Bathory inclined her head, accepting the compliment.
Jordan noted both Rhun and Bernard studying this exchange between the two women. Christian also caught Jordan’s eye, as if to say, See, I told you they would work well together.
In the shadows, Bathory closed her silver eyes, as if in thought. Long black lashes rested against her ashen cheeks.
Erin stared out the window toward the sunlight, as the train rattled past winter fields dotted with giant round bales of hay.
The countess opened her eyes again. “Perhaps we had best focus our search on angels that have names. The first angel mentioned by name in the Bible is Gabriel, the primary messenger of God. Could that be the First Angel that we seek?”
The priests at the table looked uncertain. Erin remained curiously quiet, gazing out the window.
“Gabriel the messenger?” Nadia raised an eyebrow, still standing behind Bathory holding the countess’s leash. “In a war, I would think the archangel Michael would be a better ally.”
Jordan surveyed the train car, suddenly recognizing the strangeness of this discussion. Even if they settled on a biblical angel, how were they going to find one and bring it the book?
“Don’t angels live in another dimension or something?” Jordan asked. “One that humans can’t get to? How are we supposed to reach an angel there?”
“Angels dwell in Heaven.” Rhun had returned his attention to his folded hands. “Yet they may travel freely to Earth.”
“Then I don’t suppose you guys have some sort of angelic phone?” Jordan asked, only half joking. After all he had experienced since learning of strigoi and Sanguinists, who knew what other secrets the Church was keeping?
“It is called prayer,” Cardinal Bernard said, frowning at his flippancy. “And I have spent many hours on my knees praying for the First Angel to reveal himself. But I do not think that this angel will do so. Not to me. He will reveal himself only to the trio of prophecy.”
“If you are right, my dear cardinal,” Bathory said, “then we should begin praying to Lucifer immediately. For surely only a fallen angel would reveal himself to the likes of your flawed trio.”
Erin finally spoke, still staring out the window with that faraway look that meant she was in deep thought. “I don’t think we’re looking for Gabriel or Michael or Lucifer. I think we are searching for the First Angel from Revelation.”
The countess laughed, almost clapping her hands. “The angel who sounds the trumpet and ends the world. Ah, what an enticing theory!”
Erin quoted from memory. “The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.”
Armageddon.
Those were the stakes.
Jordan tried to picture hail and fire mixed with blood and sighed. “So where do we find him?”
Erin turned back to face the car. “I think the answer is found in an earlier passage from Revelation, from before the trumpet sounds. There is a line that reads, And another angel came and stood at the altar. Then after another few lines, it continues, The smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: and there were voices, and thunderings, and lightnings, and an earthquake.”
Jordan grinned. “Well, at least that part is easy enough to interpret.”
And he meant it.
He enjoyed the look of surprise on the Sanguinist priests’ faces.
“It doesn’t take a biblical scholar to figure that one out,” Jordan continued. “Smoke from the angel’s hand? Incense? Thunder? Earthquake?”
The others eyed him with confused expressions. The countess merely looked amused. He was supposed to be the muscle, not the brains.
Erin touched the back of his wrist, allowing him to reveal what she had already figured out.
He took her fingers and squeezed them. “That sounds exactly like what happened at Masada. Remember the boy who survived? He had said he thought he smelled incense and cinnamon in the smoke. We even found traces of cinnamon in the gas samples. And the boy also mentioned that the smoke touched his hand before everyone died from the gas and the earthquake.”
“The smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand,” Rhun repeated, his voice reverential.
“Everyone on that mountaintop died.” Jordan’s words came faster now. “Only something inhuman, like an angel, could have survived that poisonous assault.”