She made her decision with a nod. “Then I am—”
“Wait,” Rhun said, cutting her off. “Before you pledge yourself, you must understand that you may lose your life in the search.” His hand strayed to his pectoral cross. “Or something even more precious.”
She remembered the earlier discussion about the souls—or the lack thereof—of the strigoi. It wasn’t just their lives—Rhun’s, Jordan’s, and her own—that were at risk on the journey ahead.
A deep well of sadness shone in Rhun’s eyes, something from his past.
Was he mourning his own soul or another’s?
Erin silently listed logical reasons why she should not do this, why she should go back to Caesarea, meet with Heinrich’s parents, and continue her dig. But this decision required more than logic.
“Dr. Granger?” the Cardinal asked. “What is your wish?”
She studied the table, spread as it had been for millennia, and Rhun, whose very existence offered possible proof of the miracle of transubstantiation. If he could be real, maybe so could Christ’s Gospel.
“Erin?” Jordan asked.
She took a deep breath. “How could I pass up this opportunity?”
Jordan cocked his head. “Are you sure it’s your fight?”
If it wasn’t her fight, whose was it? She pictured the small child’s skeleton in the trench, curled up lovingly by a parent. She imagined the slaughter that brought that baby to an untimely grave. If there was any truth to the stories told this night, she could not let the Belial get hold of that book or such massacres could become commonplace.
Jordan met her gaze, his blue eyes questioning.
Rhun bowed his head and seemed to be praying.
Erin nodded, her decision firm. “I have to.”
Jordan eyed her a moment longer—then shrugged. “If she’s in, I’m in.”
The Cardinal bowed his head in thanks, but he wasn’t done. “There is one more condition.”
“Isn’t there always?” Jordan mumbled.
Bernard explained: “If you enter into league with the Sanguinists, you must know you will be declared dead, listed as one of the victims atop Masada. Your family will grieve for you.”
“Hold on a minute.” Jordan sat back.
Erin understood. Jordan’s family would miss him, would suffer for his decision. He couldn’t go. Erin almost envied him. She had friends, even close friends, and colleagues, but there was no one who would be devastated if she didn’t return from Israel. She didn’t have family.
“There is no other way.” The Cardinal held out his gloved hands palms up. “If the Belial know you live, that you seek the Gospel, they may strive to influence you through your family … I believe you know what that will entail?”
Erin nodded. She had seen the ferocity of the Belial firsthand in the tomb at Masada.
“To protect you, to protect those who love you, we must take you under the cloak of the Sanguinists. You must disappear from the larger world.”
Jordan stroked his empty ring finger thoughtfully.
“You shouldn’t come, Jordan. You have too much to lose.”
The Cardinal’s voice took on a kinder tone. “It is for their safety, my son. Once the threat is over, you will resume your former lives, and your friends and families will know you did this out of love.”
“And it has to be us, nobody else can do this?” Jordan’s eyes stayed on his fingers.
“I believe that the three of you together must perform this task.”
Jordan glanced over to Rhun, whose dark eyes gave little away—then to Erin.
He finally stood up and paced to the rooftop’s edge, his shoulders stiff. His decision was a difficult one, Erin knew. Unlike her, he was no orphaned archaeologist. He had a big family in Iowa, a wife, maybe children.
She had no one.
She was used to being alone.
So why was she staring at Jordan’s back, anxious to hear his answer?
23
October 26, 10:54 P.M., IST
Beneath the Israeli desert
Bathory stirred from a nap, not knowing when she’d fallen asleep, seduced by exhaustion and the cool quiet of the subterranean bunker. It took her a moment to remember where she was. A shadowy sense of loss hung over her like cobwebs.
Then she remembered all.
As time fell back over her shoulders, an edge of panic sliced through her weariness. She sat up, rolling her legs from the reclining sofa. She found Magor curled nearby, always protecting her. He raised his large head, his eyes glowing.
She waved him to rest, but he lumbered up and padded over to her.
At her side, he slumped down again, leaving his head on her lap. He sensed her distress, as she felt the simple warmth of his affection and concern.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him aloud.
But he felt what was unspoken, her fear and worry.
As she scratched his ears, she searched for the words to tell Him of her failure—if such words existed. She had lost most of the strigoi under her command, let a Knight of Christ escape her snare. And worst of all, what did she have to show for it?
Certainly not the book—but that was not her fault.
Someone else had stolen it long before Masada crumbled to ruin.
She even had proof of the theft: grainy photos recovered from a cell phone.
But even to her, any explanation of the night’s events felt like excuses.
No longer able to sit, she gently shifted Magor’s muzzle and stood. Her bare feet crossed a Persian rug that had once graced the stone floor of her ancestral castle, once warmed feet now long dead.
She reached a concrete wall. It was covered in Chinese red silk to soften the stark confines of the bunker that was her home in the desert, a home buried twenty feet under the sands. Against the wall, artfully arranged shelves displayed an antique lancet with an ebony handle and a gold bleeding bowl with rings inside to indicate how much blood had been released.
She lifted the bowl. How much of her cursed blood might He take as punishment?
Magor nuzzled her hip, and she put down the bowl and knelt, burying her face in his fur. He smelled like wolf and blood and comfort. With Hunor gone, he was her last true companion.
What if He took Magor away?
That fear drew her face up. Her gaze fell on her most prized possession—an original Rembrandt portrait of a young boy. A version of Titus hung in an American gallery. The boy’s blond hair curled outward from an angelic face. Serious blue-gray eyes met hers, red lips curved in a tentative smile. In the American version, a gray smudge rested atop his shoulder. Art historians speculated that it was a pet parrot or monkey that had died during the weeks it took to complete the painting. To spare the boy, the lost pet had been painted over after the work’s completion. Her painting revealed it was neither of those animals. A tawny owl stared back from the boy’s shoulder.