Innocent Blood (4 page)

3

December 18, 6:06
P.M.
CET

Vatican City

Cardinal Bernard rearranged the newspapers atop his polished desk, as if organizing them into neat lines might change the words they contained. Horrifying headlines screamed from the pages:

Serial Killer Loose in Rome

Gruesome Murderer Savages Young Women

Police Stunned by Brutality

Candlelight reflected off the bejeweled globe next to his desk. He turned the ancient sphere slowly, longing to be anywhere but here. He glanced at his antique books, his scrolls, his sword on the wall from the time of the Crusades—items he had collected during his centuries of service to the Church.

I have served long
,
but have I served well?

The smell of newspaper ink pulled his attention back to the pages. The details disturbed him further. Each woman had her throat sliced open, and her body drained of blood. They were all beautiful and young, with black hair and blue eyes. They came from every station in life, but they had all died in the oldest quarters of Rome, in the darkest hours between sunset and sunrise.

Twenty in all, according to the newspapers.

But Bernard had managed to conceal many more deaths. It amounted to a victim claimed nearly every day since the end of October.

He could not escape the timing.

The end of October.

The deaths had started just after the battle waged in the crypts below St. Peter’s Basilica, a fight for possession of the Blood Gospel. The Sanguinists had won that battle against the Belial, a joint force of humans and
strigoi,
led by an unknown leader who continued to plague his order.

Shortly after that battle, Father Rhun Korza had vanished.

Where was he? What had he done?

Bernard shied away from that thought.

He eyed the pile of newspapers. Had a rogue
strigoi
escaped that battle and hunted the streets of Rome, preying on these young girls? There had been so many beasts in the tunnels. One could have slipped through their net.

A part of him prayed that was true.

He dared not consider the alternative. That fear kept him waiting, indecisive, as more innocent girls died.

A hand tapped on the door. “Cardinal?”

He recognized the voice and the sluggish heartbeat that belonged to it.

“Come in, Father Ambrose.”

The human priest opened the wooden door with one hand, his other clasped in a loose fist. “I am sorry to disturb you.”

The assistant did not sound sorry. In fact, his voice rang with ill-disguised glee. While Ambrose clearly loved him and served the cardinal’s office diligently, there remained a petty streak in the man that found perverse enjoyment in the misfortunes of others.

Bernard stifled a sigh. “Yes?”

Ambrose entered the office. His plump body leaned forward like a hound on a scent. He glanced around the candlelit room, probably making certain that Bernard was alone. How Ambrose loved his secrets. But then again, maybe that was why the man so loved Bernard. After so many centuries, his own veins ran as much with secrets as with black blood.

Finally satisfied, his assistant bowed his head in deference. “Our people found
this
at the site of the most recent murder.”

Ambrose stepped to his desk and held out his arm. Slowly, he turned his hand over and uncurled his fingers.

In his palm rested a knife. Its curved blade resembled a tiger’s claw. The sharp hook bore a hole in one end, where a warrior could thread a finger through, allowing its wielder to whip the blade into a thousand deadly cuts. It was an ancient weapon called a
karambit,
one that traced its roots back centuries. And from the patina that burnished its surface, this particular blade was ancient—but this was no museum piece. It was plainly battle scarred and well used.

Bernard took it from Ambrose’s hand. The heat against his fingertips confirmed his worst fear. The blade was plated with silver, the weapon of a Sanguinist.

He pictured the faces of the murdered girls, of their throats sliced from ear to ear.

He closed his fingers over the burning silver.

Of all the holy order, only one Sanguinist carried such a weapon, the man who had vanished as the murders began.

Rhun Korza.

4

December 18, 4:32
P.M.
PST

Santa Clara County, California

Astride her favorite horse, Erin cantered across meadows turned golden brown by the dry California winter. Responding to the slightest shift of her weight, the black gelding lengthened his stride.

Attaboy, Blackjack
.

She kept her horse boarded at a set of stables outside of Palo Alto. She rode him whenever she got a chance, knowing he needed the exercise, but mostly for the pure joy of flying over fields atop the muscular steed. Blackjack hadn’t been ridden in a few days and was bouncy with energy.

She glanced back over a shoulder. Nate rode not far behind her, atop a gray named Gunsmoke. Growing up in Texas, he was a skilled rider himself and was clearly testing the mare.

