Arthur took a sip from his glass, tasting only wine, none of the supposed miracle it held. But for the moment, he accepted this truth.
Christian lifted his own goblet, drank deeply, then raised his glass. “Seems we’re blood brothers yet again.”
This earned a shy smile from Arthur.
Christian reached over and clinked his glass against Arthur’s.
“To you, my industrious and persistent brother. I told you before that you would make an excellent journalist.”
“You knew what I discovered.”
“I’ve never stopped watching you. But your efforts stirred up a hornet’s nest. There are those—even in my own order—who need secrets.”
Arthur remembered Simeon’s words about the Belial.
Our darkness cannot thrive in the light.
It seemed the Sanguinists needed those shadows, too.
“For your safety,” Christian said, “I tried to warn you.”
Arthur could still smell a slight scent of gardenias. “The orchid.”
“I had to be subtle, using a means of communication that only you would understand. I had hoped you’d abandon this line of inquiry on your own, but I should have known better. When you didn’t, I couldn’t let anyone harm you.”
“You saved my life.”
Christian grew momentarily pensive. “It was only fitting after you saved my soul.”
Arthur frowned at this.
Christian explained. “It was your love, our bond as brothers that finally broke me down enough to seek out the Sanguinists and what they offered, a path to service and redemption for my sins.”
Arthur flashed to the burning church, to the priest in the doorway.
Christian brightened again, straightening his spine. “So I saved your life, and you saved my soul . . . let’s call it a wash.”
Arthur asked other questions, got some answers, but others were denied him.
He slowly accepted this and the need for such secrets.
Finally, Christian stood. “I must go. You should check into a hotel for a couple of days. I’ll send someone over—someone I trust—to fix your window, to clean up the place.”
In other words, to get rid of the body.
Arthur followed him to the door. “Will I see you again?”
“It’s forbidden,” Christian said, his eyes a mix of sadness and regret. “I’m not even supposed to be here right now.”
Arthur felt a pang that threatened to break his already old heart.
Christian hugged him, gently but firmly. “I’ll always be with you, my brother.” He broke the embrace, placing his palm over Arthur’s heart. “Right here.”
Arthur saw that Christian held something under that palm, pressed to his chest. As his brother removed his hand, a square of stiff paper fell and fluttered toward the floor. Arthur scrambled to catch it, nabbing it with his fingertips.
As he straightened, he found the door open and Christian gone.
Arthur stepped into the hallway, but there was no sign of his brother.
He stared down at what he’d caught, a parting gift from Christian.
It was a black-and-white photo, slightly yellowed, crinkled at the corners. In the background was a rainy pane of glass, and in the foreground two grieving boys gazed into the camera together. Christian held the camera high, and Arthur leaned against him for support, two brothers, blood bonded never to part.
Christian must have carried the old photo all these years.
Now, it was Arthur’s.
To keep now and forever.
CODA
SO ENDS THE story of two brothers, bound by blood, forever connected, but on different paths. To delve deeper into the mysteries of the Order of the Sanguines, join Christian as he is called to duty once again—to seek out an angel given flesh on Earth—in an epic adventure of horror and enlightenment entitled Innocent Blood.
Here is a sneak preview of Innocent Blood.
Coming soon in hardcover
From
William Morrow
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
EPIGRAPH
Behold, God received your sacrifice from the hands of a priest—that is to say from the minister of error.
—GOSPEL OF JUDAS 5:15
PROLOGUE
Midsummer, 1099
Jerusalem
AS THE SCREAMS of the dying rose up toward the desert sun, Bernard’s bone-white fingers clutched the cross hanging from his neck. The touch of its blessed silver seared his sword-calloused palm, branding his damned flesh. He ignored the smell of his charred skin and tightened his grip. He accepted the pain.
For this pain had a purpose—to serve God.
Around him foot soldiers and knights washed into Jerusalem on a wave of blood. For the past months, the Crusaders had fought their way across hostile lands. Nine out of every ten men were lost before ever reaching the Holy City: felled by battle, by the pitiless desert, by heathen diseases. Those who survived wept openly upon seeing Jerusalem for the first time. But all that blood spilt had not been in vain, for now the city would be restored to Christians yet again, a harsh victory marked by the deaths of thousands of infidels.
For those slain, Bernard whispered a quick prayer.
He had time for no more.
As he sheltered beside the horse-drawn wagon, he drew the rough cowl of his hood lower over his eyes, cloaking his white hair and pale face deeper into shadow. He then took hold of the stallion’s bridle and stroked the beast’s warm neck, hearing the thunder of its heart as much with his fingertips as his ears. Terror stoked the steed’s blood and steamed from its sweating flanks.
Still, with a firm tug, the animal stepped forward next to him, drawing the wooden cart over the blood-soaked paving stones. The wagon’s bed held a single iron cage, large enough to imprison a man. Thick leather wrapped the cage tightly, hiding what was inside. But he knew. And so did the horse. Its ears flicked back anxiously. It shook its unkempt black mane.
Ranged in a tight phalanx ahead of him, Bernard’s dark brethren—his fellow knights from the Order of the Sanguines—battled to clear a path forward. All valued this mission more than their own existence. They fought with strength and determination no human could match. One of his brothers vaulted high into the air, a sword in each hand, revealing his inhuman nature as much by the flurry of his steel as by the flash of his sharp teeth. They were all once unholy beasts, like the one caged in the wagon, stripped of their souls and left forsaken—until offered a path back to salvation by Christ. Each made a dark compact to slake his thirst no more upon the blood of man, but only upon the consecrated blood of Christ, a blessing that allowed them to walk half in shadow, half in sunlight, balanced on a sword’s edge between grace and damnation.