Innocent Blood

48

Jordan leaned his forehead against the window of yet another helicopter. The constant drone of the engine and the endless expanse of featureless sand lulled him into a drowse. The persistent burn that etched his left shoulder, tracing fire along his tattoo, kept him from sleeping. It wasn’t so much painful as an annoyance, an itch that couldn’t be scratched away.

Still, he rubbed it even now, barely aware he was doing it.

But someone else was.

“Is something wrong with your shoulder?” Erin asked.

“… mm…” he said noncommittally, not wanting to bother her with such minor complaints when they had greater worries.

Like the boy draped across the seats next to Erin.

She cradled Tommy’s head, one hand holding a folded gauze pad to his neck. During the five-plus hours of travel, her efforts had seemed to slow the bleeding, but she still had to regularly swap out gauze pads for fresh ones.

But at least they were almost to their destination.

After leaving the beach, Christian had returned to Naples and secured their same jet, freshly refueled, and lifted off immediately for the small city of Mersa Matruh along the Egyptian coast, where they transferred to their current helicopter, a former military craft turned civilian charter. From there, Christian piloted them south over the sands.

Jordan had seen a lot of desert in his tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, but nothing the size of this one. It was as if he had traded the battleship gray of the Mediterranean Sea for this tan Saharan Ocean. No matter how long the helicopter flew, the ground below never changed.

But worst of all, the ash cloud continued to pursue them, chasing them across the sea and out into the desert. According to reports on the radio, it was spreading in a wide swath, moving faster than weather patterns predicted. They had escaped European airspace just in time, before most of the area was locked down due to the foul air.

By now, he had little trouble believing the ash blew straight out of Hell.

But at least the boy still lived — though barely. His breathing was shallow, his heartbeat so faint Jordan could not discern a pulse, but Rhun assured him it was there.

Finally, something caught Jordan’s attention out the window, near the horizon, a stripe of green.

He rubbed his gritty eyes and looked again.

Still there.

At least my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me.

He stared at Rhun, at the woman sprawled next to him, covered with a navy-blue blanket. Like Tommy, she never stirred. It was upon her unspoken word that they were all out there.

Let it not be for nothing.

If the kid died, Erin would be crushed, knowing it had been upon her urging that they made this long detour to nowhere with a dying boy.

Jordan turned back to the window and watched the green stripe grow larger.

According to Erin, Siwa was an oasis, not far from the Libyan border. It had flowing water, palm trees, and a small village surrounding it. Ancient sites also dotted this emerald of the desert, including the ruins of the famous oracle’s temple, and a cluster of tombs, called Gebel al Mawta, or the Mountain of the Dead.

Hopefully, they would not be burying their two passengers at that last site.

Not knowing what they might face in Siwa, Jordan turned to the one person who had those answers. He stared at the blanketed body of the sibyl across from him — only to discover her gazing back at him, her eyes open.

He stiffened in surprise and touched Erin’s arm.

She glanced over and had the same startled reaction as him. “Arella…?”

Erin looked down at Tommy, but he was still out.

Rhun freed the harness that held the woman secure and helped her to sit up.

She kept the blanket draped around her shoulders despite the warmth of the cabin, plainly still chilled, still recovering. She weaved a bit shakily as she sat.

“How do you feel?” Jordan asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise of the helicopter.

She turned to the window, staring at the stretch of trees sweeping toward them. “Siwa…”

“We’re almost there,” Erin said.

Arella closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “I smell it.”

As they watched, color slowly returned to her, darkening her skin away from its ashen gray. Even her ghostly hair had begun to gather shadows. She was plainly reviving, like a dry plant after watering.

“She must be gaining strength as we near the oasis,” Erin whispered next to him.

“It comes from the water,” Arella said, opening her eyes again, some of the glow shining there once more. “It’s in the very air.”

Jordan glanced out. He saw palm trees rushing under them now, along with flowering bushes, courtyard gardens, and glints of blue water from fountains and man-made pools, all likely spring fed from the local aquifer.

Farther ahead, two milky-blue lakes framed the village. He spotted fishing boats and the zip of a jet ski, so incongruous here in the middle of such a large desert. Beyond the lakes, a series of taller, flat-topped mesas split the desert.

Christian circled the lake to the west and swung out toward one of the neighboring hills. Atop it sat a tumble of crumbling stone buildings, the ruins surrounding an old tower. It pointed at the sky like an accusatory finger.

It was all that was left of the oracle’s temple.

Erin had instructed Christian to take them here.

Jordan looked back at Arella, who continued to stare out, a tear streaking down one perfect cheek.

“I have not seen it in so very long,” she said.

Jordan didn’t know how to reply.

“This was your home?” Erin asked.

The woman bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“That would make you both the Sibyl of Cumae and Sibyl of Libya.” Erin’s eyes widened with sudden insight. “Those five symbols, the five seers who predicted Christ’s birth, they’re all you.”

Again a lowering of a chin answered her. “I made my homes in many places in the ancient world.” She stared eagerly out the window again as Christian circled toward the ruins. “This was one of my favorites. Though it was, of course, once much grander. You should have seen it in the days of Alexander.”

“As in Alexander the Great?” Rhun asked, surprise in his voice.

Erin looked at Arella. “History says he came here. That he consulted you.”

She smiled. “He was a beautiful man, with curly brown hair, shining eyes, so young, so full of the need to find his destiny, to make it come true. Like so many others who came before… and after him.”

She grew pensive.

Rhun imagined she was thinking of Judas.

Arella sighed. “The young Macedonian came to confirm that he was the son of Zeus, that his fate was one of conquest and glory. Which I told him was true.”

Jordan knew Alexander had created one of the largest empires in the ancient world by the time he was thirty and died undefeated in battle.

“What about the other son of a god?” Erin said. “Legends say the holy family came here, after fleeing Herod’s wrath.”

She smiled softly. “Such a handsome boy.”

Rhun shifted nervously. Jordan didn’t blame the guy. Was she remembering Christ as a boy?

Erin studied Arella. “The Bible states that it was an angel that came to Mary and Joseph and warned them to flee to Egypt, to escape the slaughter to come. Was that also you?”

Arella smiled. The woman turned to the window, gazing out at the trees and lakes. “I brought Him here, so that He could grow up in peace and safety.”

From his Sunday school classes, Jordan knew about Christ’s lost years, how He had vanished into Egypt shortly after He was born, only to reappear at about the age of twelve, when Jesus visited a temple in Jerusalem and scolded some Pharisees.

Erin stared out the window now, too, likely picturing Christ as a boy, running those streets, splashing in that lake. “I want to know everything…”

Arella said, “Even I can’t claim that. But I will share with you Christ’s first miracle. To understand all, you must start there.”

Erin’s brows drew down in puzzlement. “His first miracle? That was when he turned water into wine, at the wedding in Cana?”

Arella turned sad eyes upon Erin. “That was not his first miracle.”

Not his first miracle?

Erin sat stunned, wanted to ask more, but that secret must wait. She had scolded Bernard for putting such secrets above the life of a boy. She refused to do the same.

“What about Tommy?” she asked, placing a palm over his cold forehead. “You said back in the cavern that you could save him. Is that true?”

“I can,” Arella agreed. “But we must do it forthwith.”

The sibyl turned and leaned to Christian, speaking rapidly and pointing farther to the west, past the ruins of her temple.

Christian nodded and tilted the aircraft in that direction.

Below their skids, they swept over a village of mud-brick houses that had stood for nine hundred years, some continuously occupied. Erin tried to imagine living in the same house, generation after generation. Her current university apartment was younger than she was. It certainly did not have the breathtaking accretion of history that surrounded her now.

Then again, more than anywhere, Egypt held a sense of timelessness and mystery, a land of grand kingdoms and fallen dynasties, home to a multitude of gods and heroes. She touched the piece of amber in her pocket, remembering Amy’s fascination with this country’s history. Like every archaeologist, Amy had wanted to someday oversee a dig in Egypt, to make her mark here.

But unfortunately for Amy, that someday would never come.

Erin kept a hold on Tommy’s shoulder as the helicopter banked for a turn past the temple ruins.

Never again, she promised.

The temple swelled before her. The walls were tumbled, the roofs gone, and the rooms open to the ashen sky. Even in its current state, a hint of its original grandeur remained. Had the woman seated across from her really lived within those stone walls and determined the fate of the world with her prophecies? Had she convinced Alexander the Great that he could conquer the world? Had she met Cleopatra when she bathed in these waters? If so, what had she told the queen?

Erin had a thousand questions, but they would all have to wait.

Christian skimmed past the ruins and out toward a section of the outlying desert.

Where was Arella taking them?

The woman continued to navigate for Christian, her back to them.

Rhun gave Erin a puzzled look, just as confused, but she shrugged. They had come this far based upon the word of this angelic woman. It was too late to distrust her now.

The helicopter skirted past the occasional broken hill and flew over undulating dunes of sand. Overhead, the sky continued to grow a deeper gray as the ash cloud moved farther upon them.

Finally, the helicopter began to lower. Erin searched for any landmarks, but it appeared they were picking a random stretch of dunes on which to land. Their rotors tore ribbons of sand from the closest ridges.

The pitch of the engines changed, and the helicopter hovered in place.

But why here?

Jordan sounded no happier. “Looks like the hundreds of miles of desert we’ve already flown over.”

Erin was tempted to agree with him, but then her eyes began to detect subtle differences. The closest ridge of dunes did not follow the pattern of the surrounding desert. She glanced out both windows to confirm it. The ridge curved completely around, to form a circle, framing a giant bowl a hundred feet across and about twenty deep.

“Looks like a crater,” Erin said, pointing Jordan to the raised lip all around.

“Another volcano?” Jordan asked.

“I think it might be a meteor strike.”

Erin looked to Arella for an answer, but the woman simply directed Christian down.

A moment later the skids touched the sand. The helicopter came to a rest, canted slightly at an angle inside the bowl, not far from the center. Christian kept the rotors turning, as if deliberately blowing sand from the crater.

That’s one way to excavate.

Golden-tan sand whirled in the wash of the rotors, momentarily blinding them.

Then the engines finally stopped, the rotors slowing. After so many hours of constant droning, the silence rushed over her like a wave. The blown-up sand settled, pattering to the ground like a golden rain.

Arella finally faced them again, placing a hand on Christian’s shoulder, thanking him. “We may go now.”

Rhun cracked open the door and hopped out first. He held them back, ever wary, which Erin knew was well warranted.

“There is nothing to fear here,” Arella assured them.

After Rhun confirmed this with an all-clear, the woman climbed out next, followed by Erin.

Once on her feet, Erin stretched, drawing in a deep breath, sucking the dryness deep into her lungs, smelling the rocky scent of pure desert. She let herself bask for a moment in the heat. Sand meant the luxury of time at excavations — hours spent in the sun digging to free secrets long buried from the patient grains that had concealed them.

She didn’t have that luxury now.

She squinted at the sun. This late in winter, it would set at five o’clock, less than three hours from now. She recalled Bernard’s warning about the gates of Hell opening, but she pushed such fears aside for now.

Tommy certainly did not have even those three hours.

She turned as Jordan’s boots hit the sand next to her, helping Christian carry Tommy’s body into the desert, into this strange crater.

“Where are we?” Christian asked, his eyes narrowing in the sunlight, even though it was dimmed by ash to a harsh glare.

“Don’t know,” Erin said softly, feeling like she should whisper for some reason.

She studied the sides that curved up around her, noting the ridgeline was not as smooth as she had thought from the air, but looked rather more jagged, forming a natural palisade at the bowl’s rim. Heat radiated underfoot, more than she would have expected from this ash-covered day. It shimmered across the sand-filled crater, dancing with motes of dust.

Arella stepped away from them, heading toward the center of the crater. “Quickly with the boy” was all she said.

They followed her, mystified and confused — especially when she dropped to her knees in the sand and began digging with both hands.

