Blood Brothers: A Short Story Exclusive Page 5

  He had long been a priest, but his body reacted to her beauty. With great effort, he forced his gaze to meet hers. Her bright eyes appraised his.

  “Who are you?” he asked. He heard no heartbeat from her, but he also knew innately she wasn’t like the caged beast, nor even like himself. Even from this distance, he felt the heat coming from her body. “Are you the Mistress of the Well?”

  It was a name he had found written upon an ancient piece of papyrus, along with a map to what lay below.

  She ignored his questions. “You are not ready for what you seek,” she simply said. Her words were Latin, but her accent sounded ancient, older even than his.

  “I seek only knowledge,” he countered.

  “Knowledge?” That single word sounded as mournful as a dirge. “Here you will find only disappointment.”

  Still, she must have recognized his determination. She stepped aside and beckoned him to the pool with one dusky hand, her fingers long and graceful. A thin band of gold encircled her upper arm.

  He stepped past her, his shoulder nearly brushing hers. The fragrance of lotus blossoms danced on the warm air that surrounded her.

  “Leave behind your clothing,” she ordered. “You must go into the water as naked as you once came from it.”

  At the water’s edge, he fumbled with his robe, struggling against the shameful thoughts that crowded his mind.

  She refused to look away. “You have brought much death to this holy place, priest of the cross.”

  “It will be purified,” he said, seeking to appease her. “Consecrated to the one God.”

  “Only one?” Sorrow wakened in those deep eyes. “You are so certain?”

  “I am.”

  She shrugged. The small gesture shed her thin shift from her shoulders. It whispered to the rough stone floor. Torchlight revealed a body of such perfection that he forgot his vows and stared baldly, his eyes lingering on the curve of her full breasts, on her belly, on the long muscular line of her thighs.

  She turned and dove into the dark water, barely causing a ripple.

  Alone now, he hurriedly unbuckled his belt, yanked off his bloody boots, and tore off his robe. Once naked, he sprang to follow, diving deep. Icy water washed away the blood on his skin, and baptized him into innocence.

  He blew the air from his lungs, for he had no need of it as a Sanguinist. He sank quickly, swimming after her. Far below him, bare limbs shone white for a flash—then she flitted to the side, quick as a fish, and vanished.

  He kicked deeper, but she had disappeared. He touched his cross and prayed for guidance. Should he search for her or continue his mission?

  The answer was a simple one.

  He turned and swam onward, through twisting passages, following the map in his head, one learned from those ancient scraps of papyrus, toward the secret hidden deep beneath Jerusalem.

  He moved as swiftly as he dared, into utter darkness, through complex passageways. A mortal man would have died many times over. One hand brushed rock, counting passages. Twice, he reached dead ends and had to backtrack. He fought panic, telling himself that he had misread the map, promising himself that the place he searched for existed.

  His despair grew to a sharp point—then a figure swept past him in the icy water, felt as a flow across his skin, heading back the way he had come. Startled, he went for his sword, remembering too late that he had left it in a pile with his robes.

  He reached for her, but he knew she was gone.

  Turning in the direction from whence she had come, he kicked with renewed vigor. He pushed through the rising dread that he would swim forever in the darkness and never find what he sought.

  He finally reached a large cavern, its walls sweeping wide to either side.

  Though blind, he knew he had found the right place. The water here felt warmer, burning with a holiness that itched his skin. Swimming to the side, he lifted trembling hands and explored the wall.

  Under his palms, he felt a design carved into the rock.

  At last. . .

  His fingertips crawled across the stone, seeking to understand the images etched there.

  Images that might save them.

  Images that might lead him to the sacred weapon.

  Under his fingers, he felt the shape of a cross, found a figure crucified there—and rising above it, the same man, his face raised high, his arms outstretched toward heaven. Between the bodies, a line connected this rising soul to the nailed body below.

  As he followed this path, his fingertips burned with fire, warning him the line was made of purest silver. From the cross, the fiery path flowed along the curved wall of the cavern to a neighboring carving. Here, he found a cluster of men with swords, come to arrest Christ. The Savior’s hand touched one of the men on the side of the head.

  Bernard knew what this depicted.

  The healing of Malchus.

  It was the last miracle that Christ performed before his resurrection.

  Swimming along the wall, Bernard traced the silver line through the many miracles that Jesus had performed during his lifetime: the multiplication of the fishes, the raising of the dead, the curing of the lepers. He drew each in his mind, as if he had seen them. He strove to contain his hope, his elation.

  At last, he came to the depiction of the wedding at Cana, when Christ turned water into wine. It was the Savior’s first recorded miracle.

  Still, the silver path headed outward again from Cana, burning through the darkness.

  But to where? Would it reveal unknown miracles?

  Bernard quested along it—only to discover a wide swath of crumbling rock under his fingers. Frantic, he swept his palms along the wall in larger and larger arcs. Shards of twisted silver embedded in the stone scored his skin with fire. The pain brought him to his senses, forcing him to face his greatest fear.

  This portion of the carving had been destroyed.

