The Blood Gospel

sent that archaeologist into danger. You sent me to face the enemy alone—strigoi of the Belial sect.”

His friend leaned back and steepled his fingers. His eyebrows knitted with concern. “You believe your attackers were Belial? Why?”

Rhun related his experiences on and under the mountain, then explained. “The strigoi who came were not mere scavengers drawn to the tragedy. They came with plain purpose. And used concussive charges.”

“Employing the weapons of man.” Bernard lowered his hands. He sat straighter, his warm brown eyes pained. “I did not know that they would come for it.”

The Belial were a sect of the strigoi who were in league with humans, combining the worst of both worlds—merging human cunning to feral ferocity, uniting modern weaponry with ancient evil. They were a scourge whose numbers had swollen over the past century, posing an ever greater threat to their order and to the Church. Even after decades of fighting them, hunting them down, much was still unknown about the Belial, such as who truly ruled them: was it man or monster?

Rhun’s anger calmed. “The Belial must have caught wind of the strange deaths surrounding the earthquake and guessed what it meant as well as we did.”

The Cardinal remained statue still. “Then they seek the Gospel—like we do—and are desperate enough to reveal themselves for it.”

“But the book was gone, the crypt empty,” Rhun said. “They did not find it either.”

“No matter.” The familiar face looked softer in the candlelight, relieved and reassured. “If the prophecies are correct, they cannot open it. Only the three may bring it back to this world.”

Rhun’s chair creaked when he leaned forward, an old fury kindling back to life. He knew all too well what Bernard meant by evoking the three mentioned in the prophecies surrounding the Gospel, the three figures who were destined to find and open the book.

The Woman of Learning.

The Warrior of Man.

The Knight of Christ.

Even now he saw the glimmer of hope in Bernard’s eyes, knew what the Cardinal suspected.

He pictured Erin’s face, bright with curiosity—a Woman of astounding Learning.

And Jordan’s heroic attack on the grimwolf—a Warrior of Man.

He gripped his own cross—marking him as a Knight of Christ.

He forced his fingers to let go of the silver, hoping his friend could do the same with his foolish hope. “Bernard, you place too much trust in those old prophecies. Such conviction in the past cost much misery and bloodshed.”

The Cardinal sighed. “I do not need to be reminded of my past mistakes. I carry that burden as heavily as you do, my son. I attempted to force God’s hand in Hungary all those centuries ago. It was hubris of the highest order. I thought the portents pointed to Elisabeta, that she was meant to join you. But I was mistaken. I admitted it then, and I do not recant that foolishness now.” He reached over and placed a cold palm atop Rhun’s hand. “But do you not see what happened today? You stumbled out of that rubble with a Woman of Learning to your left and a Warrior of Man to your right. It must mean something.”

Rather than dimming, the glimmer in his friend’s eyes grew brighter.

Rhun drew his hand away. “But you put the woman there.”

That realization stabbed Rhun with misgiving. Was his friend still trying to force the hand of prophecy? Even after the tragic consequences of his past attempt? When another woman suffered as a consequence of his mistake?

Bernard dismissed this all with a wave of his fingers. “Yes, I used my influence to send a woman of learning to Masada. But, Rhun, it was not I who knocked down the mountain of Masada. It was not I who saved the woman and the warrior and led them out of the tomb, the last resting place of the Book. Against all commandments, you saved them both.”

“I could not leave them there to die.” Rhun looked down at his shredded garments, smelled again the blood on his skin.

“Don’t you see? The prophecy is a living force now.” Bernard lifted the silver cross that hung around his neck and kissed it, his lips reddening from the heat of silver and holiness. “We each have our role to play. We must each humbly bow to our own destinies. And whether I’m right or wrong, you know we must keep the Gospel from the hands of the Belial at all costs.”

“Why?” Bitterness tinged Rhun’s next words. “A moment ago, you were certain that the Belial could not open it. Yet now you seem to doubt that part of the prophecy.”

“I do not presume to understand God’s will, merely to interpret it as best I can.”

Rhun thought of Elisabeta’s silvery-gray eyes and Erin’s amber ones.

Never again will I fall so low.

“And if I refuse this destiny?” Rhun asked.

“Now who presumes to know God’s heart better than He?”

The words stung, as they were meant to.

Rhun bowed his head and prayed for guidance. Could this truly be a challenge that God had placed before him? A chance for absolution? What greater task could God ask of him than to protect His son’s final Gospel? Rhun still did not trust Bernard’s deeper motives, but perhaps the Cardinal was correct to see the hand of God in today’s actions.

He considered all that had come to pass.

The final resting place of the book had been sundered open, heralded by quakes, bloodshed, and the survival of one boy, an innocent child spared.

But with the lavender scent of Erin’s hair fresh in his nostrils, Rhun resisted that path. He would surely fail her—as he had failed another long ago.

“Even if I were to consent to aid in your search for the Gospel—” Rhun stopped at the smile on Bernard’s face. “Even so, we cannot force the two here to go after it, not with the Belial in play.”

“That is true. We can force no one. The two must enter the search of their own free will. And to do so, they must give up their worldly attachments. Do you think that they are ready for such a sacrifice?”

Rhun pictured the pair that Bernard believed to be the Woman and the Warrior. When he first met the two, he considered them, much as the Cardinal had done, to be little more than what was revealed by their roles: an archaeologist and a soldier.

But now he knew that was no longer true.

Such labels were pale reflections of the two who had bled and fought at his side.

There were truer ways to describe them, and one was by their given names.

Erin and Jordan.

The Cardinal’s last question plagued him. Do you think they are ready …?

Rhun hoped, for their sakes, that the answer was no.

21

October 26, 9:33 P.M., IST

Jerusalem, Israel

Hallelujah for small miracles.

Jordan discovered several gifts waiting for him on the bed of his small, monastic cell. A set of clean clothes had been folded atop the pillow—and on the blanket rested his weapons, returned to him.

He crossed quickly and examined his Heckler & Koch machine pistol and his Colt 1911. They were loaded—which both relieved him and disturbed him. His hosts either trusted him or were plainly not worried about