The Blood Gospel

Erin kept several feet behind Rhun as he swept out of the chapel, up the stairs, and through a maze of tunnels. Even as swiftly as he moved, she knew he kept his pace slow so that she could keep up, but it scared her to be close to him. In the flickering red glow of the chapel, his rage had been unmistakable. It looked like he had barely restrained himself from attacking her.

If not for the dark maze of winding tunnels, she would have run away. But she had lost her own candle, and she needed the light of the chapel’s votive candle, held in Rhun’s hand, to return to safety.

Then at last, she heard voices arguing, echoing from ahead, from an open doorway glowing with light. She recognized them all: the timbre of Jordan’s anger, Father Ambrose’s prissy officiousness, and the sighing resignation of Cardinal Bernard.

“So where is she?” Jordan boomed, plainly wondering what Father Ambrose had done with her.

Steps away, Rhun’s dark form disappeared through the doorway.

She hurried behind to discover a modern room with whitewashed walls, a polished stone floor, and a long table covered with weapons and ammunition.

All eyes turned to her when she entered.

Jordan’s face relaxed. “Thank God,” he said—though God had nothing to do with it.

The others remained inscrutable, except Rhun.

He rushed forward, seized Father Ambrose by the neck, and slammed him against the wall. The short priest’s feet dangled in the air.

“Cardinal!” Father Ambrose gasped, choking.

Rhun tightened his hand on the priest’s throat. “There will come a reckoning between us, Ambrose. Remember that.”

Jordan took a step toward them, his hands raised as if to intervene.

The Cardinal’s face was impassive. “Let him go, Rhun. I will make sure he is properly admonished.”

Rhun leaned closer.

Only Erin, standing to the side, saw the sharper points on Rhun’s teeth as he snarled and threatened. “Leave my sight. Lest that reckoning come now.”

Rhun dropped the priest, who had gone dead-white. So he had seen those points, too. Father Ambrose collected himself, scuttled a few paces away, then fled.

Jordan stepped closer. “Erin, are you okay? Where were you? What happened?”

“I’m fine.”

She didn’t want to talk about it, especially not until she’d adjusted to the change in the marital status of her new teammate. Still, she was more grateful than ever that he was accompanying them on the expedition. She pictured the dark rage in Rhun’s face when he looked at her in the chapel, how his teeth had sharpened when he threatened Father Ambrose.

She leaned closer to Jordan’s reassuring warmth. “Thanks.”

Cardinal Bernard cleared his throat. “Since you are returned to us, Dr. Granger … perhaps now we should finish our discussion of the strigoi.”

He gestured to the loaded table of weaponry. Erin kept to the far side of Rhun, despite the fact that he seemed calm again.

Jordan picked up a pair of goggles from the table and studied them. “These are night-vision scopes, but they look odd.”

“They are of special design, made to toggle between low-light vision and infrared,” Bernard explained. “A useful tool. The low-light feature allows you to discern opponents at night, but since the strigoi are cold, they do not glow with body heat on infrared goggles. If you toggle between those two features, you’ll be able to separate humans from strigoi at night.”

Curious, needing to try this out for herself, Erin picked up the other pair of goggles and looked at Jordan. His hair and the tip of his nose were now yellow; the rest of his face looked warm and red. He waved an orange hand.

Definitely warm-blooded.

She remembered the heat of his kiss—and shoved that thought back down.

She hurriedly turned the goggles on Rhun. Even though the Cardinal had just told her that his body would be at room temperature, it still startled her when she saw his face in the same cold purples and deep blues as the wall behind him. When she switched to low-light vision, everyone looked the same.

“How’d it work?” Jordan asked.

“Fine.”

Yet another scientific tool that showed how other Rhun was from them. Did he have anything in common with them at all?

“Here are silver rounds for your weapons.” The Cardinal handed wooden boxes to Jordan. “It is difficult to stop a charging strigoi with a gun, but these bullets help. They are hollow points and expand on impact to maximize the amount of silver that comes in contact with their blood.”

Jordan shook a bullet into his palm and held it up to the light. The bullet and casing glinted white silver. “How does that help?”

“Our unique blood resists mortal diseases. We can live forever unless felled by violence. Our immune system is superior to yours in every way, except when it comes to silver.”

“But you carry silver crosses.” Erin pointed to the cross atop the Cardinal’s red cassock.