The Blood Gospel

With a deafening howl, it surged around, and with a heave of its back legs, bowled into Rhun. Erin lost sight of him, blocked by the body of the wolf.

More shots were fired.

She pointed her Colt but didn’t fire, fearing she might strike Rhun with its silver bullets.

Then the wolf tossed its thick neck—with Rhun clutched in its jaws. The massive beast shook him like a rag doll. Blood sprayed the walls of the tunnel. Rhun lost his handgun and struggled to free a knife.

Knowing she had to help, Erin fired her pistol at the wolf, striking it in the shoulder. It twitched, but otherwise remained unfazed. She fired over and over, hoping that the cumulative load of silver might affect it. Pieces of fur ripped off its hide, but still it ignored her and slammed Rhun to the floor, its jaws clamped around his neck.

Rhun didn’t move.

Erin began to run forward—when she heard a high-pitched whistle slice down the tunnel.

Bathory.

The grimwolf dropped Rhun, shook blood from its muzzle, and bounded off down the dark tunnel.

Holstering her useless pistol, Erin rushed forward and skidded on her knees to reach him. Blood soaked her jeans—but it was not her own.

She shone her flashlight on Rhun. Blood wept down both sides of his torn throat. It bubbled from his lips as he tried to speak.

She pressed both hands against his wound. Cold blood covered her palms and seeped between her fingers.

He coughed his throat clear enough to issue a command: “Go back.”

“When you stop the bleeding.” The wounds were so deep that she did not see how he could do so, but she remembered how he had controlled his blood back in the Cardinal’s residence in Jerusalem.

He closed his eyes, and the blood from his neck slowed to a trickle.

“Good, Rhun, good.” She fumbled for the wineskin that was tied to his thigh.

“Not enough …”

The flask slipped from her blood-slicked hands and thumped to the floor. She picked it up, wiped one hand on her pants, and twisted the cap. It took three tries before it opened. Should she pour it on his wounds? Have him drink it? She remembered that Nadia had put it on his wounds first.

Following her example, Erin doused the wound.

Rhun groaned and seemed to fade away.

She shook his shoulder to keep him conscious. “Tell me what to do. Rhun!”

He opened his eyelids slowly, but his gaze slid past hers, staring at the ceiling before his eyes rolled back in his head.

Back in Russia, Rasputin had mixed human blood with the wine. That concoction had seemed to heal Rhun better than the holy wine alone.

Erin knew what he needed.

Not wine.

Not now.

Rhun needed human blood.

She swallowed. Her hand ran across the puncture wounds left by the collar Bathory had forced her to wear.

She looked down the tunnel. No sign of Bathory or the wolf. Erin knew she could never catch the woman. The best hope to secure the Gospel was still Rhun. If Bathory escaped Rome with the book, the world would be forever changed.

But was she ready to do this? To risk everything on her faith that her blood would cure Rhun? Every fiber of her scientific mind rebelled at the thought.

After escaping the compound, she had refused to succumb to superstition, finding no value in mere faith. She knew too well what had happened when her father and mother had stopped thinking logically. They had placed the fate of her infant sister, Emma, in the hands of an indifferent God—and Emma had died for those blind beliefs.

But over the past days, Erin had seen extraordinary things. She could not discount them; she could not explain them with logic and science. But was she ready to trust her life to a miracle?

She stared down at Rhun.

What choice did she have?

Even if she could fight her way back to Bernard and the other Sanguinists, to warn them, Bathory would be long gone by the time Erin fetched them here.

Bathory must not escape with the book. The stakes for the world were too high for Erin not to try everything—even the power of faith.

She leaned over Rhun, baring her neck to his cold mouth.

He did not move.

Reaching up, she raked her fingernails across the soft scabs on her throat, ripping them away. Blood began to flow. Again she pressed her bleeding throat against his open lips.

He snarled and turned his head, refusing to drink.

“You have to.”

His voice was a pained whisper. “Once I start, I might not …”

She finished his sentence: once started, he might not be able to stop.

Might was the important word.

It seemed, in order to do this, that she must put her trust not only in faith, but also in Rhun.

If I do not try, then the Belial will have already won.

She tilted her head, lowered her throat to his mouth.

Her blood pattered onto his lips.

He groaned deep in his throat, but this time he did not turn away.

Erin’s heart raced. She was still animal enough to want to run away—but in the end she wasn’t an animal. She remained steadfast, her mind flashing to Daniel entering the lion’s den.

I can do this.

Shifting her gaze, she forced herself to look at Rhun. His eyes grew alert, as if those few drops of blood had revived him.

He ran his tongue over his lips and swallowed. He took her by the shoulders and gently pulled her down.

She tensed, knowing she could still stop him in his weakened state. Her body continued to scream for her to flee. Instead, she took a deep breath and gave in to her faith.

Rhun shifted, laying her down on the stone floor beside him while he raised up on one elbow, a question glowing in his dark eyes.

She trembled from her bones outward.

“Erin.” He lingered on the n at the end of her name. “No. Not even for this price.”

She pleaded, “I can’t catch Bathory and the grimwolf. Only you can save the Gospel.”

She read defeat in his eyes, knew he could not fault her logic.

“But—”

“I know the consequences,” she said, repeating the same words she’d spoken before climbing down into the fissure in Masada. These were the consequences. “You must do it.”

His lips slowly lowered toward her, his face softened by tenderness. She marveled at his expression.

Still, he stopped. “No … not you …”

“It serves your vows.” She clenched her hands into fists. She thought of all those lives that would be destroyed if either of them balked from this act of duty. “The book is more important than the rules.”

“I understand … were you someone else, perhaps. But.” He tightened his hand on her shoulder. “I can’t feed on you.”

She stared into his face, seeing what was hidden behind that collar, behind those hidden fangs—a man.

He stroked strands of hair off her face, his fingers cold but very gentle, his hand cupping her cheek.