The Blood Gospel

that bear. That story goes back to the eighth century.”

“The beast is a blasphemare, and they can live very long lives. Corbinian encountered the monster on the road and got it to serve him, a very rare event for a blasphemare creature to bow to the will of a Sanguinist.”

Erin thought about Piers and the bats but remained silent.

Jordan glanced back over his shoulder. “That bear definitely looked big enough to ride.”

“How did you encounter it?” she pressed.

“Eighty years ago there was word of a huge bear, one that was devouring peasants in Russia. Piers, Grigori, and I were sent to dispatch it.”

“Looks like you didn’t,” Jordan said.

Rasputin dropped back and joined in the conversation, clapping a hand on Rhun’s shoulder. “Not for want of trying. Rhun tracked her to her winter den. Piers was displeased by the mission and refused to help. But the Father proved most helpful after she nearly took off Rhun’s leg.”

Rhun touched his leg again. “That took over a decade to heal.”

“The Ursa was merely frightened,” Rasputin said. “She is a gentle soul.”

Erin thought about the pile of human bones in her cage.

“She didn’t look too gentle to me,” Jordan added.

“After Piers and I removed Rhun from the Ursa’s playful embrace, she escaped into the forest.” Rasputin shook his head. “We never found her. Eventually we were recalled to Rome.”

“But you found her now,” Rhun said. “How?”

“She called to me,” Rasputin said. “Once I left the Sanguinists and embraced my true nature, blasphemare began to seek me out.”

“Abominations seeking kinship.” Rhun sounded bitter.

“We are what we are, Rhun. Accepting your fate instead of fighting it grants you more power than you can imagine.”

“I do not seek power. I seek grace.”

Rasputin chuckled. “And, in all these centuries of striving, have you found it yet? Perhaps the grace you seek is within your heart, not within the walls of a church.”

Rhun clamped his jaw closed tightly.

No one spoke for several minutes. They hurried along. The only sounds were the crunch of shoes against foul ice.

They passed several other tunnels leading off in both directions, also ladders leading up and down to other levels. Erin usually had a good sense of direction underground, but she would never be able to find the church again. Jordan seemed to be counting, so she hoped he had a better sense of where they were.

Finally, Rasputin stopped and mounted a metal ladder. Erin shone her light up, but couldn’t see the end.

“Up we go,” Jordan said, craning his neck. “Is it too much to hope that this takes us to a Starbucks?”

In short order, they all mounted the rungs and climbed.

The ladder emptied out into a clean concrete room. Erin was glad to leave the stench far below. She took a deep breath of the fresher air, clearing her lungs. The only feature in the small space was a gray metal box on one wall connected to cables running into the ceiling.

Rasputin ignored it and crossed to a gunmetal-gray door. He used a huge old-fashioned key to unlock it and led them into another room. Another door blocked the way from here, this time guarded by a modern keypad on the wall. His fingers darted across the keys, entering digits so quickly that Erin could not keep track.

The thick steel door, like a bank vault, trundled open.

Rasputin crossed gingerly over the threshold and waved them all into a darkened corridor with ocher walls. Other hallways branched off in many directions. It felt like stepping into a giant labyrinth.

Rasputin’s pace hurried from there. Soon even Jordan gave up counting as they delved deeper into the maze.

After another ten minutes of traversing halls, climbing short staircases, and crossing dusty rooms, Rasputin stopped before an unremarkable wooden door with a black glass doorknob. It looked no different from a hundred others that they had passed.

Rasputin pulled free a massive key ring out of the folds of his robes. He fumbled through what must have been fifty keys before finally selecting one.

As he inserted the key, Rhun stationed himself between Erin and Rasputin. Jordan stood on her other side. The congregants from the Russian church stood in a semicircle behind them.

Rasputin twisted the key with a tired creak and pushed open the door. “Come!”

They followed him into a shadowy room that smelled of rust and mildew. Erin’s throat itched, drawing a cough out of her. She wondered how long it had been since the room had been aired out. The scientist in her wanted to ask for a dust mask.

A few steps away, Rasputin pulled a string attached to a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. Dim flickering light fell on piles of junk stacked against the walls. It looked like a hoarder’s living room.

“Here we are!” Rasputin turned to his followers. “Wait outside. I think we are already too many for this space.”

“Where are we?” Jordan asked as the lightbulb buzzed overhead.

“We are beneath the Hermitage,” Rasputin said. “One of the largest and oldest art museums in the world.”

Jordan glanced around the crowded room. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“These are the museum’s storage areas,” Rasputin said with a glare. “Above, the actual museum is quite lovely.”

Erin felt a twinge of professional irritation. Like most academics, she had heard of the sorry state of the Hermitage’s long-buried and decaying collection, but never had she imagined it would be this neglected. As she stepped forward, mice erupted from a pile of mildewed quilts.

She stumbled back, aghast. “This is where and how the museum stores its extra collections?”

Rasputin merely shrugged, as if to say, What is history to someone who has lived centuries?

She wiped her hands on her jeans and looked around in dismay. A framed picture leaning against the wall behind the quilts looked like an original Durer woodcut of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The priceless woodcut had been tossed in haphazardly with broken tools and old rotting tapestries. Overhead, a black bloom of mold stained the roof, marking an old leak.

“This can’t be the right place,” she insisted.

Rasputin chuckled and nudged Rhun good-naturedly. “She is endearing, isn’t she? This Woman of Learning of yours.”

Rhun simply turned to Jordan. “You should try the detector in here.”

As Jordan set about booting up the explosives sniffer, Erin refused to let it go. “Why has none of this been cataloged?”

Rasputin pulled what looked like a dirty dishcloth off a sculpture, like someone rummaging through a garage sale.

“Careful!” Erin touched the top of the exposed sculpture’s downturned head, ran a finger along an extended leg. “This is a Rodin. A dancer. It’s priceless.”

“Likely,” Rasputin agreed. The monk moved to a stack of leather-bound books, picking through them. Scraps of paper fluttered out of his hands to the ground.

Erin closed her eyes. She couldn’t watch, and she hated to think of the damage that had been done to the artifacts in the museum and to the historical record.

Rhun sifted through a crate. “Why do you believe this is the right room, Grigori?”

“The date.” Rasputin fingered a yellowed card affixed to the wall by a rusty nail. “This is one of the rooms where Russian forces, those returning in late May, warehoused the treasures plundered from Europe.”

“How many other rooms are there?” Jordan had finally booted up his detector and swept it from side to side.