Blood Infernal: The Order of the Sanguines Series (6 page)

Hmm . . .

He slipped on a pair of latex gloves and picked up one of the two pieces. “Looks like some sort of crystal.”

He held it higher. In the lamplight, rainbows of light reflected from the broken surfaces. He examined the shattered edge, then returned the piece next to the other one. The two pieces looked as if they’d once been a single stone, about the size of a goose egg, now broken in two. He fitted the halves together, noting that the stone appeared to be hollowed out inside, like an egg.

Baako stared over his shoulder. “Have you seen it before? Maybe during the battle?”

“Not that I recall, but a lot was going on.” Jordan rolled the object to examine it from every angle. “But look at this.”

His gloved fingertip hovered over lines imbedded in the crystalline surface. They formed a symbol.

He glanced to Sophia. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Not me.”

Baako merely shrugged. “Looks somewhat like a cup.”

Jordan realized he was right, but maybe it didn’t just represent a
cup
. “Maybe it’s a chalice.”

Sophia cocked a skeptical eyebrow toward him. “As in Lucifer’s Chalice.”

This time he shrugged. “It’s at least worth investigating.”

And I know a certain gal who would be very intrigued by it
.

With his phone, Jordan snapped several pictures of the stone and symbol, planning on emailing them to Erin as soon as he had a signal.

“I should crawl back outside and send this to—”

A scraping sound drew all their attentions back to the tunnel. A dark figure snaked out of the darkness and into the light. Jordan barely registered the fangs—before it launched straight at him.

March 17, 11:05
A.M. EET

Siwa, Egypt

A pang of regret flared through Rhun’s silent heart. He sat on his heels at the base of a tall dune and listened to the soft hiss of grains sliding down the Egyptian slopes. It filled him with a sense of profound peace to be here, alone, doing God’s work.

But even that purity was marred by a darkness at the edges of his senses. He turned slowly toward it, drawn by a compass submerged deep in his immortal blood. As he bent over, searching for the source, sunlight glinted off the silver cross hanging from his neck. His black robe brushed the sand as his palm skated across the hot surface of the desert, skimming over the fine grains. His questing fingertips sensed a seed of malevolence below the surface.

Like a crow hunting a buried worm, Rhun cocked his head, narrowing his focus to one point in the sand. Once he was sure, he pulled a small spade from his pack and began to dig.

Weeks ago, he had arrived with a team of Sanguinists tasked with accomplishing this very duty. But the pieces of evil unearthed here had threatened to master the others, to consume them fully. In the end, he had forced them to abandon the dig site and head back to Rome.

It seemed Rhun alone was capable of withstanding the evil buried here.

But what does that say of my own soul?

He poured each shovelful of burning sand through a sieve, like a child at the beach. But this was not work for children. The sieve caught neither shells nor rocks.

Instead, it captured teardrop-shaped bits of stone, black as obsidian.

The blood of Lucifer
.

Over two millennia ago, a battle had been fought in these sands between Lucifer and the archangel Michael over the young Christ child. Lucifer had been wounded, and his blood fell to the sand. Each drop had burned with an unholy fire, melting through the tiny grains to form these corrupted bits of glass. Time had long since buried them, and now it was Rhun’s duty to bring them back to the light again.

A single black drop appeared, resting in the bottom of the sieve.

He picked the drop up and held it a moment in his cupped palm. It burned against his bare skin, but it did not seek to corrupt him, as it did the other Sanguinists. Unlike them, he saw no scenes of bloodshed and terror, or lust and temptation. Prayers filled his mind instead.

Opening a leather pouch at his side, he dropped the black pebble inside. It tapped against two others, all that he had found this day. The drops were smaller now, and harder to find. His task was almost complete.

He sighed, staring across the empty sand.

I could stay . . . make this desert my home
.

A cask of sanctified wine waited for him back at his camp. He needed nothing else. Bernard had sent word that he was to increase his efforts, that he was needed back in Rome. So, reluctantly, he had, although he did not wish for this assignment to end.

For the first time in centuries, he felt at peace. A few months ago, he had redeemed his greatest sin when he had restored his former lover’s lost soul, changing her from
strigoi
back to a human woman. Of course, Elisabeta—or
Elizabeth
, as she preferred to be called now—had not thanked him for it, cursing him instead for returning her mortality, but he did not need her gratitude. He sought only redemption, and he had found it centuries after he had given up any hope.

As he straightened, forgoing his search, a distant mewling reached his ear. He tried to ignore it as he carefully tied the leather pouch and packed away his tools. But the sound persisted, plaintive and full of pain.

Just some desert creature . . .

He climbed toward his camp, but the sound pursued him, scratching at his ears, shredding his sense of solace. It was high-pitched, like the screech of a house cat. Irritation grew inside him—along with a trickle of curiosity.

What was wrong with it?

He reached his small camp and plotted how to break down his tent and clear out his gear to leave no trace of his trespass here.

Still, none of his thoughts lessened the ache of that cry in his ears. It was like hearing the scratching of a dry branch against a bedroom window’s glass. The more one tried to ignore it and return to slumber, the louder it became.

