Blood Infernal

by James Rollins

  Perhaps believing he was granting her dying wish, Rhun released her neck, taking her hand and showing her where best to apply pressure. Only then did he pull the gospel out of her backpack and free it from its case. He laid the book open in front of her in the snow, then quickly reapplied pressure to her neck, whispering a prayer over her.

  Erin turned her head until the edge of the cover touched her cheek. Most of the pages were empty, still waiting to be filled with the words that Christ had written long ago. Bernard had once told her that the Blood Gospel might contain the key to unleashing the divinity within each person, knowledge locked in those blank pages. If so, because of her, the world would never know it.

  Rhun had opened the book to the page that held the last lines of prophecies, perhaps hoping she would find extra meaning there. But those words glowed golden and bright, as if mocking her for her failure.

  With one trembling fingertip, she turned that page of prophecy and laid her bloody hand on the next blank page. She felt that paper grow warmer under her palm, its surface strangely smoother.

  Rhun gasped as golden words appeared under her fingers, inscribing across the paper as if being freshly written, line by line, flowing down the page.

  Rhun turned that page for her, then another.

  More words, more lines.

  Rhun flipped through rapidly. “The entire book is full,” he said with awe.

  Erin studied the page that was still open, realizing she could not read the words. The letters looked Enochian—the language developed by John Dee to talk to the angels.

  Erin closed her eyes, struggling to understand why Christ chose to write the rest of the gospel in Enochian, when the previous prophecies had been written in Greek, the language of man. Why write the rest in the language of angels? Only one answer made sense. Perhaps these new words—perhaps the entire gospel—were not meant for mankind, but for the angels.

  No, not angels, she realized opening her eyes. Angel . . . one angel.

  No wonder the pages only appeared now, in this valley.

  She turned her face toward the only angel present.

  Lucifer sat upon his dark throne, staring straight at her.

  Erin clutched Rhun’s knee with her fingers. He leaned closer.

  “I . . . I know,” she croaked softly. “I know what I must do.”

  March 20, 12:09 P.M. NPT

  Tsum Valley, Nepal

  Jordan reseated the emerald stone in its proper place. As the gem touched the granite chalice, the column of fire on this side of the pyramid flared brighter. The ice reformed over the lake, sealing the portal between worlds. Several creatures were caught halfway between this plane and the other, their bodies frozen and contorted in the ice.

  But his efforts did nothing for the hundreds that had already escaped.

  Christian and Sophia were still under siege by a mass of them, unable to make headway across the lake to reach Lucifer. Elizabeth held her position by the blue stone, bloodied but still defending her post. Across the lake, Rhun knelt beside Erin, who still lived, although the lake of red blood that surrounded her told him that she did not have much longer. Jordan ached to rush to her side, to take her in his arms one last time.

  But even if he could have broken free of his emerald prison, another adversary seemed determined to stop him.

  As Jordan turned his back to the granite pillar, Legion stalked down from the cliffs toward him. He was surrounded by a shadow of abominations, a cloak of living flesh. Jordan used his last rounds to fire at the demon, but each time he shot, one of those shadows leaped up and threw itself in the way, blocking his slug with its twisted body.

  Out of ammunition, Jordan held his KA-BAR dagger in one hand. He dropped his pistol and bent down to collect the monk’s abandoned sword, glad it had fallen inside the green sphere of light.

  “Come on!” Jordan shouted over the tide of the demon’s screaming beasts. “Come and get me.”

  Black eyes locked on to Jordan’s. “Do not be in such a hurry to die, Warrior of Man, I will be there soon enough.”

  Good . . . I’m ready for you this time.

  Jordan burned with a golden rage, one ignited by both his angelic blood and his lust for revenge. As Legion approached, Jordan lifted the stolen sword—a long curved blade with a green piece of jade set in its pommel. Jordan set his legs in a wide stance and prepared to meet the demon.

  Legion also carried a sword, something with a poisonous-looking black blade, shining like a long sliver of obsidian. It was not of this world, probably carried here and gifted to the demon by one of his horde.

