Innocent Blood (35 page)

“We must remove the boy from these cursed sands and take him to Rome,” Bernard demanded as Christian returned. “There we will save him.”

Erin flashed to Arella’s earlier warning.

Neither you nor the priests can save the boy. Only I can.

Erin turned to Bernard and voiced aloud what she grew to believe. “You are all wrong.”

As if hearing her own message spoken aloud, Arella stirred. Her arm weakly flopped to Tommy, to his bloody throat. With her touch, a drop of blood stopped welling up from his wound. It hovered there. Then those fingers slipped away, and the drop swelled and rolled down his pale skin.

“She can heal him,” Erin insisted.

Bathory nodded. “It is an angelic weapon that pierced him. It will take an angel to heal him.”

“How?” Bernard asked.

Erin stared at the symbol, knowing it was important. The woman wouldn’t have drawn it without purpose. The sibyl
never
drew anything that was not important. She pictured the sketch found in Iscariot’s safe.

“A
torch
!” Erin drew the others to her and pointed to the sand. “It was one of the five symbols depicted on the drawing, representing the five sibyls.”

“What of it?” Bernard asked as Christian returned.

“She’s trying to tell us where to go, how to heal him. The flaming torch is the symbol for the
Libyan Sibyl,
another of the seers who prophesied the coming of Christ. According to the mythology of that area, the waters are said to have miraculous healing properties. Some believe Christ stayed there with Mary and Joseph after fleeing Herod’s slaughter.”

“I know those stories,” Bernard said. “But the Libyan Sibyl made her home in Siwa, an oasis in the deserts of present-day Egypt. Far across the Mediterranean. The boy will never make such a long journey and live.”

Erin recognized this truth and remained silent.

Taking this as acquiescence, Bernard drew straighter. “We’ll take them both to Rome.” He waved to Christian. “Carry the boy. I’ll take the woman.”

Bathory stepped between Christian and Tommy. “You shall not.”

Bernard looked upon her with fury. “If the boy cannot be healed
here,
if he can’t reach Siwa, what then?” he pressed. “At least if we can get him to Rome, to St. Peter’s Basilica, he may yet live long enough to bless the book and reveal its secrets.”

“So you don’t really care if the kid lives or dies?” Jordan asked, placing a hand on Erin’s shoulder. “As long as he delivers the goods.”

Bernard’s angry expression answered that.

Erin joined Bathory. “This child’s life is more important than any secrets.”

Bernard confronted them, waving an arm to the spreading pall in the sky. “Ash still falls. What has been broken has not been set to right. We have seen the gates of Hell cracking open beneath the boy. It has slowed, but it is inevitable. What has been opened must be closed. We have until the sun sets this day to stop it.”

“Why sunset?” Erin asked.

Bernard looked to the skies. “I have read the stories of this place. If the gates of Hell are cracked open during the day, they must be closed before the day’s last light or nothing will close them again. This is more important than any
single
life, including the boy’s. Unless we
act
now, innocents beyond counting will surely die.”

“But it is that
act
that I find suspect,” she said.

Jordan kept to her side. “I’m with Erin on this.”

The countess stood firm. “As am I.”

Rhun looked uncertainly at them, hovering between them and Bernard, who had the weight of a dozen Sanguinists at his back. “So what do you propose to do, Erin?”

“We forget about the Gospel, about prophecy, about saving the world. We turn all our strength to saving this one boy, a child who has suffered beyond measure. We owe him that much. He was afflicted with immortality because of a single act of trying to save an injured dove. He is that dove to me. I will not let him perish.”

Bathory’s cold hand found hers. Jordan’s warm fingers grasped her other.

“Siwa’s healing waters were said to be so strong that the sibyl herself used them to regenerate herself, to keep herself immortal.” Erin stared down at the woman, wondering how an angel could look so ashen and frail. “We can still get them there before sunset. Heal them both.”

“The boy will surely die before you reach there,” Bernard argued. “Rome is only—”

Rhun cut him off. “How do you plan to cure the boy in Rome?”

“We have doctors. We have priests. But even if there were none, the most important thing is blessing the book at St. Peter’s.”

Rhun frowned his dissatisfaction. “What makes you certain that the book will reveal its secrets in Rome?”

“Because it must.” The cardinal touched his pectoral cross. “Or all is truly lost.”

