36
Rhun fled from the front edge of a furious storm behind him.
Wings battered his body; claws and teeth tore at flesh and clothes.
He burst through the arched doorway, shadowed by Nadia and Emmanuel. The horde of icarops thundered past him, beating by with muscular wings. The mass fled upward and filled the arched dome of the room with fluttering shadows.
Rhun’s sharp eyes took in the chamber with a glance, recognizing a dark mirror of the Masada tomb, a despoiled ruin of that sacred space. Fury stoked inside him, but fear extinguished it.
In the center of the room, he saw Erin crouching atop a stage behind a tall pedestal, her face upturned to the bats. Her guardian, Jordan, leaped atop the dais, ready to shelter her. A futile gesture. The soldier could not hope to defeat the number of icarops gathered here.
None of them could.
As if knowing this, the icarops horde crashed down upon the exposed pair.
The single word of command shattered through the hissing screams of the bats and drove back their attack. The black horde shredded apart around Erin and Jordan and wheeled away, flapping to the streaked walls and the ceiling. There, sharp claws scrabbled for pitted roosts. Wings folded over fur, and the icarops hung from every surface. Oily red-black eyes stared down.
With his first indrawn breath, the stench hit Rhun. He drew breath again. Another smell lurked under the tainted blood of the icarops and the sharp smell of their waste.
A familiar one.
Across the chamber, Jordan scanned the room, his shoulders hunched against the fluttering mass above. “Who yelled?”
The answer came from Erin, who pointed toward the crucifix. “Look!”
There on the cross, the marble sculpture
Nadia stopped still next to Rhun, and Emmanuel staggered back a pace.
The Sanguinists knew, too.
As if obeying a silent command, Rhun rushed forward, flanked by Emmanuel and Nadia.
On the cross, eyelids opened, rough slits in that leathery visage. And from those cracks, a glimmer of life still shone—the little that remained. The glassy blue stare found Rhun and settled on him with a look of bottomless grief.
Those despairing eyes left no doubt about who it was that hung on that ghastly cross.
Rhun filled out the face, crowned it with silver hair, made the sunken lips smile with the knowledge of untold ages. In his mind, he heard that once-vigorous voice explaining the mysteries of history, the destiny of the Sanguinists. In its time, this body had housed a powerful priest.
Father Piers.
A friend for centuries.
The scholar had disappeared seventy years ago on an expedition to find the Blood Gospel. When he had not returned, the Church had declared him dead. Instead, it seemed that the Nazis had captured him, then abandoned him to suffer here for decades.
Emmanuel fell to his knees in supplication. “Father Piers … how can it be … ?”
The old priest’s head sagged again, as if he were unable to hold his heavy skull up any longer. Faded eyes found Emmanuel. “
Tears ran down Emmanuel’s face, reminding Rhun that Father Piers had found and recruited Emmanuel into the Sanguinist fold. He was as much Emmanuel’s father as his savior.
Emmanuel reached toward the blackened spike hammered through the priest’s bare feet. Another nail impaled each palm. Droplets of dark, dried blood caked around his wounds.
“Careful.” Nadia stood near them. “He’s been secured with silver.”
Emmanuel pulled on the thick spike that bound the priest’s feet, burning his own fingers.
Nadia yanked him back. “Not yet.”
He hissed at her, showing fangs. “Look at him. Has he not suffered enough?”
“The question,” Nadia said evenly, “is
“
Rhun stared up at the ruins of the Sanguinist scholar. “Take him down.”
Nadia looked ready to object, but Rhun knelt and gently supported the old priest’s feet. Emmanuel pulled the spike from the priest’s feet and tossed it aside, then stood, reaching for the hands.
Piers remained oblivious. His eyes rolled toward the arched roof and its black decorations. “
Nadia’s face hardened. She looked in the direction of the battered priest’s gaze—to the horde of the icarops. “It was Father Piers who created these unholy creatures.”
“
Rhun was less interested in blasphemy than he was in answers. “He had no choice. He must have had to feed to survive all those decades alone on the cross. What else would he have here to feed upon but the bats.”
He pictured the priest drawing what little sustenance he could from the dark denizens of this tomb, eventually bending them to his will as the decades passed, twisting them to serve him, using their companionship to anchor what little sanity he could retain in this dark isolation.
Long ago, Rhun had starved himself almost to death in penance. He remembered the pain, and he could not fault Piers for making the icarops in order to survive. It had been the only way.
“How long has he been up there?” Erin’s face had gone white.
“Since the Nazis left him, I imagine.” Nadia did not move to help.
Rhun pulled the nailed spike out of Piers’s right palm while Emmanuel worked on his left. Dark blood flowed down the old man’s hand. Rhun tried to be gentle. The wounded priest had little blood left to lose.
“What did he do to deserve this fate?” Jordan asked.
“That is the salient question.” Nadia stood in front of Piers and looked up into his gaunt face, her voice rising. “What did you do to come to be nailed here, Father?”
The memory of the tomb at Masada sliced through Rhun: the
Piers whimpered with every movement of the nail. Rhun knew firsthand the pain of silver. Piers had endured the burning agony of silver for almost seventy years. Like Jesus, he had done his penance on a cross.
The last spike came free, and Emmanuel threw it across the chamber. Rhun caught Piers’s slight weight against his shoulder.
Emmanuel tore off his own damp cassock, revealing his leather armor, and wrapped the cassock around the ancient priest. Rhun lowered him to the ground. Emmanuel reached for his wine flask, but Nadia stopped him.
