Blood Infernal

by James Rollins

  Lazarus placed a cold hand on her arm, his fingers tightening as if to urge her to stay quiet. He guided her forward so she could peer into the chamber of the Cloistered Ones.

  The ancient Sanguinists stirred. Fabric rustled, and dust fell from their old clothing.

  At her side, Lazarus began to sing. It was a hymn in Hebrew. The Cloistered Ones in the chambers outside took up the chant, too. The fear in Erin fell away, caught in the rise and fall of their voices, as steady as waves against a shore. Wonder welled through her.

  Figures appeared on the far side. A clutch of black-cloaked Sanguinist priests entered the chamber, carrying flagons of wine and silver cups. They stared at the Cloistered Ones, mouths agape. Apparently such singing wasn’t a common occurrence.

  Lazarus’s fingers lifted from her shoulder, but not before a final squeeze of reassurance. She understood. Lazarus and the others were protecting her. Their song would drown out her heartbeat.

  Erin stood stock-still, hoping that their ruse worked.

  The young priests went about their duty, offering cups to lips, but those same lips only continued singing, ignoring the wine. The Sanguinists exchanged worried glances, clearly puzzled. They tried again, but with no better outcome.

  The rich powerful voices only soared louder.

  Eventually the small group of priests relented, retreating back down the entry hall and away. Erin listened as that distant doorway ground closed—only then did the singing stop.

  Lazarus walked her to the torch-lit chamber as the Cloistered Ones went quiet and still again. He motioned toward the exit.

  Erin turned to him. “But I didn’t learn anything,” she protested. “I don’t know how to find Lucifer, let alone how to reforge his shackles.”

  Lazarus spoke, his voice deep but distant, as if he were talking to himself rather than to her. “When Lucifer stands before you, your heart will guide you on your path. You must fulfill the covenant.”

  “How am I supposed to find him?” Erin asked. “And what covenant are you talking about? The prophecy in the Blood Gospel?”

  “You know all that you can know,” he said, his voice drifting farther away. “The way will be revealed, and you will follow it.”

  Erin wanted to shake better answers from him, even took a step back in his direction. Questions chased through her head, but she voiced the most important one aloud.

  “Will we succeed?” she asked.

  Lazarus closed his eyes and did not answer.

  March 17, 5:21 P.M. CET

  Rome, Italy

  I must break free . . .

  Leopold’s consciousness drowned in a sea of dark smoke. As a Sanguinist, he’d grown used to pain—the ever-present burning of his silver cross against his chest, the searing of sacramental wine down his throat—but those pains were trivial compared to his current agony.

  Bound within a dark well of smoke, he was lost, senseless to the world around him. Even the awareness of his own limbs had been stripped from him by this black pall.

  Who knew the lack of pain, of any sensation, could be the worst torture of all?

  But even more monstrous were those moments when the darkness would recede, and he would find himself looking out his own eyes again. Too often, they revealed horror and bloodshed, but even those brief respites from eternal darkness were welcome. In those moments, he tried to draw as much life back into himself as he could before he was drowned again by the demon that possessed his body. But as much as he struggled to hold on, it never lasted. In the end, such hopes proved crueler than any torment.

  Better to simply let go, to allow the flame of myself to be extinguished into this nothingness, to add my smoke to the multitude that have come before me.

  And he knew there were others before him. Occasionally wisps of smoke would brush through him, carrying with them snatches of another’s life: a flash of a lover’s face, the sting of a lash, the laughter of a child running through clover.

  Is that all my life will become? Scraps in the wind?

  As he pictured that wind, the darkness shredded around him, as if torn apart by a gale. He found a naked woman pressed under him on a bed. A streak of scarlet ran down her neck and between her breasts, coating a golden locket that hung there. Her eyes, as green as oak leaves, met his. They were wide with fear and pain, and they begged him to let her go.

  Gasping, he forced his gaze away, to the sumptuous room. Heavy silver curtains had been drawn across the windows to keep out the sunlight, but he sensed that they would soon be opened. With the eternal clock of a Sanguinist, he knew sunset was less than an hour away.

