Knight of Christ was a Sanguinist. She had come to respect his strong moral code, his incredible fighting skills, and his dedication to the Church, but she also feared him. Shortly after they had met, he had drunk her blood in a moment of dire need, almost killing her in the dark tunnels under Rome. Even now, walking through St. Peter’s, she could easily recall his sharp teeth piercing her throat, the strange ecstasy of that moment, sealing forever the act as both erotic and disturbing. The memory frightened and fascinated her in equal measure.

  So for now, the two remained close colleagues, though a wariness stood between them, as if both knew that the line that had been crossed in those tunnels could never be fully erased.

  Maybe that’s why Rhun vanished out of Rome these past months.

  She sighed, again wishing the two men were here, but knowing the task before her was hers alone. And it was a tall order. If the trio must reforge something called Lucifer’s Chalice, she must discover some clue as to the nature of that prophetic cup. She had searched the Vatican’s archives: from its subterranean crypts moldering with age to shelves high up in the Torre dei Venti, the Tower of Winds, whose very steps Galileo himself had once tread. But for all of her study, so far she had come up empty-handed. There was only one last library left for her to explore, a collection forbidden to anyone with a beating heart.

  The Bibliotheca dei Sanguines.

  The Sanguinist Order’s private library.

  But first I must get there.

  The library was buried far below St. Peter’s, in tunnels restricted to the Sanguinist Order, to those strigoi who had vowed to serve the Church, who had forsaken the consumption of human blood to survive only on the blood of Christ—or more precisely, on wine transubstantiated by blessing and prayer into that holy essence.

  She stepped more briskly across the vast basilica, noting that extra Swiss Guards had been stationed here. The entire city-state was on heightened alert because of the surge of strigoi attacks. Even with her nose buried deep in books, she had heard stories that the monsters involved in these murders were somehow stronger, quicker, and harder to kill.

  But why?

  It was another mystery, one whose solution might be found in that secret library.

  Over the past few months, she had read thousands of dusty papyrus scrolls, ancient parchments, and carved clay tablets. The texts were recorded in many languages, written by many hands, but none of them had the information she needed.

  That is, until two days ago . . .

  In the Tower of Winds, she had discovered an old map concealed between the pages of a copy of the Book of Enoch. She had sought out that ancient Jewish text—a book purported to have been written by the great-grandfather of Noah—because the work dealt with fallen angels and their hybrid offspring, known as the Nephilim. It was Lucifer who had led those fallen angels during the war of Heaven. In the end, he was cast down for challenging God’s divine plan for mankind.

  But upon opening that ancient volume in the Tower of Winds, a map had fallen free. It had been drawn in strong black ink on a piece of yellowed paper and annotated by a flowery medieval hand and showed another library in Vatican City, one older than any of the others.

  It was the first she had heard of this secret library.

  From the map, it appeared this collection was hidden within the Sanctuary, the warren of tunnels and rooms below St. Peter’s where some Sanguinists made their home. In those ancient tunnels Sanguinists flocked to spend untold years of their immortal lives in quiet contemplation and prayer, removed from the cares of the bright world hundreds of feet above. Some had lived in those halls for centuries, sustained by mere sips of sacramental wine. Every day priests delivered wine to their still forms, holding silver cups to their pale lips. They sought only peace, and access to their tunnels was carefully controlled.

  According to the map in her pocket, the Sanctuary held the oldest archives in the Vatican. She had privately consulted Christian about this place, learning that most of the documents hidden there had been written by Sanguinist immortals who had lived through the events of the ancient world. Some had known Christ himself. Others had been old even before those times, converted to the order after hundreds of years of savagery as feral strigoi.

  Though the Sanctuary was forbidden to humans, Erin had been down there once before, accompanied by Rhun and Jordan. The trio had brought the Blood Gospel into the Sanguinists’ innermost sanctum, to receive the blessing of the founder of the Order of the Sanguines, a figure known as the Risen One. But she had learned then that he had a name more significant to Biblical history.

  Lazarus.

  He had been the first strigoi whom Christ had commanded into service.

  Upon learning of this library, Erin confronted the current head of the order in Rome, Cardinal Bernard. She had sought permission to enter that library to continue her line of research, but she had been soundly rebuffed. The cardinal had been firm that no human had ever been allowed to cross its threshold. He also assured her that the library only contained information about the order itself, nothing that would help with the quest.

  Erin hadn’t been surprised by the cardinal’s reaction. Bernard treated knowledge as a powerful treasure to be locked away.

