The Blood Gospel (44 page)

Erin’s amber eyes stared into his, pleading for her life, and for his.

To answer that look more than Nadia’s question, Rhun found the strength. He roused himself to grasp the wine, to pull the bottle to his heart, to recite the necessary words.

The ceremony stretched into a sacrament—all the while Nadia held Erin, her teeth at her throat.

Finally, Rhun ended with “
We offer to Thee this reasonable and unbloody sacrifice; and we beg Thee, we ask Thee, we pray Thee that Thou send down Thy Holy Spirit on us and on these present gifts.
”

Nadia answered, “Amen. Bless this Holy Chalice.”

“‘
And that which is in this chalice, the Precious Blood of Thy Christ.
’ ”

He dropped his hands to his lap, the ritual complete, his strength fleeing his limbs, his only desire a wish for unconsciousness.

But Nadia refused to let him rest. She poured Christ’s blood into his wounds, into his mouth. His body took in that fire, and it burned him completely this time. He knew where it would take him, and he quailed at the prospect.

“
No
… ,” he begged—but this prayer wasn’t answered.

“Turn away.” Nadia’s ragged command to the humans faded as his sins carried him away into penance.

Bernard had sensed the blackness in Rhun’s heart and sent him to Čachtice Castle to cut ties with Elisabeta. Rhun told himself that he could do it, that he felt nothing more for her than the duty to serve her as a priest.

Still he prayed as he lingered on the long winter road to her door. Snow hid fields and gardens where they had once walked together. Among long dried stalks of lavender, a raven pecked at a gray mouse, the tiny scarlet stain of its lifeblood visible even from so far away. He tarried until the raven finished its repast and flew away.

He reached the castle at twilight, hours later than he had planned. Yet he stood long in front of the door before he could bring himself to knock. Snow dusted the shoulders of his cassock. He did not feel cold anymore, but he brushed the snow away as a man would do. He would not show his otherness in this house.

Her maid, Anna, answered, her hands reddened with cold. “Good evening, Father Korza.”

“Hello, my child,” he said. “Is the Widow Nádasy at home?”

He prayed that she was far away. Perhaps he should request that she meet him at the village church. His resolve was strongest there. Yes, the church would be better.

Anna curtsied. “Since the death of the good Count Nádasy, she walks late in the evenings, but she will return before dark. You may wait?”

He followed her thin figure into the great room, where a fire crackled in the immense hearth. Chamomile sprinkled atop the floor rushes lent the room the familiar smell of summer. He remembered gathering leaves of it with her on a sunlit afternoon before Ferenc’s death.

Rhun refused Anna’s offer of refreshment and stood as close to the fire as he dared, drawing its heat into his unnatural body. He prayed and thought of Ferenc, the Black Knight of Hungary, and the man to whom Elisabeta had been bound. If Ferenc were still alive, all would be different. But Ferenc was dead. Rhun pushed away thoughts of his last visit, when he had told her of Ferenc’s passing.

Elisabeta entered wearing a deep burgundy cloak, snow melted to darkness on the shoulders. Rhun straightened his spine. His faith was strong. He would endure this.

She shook water from her cloak. Dark droplets spattered the floor. A servant girl took the heavy woolen garment from her outstretched hand and walked backward from the room.

“It is good to see that you are well, Father Korza.” Black skirts swished against rushes as she walked to join him at the fire. “I trust you have been offered wine and refreshment?”

Her tone was light, but her racing heart betrayed her.

“I have.”

In the firelight, she looked thinner than he remembered, her features harder, as if grief had tempered the softness from her. Even so, she was achingly beautiful.

Fear flashed through Rhun’s blood.

He longed to flee, but he had promised Bernard, and he had promised himself. He was strong enough to do this. He must be.

“I imagine that you are here collecting for the Church?” Her bitter tone told him that she knew how he had failed her when he left her to grieve for Ferenc alone, that she did not forgive him for deserting her in her hour of deepest need.

His mind screamed at him to run, but his body would not obey.

He stayed.

“Father Korza?” She leaned closer, her dark head tilted in concern, her heart slowing in sympathy instead of speeding up in anger. “Are you ill? Perhaps you should sit?”

She guided him to a straight-backed wooden chair, then sat across from him, their knees a mere handsbreadth apart. The fire’s heat cooled in comparison to the warmth of her body.

“Have you been well, Father Korza?”

He roused from the song of her strong red heart. “I have. How have you fared, Widow Nádasy?”

She shifted at the word
widow. “
I have been bearing up—” She leaned forward. “Nonsense. We have known each other too long and too well to be untruthful now. Ferenc’s death has been both a great burden and a freedom to me.
”

A freedom?

He dared not ask. He raised his head.

“You look as if you have been ill,” she said. “So tell me the truth. How have the past months served you?”

He fell into her silver eyes, reflecting orange from the firelight. How could he be apart from her? She alone of all he knew he had trusted with memories of his mortal life, only keeping secret his unnatural state of being.

A ghost of a smile played on her soft lips. Her hand brushed water from her bare shoulder, then fell coyly to her soft throat. He stared at her fingers, and what they covered.

She stood and took his hand between hers. “Always so cold.”

The heat of her hand exploded under his skin. He must move away, but instead he stood and put his other hand over hers, drawing more of her warmth into his chilled body. Just that. A simple moment of connection. He asked for nothing more.

Her heartbeat traveled from her hands through his arms and up to where his heart had once beat. Now his blood moved to the rhythm of hers. Scarlet stained the edges of his vision.

