The Blood Gospel (Page 26)

But nothing hid the broken pieces of the sarcophagus’s heavy stone lid. Her light lingered there. Motes of dust drifting through the beam did not obscure the truth of his impossible act in lifting and pushing that stone free.

The soldier did not seem to notice. He faced the blasted doorway as if it were an unsolvable mystery.

Closer at hand, the woman’s light settled on Rhun, as did her soft brown eyes. “Thank you, Father.”

He heard an awkward catch in her voice when she said the word father. He found it discomfiting, sensing that she had no faith.

“My name is Rhun,” he whispered. “Rhun Korza.”

He had not shared the intimacy of his full name with another in a long time, but if they were to die here together, he wanted them to know it.

“I’m Erin, and this is Jordan. How—”

The soldier cut her off; cold fury underlay his tone. “Who were they?”

That single question hid another. He recognized it in the man’s voice, read it in his face.

What were they?

He considered the hidden question. The Church forbade revealing the truth, its most guarded secret. Much could be lost.

But the man was a warrior, like himself. He had stood his ground, faced darkness, and he had paid in blood for a proper answer.

Rhun would honor that sacrifice. He stared the other full in the eye and offered the truth, naming their attackers. “They are strigoi.”

His words hung in the air, like the swirling dust, obscuring more than they revealed. Clearly confused, the man cocked his head to the side. The woman, too, studied him, more in curiosity than in anger. Unlike the soldier, she did not seem to blame him for the deaths here.

“What does that mean?” The soldier would not be pacified until he understood, and doubtless not afterward either.

Rhun lifted a stone off one of the dead men and brushed sand from his face. The woman kept her light on his hands as he angled the dusty head toward them. With one gloved hand, he peeled back cold lips, exposing an ancient secret.

Long white fangs glinted in the beam of light.

The soldier’s hand moved to the butt of his gun. The woman drew in a sharp breath. Her hand rose to her throat. An animal’s instinct to protect itself. But instead of remaining frozen in horror, she lowered her hand and came to kneel beside Rhun. The man stayed put, alert and ready to do battle.

Rhun expected that, but the woman surprised him, when so little else did. Her fingers—trembling at first, then steadying—reached to touch the long, sharp tooth, like Saint Thomas placing his hand in Christ’s wound, needing proof. She plainly feared the truth, but she would not shun it.

She faced Rhun, skeptical as only a modern-day scientist could be. And waited.

He said nothing. She had asked for the truth. He had given it to her. But he could not give her the will to believe it.

She waved a hand over the corpse. “These may be caps, put on to lengthen his teeth …”

Even now, she refused to believe, sought comforting rationalizations, like so many others before her. But unlike them, she leaned closer, not waiting for confirmation or consolation. She lifted the upper lip higher.

As she probed, he expected her eyes to widen with horror. Instead, her brows knit together in studious interest.

Surprised yet again, he eyed her with equal fascination.

5:21 P.M.

Kneeling by the body, Erin sought to make sense of what lay before her. She needed to understand, to put meaning to all the blood and death.

She desperately ran through a mental list of cultures where people sharpened their teeth. In the Sudan desert, young men whittled their incisors to razor points in a rite of passage. Amid the ancient Maya, filed teeth had been a sign of nobility. In Bali, tooth filing was still a coming-of-age ritual that marked the transition from animal to human. Every continent had similar practices. Every single one.

But this was different.

As much as she wanted it to be true, no tools had sharpened these teeth.

“Doc, talk to me.” Jordan hovered over her shoulder, his tense voice loud in the small space. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

She fought to keep her tone clinical, both for her sake and for his. If she lost her composure, she might never get it back. “These canine teeth are firmly rooted in the maxilla. Feel how the bony sockets at the base of the fangs are thickened.”

Jordan stepped over a pile of rubble to stand between her and the priest. He rested one hand on his gun. “I’ll take your word for it.”

She flashed him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. It didn’t seem to work, because his face stayed stern when he asked, “What does it mean?”

She leaned back on her haunches, eager to put space between herself and the tooth she had just touched. “Such root density is a common trait in predators.”

Father Korza stepped away. Jordan’s barrel twitched toward him.

“Jordan?” She stood next to him.

“Keep talking.” He eyed the priest, as if he expected him to interrupt, but the man stood still. “It’s interesting stuff, isn’t it, padre?”

She scrutinized the dusty brown face in the rubble. It looked as human as she did. “A lion’s jaw exerts six hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. To support such power, the tooth sockets harden and thicken around the fangs, as these have done.”

“So what you are saying,” Jordan said, clearing his throat, “is that these fangs aren’t just a weird fashion statement. That they’re natural?”

She sighed. “I can’t come up with another explanation that fits.”

In the dim light of her flashlight, she read the shock on Jordan’s face and the fear in his eyes. She felt it, too, and she would not let her feelings overwhelm her. Instead, she turned to the silent priest for answers. “You called them strigoi?”

His face had closed into an unreadable mask of shadows and secrets. “Their curse bears many names. Vrykolakas. Asema. Dhakhanavar. They are a scourge once known in all corners of the world. Today you call them vampires.”

Erin sat back. Did a memory of this horror lie at the root of ritualistic tooth filing, a macabre mimicry of a real terror forgotten in the modern age? Forgotten, but not gone. An icy finger traced up her back.

“And you fight them?” Jordan’s skepticism filled the tomb.

“I do.” The priest’s soft voice sounded calm.

“So what does that make you, padre?” Jordan stepped into a wider stance, as if expecting a fight. “Some kind of Vatican commando?”