Blood Infernal

by James Rollins

“Rhun . . .” She turned to him for some explanation.

  He lowered to a knee, touched his silver pectoral cross, then gently examined both the lion and Tommy’s skin.

  “I feel better,” Tommy said, his eyes large, as if surprised to be speaking those words.

  Elizabeth smiled. She tried to stop it, but hope crept into her long-cold heart. “Is he cured?”

  Rhun stood. “I do not know. But it appears the cub’s angelic essence is gone. Jordan returned from Nepal with no evidence of that spirit in his blood. Perhaps this trace that persisted in the cat needed to perform this one last miracle.”

  Elizabeth remembered the strange warmth rising with the cat’s purring. Was that what had happened? Ultimately, she cared little for the mechanism of the cure, only that it was so.

  “We’ll have the doctors look at him,” Rhun promised. “But I think he’s just an ordinary boy, one cured of his disease, but still a boy.”

  Tommy’s smile broadened.

  Elizabeth reached over and tousled his warm, thick hair. That was what he had always wanted—to be an ordinary boy.

  After a few pleasantries and promises, Elizabeth followed Rhun out into the hall, trailed by the cub.

  “I am glad that you did not turn him,” Rhun said, once they were out of earshot.

  “You thought that I would?” Elizabeth widened her eyes in a show of innocence that she knew he did not believe.

  “I feared that you might,” he answered.

  “I am stronger than you think,” she said.

  “What will become of the boy?”

  “He must be returned to his aunt and uncle, and I will see that done,” Elizabeth said. “One such as I will not be fit to mother him.”

  “Can you simply give him up, then?”

  “It will not be simple.” She lifted her chin. “And I shall not give him up entirely. I shall watch over him, come when he needs me, and leave him alone when he does not.”

  “I doubt the order will allow you to have further contact with him.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “I am not their chattel. I will come and go as I like.”

  “You would leave the order, then?” He swallowed. “And me?”

  “I cannot stay bound to the Church. You must know this better than any other. So long as you remain here, we can never be together.”

  “Then we should say our good-byes soon,” Rhun said, touching her on the arm, drawing her to a stop. She turned to him. “I’ve been given permission to enter Solitude, to begin a period of seclusion and reflection within the order’s Sanctuary.”

  She wanted to scoff at him, deride him for turning his back upon the world, but upon hearing the true joy in his voice, she could only look sadly upon him.

  “Go then, Rhun, find your peace.”

  5:06 P.M.

  Rhun descended through the halls of the Sanctuary with a quiet sense of joy, ready at last to forsake his earthly cares. He walked alone, his footsteps echoing through the vast chambers and passageways. With his sharp ears, he could hear whispers of distant prayers, marking the beginning of vespers.

  He continued deeper, to levels where even such whispers would fade.

  The bright world above had nothing more to offer him. Before Cardinal Bernard had sent him to Masada to search for the Blood Gospel, Rhun had been ready to live a cloistered life in the Sanctuary. He was even wearier now.

  It is time.

  From this moment on, the soaring ceilings of the Sanctuary would be his sky. Lost in meditation, Sanguinist priests would bring him wine, as he had once brought wine to others. He could rest here, in the bosom of the Church that had saved him so many years before. His role as the Knight of Christ was finished, and he did not need to serve the Church again. He was free of those responsibilities now.

  Rhun bowed his head as he passed into the domain of the Cloistered Ones. Here his brothers and sisters rested in peace, standing in niches or lying on cold stone, forgoing matters of the flesh for eternal contemplation and reflection. He had been assigned a cell down here, where for an entire year he would not speak, where his prayers would be his own.

  But first he stopped and lit a candle before a frieze of a patron saint, one of hundreds of such small moments of worship to be found throughout the Sanctuary. He knelt as the glow of the taper flickered over the features of a robed figure standing under a tree, with birds perched both on the branches and on the saint’s shoulder—St. Francis of Assisi. He bowed his head, remembering Hugh de Payens and the sacrifice he committed to save them and so many others.

