In turn, the cardinal introduced both of them to the countess. Fortunately their titles were much shorter. “Allow me to present Dr. Erin Granger and Sergeant Jordan Stone.”
Erin found her voice again. “Are you claiming that this is the Elizabeth Bathory? From the late 1500s?”
The woman bowed her head, as if acknowledging this truth.
Emotions ran across Erin’s face—a mix of relief and disappointment. They both knew how convinced the Church was that the Woman of Learning would arise from the Bathory line.
“I don’t understand,” Jordan said. “Is this woman a Sanguinist?”
The countess answered, “I will have no part of that dreary order. I place my faith in passion, not penitence.”
Rhun stirred. Jordan remembered the priest’s story from when he was new to the Sanguinist fold. In a moment of forbidden passion, Rhun had killed Elizabeth Bathory and the only way to save her was to turn her, to change her into a strigoi. But where had this woman been for the last four hundred years? The Church had been convinced the Bathory line had died with Darabont.
Jordan could guess the answer: Rhun must have hidden her.
It seemed the priest had kept quiet about more than just biting Erin.
Bernard spoke. “I believe that those gathered here are our best weapons in the upcoming War of the Heavens, a battle prophesied by the Blood Gospel. Here stands the world’s only hope.”
Countess Bathory laughed, the noise both amused and bitter. “Ah, Cardinal, with your love for the dramatic, you should have been better served by becoming an actor on a wider stage than the pulpit.”
“Nevertheless, I believe it to be true.” He turned and confronted the woman’s disobliging manner. “Would you rather the world end, Countess Bathory?”
“Did not my world come to an end long ago?” She glanced to Rhun.
Nadia pulled out her blade from its sheath at her hip. “We could make it a permanent end. After the murders you committed, you should be executed on the spot.”
The countess laughed again, a musical tinkling sound that raised goose bumps on the back of Jordan’s neck. “If the cardinal truly wished me dead, I would be a pile of ashes in St. Peter’s Square. For all your stern words, you need me.”
“That’s enough.” Bernard raised his red-gloved hands. “The countess has a duty to perform. She will serve as the Woman of Learning—or I will thrust her out into the sunlight myself.”
11:22 A.M.
Erin steeled herself against her wounded pride.
That was a clear vote of no confidence from the cardinal.
Was Bernard really so certain of Bathory and so uncertain of her?
She had one advocate in her corner. Jordan slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Screw that. Erin proved that she is the Woman of Learning.”
“Did she now?” Countess Bathory ran her pink tongue along her upper lip, revealing sharp white fangs. “Then it seems I am not needed after all.”
Erin kept her face blank. Over the centuries, Bathory women had been singled out for generations, trained to serve as the Woman of Learning. She had no such pedigree. Although she had been part of the trio that had recovered the Blood Gospel, it had been Bathory Darabont who actually succeeded in opening that ancient tome on the altar of St. Peter’s.
Not me.
Bernard pointed a hand at the countess. “What can explain her presence here except the fulfillment of prophecy? A woman believed to be dead, but resurrected by Rhun, the indisputable Knight of Christ.”
“How about poor judgment?” Christian said, coming to Erin’s corner. “And blind coincidence? Not every fall of a coin is prophecy.”
Jordan nodded firmly.
Rhun spoke, his voice hoarse. “It was sin that brought Elisabeta to this moment, not prophecy.”
“Or perhaps a lack of experience with sin,” the countess countered with a spiteful smile. “We could spend many idle hours speculating as to why I am here. None of that should obscure the fact that I am here. What do you wish of me, and what shall you pay for my cooperation?”
“Is it not payment enough to save the earthly realm?” Nadia asked.
“What do I owe this earthly realm of yours?” Bathory straightened her back. “Against my will, I was torn from it, ripped away by the teeth of one of your own. Since that time I have spent far longer locked away than free. From this moment on, I will do nothing that does not benefit me.”
“We don’t need her,” Jordan said. “We have Erin.”
Both Nadia and Christian nodded, and gratitude at their trust filled her.
“No,” Bernard said firmly, ending the discussion with his sternness. “We need this woman.”