The Blood Gospel

Erin refused to succumb to defeat. If nothing else, the oddity of the artifact intrigued her. Could this still be what they were searching for—not a book written by Christ, but a symbolic relic, a piece of ancient sculpture?

She recalled the words of Father Piers, spoken first in German, then translated by Jordan.

Es ist noch kein Buch.

It is not a book.

Is this what Piers meant? Or was this artifact just a piece of lead that had been contaminated by the fragments when it was tossed into the pillowcase with them?

Something about the fragments also nagged at her, something she’d never really had a chance to investigate. But now that she had more pieces of the puzzle …

She turned and handed the lead block to Jordan. “Hold this. I want to try something.”

She then gathered the broken bits of rubble into one of the ancient sheets and took them out into the hall, where she had more room. With the fragments still in her pockets, she might have enough pieces to reassemble the casing more fully. Maybe then she could read the Aramaic lettering impressed on one side of the fragments. At the moment it seemed like a better idea than poking through more piles of rotting junk.

She gestured for Rasputin’s forces to move aside, then spread the sheet across the floor. Grigori’s acolytes gathered around, watching her. She ignored their presence and lifted out the fragments. As she set about arranging the pieces into their original form, concentrating fully on her task, the sounds of Jordan and the priests rummaging next door receded.

Her world became the puzzle.

Sometime later, a hand touched her shoulder, making her jump.

“We found nothing else in there,” Jordan said. “We’re ready to move on to the next room.”

“I need another minute.”

Jordan crouched down beside her. “What do you have there?”

Bare overhead bulbs illuminated the fragments. She had organized them into a square of about one foot by one foot. Fitted together, they revealed a bas-relief of a drawing and impressions of Aramaic letters.

The left side of the bas-relief depicted what looked like a skeleton topped by the Alpha symbol. The right showed the profile of a well-fleshed man with the Omega symbol crowning his head. The two figures were crossed together in an eternal embrace, while a braided rope looped from around the man’s throat to the lower vertebrae of the skeleton, binding them together.

“What does that mean?” Jordan asked.

Erin blew out her breath in frustration. “I have no idea.”

Jordan traced it with his finger, his voice sharpening. “I’ve seen this skeleton.”

“What? Where?” She ran back over the places they had been together: the tomb in Masada, the bunker, and the Russian church.

“This way!” He uncoiled like a spring. He sprinted back into the room he had just vacated, almost bowling over Rasputin in his haste.

Erin rushed after him, drawing both Rasputin and Rhun with her.

“Such a volatile pair.” Rasputin spoke from behind her. “So hot-blooded.”

She hoped that blood would stay right where it belonged.

Jordan crossed back to the basket and lifted that strange block of lead. Black blast marks covered its surface. He rubbed the scorched area with his leather sleeve. “Look!”

Erin leaned at his shoulder, only now seeing a faint pattern underneath the blast marks.

He spat on his fingers and used them to rub away a circle of the soot.

A skull grinned back at them from the lead, its backbone trailing down at an angle.

It matched the picture on the fragments. Erin pictured a slurry of lime and ash being poured over this lead sculpture and drying like clay, hardening to create an impression of the design on the lead box’s top.

Jordan stared up at her, laying a palm atop the lead surface. “Is this another box? First concrete, now lead. Could the Gospel be inside of that?”

8:47 P.M.

Rhun heard Jordan’s words, wanting to disbelieve. It seemed impossible. He reached one tentative hand toward the block, realizing he was acting just like Erin—needing to touch it to make it real.

Did this truly hold the Gospel of Christ?

After so many centuries of searching, he had thought he would never find it, had assumed his sin with Elisabeta had made him unworthy of finding it.

Jordan passed the heavy leaden block to Erin’s outstretched hands. She polished away more of the soot with a grimy tablecloth.

“I don’t see any seams.” She hefted it. “And it feels solid. It looks more like a sculpture than a box.”

Rhun longed to take it from her and test the truth for himself, but he kept still.

“I bet the Germans believed there was something in there.” Jordan tapped the blast marks. “It looks like they tried to blast it again and again. That’s why the sensor readings are so high.”

Grigori jostled against Rhun, wanting to examine the object himself. If the book was still encased within this block of lead, Grigori must not have it. He placed himself between Grigori and Erin.