The Blood Gospel

“What’s a Vitandus?” Jordan asked.

Erin knew that answer. “It is a title given as a punishment. There is no worse religious condemnation from the Church. It’s worse than excommunication. More like a permanent banishment and shunning.”

“Great. Can’t wait to meet the guy. Must be a real charmer.”

“He is,” Rhun added. “So beware.”

Jordan made an involuntary move for his holster, but they had been forced to leave their weapons in Germany. They flew here by commercial airlines, using false papers prepared by Nadia. But there was no way to smuggle in their weapons.

“What did this Vitandus do?” Erin asked, stamping her cold feet against the stone as if that would warm them. “Who is he?”

Rhun kept his gaze on the bare trees, watchful, wary, with a frightened cast to his eyes. He responded matter-of-factly—though the answer stunned her.

“You know the man better as Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin.”

4:52 P.M.

Moving slowly down the tiled path, Rhun fingered his icy rosary and offered a prayer that Grigori would not order them immediately slaughtered, as he had murdered every Sanguinist sent to Russia since 1945. Perhaps the tube that Nadia had handed him offered some hope. She had instructed him to give it to Grigori unopened.

But what was it?

Did he bear a gift or a weapon?

Erin broke into his worries. “Rasputin?” Disbelief rang in her voice, shone in her narrowed eyes. “The Mad Monk of Russia? Confidant to the Romanovs?”

“The same,” he answered.

Such details were what most historians noted about Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin. He had been a mystic monk rumored to have healing powers, his fate tied to Czar Nicholas II and his family. In the early 1900s, he had used those powers to ingratiate himself with the czar and his family, seemingly the only one capable of helping their son through his painful illness of hemophilia. For such tender care, they had overlooked his sexual eccentricities and political machinations, until eventually a British secret-service agent and a group of nobles had assassinated him.

Or so it was thought.

Rhun, of course, knew far more.

He drew in a deep breath of cold air. He smelled the fresh tang of snow, the underlying carpet of frostbitten leaves, and the faint tinge of old death.

Here was Russia.

He had not breathed its scent in a hundred years.

Jordan, meanwhile, surveyed the park, ever vigilant as he strode at Rhun’s side.

Rhun followed his gaze. The soldier’s eyes lingered on the dark tree trunks, the low stone wall, the plinth supporting a statue, all places where enemies might hide. He appreciated Jordan’s wariness and suspicion, two valuable traits while standing on Russian soil. But their adversary had not yet arrived. For perhaps another few moments they were still safe.

They stopped at the grim dark statue of a woman staring into the distance, proffering a wreath to the lost citizens of St. Petersburg: the symbol of a mourning motherland.

Jordan blew into his hands to warm them, a gesture that spoke to his humanness and the fire burning inside him. He faced Rhun. “I thought Rasputin died during World War One?”

Erin answered him. “He was assassinated. Poisoned with cyanide, shot four times, beaten with a club, wrapped in a rug, and thrown in the Neva River, where he supposedly drowned.”

“And this guy survived all that?” Jordan said with thick sarcasm. “Sounds like a strigoi to me.”

Erin shook her head. “There are plenty of pictures of him in daylight.”

Rhun tried to focus past their endless chatter. He heard a creature rustle among the trees a few yards off. But it was only a field mouse searching for grain before winter buried everything in snow. He hoped that the creature might find some.

“Then what is he?” Jordan asked.

Rhun sighed, knowing only answers would silence them. “Grigori was once a Sanguinist. He and Piers and I served as a triad for many years, before he was defrocked.”

Jordan frowned. “So your order defrocked this guy, then punished him with eternal banishment?”

“An order of Vitandus,” Erin reminded him.

The soldier nodded. “No wonder this guy doesn’t like the Church. Maybe you need to work on your PR.”

Rhun turned his back on them. “That is not the entire reason for his hatred of the Church.”

He touched his pectoral cross. Grigori had many reasons—hundreds of thousands of reasons—to hate the Church, reasons that Rhun understood far too well.

“So why was Rasputin excommunicated?” Erin asked.

He could still hear the doubt in her voice as she spoke Grigori’s name. She would not believe the truth until she could touch it. In this case, she might regret needing such reassurances.

Jordan pressed Rhun with more questions. “And what happens to an excommunicated Sanguinist? Can he still perform holy rites?”

“A priest is said to have an indelible mark on his soul,” Erin said. “So I’m guessing he can still consecrate wine?”

Rhun rubbed his eyes—with such short lives, their impatience was understandable, their need for answers insatiable. He wished for silence, but it was not to be.

“Grigori can consecrate wine,” Rhun answered tiredly. “But unlike wine blessed by a priest from the true Church, it does not have the same sustaining power of Christ’s blood. Because of that, he is forever trapped in a state between cursed strigoi and blessed Sanguinist.”

Erin brushed her hair out of her face. “What does that mean for his soul?”

“At the moment,” Jordan said, “I’m more concerned about what it means for his body. Like can he come out during the day?”

“He can and does and will.”

And soon.

“So why do we need his permission to be here?” Jordan asked.

“We need his permission because he has not let a Sanguinist leave Russian soil alive for many decades. He knows we are here. He will have us brought to him when it is time.”

Jordan turned on him, his heart spiking with anger. “And you couldn’t have told us this sooner? How much danger are we in?”

Rhun faced his fury. “I believe that we stand a good chance of leaving Russia alive. Unlike the others who have come here, the Vitandus and I have a more nuanced relationship because of our shared past.”

Jordan’s hand strayed to the side where his weapon usually hung. “So the men in the black rattletrap who have been following us since the airport … they belong to a Russian strigoi mobster with a shoot-on-sight order for all Sanguinists?”