Her eyelids fell closed, and she tipped her face up toward his.

He took her flushed cheeks in his marble-white hands. He had never touched a woman before, not like this. He caressed her face, her smooth white throat.

Her heart sped under his palms. Fear? Or did something else drive it?

Tears coursed down her cheeks.

“Rhun,” she whispered, “I’ve waited so long for you.”

He traced the impossibly soft redness of her lips with one fingertip. She shivered under his touch.

He longed to press his lips against hers, to feel the warmth of her mouth. To taste her. But it was forbidden. He was a priest. Chaste. He must stop this at once. He drew his hands a finger’s width away from her and toward the silver cross that lay over his cassock.

She cast her eyes on the cross and let out a quiet moan of disappointment.

Rhun froze, fighting the warmth of her skin, the scent of snowmelt in her hair, the pulse of her heart in her lips, the salt smell of her tears. He had never been so terrified in his mortal and immortal life.

She leaned forward and kissed him, her lips light as the touch of a butterfly.

And Rhun was lost.

She tasted of grief and blood and passion. He was no longer a priest or a monster. He was simply a man. A man as he had never been before.

He pulled his head back and stared into her shadowed eyes, dark with passion. She pulled off her cap and black hair tumbled free around her shoulders.

“Yes, Rhun,” she said. “Yes.”

He kissed the inside of her wrist. Her heart pounded strong against his lips. He unfastened her sleeve and kissed the crook of her elbow. His tongue tasted her skin.

She buried her hands in his hair and pulled him closer. He chased her pulse up her bare neck. As she swooned in his embrace, he tightened his arms around her back. Her mouth found his again.

God and vows fled. He needed to feel her skin against his. His hands fumbled with the lacings of her dress. She pushed him away and undid them herself, her mouth never leaving his.

Her dress fell heavy to the stone floor, and she stepped out of it, closer to the fire. Orange flames shone through her linen chemise. He released her long enough to tear the garment in half.

And she stood naked in his arms. Skin soft and warm. Her heart racing under his palms.

Her hands flew across the impossibly long row of buttons on his cassock. Thirty-three, to symbolize the thirty-three years of the earthly life of Christ. The cassock fell to the floor atop her dress. His silver cross burned against his chest, but he no longer cared.

He swept Elisabeta up in his arms, crushing her against him. She gasped when the cross touched her bare breast. He reached up and broke the chain. The cross clattered to the stone next to his robes. He should care, he should gather up its holiness and hold it against his body, hold it between them like a wall.

Instead, he chose her.

Her lips found his again, and her mouth opened under his. Nothing separated them now. They were two bodies craving only union.

She called out his name.

Rhun answered with hers.

He lowered her to the fire-warmed floor. She arched under him, long velvet throat curving toward his mouth.

Rhun lost himself in her scent, her warmth, her heart. No man could experience what he felt; no Sanguinist could withstand it. Never had he felt so content, so strong. This bliss was why men left the priesthood. This bond was deeper than his feelings for God.

He joined with her. He never wanted to be separate again.

Red consumed him. Then it consumed her. He pulsed in a sea of seething red.

When the red cleared, both their souls were destroyed.

October 27, 8:02
A.M
., CET

Harmsfeld, Germany

A few feet away from Erin, Nadia knelt next to Rhun, whispering in Latin while he wept. Whatever happened when they drank consecrated wine, it was more unpleasant than being shot six times in the chest. She ached for Rhun, trapped in such a state for eternity, consigned to an unimaginable Hell for the sin of being attacked by a wild
strigoi
.

Erin walked back to the broken church doors and stared out at the early morning. Jordan joined her, leaned next to her. How did he stay so warm? She was freezing. First they had both been dunked in that snowmelt lake, and now they stood in an unheated church.

Once Rhun quieted, she heard Nadia gasp as she also consumed a draft of consecrated wine, but she did not weep as Rhun had done.

For a long moment silence filled the church.

“He is awake,” Nadia finally called out, returned again to her calm, even state. “With luck, he will be fit to travel before nightfall. But he will be weakened for the next few days. Christ’s blood does not heal us as quickly as human blood would.”

“Why is the wine not as difficult for you to drink as it is for Rhun?” Erin glanced over at the priest, lying on his side, facing away from them, covered with the altar cloth.

Nadia stared over at him, too. “I did not have so far to fall.”

8:22
A.M
.

Jordan looked around the small room of the inn that Nadia had rented for him and Erin in Harmsfeld. The quaint residence stood across the town square from the church.

Nadia shared a room with Rhun, right next door, but Jordan still surveyed the room as if he were preparing for a coming siege. The hotel door was made of stout oak. A check of the window revealed a trellis below their second-story room. A difficult entry point. He did a quick assessment of the bathroom. The window there was too small to admit anyone. The rest of the space was typical of European accommodations: white tiles, a utilitarian shower, sink, toilet, and bidet.

When he returned to the main room, Erin hadn’t moved from her spot on the bed, perched at the edge of a plump duvet. The space contained a double bed, two nightstands with lamps, and an odd metal contraption he thought might be used for cleaning boots.

Erin looked paler than he’d ever seen her. Dark circles shadowed her eyes; dirt smudged her face.

“Do you want the first shower?” he asked.

“‘Shower,’” she said, standing and stretching. “Best word in the English language right now.”

Jordan watched her leave, closing the door. He thought that the best two words in the English language right now might be
shower together
, but he knew better than to say so. Instead, he sat on the other side of the bed and opened the room-service menu.