She simply let Blackjack run out his high spirits, trying to concentrate on the wind across her face, the heady smell of horse, the easy connection between herself and her mount. She had loved riding ever since she was a little girl. It helped her think. Today she wondered about her visions, trying to figure out what to do about them. She knew they weren’t just PTSD. They meant something more.

In front of her, the edge of the sun touched the top of rolling hills.

“We should head back soon!” Nate called to her. “Sun will be down in another half hour!”

She heard the trace of anxiety in his voice. Back in Rome, Nate had been trapped in darkness for days, tortured in those shadows. Night probably held a certain terror for him.

Recognizing this now, she knew she shouldn’t have agreed to let him come along. But, earlier in the afternoon, after failing to reach Cardinal Bernard by phone, she had headed out of her office to burn off some of her anxiety. Nate had asked her where she was going, and foolishly she had allowed him to accompany her.

These last months, she had trouble saying no to him. After the tragic events in Israel and Rome, he continued to struggle, even more than she did, although he rarely spoke about it. She tried to be there for him, to help him bear the memories that had been thrust upon him. It was the least that she could do.

In the past, their relationship had been an easygoing one—as long as she pretended not to notice his attraction to her. But since she had fallen for Jordan, Nate had retreated into remote professionalism. But was it because of hurt feelings, anger, or something else?

Sadly, after tonight, it probably wouldn’t matter.

She inwardly sighed. Maybe it was just as well that Nate had accompanied her on this ride. This moment offered her the perfect opportunity to speak to him in private.

She slowed Blackjack with a slight tension on the reins. Nate drew alongside her with Gunsmoke. He grinned at her, which broke off a piece of her heart. But he had to be told. Better to tell him now, before Christmas break, to give him time to get used to the idea.

She took a deep breath. “Nate, there’s something I want to talk about.”

Nate tilted his straw Stetson up and looked sidelong at her. Their horses walked side by side on the wide path. “What is it?”

“I talked to the dean this morning. I suggested the names of other professors whom you might be interested in working with.”

His eyebrows pinched with concern. “Did I do something wrong? It’s been tough since we got back, but—”

“Your work has always been excellent. It’s not about you.”

“Feels like it might be, seeing as how I’m involved and all.”

She kept her eyes focused between her horse’s soft black ears. “After what happened in Israel . . . I’m not so certain I’m the best choice for you.”

He reached for Blackjack’s bridle and slowed both horses to a stop. “What are you talking about?”

Erin faced him. He appeared both worried and angry. “Look, Nate. The university isn’t happy that I lost two grad students.”

“Hardly your fault.”

She talked over him. “The dean feels that it might be best if I took a sabbatical to clear my head.”

“So I’ll wait.” Nate folded his hands atop his saddle horn. “Not a problem.”

“You don’t understand.” She fiddled with her reins, wanting to snap them and flee this conversation on horseback, but she let the hard truth hold her in place. “Nate, I think this is the first step toward the university letting me go.”

His mouth dropped open.

She spoke quickly, getting it all out. “You don’t need your dissertation tied to a professor about to be booted out. You’re a brilliant scientist, Nate, and I’m sure we can find you a more suitable adviser—someone who can open doors for you that I can’t anymore.”

“But—”

“I appreciate your loyalty,” she said. “But it’s misguided.”

Outrage flared from him. “Like hell it is!”

“Nate, it won’t help me if you stay. Whatever is going to happen to my career will happen.”

“But I picked you as my adviser because you’re the best in your field.” The anger drained from him, leaving him sagging in the saddle. “The
very
best. And that hasn’t changed.”

“Who knows? This may blow over in time.”

Truthfully, Erin didn’t expect it would, and down deep, she wasn’t even sure she wanted it to. Earlier in her career, academia had offered her a haven of rationality after her strict religious upbringing, but it didn’t feel like enough anymore. She remembered her difficulty with her classes this past semester. She couldn’t keep teaching lies.

And she couldn’t be any less truthful with Nate now.

“Even if it does blow over,” she said, “you will have lost valuable opportunities while it does. I won’t let that happen.”

Nate looked ready to argue, to protest. Perhaps sensing his stress, his mare tossed her head and danced slightly on her forelegs.

“Don’t make this any harder than it already is,” she finished.

Nate rubbed his top lip, unable to look at her. Finally, he shook his head, turned Gunsmoke, and galloped away without a word, heading back toward the stable.

Blackjack whinnied after them, but she held the horse firm, knowing Nate needed some time alone. She gave them a good lead before letting Blackjack walk back along the trail.

