The Blood Gospel (Page 65)

“They cheat,” Jordan said. “They don’t need to breathe, remember? Just one more weird thing to add to the list.”

“You have a list?”

He ticked items off on his fingers. “No heartbeat, free-flowing blood, allergic to silver. Did I miss anything?”

“How about the way they can sit still as statues or move twice as fast as we do?”

“There’s that. And the fact that they prey on humans.”

“Sanguinists don’t,” she reminded him. “That’s one of their laws.”

“Law or not, I can tell they still want to. That lust is still in them.” He leaned forward. “I’ve seen the way Rhun looks at you, like he’s both fascinated and hungry.”

“Quit it! He does not.”

She had to turn away, hiding her lack of conviction in her words, the memory of what had transpired in the subterranean chapel in Jerusalem still fresh in her mind.

“Just be careful around him,” Jordan added.

Erin glanced back again, hearing a catch in his voice. Was he right, or was he simply jealous? She wasn’t sure which proposition she found more worrisome.

Just then, a sleek black head popped up next to the boat. Nadia. “The door is open. The bunker is sealed with an air lock. We must enter together, close the first door, and open the second.”

She swam a yard off and waved an arm for Erin and Jordan to follow.

Always a soldier, Jordan dove immediately. He surfaced quickly, rolled onto his back, and stared at Erin with a big grin.

“Water’s fine,” he said, the shiver in his voice belying his words.

Nadia could read the true reason for Erin’s hesitation. “If you are frightened, perhaps you had best remain with the boat.”

Screw that.

Erin stood and leaped into the water. The snowmelt cold of the lake shocked her, as if trying to force reason back into her skull, to encourage her to return to the safety of the boat.

Instead, she took a deep breath and dove straight for the open door below.

5:05 A.M.

At the bottom of the lake, Rhun heard their two heartbeats change when Erin and Jordan entered the water. He stuck his head out of the archway door and shone his waterproof flashlight up, offering them a beacon to follow. Silver moonlight from the surface silhouetted their dark forms as they kicked and pawed their way downward.

The soldier swam swiftly and economically. He could have reached the bottom in seconds, but he hung back, keeping watch on Erin.

She, on the other hand, was a terrible swimmer. Her movements were jerky with panic and her heart raced. Still, Rhun respected her for having the courage to try. Without the heavy grimwolf coat weighing her down, he doubted that she would have made it.

Once she got close enough, Rhun reached out, seized her arm, and pulled her through the archway and into the small flooded air lock. Less than a second later, Nadia and Jordan swam in.

Together, the pair tugged the outer hatch closed.

Metal thudded into place. A quick clanking sounded as they spun the door lock. Rhun’s flashlight revealed concrete walls surrounding them—and the frightened face of Erin.

He worried that her heart might explode, its pace barely pausing between beats. He had to get her out of the water before she panicked and drowned. If the bunker beyond the air lock was flooded, he would have to rush her back to the surface himself.

On the far side of the small chamber, Emmanuel worked at the steel dogs that locked down the inner hatch. As he twisted the last one, the door burst open on its own, shoved by the water pressure from inside the air lock. As the water flooded out of the chamber, they were all swept along with the draining torrent—and spilled into the dry Nazi bunker.

33

October 27, 5:07 A.M., CET

Beneath Harmsfeld Lake, Germany

Erin stood shakily, soaked to the skin, her teeth already beginning to chatter.

Everyone else was on their feet, weapons drawn, sweeping their lights down the dark concrete tunnel ahead. She rested her hand on the cold stock of her own holstered pistol and pulled out her waterproof flashlight from the wet pocket of her long leather coat.

Her heart still thudded in her throat. She glanced back into the air lock. She did not want to ever have to do that again. She hoped there was some hidden landward exit to this bunker.

Clicking on the flashlight, she shone its beam on the floor, where drains were already reclaiming the water that had flooded in with the new arrivals. She swept the beam around the tunnel. Its rounded sides rose from a level floor, climbing fifteen feet, large enough to drive a Sherman tank down without scraping the concrete from the walls.

She imagined the teams of skeletal concentration-camp inmates working on this tunnel in near-total darkness, only to be killed when the structure was complete, their blood shed to keep its secrets.

She sniffed the air: dank and moldy, but not stale. She searched the ceiling. Likely some passive ventilation system was still intact.

She joined the others. Based on the satellite map, they should be standing in the right leg of the Odal rune. But where should they go from here?

“What now?” Jordan asked, mirroring Erin’s concern. “We just wander around looking?”

The triad of Sanguinists formed a silent wedge-shaped shield a few steps away: Emmanuel, at the head, pulled his wet cassock back over his leather armor. Nadia and Rhun flanked him. All three were clearly casting out their senses, gaining their bearings, and judging the threat level.

Erin moved closer to Jordan, into the shelter of their protection.

She knew her role, too—as scholar, the alleged Woman of Learning.

“I think the most symbolically powerful place to store a sacred object here,” she offered, “would be at an intersection, like where this leg intersects with the bottom of the diamond. Or maybe the top of the diamond.”

“Agreed,” Nadia said, and urged Emmanuel forward, to take point.

She and Rhun moved in sync behind him, as if the three were connected by invisible wires.

“You go in front of me, Erin,” Jordan said. “I’ll take the rear.”

Erin didn’t argue, happy to comply with military protocol in this instance.

Together, they all moved down the tunnel—too swiftly for Erin’s taste, but likely too slowly from the triad’s perspective. While the Sanguinists kept to their formation perfectly, she kept following first too close and then too far.

Emmanuel stopped at the first door they came to—a nondescript gray metal hatch on the side of the tunnel. He tried the handle. It was clearly locked, but that didn’t seem to deter the stoic Spaniard. He flexed black-gloved fingers and yanked the handle out of the door. He tossed it aside with a skittering clunk.