Innocent Blood (42 page)

His mother, Cheryl, smiled at her. She sat in a brown leather chair with a knitted afghan over her knees. She looked pale and frail. Erin knew that she was battling cancer, and no one was sure if she would see another Christmas.

“My son’s right,” Cheryl said. “Avoid the tree until the madness dies down.”

“Grandma!” Olivia shouted, near the top of her lungs. “Can’t we open presents now?”

A similar chorus rose from the other children.

Cheryl finally lifted a hand. “All right already. Dig in!”

Like lions on a downed gazelle, the kids dove into the presents. Paper tore. Squeals of delights filled the air, and one disappointed voice called out, “Socks?”

Erin tried to imagine what kind of person she would be if she’d grown up here.

Olivia dropped a plastic unicorn into Erin’s lap. “This is Twilight Sparkle.”

“Hello, Twilight.”

“Uncle Jordan says that you have stitches. Can I see? How many are there? Does it hurt?”

Jordan saved her from the grilling. “Olivia, the sutures are under the bandages, so you can’t see them.”

She looked crestfallen, as only a disappointed child could look.

Erin leaned closer. “There are twenty-four stitches.”

Her eyes got huge. “That’s a lot!” Then one eye narrowed suspiciously. “How did you get ’em?”

Erin honored her own commitment to the truth. “A lion.”

Jordan’s mother almost dropped her coffee cup. “A lion?”

“Cool!” Olivia extolled, then handed Jordan another plastic pony. “Hold Applejack.”

She ran to get more of her toy horses.

“Clearly you won her over,” Jordan said.

Olivia returned and stacked ponies on Erin’s lap, reeling off names: Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Pinkie Pie. Erin did her best to play with them, but it was as foreign to her as aboriginal tribal customs.

Cheryl spoke over Olivia’s head. “Jordan tells me that he’s been assigned to a special protection unit at the Vatican.”

“That’s right,” Erin admitted. “I’ll be working with him.”

“Mom,” Jordan said, “quit trying to worm information out of Erin. It’s Christmas.”

Cheryl smiled. “I just want to thank her for getting you reassigned to somewhere safe.”

Erin thought back to the number of near-death experiences the two of them had survived since meeting at Masada. “I’m not sure
safe
is the right word. Besides, if it was entirely safe, Jordan wouldn’t want to do it.”

His mother patted Jordan’s arm. “Jordan never takes the easiest path.”

Olivia was done being ignored and tugged on Erin’s sleeve. She pointed an accusatory finger at Erin’s nose. “Do you even know how to ride a horse?”

“I do. I even have a big mare named Gunsmoke.”

She remembered Blackjack and felt a twinge of sorrow at the loss.

“Can I meet Gunsmoke?” Olivia asked.

“She lives in California, where I work.” Erin corrected herself. “Where I used to work.”

Erin had spoken briefly with Nate Highsmith last night, wishing him a happy holiday. He had already met with one of the alternate graduate professors she had suggested and seemed mostly okay with her departure. Now, no matter what happened to her, he would be fine.

“What do you do?” Olivia asked. “Are you a soldier, like Uncle Jordan?”

“I’m an archaeologist. I dig up bones and other mysteries and try to figure out the past.”

“Is that fun?”

Erin looked over at Jordan’s relaxed and happy face. “Most of the time.”

“That’s good.” Olivia poked Jordan’s knee. “He needs more fun.”

With those profound words, the girl headed back to her toy pile under the tree.

Jordan leaned over and whispered in Erin’s ear. “He certainly
does
need more fun.”

Erin smiled into his blue eyes and spoke the truth. “So do I.”

AND THEN . . .

Far beneath the ruins of Cumae, Leopold floated in and out of dark consciousness. For the past handful of days, he had ridden waves of blackness and pain, rising only to fall, over and over again.

Rhun’s blade had cut deep enough to kill him, but he did not die. Every time he felt certain that he would sink into that final blackness, ready to accept the eternal suffering for his failure—he woke again. He would force himself to drag his body and feed on the corpses left in the cavern with him, along with an occasional unlucky rat.

Such frantic beasts offered little sustenance, but they gave him hope.

He had thought himself sealed down here following the quakes, with no chance of escape. But where a rat crawled, he could dig. He just needed his strength back.

But how?

Beneath him, he heard stones rumble far below, gnashing together like giant teeth, as if calling him to duty. He dragged open his heavy eyelids. The torches had long since sputtered out, leaving the smell of smoke. But it was barely noticeable against the stench of sulfur and the rot of bodies.

He reached to a pocket and removed a small flashlight. Leopold’s numb fingers fumbled with it for long agonizing seconds before he clicked it on.

The light dazzled. He closed his eyelids against it and waited until its brightness no longer cut at his eyes. Then he opened them again.

He searched the floor around the black altar stone. The net that had held an angel was still there. The cracks that had been opened by that same angel’s blood had closed again. The writhing darkness was also gone, bottled back up.

