The Blood Gospel

As Korza disappeared inside the abbey, she rested her forehead on her arm in relief.

The risky gamble she had played had paid off handsomely.

She had sent the photos of the Nazi medallion to three historians who were in league with the Belial. As they squabbled over the medallion’s importance, she had set another course, turning to her network of spies throughout the Holy Lands. They came back with news that Korza planned to take a plane to Germany, but they didn’t know where he would land, where he would go.

She did know—or at least, she had her suspicions.

Korza would not let the book’s trail grow cold for long. He would take the only clue from the tomb and consult historians loyal to his order, as she had done with those loyal to hers. She knew about Ettal Monastery, the Pontifical University of Sanguinist scholars devoted to historical research, going back to the end of World War II.

Of course he would come here.

So she had acted, telling no one, knowing that waiting for permission would take too long. She gathered all of the strigoi forces out of the sands of the Holy Lands—a small army—and hunkered them down here in loam and leaf.

It had been a bold move, one supported by Tarek, who she knew secretly hoped she would fail.

Magor shifted next to her, resting his head on her shoulder. She leaned against him. Despite wearing a thick fur-lined coat against the frigid cold of the Bavarian night, she appreciated the furnace of Magor’s body, and even more, the affection flowing from him, bathing her as warmly as his flesh. Likewise, he sought reassurance from her. She felt the undercurrent of unease in his breast.

This was a strange new world for the desert wolf.

Be calm … she sent to him … prey bleeds as easily here as out on the sand …

On her other side, another stirred, one who held her only in contempt. “Shouldn’t I take the others and move closer?” Tarek asked. “I have no heartbeat to give me away. Unlike you.”

She ignored the insult, suspecting he wanted to steal the glory of this moment from her. She reined him in. “We stay. We can’t risk alerting them.”

The musty smell of wet leaves filled her nostrils. Unlike Magor, she drank it in. After years in the dry Judean desert, she welcomed the familiar sounds and smells of a forest. It reminded her of her home in Hungary, and she took strength from those happier memories—the time before she took His mark.

“We have more troops this time,” Tarek pressed. “We could take them, wring the information from them, and retrieve the book ourselves.”

She heard the raw desire behind his words, his need to avenge those who had been lost at Masada, to slake his bloodlust. She gripped her binoculars tighter. Did he not realize she shared the same yearning for revenge, for blood? But she would not be foolish or rash—nor would she let Tarek be. That was the true strength of the Belial union: to temper the ferocity of the strigoi with the calculated cunning of humans.

She didn’t bother to turn her head. “My orders stand. Such strongholds have protections against your kind. Just one of those Sanguinists took down six of you on unfamiliar ground in Masada, and we do not know how many live at the abbey. Anyone who ventures down there will not return.”

Most of her troops looked cowed at the thought.

Tarek did not. He pointed toward the abbey, ready to argue, to test her. She was done with his disrespect of her authority. She needed to break him as surely as the Sanguinist had broken her family.

She grabbed his extended arm and forced his hand to her throat before he could react. “If you think you can lead,” she spat, “then take it!”

As his palm touched her mark, his skin sizzled. Tarek leaped high and away with a snarl, his fingers smoking from the brief contact with Bathory’s tainted blood, even through her skin.

The other men fell back—all but Rafik.

He came to his brother’s defense, landing on top of her.

Magor growled, ready to join the fray.

No, she willed to him.

This was her fight, her lesson to teach.

She rolled Rafik’s thin frame under her, straddling him like a lover. She grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged his mouth to her throat. Tender flesh smoked as Rafik screamed and writhed under her.

She stared at Tarek all the while. “Should I feed your brother?”

The anger in his eyes blew out, replaced with fear—for his brother’s life, but also fear of her. Satisfied, she let Rafik go and cast him away. He went whimpering on all fours to Tarek’s side, his lips smoking and blistered.

Tarek knelt and comforted his addled brother.

Bathory felt a twinge of guilt, knowing Rafik’s intelligence was little better than that of a small child, but she had to be hard—harder than any of them.

Magor belly-crawled to her side, both nosing her to make sure she was okay and prostrating himself to show he respected her dominant role in the pack.

She scratched behind his ear, accepting his wolfish deference.