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.