Rhun’s gaze moved from Erin to Bathory. “Bernard, you place too much weight on reaching St. Peter’s.”

“It is where the Blood Gospel was opened and returned to the world.”

“But the book was taken
there
based upon the words of both Erin and Bathory Darabont. Yet, now, here we stand, with Erin again and another of the Bathory family, both telling you to take the boy to Siwa. While we do not know with certainty
who
the Woman of Learning is, in this instance it does not matter. They both command the boy be taken to Egypt.”

“Not just us,” Erin added, and she pointed to Arella. “Another woman does, too. An angel who, by your own word, found you unworthy in the past.”

Bernard fell back a step from her words, but they only seemed to inflame his anger. “Rome is
only
an hour away,” he insisted. “We go to St. Peter’s and get the boy whatever care he needs. If I’m wrong, he can be prepped there for the long journey to Siwa.”

“By then it may be too late,” Erin said, waving to the cloaked sun.

Christian headed off, eyeing those same skies. “Whatever you decide to do, I’ll get the bird warming up. You tell me where to go.”

“Christian is right,” Jordan said, as ash fell ever heavier around them. “This foul air may make the decision for us. If the ash gets any thicker, no one’s going anywhere.”

Recognizing this truth, they all headed after Christian. Rhun carried Arella, while Bathory kept possession of the boy. Moments later, the helicopter’s engine sputtered coarsely on the beach, choking on ash, before rumbling loudly to life. Erin shielded her eyes from the sand and ash kicked up by the rotors.

It became impossible to talk.

Once at the helicopter, they all climbed in. Bathory passed Tommy to her, while Bernard helped Rhun settle Arella across a row of seats. Christian barely let them find their seats before gunning the stressed engines. He lifted them off the beach and turned them over the leaden waters, fleeing the maelstrom of fire and smoke.

“Where to?” Christian bellowed back.

“Rome!” Bernard called out, staring across the cabin, daring them to argue.

Bathory glanced to Erin with a glint of mischief in her eye. Erin leaned away, fearing the worst. But she was not the countess’s target. Moving in a swift blur, Bathory twisted to her neighbor, wrapped one arm around his waist, and crashed open the door next to him. Neither were buckled in yet, and both Bathory and Bernard went tumbling headlong out the door, still clutched together.

Erin leaned over in her harness, as Christian tilted the helicopter, the door banging open and closed in the wind. She saw the pair splash into the water below, then come sputtering up, still fighting.

Jordan reached and caught the door and got it latched. “Guess that settles it,” he said, grinning, plainly appreciating Bathory’s bold move to break the stalemate.

The three of them looked at one another.

Christian stared back at them, a question shining in his green eyes.

Erin leaned forward and touched the young Sanguinist’s shoulder.

“Siwa,” she said firmly.

Christian glanced to Rhun, to Jordan, getting confirmatory nods. He turned back around and shrugged. “Who am I to argue with the trio of prophecy?”

47

December 20, 8:38
A.M.
CET

Cumae, Italy

Judas stood vigil in a crevice up the cliff face. He remained locked deep in shadow, hidden from the sharp senses of Sanguinists on the beach below, shielded by the stink of sulfur and the rumble of the earth as the gates of Hell threatened to open. He had barely made it out of the lower tunnels before the passageways collapsed around that smoky cavern, sealing it off. Now not even the Sanguinists could reach those gates in time.

There was nothing anyone could do to stop the inevitable.

Still, moments ago, he had watched the helicopter thump into the heavy pall of smoke and vanish, taking the boy and Arella with it.

His heart panged at seeing her brought so low, recognizing how much she had risked to rescue the boy. He pictured her ravaged body, her hair gone white. Still, even from this distance, he recognized her beauty as she lay in the sand.

My love . . .

From the rocks, he now spied as the cardinal and the countess waded from the leaden waves, their clothing clinging wetly to them. Both their eyes were on the skies, where the helicopter had vanished.

But where were the others going?

He had watched Bernard and Elizabeth plunge from the craft, clearly jettisoned like so much unwanted baggage.

“You have doomed us all!” Bernard’s shout echoed up to him.

As answer, Elizabeth simply brushed sand from her wet clothing.

“We will go after them!” the cardinal insisted. “You have changed nothing!”

She took off a boot and dumped out sand. “Can you not admit the possibility that you were wrong, priest?”

“I will not let you judge me.”

