The Blood Gospel

Erin knelt on the other side of the door, her Sig Sauer in hand. She didn’t have the same firepower he did, but she was a surprisingly good shot. She shot for legs, wounding rather than killing, just as Rhun had done. For the moment it was easier to slow them than to kill them.

Nadia hooked a hand under one arm and dragged Rhun back toward the bunker.

She took a crossbow bolt in the back of her thigh, but didn’t even flinch until she had hauled Rhun’s body inside and slammed the bunker door.

“Emmanuel?” Jordan asked.

“Lost.” She clenched her jaw and yanked out the bolt. Blood boiled out and smoked down her thigh. The stench of burnt flesh drifted up.

Erin swallowed hard. Jordan understood how she felt.

“Can you walk?” he asked. “I can give you a shoulder to—”

“I can walk.”

Nadia hurried them away from the door and pulled a wineskin from her belt. She took a small, cautious sip.

A heavy object thudded against the locked door behind them, echoing inside.

Nadia ignored it, but she finally stopped and lowered Rhun to the floor. She quickly freed Rhun’s karambit and used the hooked blade to slice off the leather armor covering his chest.

“We must work swiftly. The Belial will come through that door at any moment.”

Erin knelt next to her. “How do you know they’ll do that?”

“They have to. They’re strigoi. When the sun rises, they’ll all die. They will need to go to ground.”

Nadia dug a slug out of Rhun’s chest with his karambit’s tip. The bullet had deformed into a grotesque five-petal flower.

“Silver hollow point,” Jordan said, immediately understanding.

The attackers had known what to expect.

Nadia dug out the other slugs, none too gently, hurrying. Six total. A human could not live with that much damage. Maybe not even a Sanguinist.

Blood pumped out and ran across the floor.

Erin put her palm on Rhun’s chest, plainly concerned. “I thought he would stop bleeding on his own.”

Jordan remembered Korza’s demonstration back in Jerusalem with his sliced palm.

Nadia pushed Erin’s hand away. “His blood is purging the silver. If it doesn’t, he’ll die.”

“But then won’t he bleed to death?” Erin asked.

Nadia’s face tightened. “He might,” she admitted, and glanced back at the door.

The strigoi had ceased pounding. Jordan didn’t trust the silence and apparently neither did Nadia.

She stood, hauling Rhun over one shoulder.

Erin joined her. “What do we do? Try to use the water exit?”

“It’s our only chance,” Nadia said, and pointed her free arm. “We must reach sunlight.”

They took off at a dead run. Jordan hauled Piers along in a fireman’s carry, but Nadia outpaced him. They reached the intersection of passageways—when a thunderous explosion erupted behind them.

Jordan jolted, ducking from the noise. The enemy had set charges against the door.

Without breaking stride, he turned to check on Erin. She was behind him, too far behind. Snarls echoed down the tunnel from the blasted doorway.

The monsters were inside—and they were pissed.

39

October 27, time unknown

Undisclosed location

Tommy shifted in his new bed, trying to find a more comfortable position. He had no idea where he was, when he was, but he didn’t think it was another hospital. He studied his new home, which he suspected was what this prison was supposed to be.

He filed that disturbing thought away for now.

But he had to admit that the box in his head was growing more and more crammed.

Something eventually had to give.

He stared around. The walls were painted silver, with no windows, but the room came equipped with three different kinds of video-game consoles and a flat-screen TV, fed by satellite and carrying American channels.

Across from the foot of his bed, a door led to a bathroom stocked with familiar brands of soap and shampoo. Another door led to a corridor, but he’d been unconscious when he was brought in, so he didn’t know where that went.

Some faceless doctor must have set his bones, patched his wounds, and cranked him up on pain relievers. His mouth still felt full of cotton that no amount of water could soothe. But his neck had already healed, and his bones were knitting fast, too. Whatever had happened at Masada, it had sped up his healing, curing him from far more than just cancer.

Since he’d woken up, they brought him food, whatever he asked for: burgers, fries, pizza, ice cream, and Apple Jacks cereal. And he was surprisingly hungry. He could not get enough to eat; likely his body needed the fuel to help heal itself.

Nobody told him where he was or why he was here.

He spent one entire hour crying, but no one seemed to care, and he finally realized the futility of tears and turned to more practical thoughts: thoughts of escape.

So far, he had no good plan. The walls were made of concrete, and he imagined that something in the room was a camera. The guards shoved his food through a slot in the door that led out to the corridor.

Suddenly that door opened.

Tommy sat up. He couldn’t stand very well yet.