  She had tried playing her trump card. “The Blood Gospel itself anointed me as the Woman of Learning,” she had reminded Bernard, quoting the recent prophecy revealed in the desert. “The Woman of Learning is now bound to the book and none may part it from her.”

  Still, he refused to bend. “I have read deeply and widely from this library. No one in the Sanctuary ever walked with Lucifer and his fallen angels. The stories of his fall were written long after it happened. So there remains no firsthand account of how or where Lucifer fell, where he is imprisoned, or how the shackles that bound him in eternal darkness were forged or could be remade. It would be a waste of time to search that library, even if it weren’t forbidden.”

  As she had gl
ared into his hard brown eyes, she realized he would not break those age-old rules. It meant she had to find her own path down there.

  She stared across the last few yards of the basilica, toward a statue of St. Thomas—the apostle who doubted everything until presented with proof. She smiled softly through her nervousness.

  There’s an apostle after my own heart.

  She continued toward the statue. Below its toes lay a small door. It was normally unguarded, but as she rounded toward it, she discovered a Swiss Guardsman standing before the threshold, half hidden within the door’s alcove. She clenched her teeth and moved to the side, out of direct sight. She knew who was to blame for this new addition.

  Damn you, Bernard.

  The cardinal must have posted a guard after their earlier heated conversation, suspecting she might attempt to sneak below on her own.

  She searched for a solution—and discovered it within the grasp of a girl a few steps away. The child appeared to be eight or nine, bored, dragging her feet across the ornate marble tiles. She rolled a bright green tennis ball between her palms. Her parents ambled several yards ahead of her, talking animatedly.

  Moving quickly, Erin fell into step with the girl. “Hello.”

  The girl glanced up, her blue eyes narrowing in suspicion. Freckles ran across her nose, and her red hair was braided in two pigtails.

  “Hello,” the girl said reluctantly in English, as if she knew that she had to answer nuns.

  “Could I borrow your ball?”

  The girl pulled the tennis ball protectively behind her back.

  Okay, new tactic.

  Erin lifted a hand, revealing a five-euro note in her fingers. “Then maybe I could buy it?”

  The child’s eyes widened, staring hard at the temptation—then thrust the fuzzy ball toward her, making the trade, while surreptitiously staring at her parents’ backs.

  With the deal done, Erin waited until the child had moved off, joining her mother and father. She then tossed the ball underhand in a long arc across the nave toward a tight knot of people several yards past from the posted guardsman. The ball pegged a short man in a gray overcoat on the back of the head.

  He yelled sharply, cursing in Italian, causing a commotion that echoed through the vast space. As she had hoped, the Swiss Guardsman moved off to investigate.

  Erin used the distraction to hurry forward and fit the key Christian had given her into the door lock. At least the hinges proved to be well oiled as she pulled the way open. Once through, she closed the door behind her and locked it by feel, her heart hammering.

  She placed her palm against the door, worry rising inside her. How am I going to get back out without being caught?

  But she knew it was too late for second-guessing.

  Only one path lay open to her.

  She clicked on her flashlight and took stock of her surroundings. A long tunnel stretched in front of her. The rounded ceiling looked about nine feet tall, and the walls curved in. Next to the door a dusty oak table held beeswax candles and matches. She took a few of each but didn’t light them. They’d be good backups to have in case the battery failed in her flashlight.

  She pulled the map out of her pocket. On the back, Christian had drawn a schematic of the tunnels that led down to the Sanctuary itself. Knowing there was no turning back, she gathered her heavy skirt in one hand and set off. She had at least a mile to cover before she reached the Sanctuary gate.

  Her light bounced up and down as she hurried, its narrow beam moving ahead of her, revealing mouths of secondary tunnels. She counted them under her breath.

  One wrong turn, and I could be lost down in this maze for days.

  The fear made her move faster as she descended narrow staircases and traversed the maze of tunnels. The tiny vial of Christian’s blood bumped against her thigh, reminding her that the price for knowledge was sometimes blood. It was a message that had been drilled into her as a child, made acutely real when her father discovered a book hidden under her mattress. Her father’s rough voice echoed in her ears, drawing her into the past.

  “What happened to Eve when she ate from the tree of knowledge?” her father asked, towering over the nine-year-old version of herself, his powerful farmer’s hands clenched into threatening fists at his sides.

  She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer his question and decided to stay silent. He was always angrier over things she said than when she kept her mouth shut.

