The Blood Gospel (Page 112)

She remembered the look on Bathory’s face when they had been talking about the transformation of the book, and about how alchemical ingredients were needed in order to catalyze the transformation of ordinary lead into the golden word of Christ.

Bathory had already figured out the Alpha and Omega.

All heads turned to Erin.

“Go ahead,” Jordan said.

“The book has the clues to open it on the cover.” Her voice trembled. “And Bathory figured it out.”

“You’d better explain quickly,” Jordan said.

Erin bent to the stationery and circled the papal seal at the top.

It depicted two keys—the gold and silver keys of Saint Peter—crossed at the middle and bound by loops of crimson rope. The papal seal and the image on the book bore an uncanny resemblance to each other—but instead of keys representing the popes, the book had two figures crossed in a similar fashion.

Erin explained: “Saint Peter hid the book two millennia ago. He must have seen the design on the Gospel, a design that was to become better and better known as the centuries passed—moving out of secrecy into the open sometime during the twelfth century when the crossed keys began to appear as heraldic symbols of the popes. But the source for that design must have come from the images inscribed on the Blood Gospel and borne by Saint Peter.”

She tapped the papal seal. “The keys represent the papacy. So do the figures. The skeleton and the man.” She pushed hair back off her face. “Alpha stands for first. Under that is the drawing of a skeleton.”

“Yes?” Rhun leaned in close, dark eyes staring at her as if he could read the answer in her face.

“That symbol represents the bones of the first pope.”

“Saint Peter!” the Cardinal said. “That’s why they stole his bones.”

“To be used as the first ingredient in opening the book. I believe some of Saint Peter’s ground-up bone is meant to fill that first inkwell-like hole on the cover.”

Jordan stirred. “Piers might have been trying to tell us that in Germany. He kept saying ‘book’—and ‘bones.’ ”

“Exactly.” She tapped the other half of the picture. “This depiction of a living man represents the current pope. The Omega pope. The last pope.”

“So they need the current pope’s bones, too?” Jordan asked, looking squeamish.

She shook her head.

“Then what do they need?” Rhun asked.

“What does a man have that a skeleton doesn’t?” She started listing. “Life. Flesh. Blood.”

“Blood?” Jordan interrupted. “Piers mentioned that, too, but in German. Blut.”

“The second ingredient …” Erin’s hands turned to ice as the full realization dawned on her. She looked at the others. “They need the blood of the current pope.”

4:48 P.M.

Rhun and Nadia ran behind Bernard, flanking him, forming their own triad. No longer concerned about revealing their unnatural heritage, they moved at top speed, shadows sweeping the halls of the Apostolic Palace. The humans fell behind. But this was no affair of theirs.

Rhun sprinted down the long hall that led to His Holiness’s bedroom. Walls covered in rich wood flashed by. Crucifixes and dark religious paintings hung throughout the hall. A fortune in art, but that would not be enough to save an old man’s life. Only they could do that.

Grant, O God, Thy protection, and in protection, strength.

The pope’s bedroom door stood open, spilling light into the dark hall.

Shadows flickered inside.

Bernard ran into the room without pause or a knock, he and Nadia in formation close behind him. A wave of blood assaulted his senses. They were too late.

His Holiness lay on his side on the floor. Blood flowed from his opened neck onto his holy white cassock. On the floor next to his body lay a straight razor, probably his own. Near his old white head were his red papal shoes, neatly lined up next to his bed. His usually carefully combed hair was tousled, his lined face pale with shock, his warm blue eyes closed.

Ambrose was kneeling by him. Blood coated his palms. He was trying, ineffectually, to stanch the wound.

Bernard joined Ambrose on the floor, Nadia stepped into the adjoining bathroom, and Rhun assessed the bedroom for threats. Thick velvet curtains were drawn tight, the simple brass bed rumpled and empty, the chair pushed straight into the antique desk, bookshelf orderly behind it.

Rhun understood.

They had taken him in his bed as he rested, and with little struggle.

Rhun closed his eyes and reached out with other senses. The only heartbeats in the room belonged to Ambrose and His Holiness. The only smells were familiar ones: Ambrose, His Holiness, the other Sanguinists, paper, dust, and a trace of incense. And, overlying it all, the old man’s spilled blood.

He returned his attention to His Holiness. His face had lost even the small amount of color it had when they’d arrived. His breath rasped out through his partially opened mouth.

“I came to tell him and he … he …” Ambrose stuttered. “He needs a doctor. Get him a doctor!”

Bernard pressed a firm palm on the pope’s wound. Nadia nodded once to let the Cardinal know that the bathroom was clear, then ran from the room, as fleet as the wind.

Ambrose wiped his hands down his black cassock. His heart tripped along in fear or shock. He looked so pale and lost that Rhun pitied him.

Rhun dropped his hand to Bernard’s shoulder. “We must take him to the surgery. Perhaps his physician can help him there.”

Bernard’s shocked eyes met his.

“Bernard!” he said sharply.

The Cardinal’s eyes cleared. “Of course.”

Bernard kept one hand tight against His Holiness’s throat and slid the other under his shoulders. Rhun put his own arms under the pope, too. The slight weight would be easy to bear. The old man’s heart stumbled, weakness in every beat. Without help, he did not have long to live.

Rhun and Bernard lifted the wounded man and bore him toward the emergency surgery. Nadia would bring the physician there.

This time their progress down the hall was slow. Rhun had time to see the ancient paintings, framed in heavy wood. This was the wall of saints, and each picture told a story of pain and martyrdom.

Swiss Guardsmen pounded down the hall, arriving with Erin, Jordan, and Nate.

“His Holiness is grievously wounded.” Bernard spoke in the formal Italian of his long-ago boyhood. Rhun had not heard that accent for many years. Bernard must be still in shock.