“Why not? You created me as much as Rhun. Your meddling with prophecies in the past forced Rhun and I together.”

Bernard’s shoulders grew rigid at Bathory’s words. He angrily stalked away, rallying the other Sanguinists and retreating from the beach, putting the countess again in chains.

Judas waited a full quarter hour before climbing down, scaling the cliffs back to the beach. He had a specific goal in mind. He had witnessed Arella writing something in the sand, saw how it had affected Dr. Granger and the others. He crossed to that spot now, to where Arella had lain so still. He noted the depression in the sand where her head had rested.

He knelt and brushed his fingertips across that hollow.

Worry for her ached in him.

He saw what she had etched in the sand. He would recognize her handiwork anywhere, having spent a century recording her words and sketching what she had drawn. He looked upon what was inscribed here now, with as much of an eye to prophecy as at any other time.

A flaming torch.

He smiled, understanding.

She had drawn the others a map, telling them where to go.

Certainty calmed his mind. He knew all the symbols associated with her throughout the centuries, including this one.

She had lured them to Siwa.

He stood, thanking her, a conviction firming inside him. He knew this message had been left in the sand for
him
as much as them.

She was calling him, too.

But why?

PART V

. . . Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

—Matthew 2:13–15

48

December 20, 1:49
P.M.
EET

Airborne over Egypt

Jordan leaned his forehead against the window of yet another helicopter. The constant drone of the engine and the endless expanse of featureless sand lulled him into a drowse. The persistent burn that etched his left shoulder, tracing fire along his tattoo, kept him from sleeping. It wasn’t so much painful as an annoyance, an itch that couldn’t be scratched away.

Still, he rubbed it even now, barely aware he was doing it.

But someone else was.

“Is something wrong with your shoulder?” Erin asked.

“ . . . mm . . .” he said noncommittally, not wanting to bother her with such minor complaints when they had greater worries.

Like the boy draped across the seats next to Erin.

She cradled Tommy’s head, one hand holding a folded gauze pad to his neck. During the five-plus hours of travel, her efforts had seemed to slow the bleeding, but she still had to regularly swap out gauze pads for fresh ones.

But at least they were almost to their destination.

After leaving the beach, Christian had returned to Naples and secured their same jet, freshly refueled, and lifted off immediately for the small city of Mersa Matruh along the Egyptian coast, where they transferred to their current helicopter, a former military craft turned civilian charter. From there, Christian piloted them south over the sands.

Jordan had seen a lot of desert in his tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, but nothing the size of this one. It was as if he had traded the battleship gray of the Mediterranean Sea for this tan Saharan Ocean. No matter how long the helicopter flew, the ground below never changed.

But worst of all, the ash cloud continued to pursue them, chasing them across the sea and out into the desert. According to reports on the radio, it was spreading in a wide swath, moving faster than weather patterns predicted. They had escaped European airspace just in time, before most of the area was locked down due to the foul air.

By now, he had little trouble believing the ash blew straight out of Hell.

But at least the boy still lived—though barely. His breathing was shallow, his heartbeat so faint Jordan could not discern a pulse, but Rhun assured him it was there.

Finally, something caught Jordan’s attention out the window, near the horizon, a stripe of green.

He rubbed his gritty eyes and looked again.

Still there.

At least my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me.

He stared at Rhun, at the woman sprawled next to him, covered with a navy-blue blanket. Like Tommy, she never stirred. It was upon her unspoken word that they were all out there.

Let it not be for nothing.

If the kid died, Erin would be crushed, knowing it had been upon her urging that they made this long detour to nowhere with a dying boy.

Jordan turned back to the window and watched the green stripe grow larger.

According to Erin, Siwa was an oasis, not far from the Libyan border. It had flowing water, palm trees, and a small village surrounding it. Ancient sites also dotted this emerald of the desert, including the ruins of the famous oracle’s temple, and a cluster of tombs, called Gebel al Mawta
,
or the
Mountain of the Dead
.

Hopefully, they would not be burying their two passengers at that last site.

Not knowing what they might face in Siwa, Jordan turned to the one person who had those answers. He stared at the blanketed body of the sibyl across from him—only to discover her gazing back at him, her eyes open.

He stiffened in surprise and touched Erin’s arm.

She glanced over and had the same startled reaction as him. “Arella . . . ?”

Erin looked down at Tommy, but he was still out.