  Rhun had said his good-byes to Jordan and Erin at the airport this morning, before their flight back to the States, heading to happy lives. They still lived because such heroes had died. Though the hermit had turned his back on the order, Rhun intended that he be honored, if only in this small way.

  Thank you, my friend.

  He closed his eyes and moved his lips in prayers. After a time, long past the end of vespers, a hand touched his shoulder, as light as the wing of a butterfly.

  Rhun turned to a tall, robed figure standing behind him.

  Surprised by the visitation, Rhun bowed his head even farther. “You honor me,” he whispered before the Risen One, the first of their order.

  “Stand,” Lazarus said, his voice hoarse with age.

  Rhun obeyed, but he kept his gaze lowered.

  “Why are you here, my son?” Lazarus asked.

  Rhun gestured to the silent figures nearby, covered in dust, unmoving as statues. “I have come to share the peace of the Sanctuary.”

  “You have given everything to the order,” said Lazarus. “Your life, your soul, and your service. Would you now give the sum of your days?”

  “I would. I gave these things willingly to a higher cause. I exist only to serve Him with a simple, honest heart.”

  “Yet you came into this life through a lie. You were not meant to serve so. You might have walked a different path, and you might still.”

  Rhun lifted his head, hearing not accusation, but only sorrow in the other’s voice. He did not understand. Lazarus turned from him and walked away, drawing Rhun after him.

  Lazarus shuffled past the motionless forms of nuns and priests who had come here to seek respite.

  “Have I not paid enough for my sins?” Rhun asked, fearing he would be denied such peace.

  “You have not sinned,” Lazarus answered. “You have been sinned against.”

  Rhun continued after the somber figure, his mind whirling, numbering the sins he had committed in his long life and those that had been committed against him. Yet, he found no enlightenment.

  Lazarus led him deeper, to darker halls, where forms were clad in ancient robes, with heads downcast or raised to the ceiling. Rhun had heard of this region, where those who came sought not just eternal reflection but also absolution, reflecting upon the meaning of sin—both their own and those of others.

  Rhun looked around, staring at these faces shadowed by mortification.

  Why was I brought here?

  At last, Lazarus stopped in front of a priest who stood with his face downcast. He wore the simple brown robes that Rhun had donned long ago in his mortal life. Even though he could not see that face, Rhun sensed a familiarity.

  It must be one of my brothers from long ago, also retired to a life of contemplation.

  Lazarus leaned at the man’s cheek, his breath disturbing the dust atop the figure’s ear.

  Finally, the man raised his head—revealing a visage that had haunted Rhun’s nightmares for over four hundred years. Rhun staggered back, as if struck a hard blow.

  It cannot be . . .

  Rhun studied the long dark hair, the high pale brow, those full lips. He remembered those lips upon his throat, those teeth in his flesh. He could still taste the man’s blood on his tongue. Even now, his body remembered that bliss. Even now, they were still connected.

  Here was the strigoi who had attacked him by his sister’s gravesite, who ripped his soul
from his body, ending his life as a mortal. Rhun had thought the beast had been killed. He remembered seeing the creature being dragged away by Sanguinist guards loyal to Bernard.

  But now that monster wore the robes of the order.

  The man opened his eyes and looked on Rhun with great tenderness. He touched the side of Rhun’s neck, where his teeth had pierced Rhun’s flesh. His fingers lingered there. “I thought I served when I committed this sin upon you.”

  “Served? Served whom?”

  That arm dropped away, and those eyes drifted closed again, awareness fading. “Forgive me, my son,” the man said, his voice whispering away. “I knew not what I did.”

  Rhun waited for more, some words that would make sense of this impossibility.

  “He is the symbol for a lie,” Lazarus explained. “The lie that turned you from your pious path of service to a long road of servitude within our order.”

  “I don’t understand,” Rhun said. “What is this lie?”

  “You must ask Bernard,” Lazarus said, taking Rhun’s elbow and leading him back toward the entrance to the Sanctuary. At the gate, Lazarus ushered him out.