Jordan cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe we should help her.”

Erin agreed. As Christian stood with Tommy in his arms, she joined Jordan and Rhun, digging shoulder to shoulder, scooping out the hot sand. Thankfully, the deeper she dug, the cooler the sand became.

Arella knelt back, letting them work, clearly still weak.

A half foot down, Erin’s fingertips hit something hard. A heady mix of anticipation and wonder rolled through her. What lay hidden here? How many times had it been buried and uncovered by passing sandstorms?

“Careful,” she warned the others. “It might be fragile.”

She slowed her movements, removing smaller amounts of sand, wishing that she had her digging tools, her whisks and brushes. Then a flake of black ash fell and stung her eye, reminding her that they needed to hurry.

Her pace picked up again, the others following her example.

“What is it?” Jordan asked, as it became clear that a layer of glass lay beneath them, swirling and rough, natural, as if something had melted the sand.

“I think it’s impact glass, maybe secondary to a meteor strike.” Erin tapped the surface with a fingernail, making it clink. “There’s a large deposit of such meteoric glass out in the Libyan desert. The yellow scarab on King Tut’s pendant was carved from a chunk of it.”

“Cool,” Jordan mumbled and returned to his labors.

Erin took a breath to wipe her brow with the back of her wrist. As Jordan and Rhun continued to clear the sand off the glass, she realized who worked so hard to free what lay buried here.

They were the prophesied trio… together again.

Taking heart in that, she redoubled her efforts, and in a few more minutes, they had cleared enough sand away to reveal edges to the glass — though more extended outward. Erin glanced all around.

Was the entire crater glass?

Had some meteor hit and melted this perfect bowl?

Was that possible?

It seemed unlikely. When the meteor hit Libya twenty-six million years ago, giving birth to Tut’s pendant, it had scattered broken glass for miles around.

With no answers at hand, she returned her attention to what they had exposed. It was as if someone had taken a diamond-tipped knife and cut a perfect circle in the glass floor here, forming a disk four feet across.

It looked not unlike a plug in a bathtub.

Erin bent to examine its surface closer, cocking her head at various angles. The disk was translucent amber, darker on one side than the other, the two shades split by an S-shaped line of faint silver, forming a melted version of a yin-yang symbol.

She noted the same pattern extended outward from here.

The glass on the eastern half of the crater appeared to be dark amber, the western half distinctly lighter.

But what was this in the center?

“Looks like a giant manhole cover,” Jordan said.

She saw he was right. She carefully fingered the edges of the large plate of glass, feeling enough of a ridge that someone might be able to lift it free if they were strong enough.

“But what’s under it?” Erin glanced to Arella. “And how does this help Tommy?”

Arella turned her face from the skies to the north and nodded to Erin. “Place the boy near my feet,” she instructed. “Then lift the stone you have uncovered.”

Christian gently lowered Tommy to the sand. Then he and Rhun took to opposite sides of the disk-shaped plug. They grabbed hold with the very tips of their fingers and lifted it cleanly up with a grating of glass and sand. The plate looked to be a foot thick and must have weighed hundreds of pounds, reminding Erin yet again of the herculean strength of the Sanguinists.

Carrying it at waist height, they stepped it over a few paces and dropped it to the sand. Erin crawled forward and looked down at what was revealed. It appeared to be a shaft, with a mirror shining back at her from a few feet down, reflecting the sky and her face.

Not a mirror, she realized.

It was the still surface of dark water.

She glanced to Arella. “It’s a well.”

The woman smiled, stepping closer, growing visibly stronger, more radiant, her body responding to some essence from this well.

Arella knelt reverentially at the edge and plunged her arm down. When she drew it back, silvery water spilled from her hand.

It must be a natural spring, possibly once a part of the neighboring oasis.

Arella moved to Tommy and dripped water from her fingertips into the wound in his neck, then gently washed his throat. The blood cleared from his skin, stopped seeping from the cut, and even the wound’s pink edges began to knit together.

Erin stared in amazement. The scientist in her needed to understand, but the woman inside simply rejoiced, sagging to her knees in relief.

Arella returned to the well, cupping her palms full of water. She lifted the double handful over Tommy.

Erin held her breath.

When the clear water splashed onto Tommy’s pale face, his eyes startled open, as if suddenly woken from a nap.

He sputtered and wiped his face, looking around. “Where am I?” he croaked.

“You’re safe,” Erin said, moving closer, hoping that was true.

His eyes found hers, and he relaxed. “What happened?”

Erin turned to Arella. “I can’t explain it, but maybe she can.”

Arella stood and wiped her hands on her shift. “The answers are writ in the glass. The story is here for any to see.”

“What story?” Erin asked.

The woman swept her arm to encompass the entire crater. “Here lies the untold story of Jesus Christ.”

49

Rhun turned in a slow circle, gaping at the sand-washed crater, picturing its foundation of mysterious glass. Even as he’d helped Erin and Jordan clear the opening to the well of healing waters, he had felt a slight burn from the glass. He wanted to dismiss it as heat from the sands, from the baking sun, but he recognized that familiar sting, from his centuries of gripping his cross.

The glass burned with holiness.

He felt the same from the well… and from this strange angelic woman. When she brushed past him to heal Tommy, water dripped from her fingertips, splashing to the sand with such holiness that he had to take a step back, fearing it.

Christian clearly felt the same, eyeing her with a glance of wonder and awe.

Rhun trembled, sensing the sheer weight of the crater’s sacred nature.

His very blood, tainted as it was, burned against the godliness of this place.

“We must clear the sand away!” Erin called.

She was already on her knees brushing away a test patch, revealing the edge of something etched higher on the glass. She waved them to spread out in a circle around the well.

Everyone set to work, even Tommy.

Only Arella hung back, showing no interest in digging. Then again, she already knew the secrets buried here for ages. Instead, her eyes remained on the ash-tinged skies, staring to the north, almost expectantly.

“It’s easier if you don’t fight the sand,” Erin said. “Work with its natural tendency to flow down.”

She demonstrated, shoving sand between her legs like a dog, pushing it to the lower slope. Rhun and the others followed suit. The grains of sand burned under his palms with a heat that came from more than the sun overhead.

Rhun dug down to the glass bedrock of the crater. More of the design that Erin had revealed appeared, incised deeply into the exposed surface. He brushed grains away, recognizing an Egyptian style to the artwork. He pushed aside more sand to reveal a square panel holding a single scene.

The rest of the team unearthed similar tableaus, etched into the golden surface. They formed a ring of panels around the wellspring, telling a long-hidden story.

They all gained their feet, trying to understand.

Seemingly drawn by their confusion, Arella stepped to the panel closest to Erin. She bent down and gently brushed dust off a tiny figure. The small body faced them, but the face was in profile, typical of Egyptian design.

“Looks like hieroglyphics,” Tommy mumbled.

But the tale here was not of Egyptian kings or gods. On the glass, a boy with curly hair wandered up a stylized dune with a pool of water waiting on the far side.

But it was not any boy.

“Is that Christ as a child?” Erin asked.

Arella lifted her face to them. “This tells how a young boy went alone into the desert to find a hidden spring. He was not yet eleven years old, and he played among the sands, among the pools, as boys do.”

Rhun’s blood stirred at the thought, of Jesus as a boy, playing in the desert like any other innocent child.

Arella stepped to the next panel, drawing them with her. Here the curly-headed boy reached the pool. A bird rested on the opposite bank, with etched lines radiating out from its body.

Erin studied the drawing, a crease pinching her brow. “What happened?”

“You are the Woman of Learning,” Arella said. “You must tell me.”

Erin dropped to a knee and traced the lines in the panel, picking out further details. “The boy is carrying a sling in his right hand, stones in his left. So he was hunting… or maybe playing. Acting out David’s fight with Goliath.”

Arella smiled, radiant with peace. “Just so. But there was no Goliath here in the desert. Just a small white dove with brilliant green eyes.”

Tommy let out a gasp, staring over at the woman. “I saw a dove like that in Masada… with a broken wing.”

Her smile wilted into sadness. “As did another long before you.”

“You’re talking about Judas…” Tommy dropped next to Erin, taking a closer look at the bird. “He said he saw one, too. When he was a boy. The morning he met Jesus.”

Erin glanced at Tommy, then Arella. “The dove has always been the symbol of the Holy Spirit for the Church.”

Rhun struggled to understand how this one bird could possibly bind the three boys together. And more important, why?

Arella simply turned away, her face impassive, moving to the next panel, making them follow.

On this square of glass, a stone flew from the boy’s sling and struck the bird, leaving one wing clearly broken.

“He hit the bird,” Erin said, sounding shocked.

“He had meant only to strike near it, to frighten it. But intentions are not enough.”

“What does that mean?” asked Tommy.

Erin explained. “Just because you want something to happen a certain way doesn’t necessarily mean that it does.”

Rhun heard the grief in the beat of Tommy’s heart. The boy had already learned that lesson well.

As did I.

The next panel told a grimmer end to this childish play. Here the curly-headed boy held the dove in his palms, its neck hanging limply.

“The stone did more than break its wing,” Erin said. “It killed it.”

“How he wished he could take back his action,” Arella said.

Rhun understood that sentiment, too, picturing Elisabeta’s face in sunshine.

Tommy turned to Arella, one eye narrowed. “How do you know what Jesus did, what he thought?”

“I could say that it is because I am old and wise, or that I am a prophetess. But I know these things because the child told them to me. He came rushing back from the desert, covered in sand and soot, and this was His story.”

Erin turned wide eyes upon the woman. “So you did more than lead the holy family to Siwa. You stayed here, looking after them.”

Arella bowed her head.

Christian crossed himself. Even Rhun’s hand went unbidden to the cross around his neck. This woman had known Christ, had shared His early triumphs and sorrows. She was far holier than Rhun could ever hope to be.

Arella waved her arm around the crater. “Jesus stood then where we stand now.”

Rhun pictured the well and the pool it must have once held. He imagined the bird and the boy along its banks. But what happened after that?

Arella moved along the ring of panels. The next revealed the boy casting his arms high. Rays, inscribed into the glass, shot upward from his palms. And amid those beams, the dove flew high, wings straight out.

“He healed it,” Erin said.

“No,” Arella said. “He restored it to life.”

“His first miracle,” Rhun breathed.

“It was.” She did not sound exulted by this act. “But the light of this miracle caught the dark eyes of another, someone who had been searching for him since the moment the angel came to Mary with his joyous message.”

“King Herod?” Jordan asked.

“No, a far greater enemy than Herod could ever be.”

“So not a man, I’m guessing?” Erin said.

Arella drew them to the next panel, where the boy faced a figure of smoke with eyes of fire. “It was indeed no man, but rather an implacable enemy, one who ambushed the boy not because of his hatred of the Christ child, but because he sought always to undo His father.”

“You’re talking about Lucifer,” Erin said, her voice hushed by dread.

Rhun stared at the glass, at the dark angel challenging the young Christ child — as Satan would do once again, when he would tempt Christ in the desert, when the Savior was a man.

“The Father of Lies came here, ready to do battle,” Arella explained. “But someone came to the boy’s defense.”

She stepped along the ring of art to reveal the boy now enfolded in the wings of an angel, just as the sibyl had enfolded Tommy that very morning.

“Another angel came to help him.” Erin turned to Arella. “Was it you?”

The other’s face softened. “Would that it had been, but it was not.”

Rhun understood the regret in her voice. What a privilege it would have been to have saved Christ.

“Who was it then?” Erin asked.

Arella nodded to the panel. It was still partially obscured by drifting sand. Rhun helped Erin clear it, the holiness burning his palms.

Erin pinched away a few final grains, noticing that it wasn’t only wings that guarded over the boy, but a sword, clutched in the hand of the angel.

Erin looked up at Arella. “The archangel Michael. The angel who fought Lucifer during the war in Heaven. The only one to ever wound Lucifer, striking him in the side with a sword.”

