Innocent Blood(45)
“Are you hurt?” he asked, knowing he spoke loudly past the ringing of his ears.
She trembled, and he longed to take her in his arms again and quiet her, but the fragrance of blood wafted from her body, and he did not dare.
Instead, her amber eyes met his. He looked deeply into them for the first time since he had left her on the tunnel floor to die months before.
Her lips formed a single word.
Jordan.
She struggled to her feet and stumbled toward the tracks. He followed in her wake, scanning the wreckage, wanting to be near her when she found him.
He did not see how the soldier could have survived . . . how anyone could have survived.
12:37 P.M.
Elizabeth burned in the field, rolling in agony.
Sunlight seared her vision, boiling her eyes. Smoke rose from her hands, her face. She curled into a ball, ducked her chin against her chest, her arms over her head, hoping they might protect her. Her hair crackled like an aura around her.
A moment ago, the train car had exploded, bursting open with a thunderclap. She flew like a dark angel through the burning brightness. Both her hands gripped the silver chain that bound her to a useless scrap of metal. She caught a glimpse of another’s hands also clasped to the chain—then the sunlight blinded her, withering her eyesight.
The mighty boom also stole her hearing, leaving behind a rushing sound inside her ears, as if the sea had torn into her skull and washed back and forth inside her head.
She tried to worm deeper into the cool mud, to escape the sunlight.
Then hands rolled her and threw darkness atop her, protecting her from the sun.
She smelled the heavy wool of a cloak and cowered beneath this thin protection. The burn quickly ebbed into an ache, giving her the hope that she might yet live.
A voice shouted near her head, piercing the sea roiling in her skull.
“Are you alive?”
Not trusting her voice, she nodded.
Who had saved her?
It could only be Rhun.
She ached for him, wanting to be held and comforted. She needed him to lead her through this pain to a future that did not burn.
“I must go,” yelled the voice.
As her head cleared, she now recognized that stern tone.
Not Rhun.
Nadia.
She pictured those other hands clasped to her chain, guiding her fall, covering her. Nadia had risked her life to hold on to that chain and save her. But Elizabeth knew such efforts were born not out of concern or love.
The Church still needed her.
Safe for now, new fears rose.
Where is Rhun? Did he yet live?
“Stay here,” Nadia commanded.
She obeyed—not that she had any choice otherwise. Escape remained impossible. Beyond the edges of her cloak lay only a burning death.
She considered for a moment casting the cloak aside, ending this interminable existence. But instead, she curled tighter, intending to survive, wrapping herself as snugly in thoughts of revenge as in heavy wool.
12:38 P.M.
Erin stumbled across a field scarred by metal shrapnel from the train. Coughing on the oily smoke, her mind tried to sort it out, rolling the explosion backward in her head.
The blast must have centered on the steam engine because the locomotive was nearly obliterated. Black pieces of steel stuck out of the field like ruined trees. But it wasn’t just scorched metal that littered the fields.
A legless body lay by the tracks. She spotted an engineer’s cap.
She hurried and crouched beside him, her knees pressing into stubbly grass.
Sightless brown eyes stared at the smoky sky. A black-clad arm moved past her head and closed the dead man’s eyelids. The engineer hadn’t been involved in any prophecy. He’d just shown up to do an honest day’s work.
Another innocent life.
When will it ever end?
She lifted her face to Rhun. The priest touched his cross to his lips, the blessed silver searing that tender flesh as he whispered prayers over the dead man.
When he finished, she stood and walked on, drawing Rhun with her.
Within a few yards she came upon the second crewman, also dead. He had light brown curly hair and freckles, a smudge of soot across his cheek. He looked too young to be working on a train. She thought about his life. Did he have a girlfriend, parents who were still alive? Who knew how far the ripples of grief would reach?
She abandoned Rhun to his prayers, propelled by the urgency to find Jordan.
Moving down the tracks, she came upon the remains of what she suspected was the galley car. A stove had shot through the air and landed in a crater. Leopold had been in that compartment. She looked for him, too, but found no trace.
Continuing, she reached the ruins of the dining car. Although the front had peeled away, the back was intact. It had derailed and dug a deep furrow through the rich brown soil. A gold curtain flapped through a shattered window at the back.