  Rhun faltered at the threshold, fearful of leaving the shelter of the Sanctuary, suddenly not wanting to know these last secrets.

  But Lazarus blocked the way back, leaving him no choice. “Understand your past, my son, to know your future. Learn who you truly are. Then make your choice of where to spend your days.”

  Rhun left. He could not say how his feet found their way up the tunnels to St. Peter’s Basilica, but as he climbed, a picture formed of that night when he was turned, how he had been found by Sanguinists before he could sin, how he was brought before Bernard, and how the cardinal convinced him to forsake his evil nature and lead the life of the Sanguinists.

  All paths led back to Bernard.

  The words of the man below echoed over and over in Rhun’s head.

  I thought I served when I committed this sin upon you.

  Rhun knew the meaning behind those words.

  Bernard had known of Rhun’s nocturnal visits to his sister’s grave. He had known that Rhun would be out in the night, alone and vulnerable. It was Bernard who had sent one of the order—masquerading as a strigoi—to the graveyard to turn him, to recruit Rhun, to force prophecy into existence, to create the Chosen One, a Sanguinist who had never tasted human blood. Bernard knew from centuries-old prophecies that only a Chosen One of the order could find the lost Blood Gospel.

  So Bernard created one.

  As understanding grew in him, rage burned through Rhun like a cleansing fire. Bernard had stolen his soul, and Rhun had thanked him for it, a thousand times over.

  My whole existence has been a lie.

  As if in a dream, Rhun found himself stalking through the Apostolic Palace, toward Bernard’s offices, where the cardinal was still allowed to work while awaiting his trial for his blood sin against Elizabeth. Rhun did not knock when he reached that door. He barged inside like a storm.

  Bernard looked up from a desk strewn with papers, his face wide with surprise. The man wore his scarlet cassock, his red gloves, all the trappings of his office.

  “Rhun, what has happened?”

  Rhun could barely speak, his rage strangling him. “You gave the order that robbed me of my soul.”

  Bernard stood. “What are you saying?”

  “You commanded the monster who turned me into an abomination. You drove me into Elizabeth’s arms and took her soul. My life, my death, all of this, was engineered by you, to force the will of God. To bend prophecy to your will.”

  Rhun watched as Bernard sifted his words carefully, searching how to best answer these accusations.

  Finally, Bernard settled on the truth. “Then you know that I was right.”

  “Right?” the word burst from Rhun’s lips, ripe with bitterness and pain.

  “Now that all of the prophecies have come to pass, would you have had matters go otherwise? You know the price the world would have paid had we failed.”

  Rhun shook with fury. Bernard had stripped Rhun from his family, condemned him to an eternity of bloodlust, led him to believe that his only path was service to the Church, and turned the woman he loved from a healer into a killer.

  All to save the world on Bernard’s own terms. To fulfill a prophecy that might never have come to pass without his meddling. To keep all the Sanguinists in darkness about their choices beyond the Church, and beyond his control.

  To Bernard’s eyes, any sacrifice was worth that end. What was the suffering of one man when the world hung in the balance? One countess? A few hundred Sanguinists?

  Disgusted and betrayed, Rhun turned on his heel and left Bernard’s office.

  Bernard called after him. “Act not in haste, my son!”

  But it was not in haste. His betrayal had been centuries in the making.

  Rhun fled into the papal gardens, needing fresh air, the open sky above him. With the night fallen, the air was crisp and cold. Stars swept the skies. A large moon loomed high.

  Lazarus had sent him aboveground to learn the truth so that he could freely choose his fate, a choice that Bernard had denied him. Denied him and all other Sanguinists. The truth about Hugh and the Buddhist strigoi had already spread within the order, and others were facing the choice Rhun faced tonight—how and where to spend eternity.

  He ran far into the gardens—until a familiar scent reached him.

  The lion came bounding over the grounds, a piece of silvery moonlight running over the dark grass, chased by an irritated caretaker.

  “Get back here, Nebuchadnezzar!”