Arella took a deep breath. “Michael was always Heaven’s first and best sword, and so it was this time. He came down and shielded the boy from his former adversary.”

“What happened?” Jordan asked.

Arella bowed her head, as if unwilling to say. Rhun listened to the whisper of wind against sand, to the humans’ heartbeats. Sounds as eternal as the sibyl herself.

When he was certain that she would speak no more, he stepped by himself to the next sun-warmed panel. It depicted an explosion emanating from the boy, the lines shattering out from his thin form, stripping anything else off the panel.

Rhun lifted his face and swept his gaze around the crater. He tried to imagine a blast fierce enough to melt sand to glass. What could survive that? He pictured the angel’s wings shielding the mortal boy from the backlash.

But what of Christ’s defender?

Rhun turned to Arella. “How could Michael withstand such a miraculous blast from the child?”

“He could not.” She sighed softly, turning her back on the ring of art. “Michael was rent asunder.”

Rent asunder?

“All that remained of him was his sword, left abandoned here in the crater.”

Rhun reached the last panel. It showed only a chipped sword embedded point down in the crater. He scanned the arc of this story, trying to comprehend it fully.

Christ’s merciful act of restoring the life of a simple dove had resulted in the very destruction of an angel. How had the boy been able to forgive himself? Had it haunted him?

Rhun found himself on his knees before this last panel, covering his face. He had destroyed Elisabeta, a mere woman, and it still plagued him across the centuries. He was responsible for destroying her life and all those lives that followed in her bloody wake. Yet, in this moment, his hands did not hide his grief and shame, but his relief, recognizing the small measure of comfort offered by this tale.

Thank you, Lord.

Simply knowing that Christ himself could make a mistake lightened his own burden. This realization did not forgive Rhun’s sins, but it made them easier to carry.

Erin spoke up. “What became of Michael’s sword?”

“The boy came to me afterward, carrying a splinter of that sword in his hands.”

Arella touched her chest.

“That was the shard that you wore,” Erin said. “The one used to stab Tommy.”

She looked apologetically upon the boy. “It was.”

A piece of that angelic sword.

“Where is the rest of it?” Jordan asked, ever the warrior.

Arella’s serene voice grew shaky, as if the memory troubled her. “The boy told me that he had sinned when he killed the dove… and sinned again when he brought it back. That he was not ready for such responsibility of miracles.”

“So you’re saying Christ’s first miracle was a sin?” Jordan asked.

“He thought it was. But then again, in many ways, he was simply a scared, guilt-ridden boy. The truth is not for me to judge.”

Erin urged her to continue. “What happened after that?”

“He told me the rest of his story.” She waved an arm. “Then I calmed the boy and put him to bed, and I searched for the truth behind his words. I found this crater, the sword in its smoking center. Searching farther out, I discovered Lucifer’s footsteps to the south, stained by drops of his black blood.”

Rhun looked to the south. Now brought to his attention, he discovered a taint cutting through the holiness from that direction, faint but present.

Were those drops still out there?

“But of Michael,” Arella continued, “I found no trace.”

“And his sword?”

“It remains hidden,” she said. “Until the First Angel returns to Earth.”

“But isn’t that me?” Tommy asked.

Arella’s dark eyes lingered on Tommy for a silent moment, then she spoke. “You carry the best of him within you, but you are not the First Angel.”

“I don’t understand,” Tommy said.

Erin glanced at Rhun.

None of them did.

No wonder the boy could not bless the book.

Bitter disappointment coursed through Rhun. All the deaths to bring Tommy here had been in vain. So many had suffered and bled and died in pursuit of the wrong angel. And with the gates of Hell continuing to open, the world’s doom was now certain.

They had failed.

“Helicopter,” Christian said, stiffening in warning next to him.

Arella turned her eyes to the north, where she had been gazing frequently, as if she had expected as much. “So they all come at last. To see if what was once broken can be mended.”

“And what if it can’t?” Erin asked. She noted the sun sitting not far from the horizon. Sunset was little more than an hour away.

Rhun dreaded the answer.

“If it cannot”—Arella brushed her hands across her soiled white dress—“then the reign of man on Earth is over.”

50

December 20, 3:28 P.M. EET

Siwa, Egypt

If I only had their ears…

Jordan cocked his head, trying to discern any sign of a helicopter’s approach, but all he heard was the swish of wind across sand. He tried his eyes, but he found only a featureless tan horizon, sand dunes spreading in all directions, and a few flat-topped hills in the distance. Above him, the sky had turned a dark gray, the sun a wan brightness through the murk, sitting low this time in winter.

Jordan sized up their team’s ability to resist an attack — in case it was an assault force winging their way.

Who am I kidding? he thought. Of course it’s an attack.

His team certainly had no cover out here in the open, and the two Sanguinists were their best defense — and offense, for that matter.

But how many were coming?

If it was Iscariot, the bastard had boundless resources: men, strigoi, even the monstrous blasphemare.

He turned to Christian. “How about flying to someplace more defensible?”

“The bird is almost out of gas, but even if it weren’t, it’s not fast enough to outrun the machine that approaches.”

Jordan pictured the hellfire missiles shot at them.

“I see,” he said with a sigh.

He swung his machine pistol up from his shoulder. He had little ammunition left. Erin checked her pistol and shrugged. Same boat as him.

Jordan gave her what he hoped was a reassuring grin.

From the expression on her face, he failed.

Then he heard a distant whump-whump. His eyes picked out a dark mote in the glare off the sands. A small commercial helicopter swept toward them, coming in low and fast. It could hold at best five or six enemies. And it certainly had no missiles.

That was at least a small blessing.

The pilot seemed to be pushing the craft beyond its limits. White smoke trailed behind it. Jordan widened his stance and lifted his pistol, aiming for the cockpit. If he could take out the pilot, maybe the chopper would crash and solve all his problems.

As the helicopter sped closer, Jordan sighted on the right side of the bubble-shaped front, where the pilot should be seated. He moved his finger to the trigger.

“Wait!” Christian pushed his gun barrel down.

Jordan backed a step. “Why?”

“It’s Bernard,” Rhun answered. “In front, next to the pilot.”

Okay, now I want their eyes, too.

Jordan wouldn’t have recognized his own mother at that distance.

“Is that good news or bad news?” he asked.

“He’s not likely to shoot us, if that’s what you’re asking,” Christian said. “But I don’t think he’s going to be happy with us either.”

“So mostly good news, then.”

The helicopter aimed straight for them and made a rough landing at the crater’s rim, teetering at the edge, smoke boiling out of the back of the engine as it coughed to a stop.

Bernard hopped out, accompanied by a massive pilot, a true beast of a man in a flight suit. The latter ripped off his helmet, revealing a shock of dark red hair. From the cabin behind them, two women joined them. The first out had her long gray hair tied in an efficient braid, wearing Sanguinist armor. The second wore jeans and a silver shirt, covered by a long cloak. That cloak billowed into wings as the woman broke away from the others. Jordan noted the flash of chains binding her wrists.

Bathory.

She came scary quick, swooping down the slope, half skidding on her backside, showing little concern about the indignity of her approach. Her face was a mask of concern, her eyes fixed to one member of their group.

“Elizabeth!” Tommy ran up to meet her and hugged her hard.

She tolerated it for a moment — then roughly pushed his chin up, examining his neck.

“You look well,” she said, but her terseness belied her true feelings.

Jordan leaned to Erin. “I don’t get what the boy sees in her.”

Bernard reached them, eyeing Tommy, too. “You were able to heal them both,” he said gruffly, glancing at Arella. “Very good.”

The two other Sanguinists flanked behind him, backing him up, both stone-faced.

Bernard pointed to the large man. He was even larger up close, a true tank of a man, with a barrel chest and thick arms covered in mats of curly red hair.

“This is Agmundr.”

The newcomer thumped a meaty fist against his chest and flashed a grin at Christian. He lifted his other arm proudly toward the smoking aircraft.

Christian sighed and shook his head. “So it looks like you trashed another helicopter. I thought I taught you better, Agmundr. It’s not a Viking warship. It’s a finely tuned piece of machinery.”

“It vexed me.” Agmundr’s voice rumbled out in a deep-throated Nordic accent. “Too slow.”

“Everything vexes you,” Christian scolded, but they grasped each other’s forearm in a warm shake, earning Christian a slap on the back that almost dropped him to his knees. Jordan liked this Agmundr.

Bernard indicated the other Sanguinist. “And this is Wingu.”

The woman was black and stood taller than Jordan. Up close now, he saw her gray braid was decorated with feathers and wound by a colorful bead tie. Her face was stern, pocked with tribal scarring, small dots across her cheeks.

She gave them a simple nod, but her dark eyes took in everything.

“We have little time for pleasantries,” Bernard said, scanning the skies behind him. “We must bring the boy to the book. If he can be healed here, perhaps he can bless it here.”

“It is a holy site,” Erin said. “Possibly holier than St. Peter’s.”

Bernard frowned at the crater.

“This is where Christ performed his first miracle,” Erin explained. “When he was a child.”

Wingu spoke in a deep whisper, “I can sense great holiness here.”

Bernard slowly nodded, clearly feeling something, too, but he straightened and motioned to Tommy. “Then let us see if the book can be blessed upon this ground.”

Bathory let Tommy join them, but she looked reluctant. Not that she could do anything about it. Though she could walk under this ash-shrouded sky, she was clearly drained by the sun overhead, or maybe it was the holiness underfoot. Either way, she must know she could not resist the Sanguinists gathered here, on holy ground that gave them strength.

Bathory studied the pictures as she stepped across the ribbon of art. Her interest finally drew Bernard’s attention to the same. He did a double take, then moved closer himself, turning in a circle, his gaze sweeping from panel to panel, as if he were speed-reading.

He turned to Arella. “This is the story you destroyed in Jerusalem.” He strode to the last panel, bending a knee to touch the sword depicted there. His voice was full of anguish. “Why did you keep this from me?”

“The world was not ready,” she explained simply.

“Who are you to judge what the world is ready for?” Bernard stood, moving toward Arella with a hand on the hilt of his own sword.

Jordan touched his rifle.

Rhun blocked Bernard. “Stand down, old friend. Leave the past to the past. We must now face the present and the future.”

“If we could’ve possessed such a weapon…” Bernard shook his head, as distraught as Jordan had ever seen him. “Imagine the suffering we could have spared the world.”

“And all you would’ve wreaked,” Arella said. “I walked the mosque after you left Jerusalem. I saw what your forces did in the name of God. You were not ready. The world was not ready.”

Rhun touched his pectoral cross. “We have no time for this,” he reminded them. “The sun will be setting in another hour.”

His words seemed to finally break through Bernard’s anger and anguish. “You are right.” He reached to his armor and removed the Blood Gospel again and held it out. “Please, my child. Before it’s too late. You must bless this book.”

Looking worried, Tommy took it. The book looked huge in his small hands. “This didn’t work last time. And remember, I’m not the First Angel.”

Bernard gave them a baffled look. It seemed the cardinal was suffering one long day of surprises, most of them bad. Jordan knew how that felt. “What does he mean?”

Erin ignored him. “Try anyway,” she urged the boy. “You can’t do any harm.”

“Okay,” Tommy said doubtfully. He opened the book and lifted his palm over the pages. “I, Thomas Bolar, bless this book.”

Everyone leaned forward, as if expecting a miracle.

Again nothing.

No golden light, no new words.

It seemed this blasted place had worn out its potential for miracles.

“As Tommy said,” Erin offered, sensing the defeat among the Sanguinists, “he’s not the First Angel.”

“Then who is?” Bernard asked.

Erin knew she was missing something, but she felt as if she were struggling with a jigsaw puzzle in the dark, shifting pieces blindly. “Arella said Tommy carries the best of the First Angel inside him. So I think he’s still key to this puzzle.”

Rhun stood a little straighter upon hearing this. She imagined he had been thinking of all the lives spent to bring Tommy here.

