wrinkled brown leather, arms wide, a butcher’s hook held aloft by one muscular arm.
Jordan dropped to one knee and fired up, striking the man square in the chest. The hail of rounds knocked him into the bricked roof. He dropped to the stone floor, hitting hard and going dead-still.
At the door, a mass of shadows rolled into the room. The priest wrestled with two black-suited figures. A third leaped past.
The attacker sped low and fast into Lieutenant Perlman. They hit the wall beside the crucified girl and dropped out of view. The Israeli’s rifle barked, blasting upward, rounds sparking off rock. Erin flattened herself in the stone box.
A shadow materialized above her. She caught a flash of teeth—
Instead, bullets ripped through the torso above, and the bulk dropped atop her. She struggled out from under the body, her jeans wet with blood. Gritting her teeth, she searched the body for a weapon. No gun, but he carried an Egyptian
McKay peered over the edge of the sarcophagus. “You okay?”
Before she could answer, he vanished, hit broadside. She rose up on her knees, clutching the sword.
McKay sailed across the room and slammed into the wall, cracking his head. He fell to the floor, leaving a streak of blood on the wall behind him.
A dark figure leaped atop McKay and lunged at his throat.
Jordan was pinned under an attacker who was stronger than anyone he had ever fought. He’d already lost his gun. The guy was also ridiculously fast.
Jordan twisted and grabbed for his ankle—and the KA-BAR dagger sheathed there. He freed it as bony hands lashed down. One clamped to his throat, the other held his arm pinned against the stone.
Nails dug deep, tearing flesh.
Wrenching his free arm around, he drove the KA-BAR blade deep into the assailant’s throat, to the hilt, until he hit bone, then ripped outward.
Blood washed down his arm.
The man went limp. Jordan threw off the deadweight and rolled to a crouch. His attention fixed on Erin, standing in the sarcophagus with a short, curved sword in one hand. She looked ready to climb out to help McKay, who lay on the other side of the room, but McKay was beyond anyone’s help now. Like Perlman, who was on the floor nearby, his throat had been torn away.
Jordan shot McKay’s attacker full in the chest, knocking him off his teammate’s body. Movement turned his head back to Erin.
A shadow loomed behind her.
He leaped toward her, but a hand shoved him aside. It felt like being clipped by a speeding truck. He lost his footing and crashed into the wall.
Dazed, he watched the priest barrel past him, knock Erin down, and tackle her attacker. He struck the bloody man with his shoulder and drove him backward, slamming him into the mummified girl on the wall. Dried bone exploded under their weight.
Korza rebounded back a step.
His opponent remained in place, hanging off the ground, impaled and writhing. The butt end of the crossbow bolts that penetrated his flesh held him aloft. One bolt poked out the man’s throat. Fingers scrabbled at it. Blood bubbled out of the wound, as if it were boiling.
Then Korza lashed out, severing the man’s throat with an explosive stroke.
Jordan regained his own shaky feet, crouched, searching all around. The priest stood before the wall, shoulders hunched under shredded garments. Dark blood dripped from his blade, from his fingertips. Jordan didn’t know how much of it came from the priest’s own wounds.
He kept his gun up as he stumbled to Erin. He saw no reason to check on his other teammates. He knew death when he faced it. As far as he could tell, the only ones still alive in this room were the priest, Erin, and him.
He kept a cautious eye on the priest, leery of his allegiances.
With a flare of his long jacket, Korza dropped to a knee, head bowed as if in prayer—but that was not his intent. He snatched something from the floor. It vanished into his black robes as he stood again.
The child’s small doll was gone.
Instead of checking on Erin, he’d gone to pick up a doll? Jordan gave up trying to figure the man out.
“Erin?” he said as he reached her side.
She whirled toward him, her sword held high.
“Just me,” he said, and shifted his gun to the side, both hands up, palms out.
Her wide eyes came into focus, and she lowered the blade. He pried it out of her fingers and dropped it. Her face white, her eyes lost, she slumped in the corner of the sarcophagus. He lifted her out and sat with his back against the cold stone with her in his lap. He ran his hands over her, searching for wounds. She seemed unharmed.
The priest joined them. Jordan’s hand inched toward his pistol, a protective arm encircling Erin. What were his intentions?
“There are no more,” Korza whispered as if in prayer. “But we are still not safe.”
Jordan glanced over at the battered man.
“They will seal us in,” he said with such certainty that Jordan believed him.
“How do you know …?”
“Because it is what I would do.” He strode toward the door.
Jordan noted where he headed. The ROV sat on the floor, one camera aimed at them, a green light shining above it. The priest stamped on the lens. Metal and glass shattered under his heel and skittered across stone.
Jordan understood, remembering Sanderson’s scream.
9
As the last screams echoed across the summit, Bathory crouched before the now-dark monitor, frozen in shock, trapped between the past and the present.
She had witnessed the battle in the tomb, followed by the slaughter of the forces she had sent below. The fighting had been swift, dimly lit, much of it occurring out of camera view.
But she had also spied the few moments before the chaotic fighting.
She had watched a helmeted soldier confront a black-garbed figure, his back to the camera. But she had caught the flash of a white Roman collar as he cast a single glance to encompass the room.
Her pained blood went cold at this fleeting glimpse of the enemy.
Here was that Knight of Christ mentioned in the texted message.
A Sanguinist.
The two men faced off like rams during rutting season. Maybe the soldier would solve her problem for her, but the knight stepped past the soldier and stopped, staring at the far wall—what did he see?
She wished the camera’s range extended to the back of the room.
Out of those shadows, a woman in civilian clothes appeared, another surprise. She came waving her phone in the familiar pantomime of someone searching for a signal.
The knight turned to the woman and held out his hands to indicate an object the size and shape of a book.