  The cub raced up to Rhun and hit him hard in the shins, then rubbed furiously at his legs. The lion was scheduled to be taken to Castel Gandolfo tomorrow, to be looked after by Friar Patrick, but it seemed someone had decided she owed the lion at least a final romp in the gardens after saving Tommy’s life.

  Elizabeth ran up to him, wearing black jeans, white sneakers, and a crimson sweater under a light jacket. Her hair was loose, curls blowing about her face as a gust wafted through the garden. She had never looked so beautiful.

  She swore in Hungarian. “Cursed beast won’t listen.”

  “Yet, you gave him a name,” Rhun said. “Nebuchadnezzar.”

  “The King of Babylon,” Elizabeth said, combing her hair back, challenging him to make fun of her. “It was Erin’s suggestion. I thought it fitting. And just so you know, I’m taking him with me when I leave.”

  “Are you?”

  “He shouldn’t be cooped up in some horse stable. He needs open fields, wide skies. He needs the world.”

  Rhun stared at her, loving her with all his heart. As he stepped forward and took her hand, her strong fingers intertwined with his. She tilted her face and looked harder at him, perhaps sensing how much he had changed since this morning.

  “Show me,” he whispered.

  She leaned closer, beginning to understand.

  “Show me the world.”

  He bent down and kissed her, deeply and fully with no uncertainty. It was not the chaste kiss of a priest.

  For he was a priest no longer.

  Late Spring

  Des Moines, Iowa

  Peace, at last . . .

  As the sun rested low on the horizon, Erin stepped into the redwood gazebo and breathed in the delicate scent of the cottage roses that climbed the surrounding trellises. She sat on a bench and leaned back.

  Nearby, children’s laughter drifted across the lawn. They were playing a complicated game of tag in their rented tuxedos and fancy dresses, and more than one of them sported grass stains and scraped knees. Adults stood behind them in their own formal dress, sipping champagne and making small talk.

  She liked them all, even loved some of them, but mingling among them was overwhelming. She only wanted to mingle with one person right now.

  As if he had read her thoughts, a familiar figure slipped through the gazebo’s entrance. He had followed
her, as she had hoped he would.

  “Room for one more?” Jordan asked.

  “Always,” she answered.

  His wheat-blond hair had grown out in the past months from its military buzz. The longer locks gave him a more relaxed, less militaristic air, especially in his current uniform of a charcoal-gray tuxedo. His eyes hadn’t changed—still bright blue with a darker ring around the iris. He leaned against the post at the threshold and smiled at her. Love and contentment shone from him.

  She answered with a smile of her own.

  “You are looking mighty fine, Mrs. Granger-Stone,” he said.

  “You, too, Mr. Granger-Stone,” she told him.

  Only an hour ago, she had taken on his name, and he hers, in front of his family and her friends, making vows under the blue sky.

  Till death do us part.

  After everything that had happened to them, those words held extra meaning. Jordan had proposed to her after they returned to Rome, and she had accepted instantly.

  Time was too precious to lose even another second.

  She touched the healing wound on her neck. She’d chosen a high-necked wedding dress to cover the pink scar, but it still peeked out the top. Her wound barely hurt now, but every day when she looked in the mirror she saw it, and remembered that she had died and come back to life, knowing how close she had come to losing her future with Jordan.

  Jordan gently took her hand away from her neck and held it between his palms. His skin felt warm and natural. Even his tattoo had shrunk back to its original size. He was every bit the handsome and kind man she had met in the desert of Masada, before the Sanguinists had taken over their lives.

  They had their own lives now.

  Together.

  Jordan took a deep breath and sat down next to her. “Big changes coming up. You and me working in the jungle—you digging up artifacts, me in glasses studying to be a forensic anthropologist. No battles, no monsters. Think you’ll be happy with that?”

  “More than happy. Ecstatic.”

  Through contacts at the Vatican, she had landed a plum job leading a dig in South America, where she would fight to reclaim history from the jungle, to tease out its secrets, and preserve it for future generations. It would be tough work, but one that had nothing to do with saints and angels. Her life was her own now—her own to share with her new husband.