The Blood Gospel

The dog lowered its head toward Nate’s exposed throat and snarled.

“But maybe we can talk it through, you and I.” Erin spoke as fast as she could. “But first, call off the grimwolf.”

As if obeying a silent command from its mistress, the wolf raised its head.

Nate shuddered with relief.

Erin had to give the woman something. “The lead box had a design on it. A skeleton and a man bound together by loops of rope.”

“Yes, we know. Along with the symbols for the Alpha and the Omega.”

Bathory turned to the taller of the two brothers, his flesh punctured and tattooed, his eyes hungry upon her. He shrugged off a satchel, pulled free the heavy artifact, and held it out to Erin.

“What else do you see?” Bathory asked.

Erin took the cold metal object, careful not to touch the fingers of the tattooed man. She wished she had something significant to add. What did she know about the book? She stroked the two figures carved into the front: the human skeleton and the naked man, crossed and locked in an embrace, bound together by a braided cord.

Drawing by Trish Cramblett

“The book is about miracles,” Erin started. “Christ’s miracles. How He harnessed His divinity.”

The wolf shifted its weight from paw to paw.

“We know that,” Bathory snapped. “How do we open it?”

Erin ignored her and tried to think. “Miracles. Like changing water to wine. Bringing the living back from the dead …”

She stopped, surprised.

Bathory understood at the same time. “All the major miracles are about transformations.”

“Exactly!” Erin was surprised at how quickly Bathory had made the connection. “Like transubstantiation, changing wine to the blood of Jesus.”

“So, perhaps this block of lead is the actual book.” Bathory crossed over and crouched next to her, like two colleagues conferring. She touched the lead, too. “Alchemists were always trying to find a way of turning lead to gold.”

Erin nodded, understanding the woman’s hypothesis. “Maybe that quest has its roots in this legend. Some old hint about the Gospel traveled up through the ages. Turning lead to gold.”

Bathory’s silver eyes locked on hers. “Maybe the Gospel needs to be transformed in the same way. From dull, worthless lead to the golden glory of the book?”

Erin suddenly remembered Piers’s words in the bunker.

The book is not yet a book. Not yet.

Had the old priest figured out the puzzle as he hung for decades on the cross with nothing else to ponder as he suffered?

Erin nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“It’s an interesting idea. But what are the alchemical ingredients needed to cause this transformation?” Bathory tapped the figure of the skeleton inscribed on the lead jacket. “I suspect the answer may lay in our bony friend here?”

“But what does the Alpha symbol above his head mean? It has to be a clue.” Erin stared at the skeleton under the Alpha symbol, then glanced at the naked man and the symbol above his head. “And what’s the meaning of the Omega symbol?”

“Alpha skeleton, Omega man.” Bathory slipped her finger into two small divots at the top of the block.

Erin hadn’t seen those before. They looked like tiny receptacles, meant to hold something, maybe something like those alchemical ingredients Bathory mentioned. She tried to get a better look at them.

Before she could, Bathory sprang to her feet, understanding flashing across her face. She ripped the lead block from Erin’s hands.

“What?” Erin asked. “What did you see?”

Bathory snapped her fingers, and the wolf abandoned Nate.

The young man sat up shakily, rubbing his throat.

The eerie silver eyes smiled at Erin. “Thank you for your help.”

With that, she and the strigoi brothers left the cell. The lock clicked closed, and light retreated down the tunnel. Erin leaned forward to watch it disappear. Bathory had figured out something, something important.

Nate drew in a shaky breath. “She’ll be back.”

Erin agreed, adding, “But we won’t be here.”

3:35 P.M.

Rhun pulled his dark hood lower over his eyes, hiding from both the tourists and the late-afternoon sunlight that inundated St. Peter’s Square.

Here he waited with Jordan.

Across the travertine square rose St. Peter’s Basilica, its dome the highest point in all of Rome. To either side, Bernini’s double colonnade swept out in two wide arcs, framing the keyhole-shaped plaza between. According to Bernini, the colonnade was supposed to represent the arms of Saint Peter reaching out to embrace the faithful into the fold. Atop these arms, a hundred and forty stone saints perched and stared down upon the spectacle below.

Rhun hoped they didn’t see him. He had chosen this place for a rendezvous, out in the open, under the sun, to hide in plain sight, so that if Bathory had reached Rome, her strigoi wouldn’t be able to overhear any words he spoke. Possibly he was being too paranoid, but after the events in Russia, he dared take no chances.