They can’t have died in vain.

Still, she let that go. It was the Sanguinists’ job to wallow in sin and redemption. She had a real problem that needed solving, and she could not let herself be distracted.

“If the First Angel is inside Tommy,” Jordan said, “how do we get him out?”

“Maybe he has to be cut out,” Bernard said.

Erin scowled at him. “I think we’ll save that as a last resort.” She stared at Tommy. “Maybe an exorcism could release the angel.”

Tommy gulped, looking no happier about her suggestion than Bernard’s.

Rhun’s shoulders tightened. “You do not exorcise angels, Erin. You exorcise demons.”

“Maybe so. But maybe not.”

They were all in new territory here.

Erin looked to Arella. “And you cannot help us?”

“You have all the answers that you need.”

Erin frowned, beginning to understand the ancients’ frustration with their oracles. Sometimes they could be downright obtuse. But Erin knew the sibyl was telling her the truth. Somewhere inside Erin was the answer. As the Woman of Learning, it was up to her to puzzle it out from here. She also had to trust that Arella’s silence served a purpose, and the sibyl wasn’t playing coy just to frustrate them.

Did that mean something, too?

“Maybe we need to take Tommy to Rome after all,” Jordan said, “now that he’s better.”

“No,” Erin said. “Whatever is to come, it must happen in this place.”

She turned in a slow circle, knowing the answer lay somewhere in the sandy golden crater. Her eyes went from the panels to the uneven glass edges that looked like splashes of water frozen into ice along the crater’s rim.

“Are you sure it must happen here?” Jordan pressed.

Plainly he was seeking any excuse to escape this desert and get her somewhere safe. She appreciated that sentiment, but with the gates of Hell relentlessly opening, nowhere on Earth would be safe for much longer.

Support for her position came from the most unlikely spot.

Agmundr grunted. “The woman is right. We must stay here.”

“Why?” Erin turned to him. “What do you know?”

Agmundr pointed to the north. “Nothing mystical. That Chinook helicopter that I thought was following us…” He glanced at Bernard. “I fear we failed to outrun it after all.”

Erin looked at the smoking chopper. It looked like a horse that had been ridden into the ground.

Agmundr cocked his head. “From the sounds of its engines, it’ll be here shortly.”

Rhun and the others clearly tried to listen for it, but their blank faces told her that the Viking must have sharper hearing.

“Are you certain?” Bernard asked.

Agmundr lifted a heavy eyebrow, plainly wondering how the cardinal could doubt him.

Jordan grimaced, and Erin put her hand on his arm.

“Nothing like a little more pressure,” he said.

“I work best under pressure.”

Of course, maybe not this much pressure.

Rhun envied Erin and Jordan, appreciating how they found comfort in each other, how a simple touch could slow a troubled heart.

He glanced at Elisabeta, who pulled a protective arm around Tommy after Wingu undid her chains. In the battle to come, they would need every resource. Rhun sensed Elisabeta would do everything to keep the boy from harm.

Her gaze met his. For once, he read no animosity, only concern for the boy under her arm. How different their fates might have been if he had met her as a simple man, instead of a tainted strigoi. Then again, perhaps it would have been best if he had never met her at all.

“How many soldiers can a Chinook carry?” Christian asked, drawing Rhun back to the moment.

“It’s a troop carrier,” Jordan answered. “Fifty or so. More if you pack ’em in tight.”

Fifty?

Rhun scanned the dark sky. He finally spotted the olive-green bee against the gray sky. It was indeed a large craft with rotors front and back and a long cabin stretched between. Its engine pulsed with strength and menace.

Rhun considered their small group. The Sanguinists here were all seasoned warriors, but they numbered too few.

Jordan tracked the aircraft with his weapon, but he didn’t fire. “Armored,” the man mumbled as the craft flew closer. “Figures.”

The massive helicopter circled the crater from a distance away, sizing them up, taking account of the situation. Then it slowly settled to the ground, a good hundred yards beyond the crater rim.

It kicked up a giant cloud of sand, obscuring its form. But Rhun made out a ramp lowering from the rear of the helicopter. Shadows tromped down it. He counted two score. So less than fifty. But they looked strong, fit, and fierce, some in leather armor, others in uniforms of different armies, and a few in simple jeans and T-shirts. They were clearly no disciplined fighting force, but they did not need to be.

He listened for heartbeats from them — but found none.

All strigoi.

Rhun stepped forward, shielding Erin and Jordan behind him. He had led the pair to this moment — back inside the mountain of Masada, when he had revealed his nature to them. He had set them on this bloody path, and he could do no less than give his life to protect them now. But he feared that it would not be enough.

Then again, he was not alone this day.

Christian drew to one side of him, Bernard on the other, and flanking them all were Agmundr and Wingu. Elisabeta hung back with Tommy, crouching from the threat, showing sharp teeth.

Upon some silent signal, the entire pack of strigoi began to lope across the sand at a speed that no human could ever match, racing under this dread gray sky.

Erin’s heart skipped faster, but she held her ground. Jordan stood calm next to her, his bravery evident with every strong beat of his heart.

Rhun drew his blade and waited.

He picked out his first target: the biggest warrior, a tall man in the middle. Christian followed his gaze, nodded, and picked another for himself. Rhun watched the others choose their targets.

With discipline and training, the Sanguinists could break the first wave of attackers. Additionally, his group had the advantage of fighting on holy ground.

It might weaken the others enough.

It might.

Then another hatch dropped from the flank of the helicopter and dark beasts poured out of the shadows and into the grim light.

Rhun’s fragile hope faded.

Blasphemare.

He spotted gray jackals with long noses and large ears, howling as they ran, their cries piercing the day. Behind them came a pride of black-coated lions flowing with a sinuous grace, like oil across the sand.

Each was twisted into a fearsome and monstrous incarnation of its natural self, born of black blood and cruelty.

He tested their heartbeats, finding them slow and deep, attesting to their age and strength. Even without the strigoi, Rhun doubted that his forces would stand against these creatures for long — if at all.

Rhun swallowed once and whispered a quick prayer.

They were doomed.

As had been foretold the day he was turned, he would die fighting.

But Erin deserved a better fate.

It had to be blasphemare, too.

Jordan groaned. He gripped his machine pistol more firmly, knowing it was little better than a popgun against these beasts.

The countess drew Tommy back behind her. “Don’t paint the devil on the wall,” she told him.

What does that mean?

Tommy was equally baffled and voiced it aloud. “Huh?”

The boy looked at the menagerie hauling ass toward them. It sure looked like the devil was all around them. And this was no painting, but a slavering, howling horde in all its cinematic glory.

“It means… have hope,” she explained.

It was odd to hear the countess talking of hope when Jordan himself couldn’t seem to muster more than a scrap of it. Still, it was nice of her to try to comfort the kid.

The strigoi horde reached the crater’s rim first and rather than flooding over the edge, they parted and swept outward, encircling the bowl, trapping them completely. Or perhaps they also sensed the holiness of this sand-and-glass valley.

The countess hissed low in her throat, pulling Tommy farther behind her. The Sanguinists moved to match the strigoi maneuver, ringing everyone in a protective circle.

Arella spoke near Jordan’s ear, making him jump, coming upon him so quietly.

“The countess speaks wisdom,” Arella whispered. “All can yet be won.”

Before Jordan could ask her what that meant, Arella grabbed Tommy from behind Bathory and yanked him toward the open mouth of the well — and pushed him into it. He cried out as he splashed clumsily into the water.

Bathory was upon her in a flash, knocking her away. But a splash from the well washed across her boots. She cried out and fell back, as if it had been molten lava.

Arella returned to the well’s edge as Tommy floundered below.

“Beware,” she warned. “Only those imbued by angels can touch these waters. All others will be destroyed. Even humans.”

With those dire words, she dove into the water, catching Tommy’s arm and dragging him below.

The countess hung back, looking stricken.

No wonder the well had been so firmly sealed and left to the sand and ages.

“At least the boy is safe from immediate harm,” Rhun consoled her.

Yeah, but what about us?

Jordan widened his shooting stance. He stared up at the horde gathered around them. Strigoi hissed and drew long curved swords. Blasphemare crowded in by their hips and shoulders. At least the bastards hadn’t brought guns — then he remembered why they didn’t carry such weapons.

They preferred to eat their prey alive.

51

Movement drew Erin’s eye to the crater’s edge, to where a giant in brown leather stalked forward, edging into the bowl. The strigoi was black skinned, shaven headed, pierced with steel, dragging a long broadsword behind him. He bent to pinch some of the sand and cast it away in disgust, likely sensing the holy ground. He spit where he tossed the grains, sneering and looking down at them.

At her.

A chill swept through her.

He continued another step, then another into the crater.

He didn’t come alone.

A pair of blasphemare lions padded to either side of him, staying close, their eyes searching, tails swishing grains. Their manes were black rather than tawny, ruffled by the hot desert wind. Their eyes shone toward her with a dread crimson under the ash-covered day. They snarled, showing fangs that better fitted something saber-toothed. Black claws dug deep, kicking sand back in a posture of pure feline threat.

The giant swung his sword in an easy figure eight through the air, the long blade an extension of his muscular arms.

Suddenly Erin wished she had not insisted her group come to Siwa.

Still, she pushed such thoughts down and firmed her grip on her gun. No matter the outcome in the next few minutes, she knew it was right to come here. Her guilt lay not in bringing everyone here but in failing to solve the mystery of these sands in time, the riddle hidden behind Arella’s calm eyes.

Around her, the Sanguinists had drawn their swords. Bernard carried an antique curved blade that shimmered like water, made of Damascus steel, edged with silver, likely deeply blessed. Christian brandished a curved blade, too, but his was modern, a kukri out of Nepal. Agmundr drew a longsword from a sheath across his back. Wingu raised two shorter blades, one in each hand, swinging them with grace and power.

Rhun simply had his karambit in hand, its hooked edge as lethal as any blasphemare claw.

The giant strigoi took a final step forward, drawing the lions at his hips — then stopped again.

From behind him, a familiar silver-haired figure stalked into view. Iscariot had changed out of his usual gray suit into leather armor, bleached white, tailored gracefully to his muscular body.

Jordan swung his machine pistol toward him.

Iscariot noted the motion, and a shadow of a derisive smile etched his features. The man had plainly recovered from the last time Jordan had shot him with that same weapon.

Iscariot lifted an arm and released an emerald-winged moth into the air.

The Sanguinists shifted warily, their eyes upon its flutter. How many of those poisonous creations had he brought with him? With enough of them, he could fell the entire group of Sanguinists without stirring his army.

But the moth flew only a few feet into the crater before spiraling to the ground, shattering a wing to iridescent scales as it crashed. Whether from the contamination of the ash in the air or from the blowing dust of sand, apparently its delicate cogs could not handle this harsh terrain.

Or maybe again it was the holiness found here.

No matter the cause, at least one threat had been neutralized.

Not that it would likely change the final outcome.

Iscariot’s voice carried easily down into the crater. His gaze swept over them, noticing who was missing. “It seems you have lost your two angels.”

Erin willed herself to keep her gaze fixed on the enemy and not let it twitch toward the well where Arella had vanished with Tommy. She hoped that the boy would get away, that the spring led out to some secret exit, some distant pool. Tommy’s immortality should keep him alive, even drowned underwater.

“We may have lost our angels,” Jordan called back. “But I see you found your demons.”

Iscariot laughed and gestured to the Sanguinists. “You have your own demons, Warrior of Man.”

“Friends,” Jordan countered. “Not demons.”

Iscariot frowned at them, clearly having no more patience. “Where are you hiding him?” he asked, leaving no doubt he was talking about Tommy.

Iscariot must know, as long as Tommy was loose, that his plan to unleash Hell on Earth remained threatened.

Silence stretched for several breaths.

Judas’s eyes settled on Erin and remained there. He lifted an arm and pointed to her. “No one is to harm her,” he called out loudly. “She is mine. She will give me my answer.”