  Jordan motioned with the tip of his own weapon. “Just the two of us,” he urged. “Unless you fear one man?”

  “While you are more than a mere mortal,” Legion answered, “I will not be caught off guard again. So yes, let us end this.”

  Sword held high, Legion shed his monsters and entered the emerald sphere. Without preamble, Legion thrust his sword at Jordan, forcing a quick parry that numbed Jordan to the elbow. Legion struck again and again, slowly forcing Jordan toward the edge of the sphere.

  If that blade doesn’t kill me, the green fire will.

  A quick flurry of blows followed. Steel rang against black crystal. Legion darted back and forth through the barrier, using the fiery veil as his own personal shield, knowing Jordan could not follow.

  A quick thrust finally penetrated Jordan’s guard and sliced across his side. Hot red blood drenched his shirt. Another series of attacks ended with Legion’s blade cutting deep into his upper arm. Legion retreated through the barrier, smiling back at him.

  Jordan realized a hard truth.

  Legion is toying with me.

  Jordan lurched away, dropping his dagger and hugging an arm around his wounded side, while still keeping his sword up.

  Legion stalked forward, clearly ready to finish him.

  As soon as the demon pierced the barrier’s edge, Jordan lunged forward, hoping that the flames of the veil might have blinded the demon for a fraction of a second. As Legion’s leg stepped through, Jordan kicked out and smashed his steel crampons into the demon’s knee. The limb gave way with a crack. As Legion pitched to the side, Jordan grabbed the demon’s sword arm, rolled Legion under him, and rode the black body to the ground.Once they struck, Jordan used the momentum to jam his sword into the soft belly, thrusting up toward that quiet heart. Legion screamed and threw him off with the force of a bull’s kick. Jordan went flying, rolling across the snow. All that saved him from striking the fiery barrier was the granite pillar. He hit it broadside, hard enough to break ribs.

  Legion was already on his feet. The demon dropped his own sword into the snow and unsheathed the monk’s blade from his black belly and came at Jordan, the weapon raised high. Jordan lunged away, going for the dagger he had abandoned. Only too late did he realize his mistake.

  Legion stepped past him and brought the sword down, slamming the jade-encrusted pommel onto the green diamond. The gem shattered beneath it, as did the granite chalice underneath. The column of green fire extinguished, blown out like a snuffed candle.

  Again the lake exploded along this bank. The entire surface buckled upward as if punched from below. Larger beasts rose to the surface, things still barely seen: the roll of an immense black eye, a flurry of black tentacles. Jordan sensed these creatures were older and darker than the minor demons loosed so far.

  Beyond that monstrous upwelling, Lucifer looked down from his throne, his face unreadable. The cone of white light still held the dark angel trapped, but for how long? That purity of whiteness now ran with streaks of shadows, reflecting the damage done to his prison.

  As if knowing this, Lucifer shifted higher in his throne, breaking more links in the chains that bound him.

  The ground quaked and trembled with his efforts.

  Legion faced Jordan, the demon’s smile triumphant. “The time of man is finally at an end.”

  12:10 P.M.

  Erin huddled under
Rhun as the quakes subsided. She had watched the emerald column go dark, saw the ice on the far side shatter open exposing a roil of monstrous beasts. New cracks skittered across the lake.

  Christian and Sophia dragged the chest to a patch of solid ice, hounded by more creatures, the beasts plainly growing bolder at the change of circumstance.

  Erin searched for Jordan, but a heavy black steam rose from the lake by that shore, obscuring her view.

  Rhun still clutched her throat with his one hand as he leaned back. “Erin, what do you mean you know what to do?” he asked.

  She understood the subtext to his question: What do you believe you can do this close to death?

  She answered him silently, What I can.

  She clutched the Blood Gospel to her chest with one arm, picturing the lines of Enochian script filling its pages. She knew the truth with absolute certainty, but still the words refused to come out. She was too stunned at what she had come to understand: the true purpose behind this lost Gospel of Christ.

