Innocent Blood(21)

For the first time in a thousand years, he said his aloud, too.

“Judas.”

“The cursed son of Simon Iscariot,” she finished, looking unsurprised, wearing only a faint smile.

She held out a hand toward him. “Would you care to dance?”

With secrets revealed, their relationship began.

But those secrets hid others, deeper and darker.

Secrets without end, to match each eternal life.

Oversize doors swung open behind him, reflected in the window, drawing him back from ancient Venice to modern-day Rome. Judas tapped his fingers against the cold ballistic glass, wondering what the medieval Venetian glassblowers would have made of it.

In the reflection, he watched Renate stand framed in the doorway. She wore a mulberry-colored business suit and a brown silk top. Even though she had grown from a young woman to middle-aged in his service, he found her attractive. He realized suddenly that it was because Renate reminded him of Arella. His receptionist had the same brown skin and black eyes, the same calm.

How have I not seen this before?

The blond monk stepped into the room behind her, wearing a face much younger than his years. Nervous, the Sanguinist pinched the edge of his small spectacles. His round face fell into lines of worry that looked out of place on one so youthful, betraying a hint of the hidden decades behind that smooth skin.

Renate left and soundlessly closed the door.

Judas waved him forward. “Come, Brother Leopold.”

The monk licked his lips, smoothed the drape of his simple hooded brown robe, and obeyed. He passed the fountain and came to a stop in front of the massive desk. He knew better than to sit without being told.

“As you ordered, I took the first train from Germany, Damnatus.”

Leopold bowed his head, using an ancient title that marked Judas’s past. The Latin roughly translated as the condemned, the wretched, and the damned. While others might take such a title as an insult, Judas wore it with pride.

Christ had given it to him.

Judas shifted a chair behind his desk, returning to his workspace, and sat. He kept the monk waiting as he focused his attention back on his earlier project. With deft and practiced skill, he unclipped the forewing he had ripped earlier and dropped it onto the floor. He opened his specimen drawer and removed another luna moth. He detached its forewing and used it to replace the one he had damaged, returning his creation to flawless perfection.

Now he must repair something else that was broken.

“I have a new mission for you, Brother Leopold.”

The monk stood silent in front of him, with the stillness that only Sanguinists could attain. “Yes?”

“As I understand it, your order is certain that Father Korza is the prophesied Knight of Christ and that this American soldier, Jordan Stone, is the Warrior of Man. But there remains doubt as to the identity of the third figure mentioned in the Blood Gospel’s prophecy. The Woman of Learning. Am I to understand that it is not Professor Erin Granger, as you originally surmised during the quest for Christ’s lost Gospel?”

Leopold bowed his head in apology. “I have heard such doubts, and I believe that they may be true.”

“If so, then we must find the true Woman of Learning.”

“It will be done.”

Judas pulled a silver razor from another drawer and sliced the tip of his finger. He held it over the moth he had constructed of metal and gossamer wings. A single shiny drop of blood fell onto the back of his creation, seeping through holes along the thorax and vanishing away.

The monk stepped back.

“You fear my blood.”

All strigoi did.

Centuries ago, Judas had learned that a single drop of his blood was deadly to any of these damned creatures, even those few who had converted to serve the Church as Sanguines.

“Blood holds great power, does it not, Brother Leopold?”

“It does.” The monk’s eyes darted from side to side. It must trouble him to be close to something that could put an end to his immortal life.

Judas envied him his fear. Cursed by Christ with immortality, he would have sacrificed much to have the choice to die.

“Then why did you not tell me that the trio is now bonded by blood?”

Judas slid careful fingers under his creation. It shook itself to life in his palm, powered by his own blood. The whirring of tiny gears vibrated, barely audible under the fountain. The wings rose up and came together on its back, then extended out straight.

The monk trembled.

“Such a beautiful creature of the night, the simple moth,” Judas said.

The automaton flapped its wings and lifted from the bed of his palm. It slowly circled his desk, its wings catching every mote of light and casting it back with every beat.

Leopold followed its path, plainly wanting to flee but knowing better.