  The book—The Farmer’s Almanac—lay open on the well-swept floorboards, lamplight shining on its creamy pages. Until today, she’d only ever read the Bible, because her father said that it contained all the knowledge that she would ever need.

  But within the pages of the almanac, she had discovered new knowledge: when to plant seeds, when to harvest crops, the dates of the phases of the moon. It had even contained a few jokes, which proved her downfall. She had laughed too loudly and had been caught, sitting cross-legged under her desk reading.

  “What happened to Eve?” he had pressed her, his voice low and dangerous.

  She decided to try to protect herself with Biblical quotes, keeping her manner timid. “ ‘And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.’ ”

  “What was their punishment?” her father continued.

  “ ‘Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception.’ ”

  “And that is the lesson you will learn by my hand.”

  Her father forced her to choose a willow switch and ordered her to kneel in front of him. Obedient, she dropped to her mother’s clean floor and lifted her dress over her head. Her mother had sewn it for her, and she didn’t want it to get dirty. She folded it carefully and placed it on the floor next to her. Then she gripped her cold knees and waited for the blows to come.

  He always let her wait a long time for the first one, as if he knew that the anticipation of the pain was almost as bad as the blow itself. Goose bumps rose up on her back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the almanac, and she wasn’t sorry.

  The first blow cracked across her skin, and she bit her lips to keep from crying out. If she did, he would add more blows. He switched her bare back until blood ran down and soaked into her underwear. Later she would have to clean the bright red spatters off the walls and floor. But first she had to endure the lashes, waiting until her father decided that she’d shed enough blood.

  Erin shuddered at the memory, the dark tunnels somehow making it more real. Her back twinged even now, as if remembering the old pain and the lesson learned.

  The price of knowledge was blood and pain.

  Even before her back had healed, she had returned to her father’s office and read the rest of the almanac in secret. One section contained a weather forecast. For a year she’d tracked it to see if the authors knew what the weather would do, and they were often wrong. And she realized that things in books could be wrong.

  Even the Bible.

  Back then, the fear of punishment hadn’t stopped her.

  And it won’t stop me now.

  Her feet pounded the stone, carrying her along until at last she reached the door to the Sanctuary. It was not the main entrance into their territory, but a rarely used back door, one that opened not far from their library. This gateway looked like a blank wall with a small alcove that held a stone basin, not unlike a small bowl or cup.

  She knew what she must do.

  The secret gate could only be opened by the blood of a Sanguinist.

  She reached to her pocket and retrieved Christian’s glass vial. She studied the black blood roiling inside. Sanguinist blood was thicker and darker than any human’s. It could move with a will of its own, flowing through veins without the need of a beating heart. That was about all she knew about the essence that sustained both the Sanguinists and the strigoi, but she suddenly wanted to know more, to tease out the secrets of that blood.

  But not now.

  She emptied the vial’s dark con
tents into the stone basin, while speaking words in Latin. “For this is the Chalice of My Blood, of the new and everlasting Testament.”

  The blood swirled within the cup, stirring on its own, proving its unnatural state.

  She held her breath. Would the gate reject Christian’s blood?

  The answer came as the dark pool seeped into the stone, vanishing away, leaving no trace.

  She let out a sigh, whispering the final words, “Mysterium fidei.”

  She took a step back from the sealed wall, her heart pounding in her throat. Surely any Sanguinists nearby would hear that telltale beat and know she was standing at their threshold.

  Stone ground heavily on stone, slowly opening a passage before her.

  She took a step toward that waiting darkness, remembering her father’s painful lesson. The price of knowledge was blood and pain.

  So be it.

  March 17, 4:45 P.M. CET

  Cumae, Italy

  Why am I always stuck underground?

  Sergeant Jordan Stone dragged himself forward with his elbows through the cramped tunnel. Rock pressed tightly on him from all sides, and the only way to move forward was to wriggle like a worm. As he struggled, dirt sifted into his hair and fell into his eyes.

  At least I’m still moving.

  He pushed forward another few inches.

  A heavily accented voice called from the tunnel ahead, encouraging him. “You’re almost through!”

  That would be Baako. He pictured the tall Sanguinist who hailed from somewhere in Africa. Last week, when Jordan had inquired about his exact country of origin, Baako had been vague, saying only, Like many nations in Africa, the one I come from has borne many names, and likely will bear many more.

  It was a typical Sanguinist answer: dramatic and basically useless.

  Jordan stared ahead. He could vaguely make out a dull glow, a promise that this damned tunnel did indeed reach an inner cavern. He fought toward that light.