A wave of snarling and hissing swept along the crater’s rim.

“Kill the rest!”

Far down the throat of the well, Tommy kicked as hard as he could, heading even deeper. The initial shock after the strange woman tossed him down here and dragged him under had faded. Now he just tried to keep up with her. Despite the sudden dunking, he oddly trusted her.

He didn’t know if she was really an angel, but she’d saved his life, so for now, he would give her the benefit of his doubt.

To either side, the walls of the well felt like beach glass, still rough, but too smooth to be rock. He pictured that explosion etched above, of a battle between Lucifer and Michael. That same blast must have gone deep under the earth, sealing off that pool where Christ had stood and melting everything around it to glass.

He wanted to disbelieve that story, too, except for two things.

One, the water grew ever warmer the deeper he dove.

Two, beneath him, lighting his way, a golden glow beckoned, outlining the woman’s sleek legs.

He chased after her until his lungs were bursting, his ears stinging from the pressure.

Down, down he went.

Finally, he reached the bottom, desperate for air.

She pointed to a side cavern that opened a few yards off. With his lungs burning, he ducked through the short passageway, pushing off the smooth walls and kicking off the bottom. The source of the light came from there, drawing him like a moth to a flame.

But it wasn’t a flame he sought.

Air.

He had dived with his father off the Catalina coast, into sea caves that pocked that island, remembering ducking through rock to find a cave sloshing with water below and a pocket of air above.

He prayed the same would be found here, some secret cave where he could hang out with this woman until the battle ended, and it was safe.

Safe…

How long had it been since he had felt safe?

His lungs screamed as he scrabbled the last distance, worming through the entrance to the cave. His vision began to close down, squeezing narrower, dancing with sparks. He knew he didn’t have enough air even to make it back to the surface. He was committed now. His father had once said that the most important thing in life was finding the right path and committing to it.

Somehow, Dad, I don’t think this is what you meant.

Panic lent his arms and legs extra strength. He popped into the small cavern, lined by gold glass and littered with loose sand below. Knowing there must be air above—why else drag him down here? — he pushed hard off the bottom.

He shot up — and his head crashed against the ceiling.

He pawed the roof, searching for even a bubble, some tiny breath of air.

There was none.

Strigoi and blasphemare poured down the sides of the crater like a foul wave.

Jordan gripped his gun tightly, trying to ignore the dark giant barreling toward them, in the lead, flanked by the pair of shadow-maned lions.

Erin aimed at one of the beasts.

Jordan swung to a different target, knowing his weapon would do little against what was surging over the crater’s rim. He had to trust the Sanguinists to handle that first wave.

Instead, he aimed to the side, near the edge of the sandy bowl. He waited for the dark army to reach there — then fired.

The spatter of hot round pierced the fuel tank of their helicopter.

The explosion ripped the craft apart in a fiery blast, sending the rotors cutting a swath through the strigoi and slamming into the far crater wall. The sudden blast and resulting damage shattered the initial charge, sending blasphemare loping away, hissing and howling at the smoking wreckage. Several strigoi struggled in the sand with severed limbs. Others were clearly dead.

Rhun glanced approvingly toward him.

Jordan used the stunned moment to swing his weapon toward Iscariot, who remained at the crater’s edge. He steadied and aimed for the guy’s center mass, not trusting a head shot from this distance, especially as limited as Jordan was on ammunition. He dared not waste a single round.

He squeezed the trigger, intending to drop the guy again, if only for a short time. Temporarily leaderless, maybe the army could be routed.

But as he fired, the huge bulk of a jackal swerved in front of Iscariot, taking the rounds across its shoulders, saving the bastard. Black blood flowed from the beast’s side, but it didn’t look bothered as it stalked back and forth, keeping its master protected.

Iscariot retreated down the rim’s far side, further sheltering himself.

Coward.

Closer at hand, the dark giant recovered quickly, lunging forward again to close the distance, rallying those nearest to him. He snarled, showing long fangs.

Agmundr met the challenge, bounding in front of him.

Giant against giant.

It was no contest.

Fueled by holiness, Agmundr swung his longsword so fast it sang through the air. He cleaved the strigoi’s head clean off its shoulders, the snarl still fixed to that skull as it flew away.

Jordan strafed the horde charging to the left.

Wingu and Christian leaped to the right.

Rhun and Bernard guarded their rear.

Elizabeth kept near the well’s edge, neither threatening nor helping, simply guarding Tommy’s retreat to who knew where.

Erin fired behind Jordan’s shoulder, popping a lion clean through the eye, sending it rolling to Agmundr’s feet, where a whirl of his huge blade caught the beast in the throat.

Jordan felt bad for the damned creature. It hadn’t asked to be turned into what it was. But pity only brought you so much mercy.

He kept firing.

Agmundr faced the second lion, dancing before it, both adversaries looking for a weakness — then a massive jackal barreled into the Viking, blindsiding him, sinking powerful teeth into his thigh.

Jordan shot the beast in the shoulder, but it didn’t even flinch.

Growling, Agmundr fell to the sand and rolled onto his back. The jackal released its hold of his thick leg and lunged for his throat. Jordan fired at its face — only to find his weapon empty.

Screw it…

He rushed forward with his gun raised, ready to use it as a club. Before he could bring it down, snapping jaws darted under Agmundr’s sword. Yellow teeth ripped deep into the Viking’s throat.

Agmundr bucked once from the assault — then went limp, as the jackal ripped upward, taking out the man’s entire throat.

Cold blood splashed Jordan’s arm.

He fell back.

The jackal turned toward him, blood and slather dripping from its gray muzzle onto the gold sand. Its massive haunches bunched — then it sprang straight at him.

His entire world became yellow fangs and a terrifying howl.

Rhun spun to Jordan’s defense. From the corner of an eye, he had watched Agmundr fall, and the soldier leap to help — only to face the same jaws that took the mighty Viking’s life.

Rhun slammed into the huge jackal’s side. Its jaws snapped shut less than an inch from Jordan’s face. The beast skidded in the sand, sliding around to face him, nails digging through sand to scratch the glass beneath.

Rhun held his bloody karambit in front of him and prayed for the strength to protect the others. The very air was full of blood as Christian, Bernard, and Wingu continued their dance among the dark horde. The crimson mist sang to his own blood, begging him to drink lustily from that font.

Rhun held his breath against it.

Across from him, the jackal’s angry red eyes locked onto his. Gray hair bristled down the scruff of its hunched neck. A snarl revealed yellow teeth set in a powerful jaw.

As it lunged, Rhun kept firm in the sand and thrust out his arm, ramming his karambit between the pointed teeth and deep into the creature’s mouth. With all the force that he could muster, he drove his blade up through the roof and into its brain — then yanked his hand out.

The beast collapsed, black blood frothing from its mouth to stain the sand. Its front paws scratched at its jaws, whimpering from the pain.

Pity rose in Rhun at the sight of one of God’s creatures turned into such a suffering monstrosity. Finally, that crimson glow dulled to a sightless brown, as the beast was freed of its curse.

Rhun had no time to rejoice in its release.

A heavy force bore him to the sand from behind, slamming his face into the jackal’s dark blood. Claws raked his back, shredding through his armor and skin, a long claw catching on his rib.

Rhun screamed — as a lion roared in triumph atop him.

52

Panicked, Tommy floundered in the flooded cavern. He clutched both hands over his mouth. Unable to stop himself, he convulsed a lung full of water into his body, setting his chest on fire. His arms and legs kicked out blindly, striking the sides of the cavern as his body fought to expel that fire, to cough, to gag. But there was nothing to replace it but more water.

He fought until he could fight no more and hung motionless.

Drowned.

But he was the boy who could not die.

His lungs ached, but they no longer struggled to force out the water. He opened his eyes again and stared around him, wanting to cry.

Knowing now he would not die, he searched the cavern.

The woman must have drawn him down here for some reason.

He remembered her pointing him to the cave.

Why?

The source of the cavern’s light rose from an upwelling of glass in the room’s center, like a miniature volcano. It was so bright that he had to shield his eyes against it. Still, he spotted something silver at its heart.

He leaned deeper into that glow, able now to make out a foot or two of thin silver sticking out of the block, topped by a wider, shielded hilt. He noted the grip was indented, for fingers to clutch it firmly.

His right hand reached to do just that — then he remembered the story above, of Archangel Michael’s sword. He looked closer and could even make out the long notch along one side, where a shard had been chipped from it.

His other hand rose to his neck, remembering that pain.

He reached a single finger and touched the round knob at the hilt’s end. As his skin brushed the metal, power fired through him, like touching a raw electric wire — only it left him feeling stronger. He felt like he could shatter mountains with his fists.

He studied the blade. Most of its length looked buried in the sandy glass.

Like King Arthur’s Excalibur.

Tommy knew what was expected of him. An angel had carried this sword, and it was up to the First Angel to free it, to return it to the sun, to be used against the darkness above.

But he withdrew his hand.

He didn’t want to touch it.

What did he care about the world above? He had been kidnapped, tortured, and kidnapped again — only to be finally sacrificed on an altar.

He suddenly realized the sword could end that misery.

It can free me.

The blade could deal a wound far greater than the stab to his neck. He could bring both wrists to its edge, drag them swiftly down, cutting deep.

He could die.

I could see Mom and Dad again.

His mother’s face rose up in his mind, as he remembered how she would tuck her short curly hair behind her ears, how her brown eyes almost glowed with concern whenever he was hurt. A look he saw often while battling his cancer. He also recalled how she would sing him lullabies in the hospital, even when he was probably too old for them, how she would make him laugh, even when he knew that she wanted to cry.

She loved me.

And his father no less. His love was more practical: trying to cram as much life into those few last years. Tommy got to drive a Mustang convertible, learned to shoot pool, and when he was too weak, his father would sit cross-legged next to him on the couch and help him slay zombies in Resident Evil. And sometimes they had talked, really talked. Because they both knew there would come a time when they couldn’t anymore.

He knew one other certainty.

I was supposed to die first.

That was the deal. He was sick; they were well. He would die, and they would live. He accepted that deal, made rough peace with it — until the stupid dove had ruined everything.

He stared at the sword and made a decision.

They could fight this war without him.

He reached for the sword, ready to cut a bloody path back to his parents’ arms. He hovered his hand over the hilt’s grip, preparing himself. Once ready, he snatched hard to the silver handle.

A jolt rang through him. Below him, the blade glowed brighter and brighter, ramping up to a supernova. He squeezed his eyes shut, fearing the brilliance would blind him. The light pierced his lids and filled his skull.

Then it slowly faded again.

He opened one eye, then the other.

Between his legs, the glass had melted away. In his hands a giant sword glowed a dull orange. Its weight held him anchored to the sandy bottom.

He brought his thumb to its edge. It sliced deeply before he even knew he’d made contact. Blood spilled upward in a red cloud. He followed that trail, knowing how easy it would be to draw that edge over his wrist.

A sting at best… then it would be over.

He moved the blade toward his wrist.

Who would miss me here?

He turned his eyes from that impossibly sharp edge to the roof above him, picturing the hot desert. He remembered cold fingers lifting his chin, touching his throat, making sure he was safe.

Elizabeth.

She would miss him. She would be angry.

He pictured the others: Erin, Jordan, even the dark priest Rhun. They had risked everything to bring him to this desert, to save his life. And right now, they might be dying.

Dying for me.

Out of bullets, Erin snatched up Agmundr’s longsword. She needed both hands to lift it. She swung from her hips, bringing her arms and the blade into the air, slicing the space between her and the nearest strigoi.

The monster laughed, took a step back, and charged toward Christian, ignoring her.

She searched for someone to attack.

None of the strigoi or the blasphemare would come near her, obeying Iscariot’s order that she not be killed. His troops kept their distance until he came down to claim her.

Maybe that’s my better weapon.