  He spread both hands across the wall, groping for more of the design. According to those ancient pieces of papyrus, this history of Christ’s miracles was supposed to reveal the hiding place of the most sacred weapon of all—one that could destroy even the most powerful damned soul with a touch.

  He hung in the water, knowing the truth.

  The secret had been destroyed.

  And he knew by whom.

  Her words echoed in his head.

  Knowledge? Here you will find only disappointment.

  Finding him unworthy, she must have come straight here and defaced the sacred picture before he could see it. His tears mingled with the cold water—not for what was lost, but from a harsher truth.

  I have failed.

  Every death this day has been in vain.

  CHAPTER TWO

  December 18, 11:12 A.M. EST

  Arlington, Virginia

  SERGEANT JORDAN STONE felt like a fraud as he marched in his dress blues. Today he would bury the last member of his former team—a young man named Corporal Sanderson. Like his other teammates, Sanderson’s body had never been found.

  After a couple of months of searching through the tons of rubble that had once been the mountain of Masada, the military gave up. Sanderson’s empty coffin pressed hard against Jordan’s hip as he marched in step with the other pallbearers.

  A December snowstorm blanketed the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, covering brown grass and gathering atop the branches of leafless trees. Snow mounded across the arched tops of marble grave markers, more markers than he could count. Each grave was numbered, most bore names, and all these soldiers had been laid to rest with honor and dignity.

  One of them was his wife, Karen, killed in action over a year before. There hadn’t been enough of her to bury, just her dog tags. Her coffin was as empty as Sanderson’s. Some days Jordan couldn’t believe that she was gone, that he would never bring her
flowers again and get a long slow kiss of thanks. Instead, the only flowers he would ever give her would go on her grave. He had placed red roses there before he headed to Sanderson’s funeral.

  He pictured Sanderson’s freckled face. His young teammate had been eager to please, taken his job seriously, and done his best. In return, he got a lonely death on a mountaintop in Israel. Jordan tightened his grip on the cold casket handle, wishing that the mission had ended differently.

  A few more steps past the bare trees and he and his companions carried the casket into a frigid chapel. He felt more at home within these simple white walls than he had in the lavish churches of Europe. Sanderson would have been more comfortable here, too.

  Sanderson’s mother and sister waited for them inside. They wore nearly identical black dresses and thin formal shoes despite the snow and cold. Both had Sanderson’s fair complexion, with faces freckled brown even in winter. Their noses and eyes were red.

  They missed him.

  He wished they didn’t have to.

  Beside them, his commanding officer, Captain Stanley, stood at attention. The captain had been at Jordan’s left hand for all the funerals, his lips compressed in a thin line as coffins went into the ground. Good soldiers, every one.

  He was a by-the-book commander and had handled Jordan’s debriefing faultlessly. In turn, Jordan did his best to stick to the lie that the Vatican had prepared: the mountain had collapsed in an earthquake, and everyone died. He and Erin had been in a corner that hadn’t collapsed and were rescued three days later by a Vatican search party.

  Simple enough.

  It was untrue. And unfortunately, he was a bad liar, and his CO suspected that he hadn’t revealed everything that had happened in Masada or after his rescue.

  Jordan had already been taken off active duty and assigned psychiatric counseling. Someone was watching him all the time, waiting to see if he would crack up. What he wanted most was to simply get back out in the field and do his job. As a member of the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility in Afghanistan, he’d worked and investigated military crime scenes. He was good at it, and he wanted to do it again.

  Anything to keep busy, to keep moving.

  Instead, he stood at attention beside yet another coffin, the cold from the marble floor seeping into his toes. Sanderson’s sister shivered next to him. He wished he could give her his uniform jacket.

  He listened to the military chaplain’s somber tones more than his words. The priest had only twenty minutes to get through the ceremony. Arlington had many funerals every day, and they set a strict schedule.

  He soon found himself outside of the chapel and at the gravesite. He had done this march so many times that his feet found their way to this grave without much thought. Sanderson’s casket rested on snow-dusted brown earth beside a draped hole.

  A cold wind blew across the snow, curling flakes on the surface into tendrils, like cirrus clouds, the kind of high clouds so common in the desert where Sanderson had died. Jordan waited through the rest of the ceremony, listened to the three-rifle volley, the bugler playing “Taps,” and watched the chaplain give the folded flag to Sanderson’s mother.

  Jordan had endured the same scene for each of his lost teammates.

  It hadn’t gotten any easier.

  At the end, Jordan shook Sanderson’s mother’s hand. It felt cold and frail, and he worried that he might break it. “I am deeply sorry for your loss. Corporal Sanderson was a fine soldier, and a good man.”

  “He liked you.” His mother offered him a sad smile. “He said you were smart and brave.”

  Jordan worked his frozen face to match that smile. “That’s good to hear, ma’am. He was smart and brave himself.”

  She blinked back tears and turned away. He moved to take a step after her, although he didn’t know what he would say, but before he could, the chaplain laid a hand on his shoulder.

  “I believe we have business to discuss, Sergeant.”