  Other bodies lay broken on the cold marble floor to either side of the bed, naked and unmoving.

  He counted nine.

  The demon inside me must be hungry.

  But it wasn’t just the demon.

  A half dozen strigoi shared the chamber, some slumbering and slated, others still feasting on the dead. The intoxicating scent of blood lingered in the air, enticing Leopold to partake in this slaughter. But he also sensed his belly was full.

  Perhaps that is why I have broken free, even for this brief moment.

  He intended to take advantage of it.

  He pushed higher off the woman, though one hand still clutched her arm. She shrank away, her heart fluttering like a wounded bird. The demon had fed too deeply upon her. He could not save her, but perhaps he could release her to die in peace. Summoning all his concentration, he forced one finger, then another to let go, willing his hand to obey.

  Sweat sprang up on his brow from the effort, but he succeeded, freeing her arm. Unable to speak, he nodded to tell her that she should go.

  Trembling, she looked down at her arm, then back at him.

  Candlelight flickered against green eyes, and reminded him of another flash of emerald. The green diamond. Impotent hate flashed through him. Just to think of that stone numbed his body, making it even more difficult to move.

  By my own hand, I doomed myself—and so many others.

  He had been ordered to break that foul gemstone by a master who he had believed could return Christ to this world. But upon shattering that stone, he had unleashed a demon instead. He remembered that icy blackness flowing out of the heart of the shattered diamond, invading his body, bringing with it other voices, snatches of other lives. He was quickly lost, deafened by that cacophony—but one name rose above the others.

  Legion.

  That was the name of the darkness that had suffocated him, of the demon that had consumed him.

  Since then, he had drifted in and out of awareness.

  But for how long?

  He could not tell. All he knew for sure was that the demon seemed to be gathering others to its side, building an army of strigoi.

  With a great effort, Leopold lifted his hand before his own face as the woman dragged herself away, tangling in the bedsheets. He ignored her as shock rang through him. His normally pale white hand was as black as ink. He turned his head, discovering a mirror on the wall.

  In its reflection, he was naked, a sculpture in ebony.

  Leopold screamed, but no sound came from his lips.

  The woman fell from the bed, stirring up one of the slumbering strigoi. The monster hissed, spitting blood. As it reared up, Leopold spotted a black palm print in the middle of its bare chest, like a brand or tattoo, only that blackness reeked of corruption and malevolence, far worse than even the stench of the strigoi who bore it.

  Worst of all . . . that oily darkness was a match to the hue of his new skin.

  But that was not all.

  Leopold reached his arm out, splaying his fingers, realizing a new horror.

  That mark on the beast is the same shape and size as my hand.

  The demon must have marked this monster as his own, perhaps enslaving it as surely as it had Leopold.

  The strigoi grabbed the woman, twisted her around, and ripped out her throat.

  Before Leopold could react, darkness again welled
up, dragging him back into that smoky sea, taking with it the sight of the ravaged woman. For once, he didn’t resist, happy to let the horrors of that room vanish. But as he drowned into nothingness, he let go of any hope of escape.

  A new desire filled him.

  I must find a way to atone for my sins . . .

  But along with that goal came a nagging question, one that might prove important: Why was I allowed to break free for so long just now? What drew away that demon’s attention?

  5:25 P.M.

  Cumae, Italy

  Damn, this bastard’s fast . . .

  Jordan brought up his machine pistol and fired three bursts toward the attacker who had climbed out of the tunnel. His rounds spattered against the rock wall of the cavern temple, finding no target.

  Missed again . . .

  From its fangs, it was plainly a strigoi, but he had never seen one move like that. The creature was there, and a split second later the monster was across the room, as if it had teleported the distance.

  Baako and Sophia had Jordan’s back, literally. The three of them stood in a circle, shoulder to shoulder. Baako carried a long African sword, while Sophia wielded a pair of curved knives.