All signs of my failure.

Weak as a kitten, he rolled to his back and reached to the inner pocket of his robe, to what lay heavily there. The
Damnatus
had charged him with this second task. The first was to grab the sibyl and imprison her here.

That duty had to be done
before
the sacrifice.

His second responsibility had to be done
after
.

He did not know if it mattered now, but he had sworn an oath, and he would not forsake it even now. From his pocket, he pulled out a cloudy green stone, a little larger than a deck of cards. It was a prized possession of the
Damnatus,
discovered in the Egyptian desert, traded by many hands, hidden and uncovered over and over until it ended up in the palms of the Betrayer of Christ.

And now into mine.

He lifted the stone to the light. He watched the darkness inside shiver and shrink from the brightness. When he moved the beam away, the blight inside grew, shimmering with dread force.

It was a thing of darkness.

Like myself.

He knew the rumors about this stone, how it was said to hold a single drop of Lucifer’s blood. He did not know if that was true. He only knew what he had been commanded to do with the stone.

But do I have the strength to accomplish it?

Over the past days, he had abided the darkness and pain, fed to sustain himself, growing incrementally stronger, hoping for the might of muscle and bone to fulfill the last task asked of him by the
Damnatus
. The necessity for such an act had never been revealed to him, but he knew that if he did not attempt it now, he would grow weaker from here on, starving slowly in the darkness.

He turned the stone to study the strange etching on one side, inscribed faintly into the crystal.

It was in the shape of a cup—or perhaps a chalice. But this was no cup from which Leopold had so often consumed the blood of Christ. He knew the cup depicted here was far older than even Christ Himself, and that this stone was but a sliver of that greater mystery, the key to its truth.

He lifted the stone high and brought his arm down hard, slamming the crystal to the rock floor. He succeeded in chipping it, but that was not enough.

Please
,
Lord
,
give me the strength.

Leopold repeated the action over and over again, weeping from frustration. He must not fail again. He raised his arm and crashed it down. This time, he felt the crystal break within his hand, splitting into rough halves.

Thank you . . .

He twisted his head enough to see. He turned his hand. The crystal had been broken through its heart. Black oil flowed across the emerald glass and found his skin.

He screamed as it touched him.

Not in pain, but in utter and complete rapture.

In that glorious moment, he knew the rumors were true.

He watched the drop of Lucifer’s blood sink into his flesh, claiming him, consuming him fully with its darkness, leaving behind only purpose.

And a new name.

He stood, full of dread strength now, his pale skin as black as ebony. He lifted his face and howled his new name at the world, shattering stones around him with his voice alone.

I am Legion
,
destroyer of worlds.

About the Authors

JAMES ROLLINS
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of thrillers that have been translated into forty languages. His Sigma series has been lauded as one of the “top crowd pleasers” (
New York Times
) and “hottest summer reads” (
People
magazine). Acclaimed for his originality, Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets at breakneck speed.

New York Times
bestselling thriller author
REBECCA CANTRELL’
s novels include the award-winning Hannah Vogel mystery series and the critically acclaimed YA novel,
iDrakula
, which was nominated for the APPY award and listed on
Booklist
’s Top 10 Horror Fiction for Youth. She, her husband, and son just left Hawaii’s sunny shores for adventures in Berlin.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Also by James Rollins and Rebecca Cantrell

City of Screams

The Blood Gospel

Blood Brothers

BY JAMES ROLLINS

The Eye of God

Bloodline

The Devil Colony

Altar of Eden

The Skeleton Key

The Doomsday Key

The Last Oracle

The Judas Strain

Black Order

Map of Bones

Sandstorm

Ice Hunt

Amazonia

Deep Fathom

Excavation

The Kill Switch

Subterranean

BY REBECCA CANTRELL

A Trace of Smoke

A Night of Long Knives

A Game of Lies

A City of Broken Glass

Credits

Cover design and illustration by Richard L. Aquan

Cover photographs © by Jarno Saren/Arcangel-Images.Com

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authors’ imaginations and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

INNOCENT BLOOD
. Copyright © 2014 by James Czajkowski and Rebecca Cantrell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Rollins, James, 1961–

  Innocent blood : the order of the sanguines series / James Rollins.

       pages cm — (The Order of the Sanguines)

  ISBN 978-0-06-199106-6 (hardback)

1. Archaeologists—Fiction. 2. Jesus Christ—Miracles—Fiction. 3. Bible. Gospels—History of Biblical events—Fiction. 4. Good and evil—Fiction. 5. Christian sects — Fiction. I. Cantrell, Rebecca. II. Title.

  PS3568.O5398I66 2014

  813'.54—dc23

2013031951

ISBN 978-0-06-232523-5 (international edition)

EPub Edition JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780062300188

14 15 16 17 18
OV/RRD
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1