Rhun freed the harness that held the woman secure and helped her to sit up.

She kept the blanket draped around her shoulders despite the warmth of the cabin, plainly still chilled, still recovering. She weaved a bit shakily as she sat.

“How do you feel?” Jordan asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise of the helicopter.

She turned to the window, staring at the stretch of trees sweeping toward them. “Siwa . . .”

“We’re almost there,” Erin said.

Arella closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “I smell it.”

As they watched, color slowly returned to her, darkening her skin away from its ashen gray. Even her ghostly hair had begun to gather shadows. She was plainly reviving, like a dry plant after watering.

“She must be gaining strength as we near the oasis,” Erin whispered next to him.

“It comes from the water,” Arella said, opening her eyes again, some of the glow shining there once more. “It’s in the very air.”

Jordan glanced out. He saw palm trees rushing under them now, along with flowering bushes, courtyard gardens, and glints of blue water from fountains and man-made pools, all likely spring fed from the local aquifer.

Farther ahead, two milky-blue lakes framed the village. He spotted fishing boats and the zip of a jet ski, so incongruous here in the middle of such a large desert. Beyond the lakes, a series of taller, flat-topped mesas split the desert.

Christian circled the lake to the west and swung out toward one of the neighboring hills. Atop it sat a tumble of crumbling stone buildings, the ruins surrounding an old tower. It pointed at the sky like an accusatory finger.

It was all that was left of the oracle’s temple.

Erin had instructed Christian to take them here.

Jordan looked back at Arella, who continued to stare out, a tear streaking down one perfect cheek.

“I have not seen it in so very long,” she said.

Jordan didn’t know how to reply.

“This was your home?” Erin asked.

The woman bowed her head in acknowledgment.

“That would make you both the Sibyl of Cumae
and
Sibyl of Libya.” Erin’s eyes widened with sudden insight. “Those
five
symbols, the five seers who predicted Christ’s birth, they’re
all
you.”

Again a lowering of a chin answered her. “I made my homes in many places in the ancient world.” She stared eagerly out the window again as Christian circled toward the ruins. “This was one of my favorites. Though it was, of course, once much grander. You should have seen it in the days of Alexander.”

“As in Alexander the Great?” Rhun asked, surprise in his voice.

Erin looked at Arella. “History says he came here. That he consulted you.”

She smiled. “He was a beautiful man, with curly brown hair, shining eyes, so young, so full of the need to find his destiny, to make it come true. Like so many others who came before . . . and after him.”

She grew pensive.

Rhun imagined she was thinking of Judas.

Arella sighed. “The young Macedonian came to confirm that he was the son of Zeus, that his fate was one of conquest and glory. Which I told him was true.”

Jordan knew Alexander had created one of the largest empires in the ancient world by the time he was thirty and died undefeated in battle.

“What about the other
son of a god
?” Erin said. “Legends say the holy family came here, after fleeing Herod’s wrath.”

She smiled softly. “Such a handsome boy.”

Rhun shifted nervously. Jordan didn’t blame the guy. Was she remembering Christ as a boy?

Erin studied Arella. “The Bible states that it was an angel that came to Mary and Joseph and warned them to flee to Egypt, to escape the slaughter to come. Was that also you?”

Arella smiled. The woman turned to the window, gazing out at the trees and lakes. “I brought Him here, so that He could grow up in peace and safety.”

From his Sunday school classes, Jordan knew about Christ’s
lost years,
how He had vanished into Egypt shortly after He was born, only to reappear at about the age of twelve, when Jesus visited a temple in Jerusalem and scolded some Pharisees.

Erin stared out the window now, too, likely picturing Christ as a boy, running those streets, splashing in that lake. “I want to know everything . . .”

Arella said, “Even I can’t claim that. But I will share with you Christ’s first miracle. To understand all, you must start there.”

Erin’s brows drew down in puzzlement. “His first miracle? That was when he turned water into wine, at the wedding in Cana?”

Arella turned sad eyes upon Erin. “That was
not
his first miracle.”

2:07
P.M.

Not his first miracle?

Erin sat stunned, wanted to ask more, but that secret must wait. She had scolded Bernard for putting such secrets above the life of a boy. She refused to do the same.

“What about Tommy?” she asked, placing a palm over his cold forehead. “You said back in the cavern that you could save him. Is that true?”

“I can,” Arella agreed. “But we must do it forthwith.”