  The strigoi hissed from behind the room’s altar. A long laceration bled across his chest. It was a wound Baako had inflicted as the beast first charged at them, saving Jordan’s life in the process.

  Unfortunately, it was the only successful strike his team had inflicted.

  “It’s trying to wear us down before the kill,” Sophia said.

  “Then time for a new strategy.” Jordan pointed his gun, but as his finger pulled on the trigger, he shifted his aim to the side and fired into emptiness, anticipating that the strigoi would move again.

  It did—right into his line of fire.

  A scream pierced the roar of his weapon. The strigoi flew backward, blood spraying the walls.

  Lucky shot, but I’m taking that point on the scoreboard.

  The strigoi spun away, vanishing again into a blur. Jordan searched, swinging his weapon, but then, from out of nowhere, cold hands snatched Jordan off his feet and hurled him toward the wall. Still in midair, he drew the dagger from his ankle sheath, preparing to fight.

  Unfortunately, the beast had armed itself, too—not only grabbing Jordan, but also Baako’s sword. As they hit the wall together, his attacker shoved the stolen blade through Jordan’s stomach.

  He gasped, falling to his knees.

  Baako and Sophia came instantly to his aid. With an arcing blow, Sophia severed the strigoi’s sword arm. She drove her second blade into its stomach and ripped the monster from groin to neck.

  Cold black blood spurted across Jordan’s face.

  He stared down at the blade still impaled through him.

  Little late, guys.

  5:28 P.M.

  Rome, Italy

  Pain shredded the darkness around Leopold, casting him back into the world, back in to that blood-soaked room. He clutched his belly, expecting to feel rent flesh and spilling guts. Instead, his fingers discovered smooth skin and a round intact belly, still full of blood from the demon’s last feeding.

  Leopold rubbed his naked abdomen, still feeling a ghost of that pain.

  He saw the same blood-soaked abattoir as before—but he also saw into another chamber overlapping this one: a dark cavern with an altar in the middle.

  I know that place.

  It was the sibyl’s temple, hidden at the heart of a volcanic mountain in Cumae, the same place where Leopold had loosed the demon Legion into this world.

  But how am I seeing this vision?

  It was as if he were viewing the scene through another’s eyes. As he watched, clawed hands rose up and clutched a belly pouring forth with oily black blood, while loops of viscera tumbled forth.

  But it wasn’t just sight he shared with this other—he also felt that pain.

  Then that distant form collapsed on its side. It had to be a strigoi, likely a member of Legion’s army, perhaps one that the demon had enslaved. Leopold pictured the black brand on the chest of the strigoi here.

  Did that mark serve as some sort of psychic link? Would it end as this beast died?

  Black smoke billowed around him, preparing to drag him away. Yet, he still saw into that cavern temple, the link still intact as the strigoi faded. Even while dying, the beast searched the cavern, as if looking for some way to save itself.

  Instead, its gaze fell upon the altar, focusing upon two pieces of an emerald stone.

  The green diamond.

  Is that what you were sent to fetch?

  Somewhere deep inside Leopold’s possessed soul, he sensed that longing from Legion. Leopold vaguely remembered tunneling out of that temple, his limbs impossibly strengthened by the demon that possessed him, but the monster had also been frantic to escape that mountain, to be free of that prison of volcanic rock. After centuries of being locked away inside that gemstone, it plainly could not stand to be trapped a moment longer, and in its haste, it forgot to take the stone with it.

  But why does it need that stone?

  The diamond shone brightly atop the altar, as if to mock Legion’s failure. But the strigoi’s eyes had begun to glaze, fogging the view. There was little life left. That gaze shifted to movement nearby, a scuffling of legs. Those limbs parted enough to reveal a man kneeling on the rock, a blade through his belly.

  Through that link, Leopold looked into the man’s blue eyes.

  Recognition rang through him.

  Jordan . . .

  With that thought, Legion stirred to life again, rising from the ashes of the strigoi who was dying in that cavern. Darkness swelled up inside Leopold. Within that tide, he felt the demon’s attention swing toward him. He could feel it picking through his memories. He tried his best to bottle up his knowledge.

