So she continued walking toward the helicopter. The soldiers had dropped into formation around her as if she might bolt like the stallion.
Nate and Amy hurried along behind. Nate looked belligerent, Amy worried.
Erin turned and walked backward, calling out instructions. “Nate, you’re in charge until I return. You know what needs to be done.”
Nate talked over a soldier’s shoulder. “But, Professor—”
“Stabilize the skeleton. And have Amy study the left femur before you jacket it.”
Nate pointed toward the helicopter. “Are you sure it’s safe to go with them?”
She shook her head. “Contact the embassy the second I’m gone. Confirm that they recommended me. If they didn’t, call in the cavalry.”
The soldiers didn’t miss a step, impassive faces staring straight ahead. Either they didn’t speak English, or they weren’t worried about her threat. Which could be a good thing or a very bad one.
“Don’t go,” Nate said.
“I don’t think I have a choice,” she said. “And neither does Heinrich.”
She saw him swallow that truth, then nod.
Lieutenant Perlman beckoned from the open cabin door. “Here, Dr. Granger.”
The helicopter’s whirling blades began to roar louder as she ducked under them.
She climbed inside the chopper and strapped into the only empty seat. Heinrich lay on a stretcher on the other side of the craft with Julia in a seat next to him. Julia flashed her a shaky smile, and Erin gave her a thumbs- up. Did they even do that in Germany?
As the chopper lifted off, Erin turned to the soldier next to her and pulled back in surprise. He was no soldier. He was a priest. He wore black pants, overhung by an ankle-length hooded cassock, along with black leather gloves, dark sunglasses, and the familiar white collar of the Roman Catholic clergy.
She recoiled. The priest leaned away from her as well, one hand reaching to adjust his hood.
She’d had more than enough squabbles with Catholic priests over the years concerning her archaeological work. But at least his presence lent some credibility to her hope that it really was an archaeological site she was being called to, something religious, something Christian. The downside was that this priest would probably claim the artifacts before she could see them. If so, she would have been pulled from her site and blood spilled for nothing.
The woman seated beside him smelled of lavender, horse, and blood. Scents as out of place in this modern era as Father Rhun Korza himself.
She offered her hand. He had not intentionally touched a woman in a very long time. Even though dried blood streaked her palm, he had no choice but to take it, grateful that he wore gloves. He steeled himself and shook. Her warm hand felt strong and capable, but it trembled in his. So, he frightened her.
Good.
He dropped her hand and shifted away, seeking to put space between them. He had no wish to touch her again. In fact, he wished she would climb back out of the craft and return to her safe study of the past.
For her own sake as much as his own.
Before receiving his summons, he had been dwelling in deep meditation, in seclusion, ready to forsake the greater world for the beauty and isolation of the Cloister, as was his right. But Cardinal Bernard had not let him stay there. He had pulled Rhun from his meditative cell and sent him on this journey into the world to fetch an archaeologist and search for an artifact. Rhun had expected the archaeologist to be a
Rhun suspected what that meant.
He gripped the silver cross at his throat. Metal warmed through his glove.
Above his head rotor blades throbbed like a massive mechanical heart, beating fast enough to burst.
His gaze fell on the second woman. She was German, from her whispered words to the man on the stretcher. Blood streaked her white cotton dress. She gripped the hand of the wounded man, never taking her eyes off his face. The iron smell of his blood blanketed the airborne vehicle.
Rhun closed his eyes, fingered the rosary on his belt, and began a silent Our Father. Vibrations shuddered through his prayer.
He would much rather travel on a mule with a naturally beating heart.
But the blades drowned out more dangerous sounds—the heavy drip of blood from the split scalp to the floor, the quick breathing of the woman next to him, and the faraway neighing of a frightened stallion.
As the vehicle banked, the stench of jet fuel rolled in. Its foreignness stung his nostrils, but he preferred it to the scent of blood. It gave him the strength to let himself look at the injured man, at the blood running in threads along the metal floor, then dropping out toward the harsh stone landscape below.
This late in the fall, the sun set early, in less than two hours. He could ill afford a delay to aid a wounded man. Much rested on his shoulders.
Out of the corner of his eye, he studied the woman next to him. She wore threadbare denim jeans and a dusty white shirt. Her intelligent brown eyes traveled once around the cabin, seeming to assess each man. Those eyes skittered past him as if he were not there. Did she fear him as a man, as a priest, or as something else?
He tightened his gloved hands on his knees and meditated. He must purge thoughts of her from his mind. He would need all his holy strength for the task ahead. Perhaps, after it was complete, he could return to the Sanctuary, to the Cloister, and rest undisturbed.
Suddenly the woman brushed him with her elbow. He tensed, but did not jump. His meditation had steadied him. She leaned forward to check on her colleague, her fine eyebrows drawn down in worry. The man would not recover, but Rhun could not tell her so. She would never believe him. What did a simple priest know of wounds and blood?
Far more than she could ever imagine.
Erin’s cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She drew it out and held it next to her leg to conceal it from Lieutenant Perlman. She doubted he would want her texting from the helicopter.
Amy wrote her:
“
The lieutenant seemed to be looking the other way.
Erin typed.
“
Amy’s answer came back so quickly she must have been typing while Erin was thinking.
“
”
“
”
“
”
That confirmed Erin’s earlier assessment. She had noted what looked like teeth marks on the bone. She struggled to type as the helicopter jolted.
“
”
Amy’s response was slow, her answer long to type out:
“
