The Blood Gospel

He did a fast and thorough search for surveillance equipment. Considering the spartan accommodations, there weren’t many places to hide a listening device. He searched the mattress, felt along the edges of the raw wood bed frame, and examined the washstand.

Nothing.

He even stepped to the crucifix on the wall, took it down, and checked behind it, feeling vaguely blasphemous for doing so.

But still nothing.

So, they apparently weren’t listening in—at least not with modern technology. He eyeballed the door. How sharp was the hearing of a Sanguinist?

Considering his level of paranoia, he wondered how wise it had been to come here after all. Should he and Erin have waited in the desert and taken their chances with the jackals? Or maybe another grimwolf?

That didn’t sound any better.

And at least by coming here, they were still alive. Others had not been so lucky. He pictured his teammates’ broken bodies, buried now under tons of stone.

He thought of the calls and visits he would have to make once this ordeal was all over: to the parents, to the widows, to the children.

He sank to the bed in defeat and grief.

What in the hell could he tell them?

9:52 P.M.

Cramped was a generous description for Erin’s room.

She kept hitting her elbow on the wall as she tried to scrub herself clean at the washbasin. She had stripped down to a bra and panties, and once clean, she faced the clothes that had been laid out for her.

It was no problem to slip into the white cotton shirt she found on her bed—but what to do about that long black skirt? It was just like the ones she’d worn as a girl, the ones that always tripped her up, kept her from climbing trees, made it almost impossible to ride horses. In her former world, women wore skirts, while men enjoyed the freedom of pants.

She had worn a skirt or dress throughout her childhood and balked at returning to one. But with her jeans cut to shreds and covered in blood, sweat, and sand, she’d have to wear the dress—unless she wanted to run around in front of Jordan and the priests in her underwear.

That settled it.

She transferred the contents of her jeans to her skirt pocket: the Nazi medallion from the tomb, her wallet, and a faded scrap cut from a quilt many years before, no bigger than a playing card.

Her fingertips lingered over the last item, drawing both strength and anger from it. She always carried the scrap with her, along with the anger and guilt it represented. She pictured the baby’s quilt from which it had been cut, how she’d stolen it before it was buried with her infant sister. She shut down that memory before it overwhelmed her and stuffed it away, shoving the piece of cloth deep into the skirt’s pocket.

That done, she wiggled into the garment, hating how it felt against her legs. The sandals she left by the bed. Her sneakers were staying with her.

Once dressed, she returned to the door, found it unlocked, and peeked out into the hallway. She found it empty and stepped out of the room. As she turned to shut her door—something scraped across stone, sounding like nails clawing out of a grave.

Spooked, already on edge, she bolted across the hall. She didn’t want to be caught outside of her room, especially by whatever made that scraping noise. She pictured the slavering jaws of the grimwolf.

Without knocking, she burst through Jordan’s door.

She found him wearing only a towel and a surprised expression. In his right hand he jerked up a pistol—but then lowered it immediately.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She blushed. “I shouldn’t have … I didn’t mean to …”

“It’s all right,” he said, smiling at her fluster, which only drew more heat to her cheeks. “I’m glad you came over. I wanted to talk to you alone anyway. Away from the others.”

She nodded. That was why she had headed over here, too, but she had expected that conversation to be one during which they were both clothed.

She stepped against the door, trying not to look at Jordan’s muscular chest, at the thin line of hair that split his washboard abs, or at the length of his tan legs.

She wanted to turn away, but her eyes caught on an unusual tattoo that spanned his left shoulder and ran partway down his arm and across a corner of his chest and back. It looked like the branching roots of a tree, all rising from a single dark spot on his upper chest. There was a certain flowery beauty to it, especially etched on such a masculine physique.

He must have noted the object of her attention. He drew a finger down one of those branching lines. “I got this when I was eighteen.”

“What is it?”

“It’s called a Lichtenberg figure. It’s a fractal pattern that forms after something gets struck by a lightning bolt. In this case that something was me.”

“What?” She stepped toward him, both intrigued by and glad for the distraction.

“I was playing football in the rain. Got hit near the goalpost after catching a touchdown.”

She stared up at his blue eyes, half smiling, trying to judge if he was making fun of her.

He lifted three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”