A howl of a lion swung her around. Yards away, Rhun struggled, pinned under one of the shadowy blasphemare lions. Jordan rushed to his aid, swinging his pistol like a club.

She dropped the heavy sword and ran toward them both.

Jordan got batted away like a horsefly, claws ripping clean through his leather jacket, almost tearing off a sleeve. He landed on his back. But the distraction allowed Rhun to roll free, losing a large swath of skin.

The lion lunged at its escaping prey.

And Erin did the stupidest thing in her life.

She jumped between Rhun and the lion, spreading her arms and hollering, throwing out her chest like a showboating prizefighter.

The lion dropped low, hissing, haunches high, tail swatting angrily.

“Can’t attack me, can you?” she challenged it.

It curled black lips and snarled, backing away, especially as Christian slid to her side to back her up.

He glanced at her. “Didn’t know lion taming was on your résumé.”

She smiled, letting her guard down too soon.

The lion launched itself, expertly hitting Christian, while raking her shoulder with its claw as it passed, knocking her aside.

Erin fell to her knees and grabbed her wound. Hot blood seeped through her fingers and ran down her arm and chest. She realized the error of her ways. Iscariot said she couldn’t be killed—but he said nothing about maiming her.

To the side Rhun and Christian battled the lion.

Jordan called her name.

The world had slowed down.

She collapsed sideways into the sand. Its grittiness under her cheek comforted her. She was in the desert. She loved the desert.

Jordan ran toward Erin and skidded on his knees to her side. He knew he was too late to help her. Blood poured out of her shoulder and soaked the golden sand.

Erin raised her head.

Her caramel eyes met his — then looked past him.

Wonder filled her face, inexplicable from all the blood, howls, and screams in the air. She raised a bloody hand and pointed over his shoulder.

Jordan turned to see what she meant.

What the—?

Out of the mouth of the well, a single curl of orange flame rose from the darkness below. It twisted like a tight whirlwind, perfectly straight to the dark sky.

Jordan couldn’t take his eyes off it.

Even the battle slowed, as a wary, fearful calm spread outward.

Eyes and faces turned toward it.

When the flame sprouted as long as his arm, a hand came into view below it, as if pushing the fire upward. The spit of fire continued to rise. The strange torchbearer was dragged up from below with it, lifted free of the well, and gently lowered to its edge.

Tommy.

As his feet touched ground, the fire snuffed out to reveal a silver sword held aloft, a few licks of flame still traced it, dancing brilliantly along its length.

The boy’s eyes met Jordan’s.

Fire danced there, too.

“I think this belongs to you!” Tommy yelled, half boy, half something dreadful.

The kid — if he was still a kid—twisted back his arm and flung the sword high. It spun end over end. Jordan wanted to duck, but instead his left arm rose on its own. The hilt landed perfectly in his palm, as if it was always meant to be there. The low burn in his tattoo flared to flaming life. Through a rip in his jacket and shirt, he saw the curled tracery of his old lightning scar blaze with an inner fire.

Strength flowed into his body.

Jordan danced the sword around him in a pattern of fire and steel, as if casting some arcane spell. He had never wielded a sword in his life.

A lion roared, turning to go after Erin again.

Jordan thought, and he was there, blocking it.

He slashed the sword across the lion’s paw, as it swiped at him in irritation.

As soon as the blade pierced its skin, the creature roared in agony. Flame followed the line where the sword had cut it — then swept up the leg and over its body. Maddened by pain, the lion leaped back and fled through the dark army, forging a flaming path through them, igniting everything in its wake.

Jordan checked out the sword.

It was one hell of a weapon.

Or make that heaven of a weapon.

Jordan spun in a circle, catching a strigoi on the arm, another on the thigh. Both howled as flames spread from their wounds. He swept outward, moving on legs that defied bone and muscle.

As swift as any strigoi, any Sanguinist.

Creature after creature fell before his blade.

Then he headed deeper — after his true enemy.

Iscariot.

Judas watched the Warrior of Man stalk across the field of battle. Beasts fled from his path, scattering out into the desert. Those few that stayed were hunted by the others. He saw the countess grab the boy; the angelic glow in the child’s eyes faded after relinquishing the sword to its bearer on Earth. The boy hugged hard to the ancient creature.

Judas felt no fear.

It had come to this moment.

He had spent centuries trying to find a purpose in his long life, centuries again to bring the world to this brink of damnation, where he could die.

And now the time was upon him.

The soldier would kill him, but only if he put up a fight. He was not a man to strike down an unarmed opponent. So Judas bent and picked up a discarded blade, an ancient chipped scimitar.

His last bodyguard tried to join him, lifting an assault rifle. The man’s partner, Henrik, had died in the cavern back in Cumae, but this one had lived, escaping with him.

“Go,” Iscariot ordered.

“My place is always at your side.”

“Forgive me.” Judas swung the sword and decapitated the man. He stepped away from the body. No one would interfere with his destiny.

The Warrior of Man’s eyes widened in surprise, but he didn’t slow down.

Others closed behind him, including Dr. Granger, holding a sopping rag to her shoulder.

“Stay back, Erin,” Jordan called. “This is my fight.”

The woman looked as if she wanted to argue, but she didn’t.

Judas lifted his bloody sword into a guard position. “How often must I kill you, Sergeant Stone?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

His sword shone white-hot in his hands, sparking with spats of fire.

Judas shivered in anticipation.

The soldier circled him, suspicion plain in his face, as if he suspected some trick.

You must play your role, Warrior. Do not disappoint me.

To ensure that, Judas lunged for him, and the man parried. He was unnaturally quick. Knowing this, Judas fought harder, no longer needing to feign incompetence. He had been trained under many different sword masters over the centuries.

He attacked again and again, enjoying the true challenge, his last. It was fitting to find a worthy opponent. But that was not his destiny. He allowed his guard to drop, as if by accident.

Jordan struck.

The blade pierced Judas’s side.

The same place where a Roman soldier had stabbed Christ on the cross.

Judas offered a quick plea of gratitude before he fell to his knees. Bright red blood poured from his wound. It soaked through his shirt. He dropped his sword.

Jordan stood before him. “We’re even.”

“No,” Judas said, reached to his leg. “I am forever in your debt.”

He fell to his side, then rolled to his back. Gray sky filled his vision. He had done that. The world surrounded by ash and blood. The sun was minutes from setting. Nothing could stop what he had started.

My death heralds my success.

He took it as a sign, his reward for opening the gates of Hell and bringing about the final Day of Judgment.

The burning pain in his side was unlike anything he had ever experienced, but he drank it in. He would soon be at peace. He welcomed it. He let his eyes drift closed.

Then a shadow fell over him, bringing with it the smell of lotus blossoms.

Arella.

He opened his eyes and looked upon her beauty, another reward for fulfilling his destiny.

Her warm hands took his. “My love.”

“It came to be just as you foretold,” he said.

As she leaned over him, her tears fell onto his face. He savored each warm drop.

“Oh, my love,” she said, “I curse the vision that brought you to this.”

He sought her dark eyes. “This was Christ’s will, not yours.”

“This was your will,” she insisted. “You could have walked a different path.”

He touched her wet cheek. “I always walked a different path. But I am grateful for the years that we walked that path together.”

She struggled to smile.

“Do not blame yourself,” he said. “If you can grant me but a single favor, grant me that. You are blameless in all this.”

Her chin firmed, as it always did when she held her feelings inside.

He reached up through the pain and curled a strand of her long hair around his finger. “We are but His instruments.”

She placed her palm against his wound. “I could fetch water from the spring to heal you.”

Fear shot through his body. He searched for clever words to persuade her against such a path, but she knew his ways. So he settled on one word, placing all his will into it, letting the truth shine in his eyes.

“Please.”

She bent and kissed his lips, then fell into his arms one last time.

Erin’s throat tightened as an angel wept for Judas.

Arella cradled him and stroked his gray hair back from his forehead while murmuring words in an ancient tongue. He smiled up at Arella, as if they were young lovers instead of two ageless creatures caught at the end of time.

Rhun touched Erin’s shoulder, looking to the darkening sky.

His single touch reminded her that, while the battle was won, the war was not over. She looked to the sun, sunk deep into the horizon to the west. They were nearly out of time to undo what Iscariot had set in motion.

She stared at the man who had started all of this.

Iscariot’s blood flowed from his side, weeping out his life. In the growing darkness, she noted the soft glow shining within the crimson, remembering seeing the same when he had accidentally cut his finger in the cavern under the ruins of Cumae, by a sliver of the same blade that slew him now.

She remembered Arella, casting out the same golden radiance when she rescued Tommy. And even Tommy’s blood had glowed faintly on the beach in Cumae.

What did that mean?

She looked from Tommy, who stood still by the well, to Judas.

Did that mean they both carried angelic blood?

She remembered that both Tommy and Judas had also encountered a dove, symbolic of the Holy Spirit, an echo of the bird Christ had killed. And both were about Christ’s same age at that time.

And then Arella’s words earlier.

Michael was rent asunder. You carry the best of the First Angel within you.

Erin began to understand.

Tommy didn’t carry all of Michael inside of him, only the best, the most shining and brightest, a force capable of granting life.

Another vessel carried his worst, his darkest, with a force that killed.

She saw that the shine of Iscariot’s blood was distinctly darker than Tommy’s blood.

Two different shades of gold.

She turned and gazed across the crater, at the glass exposed by their digging, at the round plug that once sealed the well. Like the crater itself, one half was dark gold, the other lighter.

She remembered thinking it looked like an Eastern yin-yang symbol.

Two parts that make a whole.

“We need them both,” Erin mumbled.

She peered at Arella. Earlier, the sibyl had stayed silent because she knew Iscariot needed to come here, too. Had Arella even drawn that symbol in the sand so he would know to come to this place?

Bernard drifted closer to Erin, his clothes ripped and bloodied, but he must have sensed the growing understanding inside her. “What are you saying?”

Rhun looked on, too.

She drew the two with her, along with Jordan. They needed to hear this, to tell her she was wrong.

Please, let me be wrong.

Rhun turned that dark, implacable gaze of his upon her. “What is it, Erin?”

“The First Angel isn’t Tommy. It’s the archangel Michael, the heavenly being rent asunder. Split in two.” She gestured to the crater’s glass. “He must be reunited. We must fix what was broken here.”

That was Arella’s warning to them — or the reign of man would end.

“But where’s his other half?” Bernard asked.

“In Judas.”

Shock spread through the group.

“Even if you’re right,” Jordan asked, “how are we going to get them back together?”

Erin focused on Iscariot, dying on the sands.

She knew that answer, too. “Their immortal shells must be stripped from them.”

Jordan gaped at her. “They have to die?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s the only way. That’s why the sword was left here, why we had to come here.”

“Iscariot has already received a mortal wound,” Rhun said. “So the blade must afflict one upon the boy?”

“Do we dare do that?” Jordan asked. “I thought we decided in Cumae that Tommy’s life was more important than even saving the world.”

Erin wanted to agree. The boy had done nothing wrong. He had tried to help an innocent dove, and in return he had seen his family ripped from him, and he had suffered countless tortures. Was it right that he must die here as well?

She could not send this child to his death.

But it was also one life against the lives of the just and unjust around the world.

Jordan stared at her.

She knew if she gave him the word that he would carry it out, reluctantly but he would. He was a soldier — he understood about sacrificing for the greater good. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one.

She covered her face.

She could not watch more innocent blood be spilled. She had watched her sister sacrificed to false belief. She had caused Amy’s death because of her own ignorance of the danger she had put her in. She would not take another innocent life, no matter how much her mind told her that she must.

“No,” she gasped out, decidedly. “We can’t kill a boy to save the world.”

Bernard suddenly moved toward Jordan, going for the sword. But Jordan was as swift now and lifted the blade to the cardinal’s chest, its point over his silent heart.

“This will kill you as surely as any strigoi,” Jordan warned.

Bernard glanced at Rhun to back him up, to join him against Jordan. The cardinal wanted that sword.