  Turning, Jordan examined the young chaplain. The man wore dress blues just like Jordan’s uniform, except that he had crosses sewn onto the lapels of his jacket. Looking closer now, Jordan saw his skin was too white, even for winter, his brown hair a trifle too long, his posture not quite military. As the chaplain stared back at him, his green eyes didn’t blink.

  The short hairs rose on the back of Jordan’s neck.

  The chill of the chaplain’s hand seeped through his glove. It wasn’t like a hand that had been out too long on a cold day. It was like a hand that hadn’t been warm for years.

  Jordan had met many of his ilk before. What stood before him was an undead predator, a vampiric creature called a strigoi. But for this one to be out in daylight, he must be a Sanguinist—a strigoi who had taken a vow to stop drinking human blood, to serve the Catholic Church and sustain himself only on Christ’s blood—or more exactly, on wine consecrated by holy sacrament into His blood.

  Such an oath made this creature less dangerous.

  But not much.

  “I’m not so sure that we have any business left,” Jordan said.

  He shifted away from the chaplain and squared off, ready to fight if need be. He had seen Sanguinists battle. No doubt this slight chaplain could take him out, but that didn’t mean Jordan would go down easy.

  Captain Stanley moved between them and cleared his throat. “It’s been cleared all the way up to the top, Sergeant Stone.”

  “What has, sir?”

  “He will explain everything,” the captain answered, gesturing to the chaplain. “Go with him.”

  “And if I refuse?” Jordan held his breath, hoping for a good answer.

  “It’s an order, Sergeant.” He gave Jordan a level glare. “It’s being handled way above my pay grade.”

  Jordan suppressed a groan. “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Captain Stanley quirked one tiny corner of his mouth, equivalent to a belly laugh from a jollier man. “That I believe, Sergeant.”

  Jordan saluted, wondering if it was for the last time, and followed the chaplain to a black limousine parked at the curb. It seemed the Sanguinists had barreled into his life again, ready to kick apart the rubble of his career with their immortal feet.

  The chaplain held open the door for him, and Jordan climbed in. The interior smelled like leather and brandy and expensive cigars. It wasn’t what one expected from a priest’s vehicle.

  Jordan slid across the seat. The glass partition had been rolled up, and all he saw of the driver was the back of a thick neck, short blond hair, and a uniform cap.

  The chaplain lifted his pant legs to preserve the crease before sliding in. With one hand, he closed the door with a dignified thump, trapping Jordan inside with him.

  “Please turn up the heat for our guest,” the chaplain called to the driver. Then he unbuttoned the jacket of his dress blue uniform and leaned back.

  “I believe my CO said that you would explain everything.” Jordan folded his arms. “Go ahead.”

  “That’s a tall order.” The young chaplain poured a brandy. He brought the glass to his nose and inhaled. With a sigh, he lowered the glass and offered it toward Jordan. “It’s quite a fine vintage.”

  “Then you drink it.”

  The chaplain swirled the brandy in the glass, his eyes following the brown liquid. “I think you know that I can’t, as much as I’d like to.”

  “About that explanation?” he pressed.

  The chaplain raised a hand, and the car slid into motion. “Sorry about all this cloak-and-dagger business. Or perhaps robe-and-cross might be the more apt term?”

  He smiled wistfully as he sniffed again at the brandy.

  Jordan frowned at the guy’s mannerisms. He certainly seemed less stuffy and formal than the other Sanguinists he had met.

  The chaplain took off his white glove and held out his hand. “Name’s Chris
tian.”

  Jordan ignored the invitation.

  Realizing this, the chaplain lifted his hand and ran his fingers through his thick hair. “Yes, I appreciate the irony. A Sanguinist named Christian. It’s like my mother planned it.”

  The man snorted.

  Jordan wasn’t quite sure what to make of this Sanguinist.

  “I think we almost met back in Ettal Abbey,” the chaplain said. “But Rhun picked Nadia and Emmanuel to fill out the rest of his trio back in Germany.”

  Jordan pictured Nadia’s dark features and Emmanuel’s darker attitude.

  Christian shook his head. “Hardly a surprise, I suppose.”

  “Why’s that?”

  The other raised an eyebrow. “I believe I’m not sackcloth and ashes enough for Father Rhun Korza.”

  Jordan fought down a grin. “I can see how that would bug him.”

  Christian set the brandy in a tray near the door and leaned forward, his green eyes serious. “Actually Father Korza is the reason I’m here.”

  “He sent you?”

  Somehow Jordan couldn’t picture that. He doubted Rhun wanted anything more to do with Jordan. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms.

  “Not exactly.” Christian rested skinny elbows on his knees. “Cardinal Bernard is trying to keep it quiet, but Rhun has disappeared without a word.”

  Figures . . . the guy was hardly the forthcoming sort.

  “Has he contacted you since you left Rome in October?” Christian asked.

  “Why would he contact me?”

  He tilted his head to one side. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “I hate him.” Jordan saw no point in lying. “He knows it.”

  “Rhun is a difficult man to like,” Christian admitted, “but what did he do to make you hate him?”