  The book was not written to help humans unleash their divinity. It had been written for a single being, one angel, to redeem himself: Lucifer. She remembered the tablet Lazarus had revealed to her in the Sanguinist library, telling an alternate version of the story of the Garden of Eden, how Eve had promised to share the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge with the serpent, but in the end, she had broken that promise.

  Lazarus’s words returned to her now, as the world grew darker around her.

  When Lucifer stands before you, your heart will guide you on your path. You must fulfill the covenant.

  She hadn’t understood those words back then, but she did now.

  The serpent—Lucifer—had been denied secret knowledge, knowledge that might have led the dark angel to make different choices: the knowledge of good and evil. He had asked for that understanding, been promised it by Eve herself, but she had not given it to him, and so he had never learned it.

  But Christ had sent it here for him.

  “I must fulfill the covenant of Eve,” she muttered with dry, cold lips.

  Beyond the edge of the sphere, the lion stared back at her, stirring as if he had heard her, mewling softly. The cub reminded her of her first cat, a giant barn tom named Nebuchadnezzar. He’d been snowy white, too.

  “Hey there, Neb,” she whispered, momentarily lost in time.

  Rhun bent closer, drawing back her attention. The sorrow in his eyes made her want to reach up and touch him, to comfort him. “What covenant do you speak of?” he pressed her.

  She forced her eyes to focus. “The book . . . the gospel . . . must go to Lucifer.”

  Rhun’s eyes widened with disbelief, even outrage. “How can Christ’s gospel go to an angel cast out of Heaven by God himself?”

  She didn’t have the strength to argue, but she exhaled faint words with each fading breath, knowing his sharp Sanguinist ears would hear them. “Christ wrote it to redeem Lucifer. If Eve had given him the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, he would have known good. He could have chosen good. The covenant of Eve must be fulfilled. Rhun, you must give him this knowledge.”

  Rhun looked up at the blackened sky. “I cannot leave you to die alone.”

  “You must . . . this is what we were chosen for.”

  Rhun lifted the gospel from her as she let it go, glad to be free of this burden. Her empty fingers returned to clutching her throat, as useless as that gesture was by now. She concentrated on Rhun. His face told her how much he wanted to stay with her, and what it cost him to leave her. His eyes flicked to the book hanging open in his one hand, then his face looked scared.

  What’s wrong?

  He answered her silent question. “The writing is gone.” He tipped the book, fluttering through the pages, all blank. “Remember, the gospel is bound only to you, Erin. The words are not revealed to any other.”

  She was so cold now. She didn’t know what to do, what to say.

  “Perhaps I can carry you and the book to Lucifer,” Rhun suggested. “We can give it to him together.”

  No . . .

  He quickly understood, too, sagging over her. “That won’t work. While you live, the light will burn you to ash. Only Sanguinists or strigoi may pass through such barriers unharmed.”

  Erin’s vision faded. She used her last breath to whisper the ultimate truth.

  “You have to turn me . . . it’s the only way.”

  I must become a strigoi.

  12:12 P.M.

  Jordan had lost sight of Erin as a heavy black mist rolled across the shattered lake, rising with distant screams and howls, its darkness broken by flares of blacker flames. Giant forms stirred that fog, things he knew whose very sight would strip him of his sanity, what little there remained.

  Still, even with the emerald sphere collapsed around him, he remained on his knees. The gate was forever damaged with the gem’s destruction, never to be closed again.

  Jordan saw no reason to keep fighting, especially knowing Erin was likely dead.

  If not now, soon.

  Without Erin, Jordan wasn’t sure if he wanted to live or die.

  But he did know one thing with absolute certainty.

  He wanted revenge.

  Jordan stared up as Legion fell upon him. The demon lifted the monk’s sword high, his face shining with triumph. That blade still steamed with the demon’s own blood.

  It was what had given Jordan this idea.

  Retreating from that assault, Jordan sprawled backward to the ground, as if prostrating himself before Legion, accepting death. Instead, Jordan threw himself atop the blade he had propped up a moment ago behind him. The blade pierced his back and thrust out of his belly. That black obsidian sword burned through him like a spike of ice. It was Legion’s own sword, abandoned in the snow earlier, the blade now slick with Jordan’s fiery blood.

