The Blood Gospel

The sanctuary below St. Peter’s Basilica, Italy

Rhun touched his cross. They had won the battle. He shuddered to think how close they had come to losing it all. But they had triumphed.

Eleazar paused. He turned the book back to face him and ran his finger under the lines, reading it again, as if he had gotten it wrong the first time. But the words were the same.

“So we won the first battle,” Jordan said.

“But what about this ‘War of the Heavens’ … and the ‘First Angel’?” Erin asked.

“We found the book,” Jordan said with firm conviction. “We can find an angel. I bet the angel is bigger than the book was. How hard can it be, right?”

Erin laughed and leaned against him. “Right.”

The soldier was correct. They had accomplished the impossible once already. Rhun looked to Eleazar. “Where shall we begin?”

Eleazar furrowed his brow. “The prophecy. Return to the prophecy.”

Rhun waited.

Eleazar recited it. “The day shall come when the Alpha and the Omega shall pour his wisdom into a Gospel of Precious Blood that the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve may use it on the day of their need.

“Until such day, this blessed book shall be hidden in a well of deepest darkness by a Girl of Corrupted Innocence, a Knight of Christ, and a Warrior of Man.

“Likewise shall another trio return the book to the light. Only a Woman of Learning, a Knight of Christ, and a Warrior of Man may open Christ’s Gospel and reveal His glory to the world.”

“We did that,” Jordan said. “What do we need to do next to find the angel?”

Eleazar closed the book. “That may never come to pass.”

“Why not?” Jordan said with a frown. “We found the book, didn’t we?”

Eleazar sighed and hope drained from Rhun with that exhaled breath. “There is a chance that the trio has already been sundered,” Eleazar warned.

What was the Risen One saying? Rhun asked himself. How could the trio have been sundered? They were all here. He put one hand on Jordan’s sleeve, the other on Erin’s.

Then Erin closed her eyes. She grew pale.

“What is it, Erin?” Jordan asked.

She cleared her throat. “What if I am not part of the trio? What if I am not the Woman of Learning?”

“What are you talking about? Of course you are. You solved the mystery of the Gospel. Without you, we never would have found it. You were there when we turned it into a book.” The soldier spoke patiently, no worry in his voice.

But fear crept up Rhun’s spine.

“Remember the wording of the prophecy,” she said. “It says the trio opens Christ’s Gospel and reveals His glory to the world.”

“And?” Jordan asked.

Erin shook her head miserable. “I wasn’t there when the book opened. I didn’t cross the threshold of the basilica before the golden light burst from the book. You did. Rhun did. But I didn’t. I was still outside with the guard.”

“And you think that’s relevant?” Jordan protested. “Like one step across the threshold matters?”

“If I am not the Woman of Learning, Bathory was.” Erin took another deep breath. “And I killed her.”

Rhun strove to find a flaw in her logic, but, as usual, found none. Everyone had assumed that Erin was the Woman of Learning: she had been in Masada, in Germany, in Russia, and in Rome. But Bathory, too, had been in those places. She had been one step ahead of them. She had followed the clues that led to the book, and she had determined how and where it was to be opened. And she had been the one holding the book when it transformed.

Rhun closed his eyes, sensing the truth.

Could Cardinal Bernard have been correct all along about Elizabeth Bathory? Is that why the Belial had started collecting a Bathory of each generation and bonding her to their foul purpose, to preserve the Woman of Learning among their own fold?

If this were true, how could they ever hope to find the First Angel?

According to Cardinal Bernard, the woman killed in the necropolis was the last of the Bathory line.

But Rhun knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“You guys are nuts,” Jordan said, interrupting his thoughts. “Erin did all the heavy lifting on this. And Bathory is dead. If the book is so smart, why would it set an impossible task?”

“The Warrior has wisdom,” Eleazar said. “Perhaps he speaks truth. Prophecy is often a two-edged sword that cuts down all who attempt to interpret it.”

Erin looked unconvinced.

Eleazar bowed his head, his gaze fixing on Rhun.

Rhun knew that all was not lost.

“I have another matter to discuss with Father Korza,” Eleazar said to the others. “If we might have a moment alone.”

“Of course,” Erin said, and moved off with Jordan.

When the two were no longer in sight, Eleazar spoke again, in a whisper. “Thou must forsake this woman, Rhun. I have seen thy heart, but it cannot be.”

Rhun heard truth in those words; it settled in his bones. “I shall.”

Eleazar stared long and hard at Rhun, as if peeling away his flesh and baring his bones. The feeling was not entirely fanciful, as Eleazar’s next words proved. “Is there another of the line of the Woman of Learning?”

Rhun bowed from those penetrating eyes. He knew what was asked. He must own all his sins, unearth all his secrets, or all the world might be lost.

He faced Eleazar with tears in his eyes. “You ask too much.”

“It must be done, my son.” Eleazar’s voice held pity. “We cannot hide from our past forever.”

Rhun knew how much Eleazar had also given up for the world—and knew it was time for Eleazar to face that past, too.

Rhun reached into the deep pocket inside his cassock and drew out the doll he had retrieved from the dusty tomb in Masada. It was a tattered thing, sewn from leather, long gone hard, with one eye missing. He placed the bit of the painful past into Eleazar’s open palm.

Eleazar had lived for so long that he was more like a statue than any of the Cloistered Ones, resolute, unmoving, more like marble than flesh.

But now those stone fingers shook, barely able to hold aloft the tiny, frail toy. Instead, Eleazar brought it to his chest and cradled it close, as if it were a living child, one he mourned deeply.

“Did she suffer?” he asked.

Rhun thought about the small body hanging on the wall in Masada, pinned by silver bolts that would have burned inside her until she expired.

“She died serving Christ. Her soul is at peace.”

Rhun stood and left the Risen One to his grief.

As Rhun turned away, he caught a glimpse of marble breaking.

Eleazar bowed his head.

A tear fell and spattered mournfully upon the doll’s stained face.