The last rays of the day finally slipped behind the hill, but enough light remained to keep Blackjack from stepping into a gopher hole. Uncomfortable, she shifted on the horse. She felt Amy’s lucky charm in her front pants pocket. She had forgotten she had put it there, still unsure what to do with it. She had considered returning it to Amy’s parents, but would that be doing them any favors? The chunk of amber would always be a reminder that their daughter had chosen a profession that ended up killing her, her blood spilling away on foreign sands.

Erin couldn’t do that to them—nor did she want to keep the talisman herself, this heavy token of her role in Amy’s death.

Still not knowing what to do with it, she turned her thoughts back to Nate. Back in Rome, she had saved Nate’s life, and now she would do what she could to save his career, no matter how angry that made him. Hopefully Nate would be more resigned to her request by the time she got to the stable. Either way, she would send him an e-mail later this evening with her list of names. They were solid archaeologists, and her recommendation would carry weight with them.

Nate would be all right.

And the farther he got away from her, the better off he would be.

Resigned and resolved, she patted Blackjack’s neck. “Let’s get you some oats and a good rubdown. How’d you like that?”

Blackjack’s ear flicked back. He suddenly tensed under her.

Without thinking, she tightened her knees.

Blackjack snorted and danced sideways, rolling his eyes.

Something had him spooked.

Erin took in the open grasslands with one quick sweep. To her right stretched a shadowy stand of live oaks, their branches hung with clouds of silvery mistletoe. Anything could be hidden inside there.

From the tree line, she heard
crack!,
as the snap of a twig cut across the quiet evening.

She drew her pistol from the ankle holster and clicked off the safety, searching the live oaks for a target. But it was too dark to see anything. With her heart thundering in her ears, she cast a glance toward the distant stables.

Nate was probably there by now.

Blackjack suddenly reared, almost tossing her from the saddle. She leaned low over his neck as he tore away toward the stables. She didn’t try to slow or stop him.

Fear tightened her vision, while she struggled to search in all directions. She tasted blood on her tongue as she bit her lip.

Then the smell of wine filled her nostrils.

No
,
no
,
no . . .

She fought to keep from slipping away, sensing another attack coming on. Panic tightened her grip on Blackjack’s reins. If she lost control now, she’d pitch to the ground.

Then came a worse terror.

A low growl rumbled out of the night, rolling across the hills toward her. The guttural cry rose from no natural throat, but something horrid—

—and close.

5

December 19, 2:02
A.M.
CET

Crypts below Vatican City

Rhun lurched up and away. His head smashed against smooth stone. The blow opened a wound on his temple and knocked him back into the scalding bath of wine with a splash. He had awakened like this many times, trapped inside a stone sarcophagus, his body half submerged in wine—wine that had been blessed and consecrated into Christ’s blood.

His cursed flesh burned in that holiness, floating in a sea of red pain. Part of him wanted to fight it, but another part of him knew that he had earned it. He had sinned centuries ago, and now he had found his true penance.

But how much time had passed?

Hours, days, years?

The pain refused to abate. He had sinned much, so he must be punished much. Then he could rest. His body
craved
rest—an end to pain, an end to sin.

Still, as he felt himself slipping away, he fought against it, sensing he must not surrender. He had a duty.

But to what?

He forced his eyes to stay open, to face a blackness even his preternatural vision could not pierce. Agony continued to rack his weakened body, but he beat it back with faith.

He reached a hand for the heavy silver cross he always wore on his breast—and found only wet cloth. He remembered. Someone had stolen his crucifix, his rosary, all the proofs of his faith. But he did not need them to reach the heavens. He breathed another prayer into the silence and pondered his fate.

Where am I? When . . .

He had a weight of years behind him, more than humans could fathom.

Lifetimes of sin and service.

The memories plagued him as he hung within that burning sea. He drifted into and out of them.

. . .
a horse cart stuck in the mud. He shoved bark under the wooden wheels while his sister laughed at him
,
her long braids flying from side to side.

. . . a gravestone with a woman’s name on it. That same laughing sister. But this time he wore the garb of a priest.

. . . gathering lavender in a field and talking of court intrigues. Pale white hands placed the purple stalks into a handwoven basket.

. . . trains
,
automobiles
,
airplanes. Traveling ever faster across the surface of the earth
,
while seeing ever less.

. . . a woman with golden hair and amber eyes
,
eyes that saw what his could not.

He pulled free of the crush of these memories.