The sibyl turned and leaned to Christian, speaking rapidly and pointing farther to the west, past the ruins of her temple.

Christian nodded and tilted the aircraft in that direction.

Below their skids, they swept over a village of mud-brick houses that had stood for nine hundred years, some continuously occupied. Erin tried to imagine living in the same house, generation after generation. Her current university apartment was younger than she was. It certainly did not have the breathtaking accretion of history that surrounded her now.

Then again, more than anywhere, Egypt held a sense of timelessness and mystery, a land of grand kingdoms and fallen dynasties, home to a multitude of gods and heroes. She touched the piece of amber in her pocket, remembering Amy’s fascination with this country’s history. Like every archaeologist, Amy had wanted to someday oversee a dig in Egypt, to make her mark here.

But unfortunately for Amy, that someday would never come.

Erin kept a hold on Tommy’s shoulder as the helicopter banked for a turn past the temple ruins.

Never again,
she promised.

The temple swelled before her. The walls were tumbled, the roofs gone, and the rooms open to the ashen sky. Even in its current state, a hint of its original grandeur remained. Had the woman seated across from her really lived within those stone walls and determined the fate of the world with her prophecies? Had she convinced Alexander the Great that he could conquer the world? Had she met Cleopatra when she bathed in these waters? If so, what had she told the queen?

Erin had a thousand questions, but they would all have to wait.

Christian skimmed past the ruins and out toward a section of the outlying desert.

Where was Arella taking them?

The woman continued to navigate for Christian, her back to them.

Rhun gave Erin a puzzled look, just as confused, but she shrugged. They had come this far based upon the word of this angelic woman. It was too late to distrust her now.

The helicopter skirted past the occasional broken hill and flew over undulating dunes of sand. Overhead, the sky continued to grow a deeper gray as the ash cloud moved farther upon them.

Finally, the helicopter began to lower. Erin searched for any landmarks, but it appeared they were picking a random stretch of dunes on which to land. Their rotors tore ribbons of sand from the closest ridges.

The pitch of the engines changed, and the helicopter hovered in place.

But why here?

Jordan sounded no happier. “Looks like the hundreds of miles of desert we’ve already flown over.”

Erin was tempted to agree with him, but then her eyes began to detect subtle differences. The closest ridge of dunes did not follow the pattern of the surrounding desert. She glanced out both windows to confirm it. The ridge curved completely around, to form a circle, framing a giant bowl a hundred feet across and about twenty deep.

“Looks like a crater,” Erin said, pointing Jordan to the raised lip all around.

“Another volcano?” Jordan asked.

“I think it might be a meteor strike.”

Erin looked to Arella for an answer, but the woman simply directed Christian down.

A moment later the skids touched the sand. The helicopter came to a rest, canted slightly at an angle inside the bowl, not far from the center. Christian kept the rotors turning, as if deliberately blowing sand from the crater.

That’s one way to excavate
.

Golden-tan sand whirled in the wash of the rotors, momentarily blinding them.

Then the engines finally stopped, the rotors slowing. After so many hours of constant droning, the silence rushed over her like a wave. The blown-up sand settled, pattering to the ground like a golden rain.

Arella finally faced them again, placing a hand on Christian’s shoulder, thanking him. “We may go now.”

Rhun cracked open the door and hopped out first. He held them back, ever wary, which Erin knew was well warranted.

“There is nothing to fear here,” Arella assured them.

After Rhun confirmed this with an all-clear, the woman climbed out next, followed by Erin.

Once on her feet, Erin stretched, drawing in a deep breath, sucking the dryness deep into her lungs, smelling the rocky scent of pure desert. She let herself bask for a moment in the heat. Sand meant the luxury of time at excavations—hours spent in the sun digging to free secrets long buried from the patient grains that had concealed them.

She didn’t have that luxury now.

She squinted at the sun. This late in winter, it would set at five o’clock, less than three hours from now. She recalled Bernard’s warning about the gates of Hell opening, but she pushed such fears aside for now.

Tommy certainly did not have even those three hours.

She turned as Jordan’s boots hit the sand next to her, helping Christian carry Tommy’s body into the desert, into this strange crater.

“Where are we?” Christian asked, his eyes narrowing in the sunlight, even though it was dimmed by ash to a harsh glare.

“Don’t know,” Erin said softly, feeling like she should whisper for some reason.