The Blood Gospel

Farther ahead, Rhun and Bernard stood frozen at the edge of the baldachin.

Stopped by a holiness that frightened even them.

58

October 28, 5:11 P.M., CET

Vatican City, Italy

Bathory’s blood sang with joy as golden light bathed her body.

She breathed in warmth and love. The pain that had flowed through her veins since she had reached womanhood began to recede. She felt the black mark on her throat fading, washed away by the brilliance. How could any darkness withstand this light?

The lead block warmed within her palms. It pulsed with its own heartbeat, like any living thing. With each passing second, it weighed less and less, until it felt as if it were floating above her fingers.

In her hand, the block had been replaced by pure golden light.

The radiance mesmerized her. It lit her eyes but did not burn them. She could gaze upon it forever, dwell forever in its light, explore its mystery for all time. Far above, the golden sun painted on the bottom of the baldachin outlined the painting of a white dove. The dove flew, free, in the light.

As did she.

But not for long.

The archaeologist and the soldier rushed toward her. The knights circled, closing in. Swiss Guard troops rushed down the nave. She was trapped. They would kill her, spill her blood on the book, steal its light from her.

As if sensing her fear, the radiance died away, fading until only an actual book rested in her palms, weighing down her hands.

She stared at the book, transfixed.

The tome was bound in ordinary sheepskin, its surface unadorned. Her fingertips caressed the worn leather while the scent of ancient sands rose up to her nostrils.

How could such brilliance shine from something so simple and ordinary?

Then she knew the answer.

She pictured Christ’s visage—an ordinary man’s face, hiding a wellspring of divinity.

Tears ran down her cheeks as a heavy ache returned to her blood.

Without touching her throat, she knew that the black mark had returned.

She shook her head to clear the glow that still filled her mind. It felt as if she had just awakened from a deep dream. But she did not have the luxury of distraction.

She stared out across the basilica, knowing what she had to do. She needed a way out and intended to create her own exit.

Moving swiftly, she leaped away from the altar into the apse behind her and retreated back toward the giant black marble throne high on the wall. It was the throne of Saint Peter, surrounded by popes and angels and rays of golden light that seemed cheap in comparison to what she had just witnessed.

Once far enough away from the altar, she reached into her pocket, found the transmitter she had hidden there, and pressed the detonator button.

The blast was a distant echo, like a clap of thunder beyond the horizon. The floor jolted under her feet. She’d planted charges deep in the necropolis below, beneath the very altar where she had been standing.

She watched with satisfaction as the marble floor shattered in front of her, cracking like broken ice under the heavy baldachin. The massive bronze canopy shook—then, as she watched, the entire structure crashed under its own weight through the floor, dropping cleanly through the hole.

Its base struck the floor of the necropolis below with the resounding boom of Heaven’s gate slamming shut.

So be it.

She waved rock dust and smoke from her eyes and watched as the baldachin came to a shuddering rest, sunk most of the way through the floor. Only the canopy still remained visible in the nave, tilted crookedly.

Her charges had worked perfectly.

On the far side of the hole, a Swiss Guardsman fell screaming into the crater as the edge broke under him.

To the left, the Sanguinists jumped back like startled lions, leaping into the transept on that side. The archaeologist and soldier took shelter to the right. More Swiss Guardsmen came rushing down the center of the nave toward the site of the destruction.

But the strigoi army below in the necropolis did not wait. With the sunset here, they swarmed up the twisted columns of the fallen baldachin, a horde of demons rising out of the Stygian darkness. They swarmed over the metal canopy and boiled into the basilica like ants fleeing from an anthill. Even weakened by the holiness of the sanctuary, they would make short work of the Swiss Guards and buy Bathory time to escape.

She leaped from the broken edge of the floor onto one of the huge angels atop the baldachin’s canopy. Holding the book in one hand, she wrapped the other around a gilded wing.

Gunshots cracked at her.