The Blood Gospel

The Palatine and Counts led, casting nervous glances back at their men, as if they feared that their men could not save them. They could not. But Rhun could. He prayed that he would not have to. That the stories were false. That his corrupted love had not caused this.

But he had also heard other stories … of macabre experiments in the dead of night, hinting that there remained some dark purpose to her atrocities, some semblance of her intelligence, of her healing arts, turned to foul intention. That scared him most of all—that some part of her true nature still existed within that monster, degraded now to evil ends.

As they reached the entrance to the castle, men shifted, quick breaths forming clouds in cold air.

The Palatine knocked on a stout oak door built to withstand battering rams. For a moment Rhun prayed that no one would answer, and they would be forced to lay siege to the castle, but Anna opened it. Her birthmark still stained her face, but she was otherwise unrecognizable. Gaunt as a skeleton and covered in scars, she wore only a stained chemise against the biting cold.

The Palatine forced the door open wide. Darkness cloaked the interior, but Rhun smelled what they would find there. Deep underneath that, he also caught the odor of rotten chamomile.

Count Zríni fumbled to light a torch, the burning pitch smell a sharp note in the bouquet of death.

The Palatine took the torch and stepped into the castle. Torchlight fell on a young girl lying stone-cold on the floor. Bruises marred her white flesh. Frozen blood coated her wrists, her neck, the inside of her thighs.

The Palatine crossed himself.

Behind them, a soldier retched into the snow. Rhun took off his cassock and covered the body. But the Church did not have enough cassocks to hide his shame. He had killed this girl as surely as if he had opened her throat himself.

A few steps farther in, two girls huddled under a filthy wooden table. The blond one was barely clinging to life. Her heartbeats fading. He knelt in front of her and administered Last Rites.

“Thank you, Father.” The dark-haired girl’s voice rasped from a damaged throat.

He lowered his eyes in shame. The deaths here weighed on his conscience, as did all those whom Elisabeta had killed. The love of a Sanguinist brought only death and suffering.