The Blood Gospel (Page 78)

Jordan’s face was set like stone. He did not break the rhythm of his paddling.

Piers’s face glowed iridescent in a wash of sunlight.

His back arched. The flush spread to his neck and hands.

He screamed.

Nadia held him close. “Lord our God, You are our refuge from generation to generation. Year and days vary, but You remain eternal.”

Piers grew silent, slumping in her arms and going still.

“Your mercy sustains us in life and in death,” Nadia continued. “Grant us to remember with thanks what You have given us through Piers and Emmanuel. Receive them together into Your kingdom after their long years of service to You.”

Erin finished with her, using a word she hadn’t spoken in years and doubted that she ever truly meant, until now.

“Amen.”

41

October 27, 7:07 A.M., CET

Harmsfeld, Germany

Jordan dug deeper with the paddle, working slowly across the lake’s surface. He stared up at the sun, marking a new day after the longest night of his life—but at least, he still had a life.

He pictured the faces of his men … of Piers … of Emmanuel.

When Jordan had spread his coat over Rhun, he could tell that the priest might not be far behind the others. And for what? They’d come out of their long nightmare empty-handed.

At the bow of the boat, Nadia removed the duster from Piers’s body and handed it to Erin. The priest no longer needed its protection, but Erin was shivering in the early morning chill.

Nadia laid Piers out in the boat as best she could and crossed his arms over his thin chest. Her hands lingered above the terrible wounds on his feet and hands, but she refused to touch them. She drew Emmanuel’s cassock over his lifeless form, tucking it lovingly around him, then bowed her head in prayer.

Jordan did the same, owing Piers that much.

Once this was done, Nadia made the sign of the cross.

The woman looked to the sun for a long breath, then scooped up Piers, lifted him over the gunwale, and gently rolled his body into the lake. He sank out of sight in the green water, a trail of bubbles rising from the black cassock.

Erin gasped at the unceremonious end of Father Piers.

“He cannot rest in hallowed ground, nor can his body be found,” Nadia explained, then she sat back down, picking up a paddle. “Let him find his peace and eternal rest in these highlands he loved so much.”

Erin shivered, her blue lips pressed into a thin line, but she kept paddling.

Jordan checked behind his shoulder. The shore loomed out of the fog. He spotted the dock to the right. In the forest ahead, a bird called, greeting the morning, and another answered.

It seemed that life went on.

He did not slow the boat as the bank swept up to its bow. He used their momentum to shove the boat into the mud.

“Wait here,” he warned.

Erin shivered and nodded.

Nadia did not respond.

He drew his Colt and vaulted off the side. Mud sucked at his boots, but it felt good to be on land, outside in the sunlight.

He hurried to the spot where they’d hidden their Ducati bikes. They could be back at the abbey in less than an hour. Maybe Brother Leopold had some kind of medicine to help Rhun heal.

But as Jordan stepped behind the sheltering tree, he stopped, staring down at the wreckage of the trio of bikes. He tensed, searching around. The strigoi were surely hiding from the sun, but he knew that the Belial also employed humans.

At that moment he realized a horrible truth.

They were still not safe—even in the brightness of a new day.

7:12 A.M.

Standing on the muddy shore, Erin pulled her leather duster tightly around her body. She turned her gaze at the trees that had swallowed up Jordan. She saw no movement out there, which burned an ember of worry in her chest.

To the side, Nadia unstrapped the wineskin from her leg and ducked under the coat covering Rhun, still keeping the sunlight off his body as she checked on him.

Erin longed to peek beneath, too, and see how Rhun fared, but she didn’t dare. Nadia knew best how to care for him. She had probably known him longer than Erin had been alive.

Jordan’s familiar form reappeared out of the woods, and Erin let out a deep breath. But she could tell by the slump of his shoulders that he had bad news. Very bad. It took a lot to defeat him, and Jordan looked crestfallen.

Nadia sat back up, one hand resting on Rhun’s covered head.

“Someone destroyed the bikes,” Jordan said, casting her an apologetic look, as if it were his fault.

“All of them?” Nadia asked.

Jordan nodded. “Not fixable without parts and tools and time.”

“None of which we have.” Nadia’s hand stroked her wounded leg. She suddenly looked frail. “We’ll never get Rhun back to the abbey alive if we have to walk.”

“What about the Harmsfeld church?” Erin pointed to the steeple poking above the forest. “You thought it could offer Piers sanctuary. What about Rhun?”

Nadia leaned back. She stroked a hand along the coat covering Rhun.

“We must pray it has what we need.”

7:14 A.M.

From the shoreline, Jordan watched the fog disperse in tatters in the early morning sunlight. Once it was gone, they’d be exposed beside the lake: three adults with a stolen dory and a badly wounded man.

Not easy to explain that one.

Nadia stepped over to the beached boat and began to haul the unconscious Rhun up in her arms. It was a short hike to the picturesque hamlet of Harmsfeld.

Jordan stepped in to intervene. “Please give him to me.”

“Why? Do you think me too weak for such a task?” Her dark eyes narrowed.

“I think that if anyone sees a woman as small as you carrying a full-grown man as easily as if he were a puppy, it’ll raise questions.”

Reluctantly, she allowed Jordan to hoist Rhun on his shoulder. The priest was deadweight in his arms. If he were a human, he’d be simply dead: cold, no heartbeat, and no breath. Was he even still alive?

Jordan had to trust that Nadia would know.

The woman led them through the surrounding forest at a punishing pace. Jordan soon wished he’d let her carry Rhun until they got within sight of the village.

But in less than ten minutes, they were traipsing across the frost-coated paving stones of the main street. Nadia led them in a seemingly haphazard fashion, stopping occasionally to listen with her head cocked. She probably heard people long before Jordan and Erin could and sought to avoid running into any.

He glanced over at Erin. Like him, she was soaked to the skin. But unlike him, she wasn’t working up heat from carrying a heavy weight. Her blue lips trembled. He had to get her inside and warmed up.