  As the demon came at him, hobbled by the broken knee, Jordan kicked out again. His crampon struck Legion’s good ankle—not enough to break it, but enough to trip the demon, to send him crashing atop Jordan.

  Jordan opened his arms in a giant bear hug. Legion crashed into him, impaling his body on the bloody sword, coated with Jordan’s angelic blood. The demon screamed and writhed on that pike, but Jordan wrapped his arms around Legion and rolled to the side, pouring the pool of fiery blood from his belly wound into Legion’s cold black body. Jordan willed all of his angelic essence to follow, to burn this demon from Leopold’s body.

  “Go back to Hell, you bastard.”

  Legion thrashed and howled, casting out gouts of dark smoke, as if the demon blazed atop the coals of Jordan’s body. Slowly, the black drained from Legion’s face, from his body. Leopold’s watery blue eyes looked at Jordan.

  “Mein Freund . . .” Leopold said, lowering his forehead to Jordan’s cheek. “You have freed me.”

  Jordan held him, not to keep the man from escaping, but to let Leopold know he wasn’t alone, that he was forgiven in the end, even loved. Jordan held him, until the body of his friend fell limp in his arms, finding true peace at last.

  12:13 P.M.

  Rhun watched as Erin’s hands fell slackly from her neck, too weak now to hold them to the ruins of her throat. Rhun lifted his hand to apply that pressure for her, but he knew from each feeble beat of her fading heart that such an effort was useless. Instead, he scooped her into his lap, cradling her body against his, and clutched her blood-slicked fingers. Her head lolled back, her face bathed in the crimson fire of the stone.

  How could he turn her, a woman he had grown to love, still loved?

  Strigoi were soulless abominations, and it was a sin to create them. He had slipped from that path long ago when he had taken Elizabeth, and only evil had come of that. She had turned from a healer of man into a killer of men, slaughtering hundreds of innocents.

  Rhun glanced in Elizabeth’s direction—but by now, those dreadful mists had spread, consuming her position. Still, the azure column of fire continued to blaze into the dark s
ky. He hoped that meant she still lived. He knew that there was still good in her, even if she could not fully see it yet. He prayed she lived long enough to discover it.

  His eyes stared out into the deeper darkness, toward where that fiery emerald column had gone dark. Did Jordan yet live? Either way, with the gateway damaged, what hope did any of them have?

  The lion yowled at him from outside the fiery bubble, as if scolding him. Those golden eyes stared deeply into his, reminding him that there was hope, that it lay limply in his arms.

  “But it is forbidden,” he told the young creature. “Look at these soulless demons. Would you have her join their ranks?”

  The answer rose like a sigh from Erin’s lips, likely her last.

  “Please.”

  March 20, 12:14 P.M. NPT

  Tsum Valley, Nepal

  Erin hovered at the edge of oblivion. Though her eyes were open, she saw only shadows now. Still, she could make out a silhouette of Rhun’s face against a fiery backdrop. Past his shoulders, the blaze of the fading eclipse pierced those shadows, but even that fire was slowly being wiped away by a rising tide of black mists from the lake, a darkness that if unchecked would grow to consume this world.

  She had no arguments left to convince Rhun, no breath to speak them, but her mind ran with them anyway.

  She knew this battle had played out a hundred times before. Even if the others succeeded in rebinding Lucifer’s chains, this would not end.

  What was forged could be shattered again.

  She knew there was only one path to truly end this.

  Lucifer must be redeemed.

  Erin stared up at Rhun, trying to get him to search her face for that truth, to accept what must be done.

  Don’t let my death mean nothing. Free me, so I may do what I must.

  Instead, Rhun pressed his cold lips gently on her forehead. She wished it was Jordan who kissed her now, who held her now. But Jordan couldn’t do what had to be done. Only Rhun could.

  Please . . .

  As Rhun straightened, stroking the hair back from her brow, she used the last of her strength to let her plea shine in her dimming eyes.