  About Jordan, about the others.

  But he failed.

  As he fell into nothingness, he felt his own lips move, heard his own voice, but it was not Leopold, but Legion, who spoke Jordan’s other name, his truer name.

  “The Warrior of Man . . .”

  Dear Lord, what have I done?

  Leopold fled away, down the only path still open to him for a few breaths more, down that fading link.

  5:31 P.M.

  Cumae, Italy

  Sprawled in a pool of his own blood, Jordan stared up at the cavern roof. Baako kept his large hands pressed onto Jordan’s wound, while Sophia tossed aside the long blade. Jordan had barely felt the impaled sword being yanked free. A strange numbness kept his belly cold, making the bloody pool under him feel hot.

  Baako knelt over him, offering a reassuring smile. “We’ll get you stabilized and back to Rome in no time.”

  “You’re . . . a bad liar,” Jordan grunted.

  He would never survive being dragged up that tunnel with his stomach sliced open. He doubted if he’d even make it across the room.

  Knowing this, a vision of Erin’s face shimmered in his head, her brown eyes laughing, a smile on her lips. Other memories overlapped: a lock of wet blond hair falling across her cheek, her bathrobe falling open, revealing her warm body.

  I don’t want to die in a hole, away from you.

  For that matter, he didn’t want to die at all.

  He wished Erin were here right now, holding his hand, telling him it would be all right, even if it wouldn’t. He wanted to see her one more time, tell her that he loved her, and make her feel it. He knew she was afraid of love, believing it would melt away like snow, that it couldn’t last.

  And now I’m proving it to her.

  He clutched Baako’s iron-strong arm. “Tell Erin . . . I’ll always love her.”

  Baako kept pressure on his wound. “You can tell her yourself.”

  “And my family . . .”

  They would need to know, too. His mother would be devastated, his sisters and brothers would mourn him, and his nieces and nephews would barely remember him in a few years.
/>   Should’ve called my mother more often.

  Because whatever malaise of emotions that had afflicted him of late extended beyond Erin to his family, too. He’d cut himself off from them all.

  He clenched his teeth, not wanting to die, if only to make amends to everyone. But the spreading pool of warm blood told him that his wounded body didn’t care about his future plans of babies and kids and sitting in rocking chairs on a porch, watching the corn grow.

  He turned his head, as Sophia checked on his attacker.

  At least, I don’t look as bad as that guy.

  The strigoi didn’t have long to live, either. Strangely, the creature’s eyes stared directly at him. Those cold bloodless lips moved, as if speaking.

  Sophia leaned closer, one eyebrow arching high. “What was that?”

  The strigoi drew in a deeper, shuddering breath and, in an accent that Jordan knew well, it spoke. “Jordan, mein Freund . . . I’m sorry.”

  Sophia pulled her hand back from the creature’s body. Jordan was equally shocked.

  Leopold.

  But how?

  The strigoi shuddered and went still.

  Sophia sat back and shook her head. The beast was dead, taking with it any further explanation.

  Jordan struggled to understand, but the world faded as he bled away the last of his life. He felt himself falling away, the room receding, but instead of into darkness, it was into brilliance that he plummeted. He wanted to raise his hand against it, especially as it grew brighter, burning into him. He screwed his eyelids closed, but it didn’t help.

  He had felt such a burning light only once before, when he’d been struck by lightning as a teenager. He had survived the bolt, but it had left its mark, burning in a fractal pattern of scar tissue across his shoulder and upper chest. Those strange vinelike designs were called Lichtenberg figures, or sometimes, lightning flowers.

  Now ribbons of liquid fire radiated along those scars, filling them completely—then stretching even farther. Tendrils of heat grew outward, rooting into his stomach, where a searing agony exploded. The fire writhed in his gut like a living thing.

  Is this what death truly felt like?

  But he didn’t feel himself weakening. Instead, he felt inexplicably stronger.