She leaned closer to Jordan’s reassuring warmth. “Thanks.”
Cardinal Bernard cleared his throat. “Since you are returned to us, Dr. Granger … perhaps now we should finish our discussion of the strigoi.”
He gestured to the loaded table of weaponry. Erin kept to the far side of Rhun, despite the fact that he seemed calm again.
Jordan picked up a pair of goggles from the table and studied them. “These are night-vision scopes, but they look odd.”
“They are of special design, made to toggle between low-light vision and infrared,” Bernard explained. “A useful tool. The low-light feature allows you to discern opponents at night, but since the strigoi are cold, they do not glow with body heat on infrared goggles. If you toggle between those two features, you’ll be able to separate humans from strigoi at night.”
Curious, needing to try this out for herself, Erin picked up the other pair of goggles and looked at Jordan. His hair and the tip of his nose were now yellow; the rest of his face looked warm and red. He waved an orange hand.
Definitely warm-blooded.
She remembered the heat of his kiss—and shoved that thought back down.
She hurriedly turned the goggles on Rhun. Even though the Cardinal had just told her that his body would be at room temperature, it still startled her when she saw his face in the same cold purples and deep blues as the wall behind him. When she switched to low-light vision, everyone looked the same.
“How’d it work?” Jordan asked.
“Fine.”
Yet another scientific tool that showed how other Rhun was from them. Did he have anything in common with them at all?
“Here are silver rounds for your weapons.” The Cardinal handed wooden boxes to Jordan. “It is difficult to stop a charging strigoi with a gun, but these bullets help. They are hollow points and expand on impact to maximize the amount of silver that comes in contact with their blood.”
Jordan shook a bullet into his palm and held it up to the light. The bullet and casing glinted white silver. “How does that help?”
“Our unique blood resists mortal diseases. We can live forever unless felled by violence. Our immune system is superior to yours in every way, except when it comes to silver.”
“But you carry silver crosses.” Erin pointed to the cross atop the Cardinal’s red cassock.
He kissed his gloved fingertips and touched his pectoral cross. “Each Sanguinist bears that burden, yes, to remind us of our cursed state. If we touch the silver—” He took off his leather glove and pressed a pale finger against the bullet in Jordan’s hand. The smell of burning flesh drifted to Erin. The Cardinal held up his finger to show where the silver had seared his flesh. “It burns even us.”
“But not as bad as it does the strigoi, I’d wager,” Jordan said, pocketing the rounds.
“That is true,” Bernard admitted with a bow of his head. “As a Sanguinist, I exist in a state halfway between damnation and holiness. Silver burns me, but does not kill me. Strigoi do not have the protection of Christ’s blood in their veins, so silver is much more deadly to them.” He drew his glove on again. “Holy objects also have some value, although not enough to kill them.”
“Then how do we defend ourselves?” Jordan asked.
“I suggest that you view strigoi as animals,” the Cardinal said. “To put them down, you must grievously wound them with traditional weapons, just like any other animal.”
She looked over at Rhun, who showed no reaction to being called an animal.
Instead, the priest took a dagger and slashed his palm.
She gasped.
His eyes flicked to her face as blood pattered to the table. “You must understand fully,” he said.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” She couldn’t help but ask.
“We feel many things more acutely than humans. Including pain. So, yes, it does hurt, but watch the wound.”
He held out his open hand. The blood flowing from his cut stopped as abruptly as if he had turned off a tap. The blood at the edge of his wound even seeped back into his hand.
“And you are showing us this cool little trick because …?” Jordan asked.
“The secrets lie in our blood. It flows on its own through our bodies, a living force. This means our wounds stop bleeding almost instantly.”
Erin leaned closer. “So you don’t need a heart to propel your blood? It does it on its own?”
Rhun bowed his head in acknowledgment.
Erin considered the implications. Was this the origin of the legend of the living dead? Strigoi seemed dead because they were cold and didn’t have beating hearts?
“But what about breathing?” she asked, wanting every detail.
“We breathe only to smell and to speak,” Rhun explained. “But there is no necessity for it. We can hold our breath indefinitely.”
“More good news,” Jordan mumbled.
“So now you understand,” Rhun said. “As Cardinal Bernard warned you, if you cut a strigoi, keep cutting. Do not assume that they are fatally wounded, because they are likely not. Be on guard at all times.”
Jordan nodded.
“A strigoi’s only weaknesses are fire, silver, sunlight, and wounds so grievous that they cannot stop the blood flow quickly enough.”
Jordan stared down at the array of weaponry, clearly more worried than he’d been a moment ago. “Thanks for the pep talk,” he muttered.
The Cardinal spread his gloved hands across several daggers that had been laid out on the table. “All of these weapons are coated with silver and blessed by the Church. I think you will find them more effective than the blade you wear at your ankle, Sergeant Stone.”
Jordan picked up each dagger, testing its heft. He settled on a bone-handled knife that was almost a foot long. He examined it closely. “This is an American Bowie knife.”
“A fitting weapon,” Rhun said. “It dates back to the Civil War and was carried by a brother of our order who died during the Battle of Antietam.”
“One of the bloodiest fights of that war,” Jordan commented.
“The blade has since been silver-plated.” Rhun eyed Jordan. “Wear it well and with respect.”
Jordan nodded, soberly acknowledging the weapon’s heritage.
Erin remembered the knife battles in the tomb. She would never cower helplessly in a box again. “I want one, too. And a gun.”
“Can you shoot?” the Cardinal asked.
“I hunted as a kid—but I’ve never shot anything I didn’t intend to eat.”