The Blood Gospel

heat.

Jordan dug a small first-aid kit from his pocket and went to work on the priest’s head. She smelled alcohol as he pulled out a wipe.

He raised a bigger health concern regarding the priest. “I’m more worried about that knock he took when the grenade exploded. He could have a concussion or a fractured skull.”

Jordan stripped off his camouflage jacket and spread it over the priest’s limp body. “He seemed pretty coherent a minute ago when you two were talking. Still, we need to get him some real medical care soon.”

Erin stared down at Father Korza.

Rhun, she reminded herself.

His first name suited him better. It was softer, and hinted at darker mysteries. Atop the shreds of his shirt he wore a Roman clerical collar of white linen, not the plastic worn by most modern priests.

Now that he was unconscious, his face had relaxed from its stern planes. His lips were fuller than she’d first thought, his chiseled features more pronounced. Dark umber hair hung in wavy locks over his brow, down to his round collar. She smoothed them off his face.

Worry burned brighter at the icy feel of his skin.

Would he wake up? Or die like Heinrich?

Jordan coughed. She drew her hand back. Rhun was a priest, and she should not be playing with his hair.

“What about your radio?” she said, rubbing her palms together. She had lost her cell phone. It was now entombed somewhere inside that mountain. Jordan had been fiddling with his handset earlier. “Any luck reaching someone?”

“No.” Jordan’s face tightened with concern. “Its case got cracked. With time, I might get it working.”

Goose bumps ran down Jordan’s bare arms from the cold. Still, he tucked his coat more securely around Rhun.

“What’s the plan, then?” she asked.

He flashed a quick grin. “I thought you made the plans.”

“I thought I was supposed to ask how high and then jump. Weren’t those your orders?”

He looked back at the collapsed mountain, and a shadow passed across his face. “Those under my orders didn’t fare so well.”

She kept her voice low. “I don’t see what you could have done differently.”

“Maybe if this one,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the unconscious priest, “had told us what we were dealing with, we might have stood a better chance.”

“He came down to warn us.”

Jordan grimaced. “He came down to find that book. He had plenty of time to warn us before we went down, or to warn the men topside that those monsters were coming. But he didn’t.”

She found herself defending the priest, since the man couldn’t do it himself. “Still, he did fight to get us out of there. And he got us into that sarcophagus during the explosion.”

“Maybe he just needed our help to get the hell out of there.”

“Maybe.” She gestured across the wide expanse of sand. “But what do we do next?”

His face was stony. “For now, I think it’s best if he’s not moved. It’s about all we can do for him: keep him warm and quiet. After that explosion, rescue teams must be coming here from all directions. We should stay put. They’ll find us soon enough.”

He moved aside the coat and felt across Rhun’s body.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for identification. I want to know who this guy really is. He’s certainly no ordinary priest.”

Erin felt bad at mugging the priest while he was unconscious, but she had to admit that she was just as curious.

Jordan didn’t discover any driver’s license or passport, but he did draw Rhun’s knife from a wrist sheath. He also discovered a leather water flask buttoned in a thigh pocket.

He unscrewed the cap and took a swig.

Thirsty, too, Erin held out her hand, wanting a drink.

Jordan twisted up his face and sniffed at the opening of the flask. “That’s not water.”

She frowned.

“It’s wine.”

Wine?

She took the flask and sipped. He was right.

“This guy gets stranger and stranger,” Jordan said. “I mean look at this.”

He lifted Rhun’s knife, the curved blade shaped like a crescent. It shone silver in the moonlight.

And maybe it was silver, like the bolts that had nailed the girl to the wall.

“The weapon’s called a karambit,” Jordan said.

He hooked a finger in a ring at the base of the hilt and demonstrated with fast flicks of his wrist how the weapon could be deployed in several different positions.

She looked away, flashing back to the battle, blood flying from that blade.

“Strange weapon for a priest,” he said.

To her, it was the least strange part of the night.

But Jordan wasn’t done. “Not only because most holy men don’t normally carry knives, but because of its origin. The weapon is from Indonesia. The style goes back more than eight hundred years. The ancient Sudanese copied the blade’s shape from the claws of a tiger.”

She looked at Rhun, remembering his skill.

Like his name, the weapon fit him.

“But here’s the oddest detail.” He held the knife where she could see it. “From the patina, I’d say this blade is at least a hundred years old.”

They both stared at the priest.

“Maybe far older.” Jordan’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “What if he’s one of them?”

“One of whom?”

He raised one blond eyebrow.

She understood what he was implying. “A strigoi?”

“You saw how he lifted that crypt’s lid?” His voice held a challenge.

She accepted it. “He could’ve been riding a surge of adrenaline. Like women lifting cars off babies. I don’t know, but I rode from Caesarea with him. In broad daylight. You met him on Masada’s summit while the sun was still up.”

“Maybe these strigoi can go out in sunlight. Hell, we don’t know anything about them.” Fury and loss marked his face. “All I know for sure is that I don’t trust him. If Korza had warned us in time, more than three of us would be standing here.”

She put a hand on Jordan’s warm forearm, but he shrugged it off and stood.

She stared down at the man in her lap, remembering his last revelation.

It is the Gospel. Written by Christ’s own hand. In his own blood.

If this was true, what did it imply?

Questions burned through her: What revelations could be hidden within the pages of this lost Gospel? Why did the strigoi want it so badly? And more important, why did the Church hide it here?

Jordan must have read her train of thought.

“And that book,” he said. “The one that got so many good men killed. I’m pretty sure there are only four Gospels in the Bible. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.”

Erin shook her head, happy to return to a subject she knew something about. “Actually, there are many more Gospels. The Dead Sea Scrolls alone contain bits of a dozen different ones. From various sources. From Mary, Thomas, Peter, even Judas. Only four made it into the Bible. But none of those hint at Christ writing His own book.”