The Blood Gospel

Grigori wrapped his fingers around the branch of a wrought-iron oak sculpted into the gate. “If God loves you, Rhun, He will help you to escape the bear. Remember the lesson of Daniel and the lions? Perhaps your belief will close her mouth.”

Rhun didn’t think it would be that simple.

He studied the tiles that covered the chamber where the tunnels met, finding no break, no other way out. He shifted his attention to the iron gates.

When unlocked, they parted down the middle into two halves, opening like French doors. Two thick iron rods, one on each side of the gateway, had been drilled into the concrete and attached each side of the gate to the floor and ceiling. Less than an inch of a gap surrounded the gateway, and the elaborate patterns woven through the bars left openings no bigger than a few inches.

Once Rhun went into the room, there would be no escape.

Jordan dropped a warm hand to his shoulder. Rhun met his questioning blue eyes. The soldier glanced surreptitiously to Grigori and the strigoi. It was plain that he was asking if they should make their stand here, go down fighting before Rhun could be thrown in with the bear.

Affection rose in his breast. Jordan was a true Warrior of Man to the end. “Thank you,” Rhun whispered. “But no.”

Jordan stepped back, his eyes scared—but less for his own safety than for Rhun’s.

Unable to face that raw humanity any longer, Rhun turned to the gate. “I am ready, Grigori.”

Acolytes grabbed Jordan’s arms; others held Rhun in place while Grigori unlocked the thick steel lock and wrenched open the door.

Rhun was shoved bodily through the gate and into the cage.

The Ursa’s head swung toward him.

“Yes, my love,” Grigori called. “Sport with him as long as you like.”

Keeping back and staying low, Rhun circled her. The room was large, about fifty feet by fifty. He must use that space wisely. Overhead, the creature’s shoulders brushed the ceiling. Rhun could not jump over her.

A twig cracked under his shoe, releasing the sharp smell of spruce, the only natural scent in the cavern. He drank it in.

Then the Ursa lunged.

Her giant paw drove through the air with unnatural speed.

He had expected it. Long ago, she had always led with her left paw. He dove under her claws and rolled. The movement took him to the center of the room.

Ahead, a glint caught his eye. He ran forward and snatched it from the floor. A holy flask. Another Sanguinist had been sacrificed here. As he searched, he discovered other evidence: a pectoral cross, a silver rosary, a scrap of black cassock.

“May God have mercy on your soul, Grigori,” Rhun called out.

“God forsook my soul long ago.” Grigori rattled his gate. “As He did yours.”

The Ursa spun to face Rhun.

He swept the chamber swiftly with his eyes. If the murdered Sanguinist had been armed, perhaps his or her weapons remained. If he could—

The Ursa charged again.

He stood his ground.

The floor shook under her paws. He listened as her old heart stirred to passion again, beating hard.

When her carrion breath touched his cheek, he dropped flat to his back, letting her momentum carry her across his body. The sea of dark fur passed inches from his face. He lifted his own cross and let it drag across her stomach, setting her fur to smoldering.

She shrieked.

He had inflicted no serious damage, but he had given the bear a reminder that he was no mosquito to be squashed.

Jordan cheered from outside the gates.

Rhun rolled across the floor, his hands seeking the objects he had spotted before the attack. Two wooden staffs lay on the floor, both ends tipped with silver. He knew those unique weapons. His brother of the cloth—Jiang—had died here. Rhun had watched him practice with those staffs for hours, deep below the necropolis of Rome, where the Sanguinists made their home.

Still addled by the burn, the Ursa swept her head from side to side.

Rhun crouched perfectly still and measured the sides of his prison with his eyes.

With the hint of a plan in his mind, he darted to the iron gate that was farthest from Grigori.

The Ursa caught his movement and barreled toward him.

Leaping and twisting at the last moment, he cracked one of the staffs across her muzzle and rolled to the side.

Her enormous bulk plowed straight into the gate, knocking one of the two iron support rods loose from the floor. That corner of the gate bent, creating an opening too small for Rhun to squeeze through, but such an escape was not his intent.

He led her around toward where Grigori and Jordan watched the blood sport.

She came after him. He performed the same maneuver, but this time she skidded and stopped less than an inch from the gate. Her paw swatted through the air and caught him across the back as he leaped away. A glancing blow, but it cut through his leather armor and ripped into the flesh of his back.

A gasp escaped him, equal parts pain and defiance.

The Ursa sank onto her rear haunches and pulled her bloodied paw to her maw. With tiny eyes watching him, she licked each drop of his blood from her claws, huffing with pleasure.

He waited at the far side of the room, next to the damaged gate. The iron smell of his own blood coated his nostrils. He slid one staff down his bleeding back and through his belt, hooking the top through his priestly collar. That left him a staff in one hand, and the other hand free.

He broke the staff across his knee and set both pieces on the ground.

Then he dropped to that same knee, bowed his head, and muttered a prayer, calming his mind. A holy kiss on his pectoral cross burned his lips. His pain drew to a single point, centering him.

He touched his forehead with his index finger. “In nomine Patris …”

He touched his breastbone. “Et Filii …”

He touched first his left shoulder, then his right. “Et Spiritus Sancti.”

Then he crossed his thumb across his index finger and kissed it.

He gathered up the two pieces of the staff.

The bear came.

He whispered, “By the sign of the cross, deliver me from my enemies, O Lord.”

The Ursa thundered toward him, almost upon him.

At the last moment he leaped straight toward the ceiling, flattening his body against the roof as only a Sanguinist could, sliding between the bear’s back and the roof. He found narrow passage, only inches to spare.

Below him, the Ursa hit the gate with a tremendous crack. The second rod holding it to the floor broke away, and the gate was now bent more than a foot. If Rhun had been willing to abandon Jordan, he could have escaped.

Instead, he twisted in midair and fell back down upon the dazed beast. Before the Ursa had time to shake her stunned head, he stabbed one half of his broken staff toward one shaggy paw.