The Blood Gospel

Rasputin reached through the bars and fondled its ears. The bear huffed at him warmly, then swiveled its head toward Rhun, fixing him with those unnatural red eyes—and growled.

“Ah, see, she remembers you!” Rasputin chucked the bear under the chin. “After all these years. Imagine!”

Rhun ran his hand again down his leg. “I remember her, too.”

Based on his expression, it was no happy memory.

“Your leg seems to have healed well,” Rasputin said. “And you should not have been so careless.”

“Why is she here, Grigori?” Anger hardened Rhun’s voice.

“There was no safe place for her to overwinter in the wilderness,” he said. “Humans might find her den. At her age, she is slow to wake. She deserves a quiet place to spend the cold months.”

Rasputin rolled up his long black sleeve, drew a short dagger from his robes, and slit his own wrist. Dark blood welled out. He slipped his muscular forearm through the gate. The creature huffed again, sniffed, and licked his wrist. A long pink tongue wrapped around the monk’s arm with each stroke.

All the while Rasputin murmured to the bear in Russian.

Erin covered her mouth in disgust, and Jordan swallowed hard.

As the bear nuzzled Rasputin’s arm, its huge front foot kicked a round object through a gap in the gate’s ornamentation. The sphere rolled to a stop in front of Erin’s sneakers. She shone her light on it.

A human skull.

Judging by the tiny strips of flesh still clinging to it, it had come from a recent kill.

She danced back in horror.

Rhun spoke, his voice thick with command. “Enough, Grigori.”

Rasputin withdrew his white arm from the fawning bear and tugged his sleeve down. He glanced back at the others. “Does the time press at you so, Rhun?”

“We are here to find the Gospel and leave.” Rhun’s dark eyes never left the bear. “As you promised.”

“So I did.” Rasputin drew a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his palms. “Follow me.”

He headed back down the tunnel, slipping past the others, smelling of blood and bear.

They resumed their journey. Erin needed no urging to put distance between herself and the bear.

“Rhun?” she asked, keeping next to him. “What was that about you and the bear?”

He sighed impatiently. “The Ursa was once known as the Bear of Saint Corbinian. Do you know the story?”

Erin nodded. During her youth, she’d been forced to memorize all the saints and their stories. “Saint Corbinian, on his way back to Rome, encountered a bear who ate his mule. Afterward, Corbinian forced the bear through the will of God to accept a saddle, and it carried him home. But surely the monster here can’t be that bear. That story goes back to the eighth century.”

“The beast is a blasphemare, and they can live very long lives. Corbinian encountered the monster on the road and got it to serve him, a very rare event for a blasphemare creature to bow to the will of a Sanguinist.”

Erin thought about Piers and the bats but remained silent.

Jordan glanced back over his shoulder. “That bear definitely looked big enough to ride.”

“How did you encounter it?” she pressed.

“Eighty years ago there was word of a huge bear, one that was devouring peasants in Russia. Piers, Grigori, and I were sent to dispatch it.”

“Looks like you didn’t,” Jordan said.

Rasputin dropped back and joined in the conversation, clapping a hand on Rhun’s shoulder. “Not for want of trying. Rhun tracked her to her winter den. Piers was displeased by the mission and refused to help. But the Father proved most helpful after she nearly took off Rhun’s leg.”

Rhun touched his leg again. “That took over a decade to heal.”

“The Ursa was merely frightened,” Rasputin said. “She is a gentle soul.”

Erin thought about the pile of human bones in her cage.

“She didn’t look too gentle to me,” Jordan added.

“After Piers and I removed Rhun from the Ursa’s playful embrace, she escaped into the forest.” Rasputin shook his head. “We never found her. Eventually we were recalled to Rome.”

“But you found her now,” Rhun said. “How?”

“She called to me,” Rasputin said. “Once I left the Sanguinists and embraced my true nature, blasphemare began to seek me out.”

“Abominations seeking kinship.” Rhun sounded bitter.

“We are what we are, Rhun. Accepting your fate instead of fighting it grants you more power than you can imagine.”

“I do not seek power. I seek grace.”

Rasputin chuckled. “And, in all these centuries of striving, have you found it yet? Perhaps the grace you seek is within your heart, not within the walls of a church.”

Rhun clamped his jaw closed tightly.

No one spoke for several minutes. They hurried along. The only sounds were the crunch of shoes against foul ice.

They passed several other tunnels leading off in both directions, also ladders leading up and down to other levels. Erin usually had a good sense of direction underground, but she would never be able to find the church again. Jordan seemed to be counting, so she hoped he had a better sense of where they were.