Only
this
moment mattered.

Only
this
place.

He must hold on to the pain, to his body.

He felt around, his hands plunging into cold liquid that burned as if it boiled. He was a Knight of Christ, ever since that moonlit evening he had visited his sister’s grave. And while Christ’s blood had sustained him over the long centuries since, the same consecrated wine blazed against him always, its holiness at war with the evil deep inside him.

He took a deep breath, smelling stone and his own blood. He stretched his arms and ran his palms along the polished surfaces around him. He stroked the marble—slick as glass. Across the roof of his prison, his fingertips found a tracery of inlaid silver. It burned his fingertips.

Still, he pressed his palms to that design and pushed against the sarcophagus’s stone lid. He vaguely sensed he had done this many times before—and like those prior attempts, he failed again. The weight would not be shifted.

Weakened by even this small effort, he collapsed limply back into the wine.

He cupped his hands and lifted the scalding bitter liquid to his lips. The blood of Christ would lend him strength, but it would also force him to relive his worst sins. Steadying himself against the penance that must follow, he drank. As his throat burned with fire, he folded his hands in prayer.

Which of his sins would the wine torture him with this time?

As he drifted into it, he realized his penance was revealing a sin that was hundreds of years old.

The servants of Čachtice Castle huddled outside the steel door of the windowless tower room. Inside
,
their former mistress had been imprisoned
,
charged with the deaths of hundreds of young girls. As a member of Hungarian nobility
,
the countess could not be executed
,
only shut off from the world for her crimes
,
where her bloodlust could be bottled up behind brick and steel.

Rhun had come here for one purpose
:
to rid the world of this creature
,
to atone for his role in her transformation from a woman of sweet spirit
,
one skilled in the healing arts
,
into a beast who ravaged the surrounding countryside
,
stripping young girls of their lives.

He stood before the countess now
,
locked inside the room with her. He had bought the servants’ silence with gold and promises of freedom. They wanted her gone from the castle as much as he.

They
,
too
,
knew what she was and cowered outside.

Rhun had also arrived with a gift for the countess
,
something she had demanded to gain her cooperation. To appease her
,
he had found a young girl
,
sick with fever
,
soon to die
,
in a neighboring orphanage
,
and brought her to this monster.

Standing beside the prison cot
,
Rhun listened as the young girl’s heart stumbled and slowed. He did nothing to save her. He could not. He must wait. He hated himself
,
but he remained still.

At last
,
the weak heart stuttered its final beat.

You will be the last one she kills,
he promised.

Near to death herself, starved for so long in this prison, the countess raised her head from the girl’s throat. Pearls of blood dripped from her white chin. Her silver eyes held a dreamy and sated look, an expression he had seen there once before. He would not dwell on that. He prayed that she was distracted enough for him to end this, and that he would be strong enough to do so.

He could not fail again.

He bent to the cot, untangled her thin limbs from the dead girl. He gently lifted the countess’s cold form in his arms and carried her away from the soiled bed.

She leaned her cheek against his, her lips near his ear. “It is good to be in your arms again,” she whispered, and he believed her. Her silver eyes shone up at him. “Will you break your vows once more?”

She favored him with a slow, lazy smile, mesmerizingly beautiful. He responded, trapped for a moment by her charm.

He remembered his love for her, how in a moment of hubris he had believed himself capable of breaking his vow as a Sanguinist, that he could lie with her like any ordinary man. But in his lust of that moment, locked to her, inside her, he had lost control and let the demon in him burst its bonds. Teeth ripped her soft throat and drank deeply until that font was nearly empty, the woman under him at death’s door. To save her, he had turned her into a monster, fed her his own blood to keep her with him, praying she would take the same vows he did and join the Sanguinist order alongside him.

She did not.

A rustle on the far side of the thick door brought his thoughts back to this room, to the dead girl on the bed, to the many others who had shared her fate.

He knocked on the door with the toe of his boot, and the servants unlocked the way. He shouldered it open as they fled down the dark stairs of the tower.

Left behind in their wake, placed outside the door, a marble sarcophagus rested atop the rush-covered floor. Earlier, he had filled the coffin with consecrated wine and left it open.

Seeing what awaited her, she raised her head, dazed by bloodlust. “Rhun?”

“It will save you,” he said. “And your soul.”

“I don’t want my soul saved,” she said
,
her fingers clutching to him.