He had at best one more night alone in the desert. If he didn’t do something about that mewling, he would never enjoy his last moments of peace.

He stared in the direction of the crying, took one step, then another toward its source. Before he knew it, he was running across the sun-washed sand, flying over the dunes. As he drew closer, the sound grew louder, drawing him inexplicably onward. A part of him recognized something unnatural about this hunt, how it drew him, but he sped faster anyway.

At last, he spotted the source in the distance. The mewling rose from an acacia bush that cast a faraway shadow. The desert tree must have found an underground water source, its tough roots fighting for survival in this dry land. The thorny trunk listed to one side, a testament to the relentless winds.

Long before he reached the tree, a noxious smell struck him. Even upwind, the scent was familiar, marking the presence of a beast corrupted by the blood of a
strigoi
into something monstrous.

A
blasphemare
.

Was it that corrupted blood that had drawn him so inextricably across the desert? Had its evil impinged upon his already sharpened senses—senses honed from weeks of mining the sands for those malevolent drops? He slowed enough to pull his blades from their wrist sheaths. Sunlight flashed off the silver knives, ancient
karambits,
each curved like a leopard’s claw. He would need such claws to fight what lay ahead. By now, he could identify the scent of his prey: a
blasphemare
lion.

He circled the tree from a distance. His eyes searched the shadows until he spotted a mound of tawny fur, mostly hidden beneath the bower. In her natural form, the lioness must have been stunning. Even as a tainted creature, her magnificence was undeniable. The corruption had filled her form with thick muscle, while her fur grew thick as velvet. Even her massive head, resting between her paws, revealed an intelligent face.

Still, sickness throbbed in each weary beat of her heart.

As he drew closer to her, he noted black blood crusted on her shoulder. It appeared a wide swath of fur had been burned away across her flanks.

He could guess the origin of this corrupted lioness—and her injuries. He pictured the hordes of
blasphemare
that had accompanied Judas’s army during the battle fought here last winter. There had been jackals, hyenas, and a handful of lions. Rhun had believed that such beasts had been driven off or killed, along with the
strigoi
forces, at the end of that war, when a holy angelic fire had swept across these sands.

Afterward, a Sanguinist team had been sent forth to hunt down any straggling survivors, but clearly this beast must have escaped the fire and the hunters.

Even wounded, she had survived.

She raised her golden muzzle and snarled in his direction. Her eyes glowed crimson out of the shadows, their true color stolen by the
strigoi
blood that had corrupted her. But even this effort seemed to sap her remaining strength. Her head sank back again to her paws. She had not long to live.

Should I end her suffering or wait for her to die?

He moved forward, closing the distance, still unsure. But before he could decide, she pounced out of the shadows and into the burning sunlight. The move caught him off guard. He managed to roll to the side, but sharp claws raked his left arm.

He spun to face her again as his blood dripped onto the hot sand.

She lowered into a wary crouch. The skin on her muzzle wrinkled back into a hiss. The sound chilled even his cold heart. She was a powerful foe, but she could not spend much time away from the tree’s shadow. She was still
blasphemare
, and she would weaken quickly in the direct sunlight.

He moved to place himself between her and the safety of the tree.

The threat agitated her, setting her tail to swishing in savage arcs. She bunched her hind legs and leaped. Yellow teeth aimed for his neck.

Rhun met the challenge this time, jumping toward her in turn, a plan in mind. He spun to the side at the last second, dragging his silver knife across her burned shoulder. He landed in a roll, turning to keep her in sight.

Blood flowed heavily out of the laceration, pouring forth like pitch, thick and black. It was a mortal wound. He backed away, giving her the leeway to retreat into the shadows and die in peace.

Instead, an unearthly yowl burst from deep in her chest—and she was upon him again, ignoring the safety of the shadows to attack him in full sunlight.

Caught off guard by this surprising assault, Rhun moved too slowly. Her teeth closed on his left wrist, grinding together, trying to crush his bones. His blade fell from his fingers.

Twisting in her grip, he slashed down with his other hand—sinking that blade into her eye.

She screamed in agony, loosening her jaws on his damaged wrist. He pulled his arm free, digging his heels into the sand and pushing away from her. He cradled his damaged wrist against his chest, girding for another charge.

But his blade had struck true, and she collapsed on the sand. Her one good eye looked into his. The crimson glow faded to a deep golden brown before she closed her eye for the last time.

The curse had left her in the end, as it always did.

Rhun whispered, “
Dominus vobiscum
.”

With yet another trace of corruption removed from these sands, Rhun began to turn away—when once again a plaintive mewling reached his ears.

He stopped and turned back, cocking his head. He heard the soft skitter of another heartbeat. A small shadow sidled out from the shadows, moving toward the dead lioness.

A cub.

Its fur was snowy and pure.

Rhun stared in shock. The lioness must have been pregnant, giving the last of her life to give birth, a mother’s final sacrifice. He now understood why she hadn’t retreated to the shadows when given the opportunity. The lioness had been fighting him in her final moments to protect her offspring, to drive him away from her cub.