Rhun folded his arms. “I trust the wisdom of the Woman of Learning.”

“The boy must die,” Bernard insisted. “Or the world dies with him. In horror beyond earthly imaginings. What is one boy against that?”

“Everything,” Erin said. “Murdering a boy is an evil deed. Every evil act matters. Every single one. We must stand against each and every one, or who are we?”

Bernard sighed. “What if it’s neither good nor evil, only necessary?”

Erin clenched her hands into fists.

She would not let Tommy be murdered.

“Erin.” Jordan’s worried blue eyes met hers. He nodded over to the well.

Tommy made a placating motion with his palms toward Elizabeth, keeping her there. He then stalked over and studied each of them.

“I know,” he said, looking exhausted. “When I touched the sword and decided to bring it out of the well… I knew.”

Erin remembered the fire in his eyes as he held the sword.

“It’s about choice,” he said. “I have to choose this, only then will all be set right.”

Hearing this now, Erin realized how close they had come to ruin. If she had unleashed Jordan or if Bernard had grabbed the blade, if either of them had thrust the sword into the boy without his consent, they would have lost all.

This thought gave her a small measure of comfort, but only very small.

What Tommy was saying meant that the ending would be the same.

A dead boy on the sands.

“But Iscariot didn’t agree to be stabbed,” Rhun warned.

Erin stiffened, realizing Rhun was right.

Have we already lost?

Jordan swallowed, lowering the sword, knowing Bernard could no longer force the matter. “I think Judas did agree,” Jordan said. “During the fight, he was matching me move by move. Then suddenly he let his guard down. I didn’t realize it at the time, just reacted, stabbing him.”

“I suspect he always sought death,” Rhun said.

“So then what do we do?” Jordan asked. “From here I mean?”

Erin saw how his eyes could not even meet the boy’s.

Tommy shifted, apparently to keep his back to Elizabeth, glancing over his shoulder to be sure, to keep her from seeing. Tommy noted Erin’s attention. “She will try to stop it from happening.”

Tommy lifted the tip of Jordan’s sword and placed it to his chest. He looked up at Jordan, trying to smile, but his lower lip trembled with his fear, struggling to look so brave, so sure in the face of the unknown.

Jordan finally found the boy’s face, too. Erin had never seen such agony and heartbreak etched in the hard, wry planes of his face.

“I can’t do this,” he moaned.

“I know that, too,” Tommy said quietly, his voice quavering. His eyes looked toward the west, to the sun, to the last light he would ever see.

A wail rose from beside the well. “Noooo…”

Elizabeth rushed toward them, suddenly sensing what was about to happen.

Tommy sighed and thrust himself upon the sword — taking the last light of the day with him as he died.

53

Rhun caught Elisabeta around the waist as she ran up to them.

Tommy collapsed to the ground, sliding off the blade, spilling red blood across the dark sand. A bright golden brilliance pooled there, too. Across the crater, a similar radiance shone from that side, a darker gold that framed the figures of Judas and Arella.

“Why?” Elisabeta sobbed, clutching him.

Rhun drew her down next to the boy.

The sword had pierced his heart clean through. Rhun heard now its last feeble quiver, then it stopped.

Jordan crashed to his knees across from him, dropping his sword, clutching his left side.

Erin leaned down. “What’s wrong—?”

Rhun felt it a moment before it happened — a welling of great power beyond measure — and threw his arm over his eyes, shielding Elisabeta with his body.

Then came a bright explosion.

Glory seared his eyes.

His blood boiled in his veins.

Elisabeta screamed in his arms, the sound echoed by the others in a chorus of pain and fear.

Brought low by this radiance, on his knees, Rhun begged for forgiveness as he prayed through the pain. His every sin was a blight against that holy brilliance, nothing could be hidden from it. His greatest sin was a blackness without boundaries, capable of consuming him fully. Even this light could not vanquish it.

Please, stop…

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the light gave way to a merciful darkness. He opened his eyes. Lifeless bodies of strigoi and blasphemare were scattered around the crater; even those that had fled beyond it had fallen dead at the explosion. Rhun stirred as pain still raged in his body.

It burned with the holiest of fires.

He searched the crater. Erin was crouched over a fallen Tommy, with Jordan kneeling next to her, holding his shoulder. They both looked shaken up, but unharmed by the brilliance. Being untainted, they had likely been spared the brunt of its force.

Elisabeta lay crumpled in his arms, unmoving.

She was strigoi, without even the acceptance of Christ’s love to shield her from that fire. Like the other damned creatures, she must be dead.

Please, he prayed, not Elisabeta.

He gathered her to his chest. He had stolen her from her time, from her castle, imprisoned her for hundreds of years, only to have her die in a lonely desert far from anything or anyone she had ever loved.

How many times had his actions cursed her?

He stroked short curly hair from her white forehead and brushed sand from her pale cheeks. Long ago, he had held her just so while she lay dying on a stone floor at Čachtice. He should have let her go then, but even now, deep down he knew he would do anything to have her back.

Even sin again.

As if in response to this blasphemous thought, she stirred. Her silver eyes fluttered open, and her lips warmed into a hesitant smile. Her gaze was momentarily lost, displaced in time and place.

Still, in that moment, he knew the truth.

In spite of everything, she loved him.

He touched a palm to her cheek. But how had she survived the burning brilliance in her cursed state? Had his body shielded her? Or was it his love for her?

Either way, joy filled him as he fell into her silver eyes, letting the desert fade around them. For the moment, she was all that mattered. Her hand rose. Soft fingertips touched his cheek.

“My love…” she whispered.

Erin looked away from Rhun and the countess. Her gaze was still dazzled by that blast of light, swearing for a moment she saw a sweep of wings sailing upward from the sands. She gazed up at the stars.

Stars.

She straightened and turned in a slow circle, watching the pall clear from the night sky, spreading outward in all directions. She pictured the darkness being swept clean, all the way back to Cumae.

Had they succeeded in closing that opening gate?

Jordan stood up next to her. He flexed and stretched his left arm, shaking the limb a bit, reminding her of a more immediate concern. She remembered him crashing to his knees and clutching his side, like he was having a heart attack.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He looked down at the boy, at the blood.

“When he fell, it felt like something was ripped out of me. I swore I was dying.”

Again.

She examined Tommy’s pale face. His eyes were closed as if he were merely slumbering. Back in Stockholm, the boy’s touch, his blood, had resurrected and healed Jordan. She noted the pool of blood here no longer glowed. It simply seeped coldly into the sand.

She reached over and squeezed Jordan’s hand, feeling the heat there, glad of it. “I think whatever angelic essence Tommy imbued in you was stripped back out during that blast of light.”

“Where’s the sword?” Jordan asked, glancing around at his feet.

It was gone, too.

She again pictured those wings of light. “I think it’s been restored to its original master.”

Bernard joined them, his eyes on the skies. “We have been spared.”

She hoped he was right, but not all of them had been so lucky.

She dropped to a knee and touched Tommy’s blood-soaked shirt. She brought her fingers to his young face, looking even younger in death, his features relaxed, finally at peace. His skin was still warm under her fingertips.

Warm.

She placed her full palm to his throat, remembering doing the same with Jordan. “He’s still warm.” She reached down and tore open his shirt, ripping buttons. “His wound is gone!”

Tommy suddenly jerked, sitting half up, pushing away from her, clearly startled, his gaze sweeping over them. The fear there faded to recognition.

“Hey…” he said and stared down at his bare chest.

His fingers probed there, too.

Elizabeth burst away from Rhun and landed on her knees, taking his other hand. “Are you fine, boy?”

He squeezed her fingers, shifting closer to her, still scared.

“I… I don’t know. I think so.”

Jordan smiled. “You look fine to me, kiddo.”

Christian joined them with Wingu. The pair had finished a fast canvass of the crater and its rim to make sure all was safe. “I can hear his heartbeat.”

Rhun and Bernard confirmed this with nods.

Relief shattered through Erin. “Thank God.”

“Or in this case, maybe thank Michael.” Jordan slipped an arm around her.

The countess scolded Tommy. “Don’t ever do something like that again!”

Her seriousness drew a shadow of a smile from Tommy. “I promise.” He lifted up a hand. “I’ll never impale myself on another sword.”

Christian moved closer to Erin. “His blood doesn’t smell… angelic anymore. He is mortal again.”

“I think it’s because we released the spirit inside him. So it could rejoin its other half.” She glanced over to Iscariot. “Does that mean Judas is healed, too?”

Christian shook his head. “I checked as I made my circuit with Wingu. He lives yet, but only barely. Even now I can feel his heart about to give out.”

Rhun fixed his eyes on Judas. “His reward was not life.”

For the first time in thousands of years, Judas knew his death was near. A tingling sensation spread from the wound in his side and coursed through his veins like icy water.

“I’m cold,” he whispered.

Arella drew him tighter into her warm embrace.

With great effort, he lifted his arm in front of his failing eyes. The back of his hand was covered in brown age spots. His skin hung in loose wrinkles from his bones.

It was the fragile limb of an old man.

With trembling fingers, he felt his face, discovering furrows where there had once been smooth skin, around his mouth, at the corners of his eyes. He had withered to this.

“You are still beautiful, my vain old man.”

He smiled softly at her words, at her gentle teasing.

He had replaced the curse of immortality with the curse of old age. His bones ached, and his lungs rattled. His heart lurched along like a drunken man walking in the dark.

He stared at Arella, as beautiful as ever. It seemed impossible that she had ever loved him, that she loved him still. He had been wrong to let her go.

I have been wrong about everything.

He had thought that his purpose was to bring Christ back to Earth. All his thoughts had been directed toward nothing else. He had spent centuries in service of this holy mission.

But that had not been his purpose, only his conceit.

Christ had granted him this gift, not to end the world, not as penance for his own betrayal, but to undo the mistake that Christ Himself had made as a boy.

To fix what was broken.

And now I have.

That was his true penance and purpose, and it was better than he deserved. He had been called to restore life, instead of bringing death.

Peace filled him as he closed his eyes and silently confessed his sins.

There were so many.

When he opened them again, gray cataracts clouded his vision. Arella was a blur, already cruelly fading from his sight as the end neared.

She hugged him tighter, as if to hold him there.

“You always knew the truth,” he whispered.

“No, but I hoped,” she whispered back. “Prophecy is never clear.”

He coughed as his lungs shriveled inside him. His voice was a croak. “My only regret is that I cannot spend eternity with you.”

Too weak now, Judas closed his eyes — not onto darkness, but onto a golden light. Cold and pain receded before that radiance, leaving only joy.

Words whispered in his ear. “How do you know how we shall spend eternity?”

He opened his eyes one last time. She blazed through his cataracts now, in all her glory, shining with heavenly grace.

“I am forgiven, too,” she intoned. “I am called at last home.”

She drifted up from him, away from him. He reached for her, discovering his arm was only light. She took his hand and pulled him from his mortal shell and into her eternal embrace. Bathed in love and hope, they sailed to their final peace.

Together.

No one spoke.

Like Erin, they had all witnessed Arella bursting to light, washing the crater with a warmth that smelled of lotus blossoms. Then there was nothing.

Judas’s body remained, but even now it was crumbling to dust, stirred by the desert wind, mixing with the eternal sand, marking his final resting place.

“What happened to him?” Tommy’s voice was tight with worry.

“He aged to his natural years,” Rhun answered. “From young man to old in a handful of heartbeats.”

“Will that happen to me?” Tommy looked aghast.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, kid,” Jordan answered. “You were only immortal for a couple months.”

“Is that true?” He turned to the countess.

“I believe so,” Elizabeth said. “The soldier’s words are sound.”

“And what about the angel?” Tommy studied the empty spot in the desert. “What happened to her?”

“If I had to guess,” Erin said, “I would say that she and Judas were taken up together.”

“He would have liked that,” Tommy said.

“I think so, too.”