Before she could fight him, he lifted her over the open sarcophagus and plunged her down into wine. She screamed when the consecrated wine first touched her skin. He set his jaw, knowing how it must pain her, wanting even now to take the agony from her and claim it for himself.

She thrashed under his hands, but in her weakened state, she was no match for his strength. Wine splashed over the sides. He forced her against the stone bottom, ignoring the fiery burn of the wine. He was glad he could not see her face, drowned under that red tide.

He held her there—until at last
,
she lay quiet.

She would now sleep until such a time as he could find a way to reverse what he had done, to return life to her dead heart.

With tears in his eyes, he fitted the heavy stone lid in place and secured it with silver straps. Once done, he rested his cold palms against the marble and prayed for her soul.

And his own.

Slowly Rhun returned to himself. He remembered fully how he had come to be here, imprisoned in the same sarcophagus he had used to trap the countess centuries ago. He recalled returning to his sarcophagus, to where he had entombed the coffin inside a bricked-up vault far beneath Vatican City, hiding his secret from all eyes.

He had come here upon the words of a prophecy.

It seemed the countess still had a role to play in this world.

Following the battle for the Blood Gospel, he had ventured alone to where he had buried his greatest sin. He had hammered through the bricks, broken the seals of the sarcophagus, and decanted her from this bath of ancient wine. He pictured her silver eyes opening for the first time in centuries, gazing into his. For that brief moment, he allowed his defenses to fall, slipping back to long-ago summers, to a time when he dared to believe that he could become more than what he was, that one such as he could love without destruction.

In that lapse, he had failed to see the shattered brick clutched in her hand. He moved too slowly as she swung the hard rock with a hatred that spanned centuries—or perhaps he simply knew he deserved it.

Then he awoke here, and now he finally knew the truth.

She sentenced me to this same prison.

While a part of him knew he deserved this fate, he knew he must escape.

If for no other reason than that he had loosed this monster once again upon the unsuspecting world.

Still, he pictured her as he once knew her, so full of life, always in sunlight. He had always called her
Elisabeta,
but history now christened her by another name, a darker epitaph.

Elizabeth Bathory
—the Blood Countess.

2:22
A.M.
CET

Rome, Italy

As befit her noble station, the apartment Elisabeta had chosen was luxurious. Thick red velvet drapes cloaked tall arched windows. The oak floor beneath her cold feet glowed a soft gold and breathed warmth. She settled into a leather chair, the hide finely tanned, with the comforting scent of the long dead animal under the chemical smell.

On the mahogany table in front of her, a white taper sputtered, near to expiring. She held a fresh candle to its dying flame. Once the wick caught fire, she pressed the tall taper into the soft wax of the old one. She leaned close to the small flame, preferring firelight to the harsh glare that blazed in modern Rome.

She had claimed these rooms after killing the former tenants. Afterward, she had ransacked drawers full of unfamiliar objects, trying to fathom this strange century, attempting to piece together a lost civilization by studying its artifacts.

But her clues to this age were not all to be found in drawers.

Across the table, candlelight flickered over uneven piles, each gathered from the pockets and bodies of her past kills. She turned her attention to a stack crowned by a silver cross. She reached toward it but kept her fingers from the fiery heat of the metal and the blessing it carried.

She let a single fingertip caress the silver. It burned her, but she did not care—for another suffered far more because of its loss.

She smiled, the pain drawing her into memory.

Strong arms had lifted her from the coffin of wine, pulling her from her slumber, awakening her. Like any threatened beast, she had stayed limp, knowing stealth to be her best advantage.

As her eyes opened, she recognized her benefactor as much from his white Roman collar as from his dark eyes and hard face.

Father Rhun Korza.

It was the same man who had tricked her into this coffin.

But how long ago?

As he held her, she let her arm fall to the ground. The back of her hand came to rest against a loose stone.

She smiled up at him. He smiled back, love in his shining eyes.

With unearthly speed, she smashed the stone against his temple. Her other hand slipped up his sleeve, where he always kept his silver knife. She palmed it before he dropped her. Another blow, and he fell.

She quickly rolled atop him, her teeth seeking the cold flesh of his white throat. Once she pierced his skin, his fate lay at her mercy. It took strength to stop drinking before she killed him, patience to empty half the wine from the coffin before she sealed him inside it. But she must. Fully immersed in wine, he would merely sleep until rescued, as she had done.

Instead, she had left only a little wine, knowing he would soon wake in his lonely tomb and slowly starve, as she had while imprisoned in her castle tower.