The Blood Gospel (Page 71)

Frankincense.

Her heartbeat sped up. There had been traces of frankincense in the tomb in Masada, common enough in ancient burials.

But not in Nazi bunkers.

She fought to keep her composure, kicking herself mentally for jumping on the dais like a lumbering ox, especially after years of scolding her students for the most minor violations of the integrity of a site.

She turned the shard over. The piece was roughly triangular, like the corner of a box. Frozen in place, as if she were crouching in the middle of a minefield, she studied the other pieces on the floor. Three other triangles rested nearby, along with other pieces.

What if the triangles were corners?

If so, maybe they had been part of a box.

A box that might have held a book.

She stared up at the empty lectern. Had the marauding Russians come upon what was hidden here? Smashed open what they found and stole what was inside?

Despairing, she looked to the crucifix for answers. The figure on the cross was as skeletal as a concentration-camp victim, thinner than any representation of Christ she had ever seen. Black nails pinned each bony hand to the cross, and a larger spike had been driven deep through the figure’s overlapping feet. Burgundy paint glistened around his wounds. She moved the light up, drawn to the nearly featureless face, eyes and mouth barely demarcated by slits, the nostrils even thinner—depicted here was a perfect rendition of endless suffering.

She had an irrational urge to cut the statue down, to comfort that figure.

Then a sharp pain burst in her hand. She raised it to the light, realizing she had sliced her thumb on the shard from clenching her fist too hard.

Reminded of her duty, she turned her back on the cross and began gathering the broken pieces from the dais, scooping them up and stuffing them in her pockets. She noted that some had writing on one side, but she would have to decipher them later.

Jordan noted her work and began to climb onto the stage with her.

“Don’t!” she warned, fearful of any further destruction to the clues left here by the Russians.

With enough time, she might—

Rhun’s shout reached them, full of hopelessness. “The bats are through the door.”

36

October 27, 6:04 A.M., CET

Beneath Harmsfeld Lake, Germany

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.

“Arrêtez …!”

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 moved. A head lifted, revealing a ravaged face, skin shriveled tight around hard-edged bone. Erin’s hand rose to cover her throat, as if she knew what hung there.

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. “Mein Sohn?” he croaked, throat clearly unaccustomed to forming words.

My son.

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 why has he suffered? Who nailed him here and why?”

“Libri … verlassen …” It seemed that Piers struggled as much with his tongue as with his mind, tripping through various languages as madness danced behind the glaze of his eyes.

Rhun stared up at the ruins of the Sanguinist scholar. “Take him down.”