Erin threaded her fingers through Jordan’s.

He tightened his grip. “But that means we’re out of angels here. Isn’t at least one of them supposed to have blessed the book?”

Erin turned to Bernard. “Maybe they already have. The skies are clear overhead again.”

Bernard reached through his shredded clothes to the armor beneath. He tugged the zipper, looking ready to rip it clean off. Finally, he got it open and pulled free the Blood Gospel.

He held it atop trembling palms, his eyes worried.

The leather-bound volume looked unchanged.

But they all knew any truth lay inside.

Bernard carried it to Tommy and placed it reverently in the boy’s hands, his expression apologetic. “Open it. You have earned it.”

He sure had.

Tommy dropped to his knees and put the book on his lap. With one finger, he slowly lifted the cover, as if afraid of what it might reveal.

Erin watched over his shoulder, equally unnerved, her heart racing.

Tommy lowered the cover to his knee, revealing the first page. The original hand-scrawled passage glowed with a soft radiance in the dark, each letter perfectly clear.

“Nothing new is there,” Bernard said, sounding forlorn and distraught.

“Maybe that means everything is over,” Jordan said. “We don’t have to do anything else.”

If only…

Erin knew better. “Turn the page.”

Tommy licked his upper lip and obeyed, lifting the first page and exposing the next.

It, too, was blank — then darkly crimson words appeared, marching across it in finely scribbled lines. She pictured Christ writing those Greek letters, his quill dipped in His own blood to enact this miraculous gospel.

Line after line quickly filled the page, far more than the first time the book had revealed its message. Three short cantos formed, accompanied by a final message.

Tommy held the book up to Erin. “You can read it, right?”

Jordan placed a hand on her good shoulder. “Of course she can. She’s the Woman of Learning.”

For once, Erin didn’t feel the urge to correct him.

I am.

As she took the book, a strange strength surged from the cover through her palms. The words shone brighter before her eyes, as if she were always destined to read what was written here. She felt suddenly possessive of the book, of its words.

She translated the ancient Greek and read aloud the first canto. “The Woman of Learning is now bound to the book and none may part it from her.”

“What does that mean?” Bernard asked.

She shrugged lightly, as clueless as he was.

Jordan slipped the book from her hands. As soon as the Gospel was lifted from her fingers, the words vanished.

Bernard gasped.

Erin quickly took the book back, and words blew back to life.

Jordan flashed a grin at Bernard. “Still doubt who she is?”

Bernard simply stared at the book, looking anguished, as if the love of his life had been torn from him. And maybe it had been. Erin remembered how she had felt when sent back to California, deemed unworthy to be involved with this miraculous book.

“What else does it say?” Tommy asked.

She drew in another breath and moved to the second canto. “The Warrior of Man…” She glanced at Jordan, hoping it was something good. “The Warrior of Man is likewise bound to the angels to whom he owes his mortal life.”

With the uttering of the last word, Jordan suddenly flinched, ripping away the rest of the torn sleeve from his left arm. He gasped. The tattoo traced there had turned to fire, glowing golden. Then in another breath it blew out, leaving only the blue-black lines of ink on his skin.

He rubbed his arm and shook his fingers. “I can still feel that burn down deep. Like after Tommy revived me.”

“What does that mean?” Erin asked, looking to the others.

From their expressions, no one knew.

Christian offered the only counsel. “Jordan’s blood still smells the same, so he’s not immortal or anything.”

Jordan frowned at him. “Quit smelling me.”

Leaving that mystery for now, Erin turned to the third and final canto and read it aloud. “But the Knight of Christ must make a choice. By his spoken word, he may undo his greatest sin and return what was thought forever lost.”

She faced Rhun.

His gaze met hers, his dark eyes as hard as obsidian. She read some understanding in that dark glint, but he remained silent.

Tommy pointed to the bottom of the page. “And what’s that written at the bottom?”

She read that, too. It was separate from the three cantos, clearly some final message or warning.

“Together, the trio must face their final quest. The shackles of Lucifer have been loosened, and his Chalice remains lost. It will take the light of all three to forge the Chalice anew and banish him again to his eternal darkness.”

Jordan sighed heavily. “So our work isn’t done yet.”

Erin held the warm book in her hands and reread that last passage several times. What was this Chalice? She knew that she would spend many long hours trying to pick meaning out of those few lines, to wring some sense out of them.

But that could wait for now.

Jordan stared over at Rhun. “What’s all that about your greatest sin?”

Rhun remained silent and turned to the empty desert.

Bernard answered, “His greatest sin was when he became a strigoi.” He took firm hold of Rhun’s shoulder. “My son, I believe that the Book is offering you mortal life, to restore your soul to you.”

But would he take it?

Erin read that final canto again.

The Knight of Christ must make a choice…

54

Rhun felt Bernard’s urgent fingers on his shoulders. The cardinal’s breath brushed his neck when he spoke. He heard the shift of cloth and the creak of leather armor as his mentor shifted his stance. But what he didn’t hear was a heartbeat.

Rhun’s chest was just as silent.

Neither of them was truly human, nor mortal.

His blood still burned from the blast, reminding him of another essential difference between them and all humankind.

We are cursed.

Though blessed and bound to service in the Church, they remained tainted creatures, best left to the dark.

He took in Bernard’s words, wondering if they could be true. Could his heart stir again? Could he have his soul back? Could he rejoin a simpler world, one where he might father children, where he could feel the touch of a woman’s hand without fear?

He seldom allowed himself to entertain such a hope. He had accepted his lot as a Sanguinist. He had served without question for long, long years. His only possible escape from this curse was death.

But then he met Erin, who questioned everything and everyone. She gave him the will not only to challenge his fate — but to hope for something more.

But dare I grasp it?

Elisabeta stepped before him, turning his eyes from the desert to her soft face. He expected rancor, vitriol that he should be offered this gift. Instead, she did something far worse.

She touched his cheek. “You must take this boon. It is what you always wanted.” Her cold hand lingered there. “You have earned it.”

He stared into her eyes, seeing that she truly wished this for him. He gave a small nod, knowing what he must do, what he had truly earned.

He moved her hand from his cheek and kissed her palm in thanks.

He turned to Erin, to the book shining gently in her hands, where it had always belonged.

To each, their place.

He knew all he had to do was touch that book and state his greatest sin, and it would be taken from him, allowing a soul to return to the damned.

Erin smiled at him, happy for him.

Bernard followed him, clearly thrilled to witness this miracle. “I am so proud of you, my son. I always knew that if any of our order were to be restored to grace, it would be you. You will be free.”

Rhun shook his head.

I will never be free.

He lifted his hand over the book, remembering that moment when he writhed in the holy brilliance of an angel restored, where his every sin was exposed — including his greatest, that black blight beyond any forgiveness.

The words of the Gospel echoed through him.

… he may undo his greatest sin…

He turned his face up to the heavens. His friends were wrong. Rhun knew his greatest sin, as did the one who wrote those words upon that page.

He placed his palm there now. “I take it upon myself to give up my greatest sin,” Rhun prayed. “To let it be undone and give back that which I had stolen.”

Erin looked troubled at his words — as she should be.

Behind him, he heard Elisabeta gasp and then crash to her knees.

Erin whispered to him. “What have you done?”

As answer, he glanced back to Elisabeta. She clapped her hands over her mouth and nose, as if she could hold back the hands of fate. But black smoke seeped between her fingers, expelling from mouth and nose, and formed a dark cloud in front of her startled eyes. Then in a breath it spiraled downward and vanished from this world.

She moved her hands from her mouth to her throat.

And screamed.

She screamed and screamed.

The sound rang across the desert again and again.

Rhun took her in her arms, calming her, holding her.

“It is as it must be,” he said. “As it should always have been.”

He watched her anguished, frightened face grow pinkish. And for the first time in centuries, he heard her heart beat again.

Rhun lost himself in the rhythm of it, wanting to weep.

Elisabeta’s eyes were wide upon him. “This cannot be.”

“It can, my love.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Destroying your soul was my greatest sin. Always.”

Her face grew redder, not with returning life, but anger. Her silver eyes darkened into storm clouds. Sharp nails scratched down his arm. “You made me mortal?”

“You are,” Rhun said, hesitant now.

She shoved him away, her strength the barest fraction of her former might. “I did not wish it!”

“W-what?”

“I did not ask you to turn me into a beast, nor did I ask you to return me to this.” She held out her arms. “A frail and mewling human.”

“But you are forgiven. As am I.”

“I care nothing about forgiveness. Yours or mine!” She retreated from him. “You play with my soul as if it were a trinket that you can give and take at will. Both then and now. Where is my choice in any of this? Or does that not matter?”

Rhun searched for words to explain it to her. “Life is the greatest gift.”

“It is the greatest curse.”

She turned and stalked away, heading for the open desert.

Tommy chased after her. “Wait! Don’t leave me!”

The boy’s lonely and plaintive cry stopped her, but she did not turn to face Rhun again. Tommy ran up to her and hugged her from behind. She pulled him forward and drew him closer, her shoulders quaking as she cried, her chin on his head.

Bernard touched Rhun’s shoulder. “How could you have squandered such a gift on her?”

“It was not squandered.”

Anger blew through him. How could Bernard be such a fool? Did he not understand that the greatest sins are those that we commit ourselves, not those that are committed upon us?

The countess kept her back toward him.

She would come to understand and forgive him.

She must.

Erin closed the book and stepped away from the others. Jordan moved to follow her, but she asked for a moment of privacy. She stared up at the stars, at the rising moon as she strode across the crater, to the only place where there were no bodies, away from the chaos of emotions behind her.

She needed a moment of peace.

She reached the open well.

The holiness here, likely born from the sword preserved below, had kept the fighting away from this spot. She glanced back to the carnage, to both beasts and strigoi.

Their group had paid a terrible price, but they had come through it.

Just not all of them.

Her eyes fell upon poor Agmundr, picturing his huge grin.

Thank you for protecting us.

She remembered Nadia on the snow, even Leopold on the floor of the cave. They had met their ends far from the lands of their birth and those who had loved them.

Just like Amy.

She knelt by the edge of the spring and peered into the clear water. Stars reflected there, a wash of the Milky Way shining brightly back at her, reminding her of both the smallness and majesty of life. The stars above were eternal. She listened to the swish of sands across the surrounding dunes, whispering as it had for millennia past.

This spot had long been a peaceful, holy place.

Erin surveyed the panels that told the story of Christ’s first miracle and what followed. It was a reminder that anyone could make an error, take a misstep. Like Christ, she had not known the deadly consequences of her actions in Masada, how the events would bring death and ripples across time.

She looked back at Bernard as an uncharitable thought crossed her mind. So much bloodshed could have been spared if the cardinal had not kept so many secrets. If she had known the importance of the deadly information that she had shared with Amy, Erin might have been more cautious. Instead, the secrets that the Sanguinists had kept from her had cost Amy her life and the lives of others.

She focused on the book in her hand. While she would accept the mantle of the Woman of Learning, she would no longer allow truths to be kept from her. The Vatican authorities must throw open their libraries and reveal all their secrets, or she would no longer work with them.

The book was now bound to her, and she would use it to break down all doors.

She owed that to Amy.

She reached to her pocket and slipped out the marble of amber. She held it up to the moonlight, revealing the delicate feather inside. The amber had trapped it as surely as her memories held Amy: forever preserved, never free to float away.

While she would never forget her student, perhaps she could let something go.

She tilted her palm forward until the amber slid down to her fingertips. Then it tumbled off them and fell into the spring. She leaned forward and watched the marble break the reflection of stars and vanish into that eternity.

Now part of Amy would always be here in Egypt, at rest in one of the holiest places on Earth, near ancient secrets that might never be discovered.

Erin stared into that well, making a promise.

Never again.

No more innocent blood would be spilled to preserve the secrets of the Sanguinists. It was time for the truth to shine.

She gripped the book and stood.

Ready to change the world.