As if reading his mind, that smile broadened. “The answer to the first is easy. The second was a question that plagued me for millennia. I had to walk this earth many centuries before the truth of my purpose became evident.”
“Then answer the first,” Rhun said. “What did you do to become cursed?”
He met Rhun’s eye unabashedly. “I betrayed Christ with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane. Surely you know your biblical history, priest.”
Nadia gasped, while Rhun stumbled back in horror.
It could not be.
Into that stunned silence, Erin stepped forward, as if to face the truth of this man’s impossible existence. “And why were you given this punishment, these endless years?”
The Betrayer of Christ stared back at Erin. “By my word, I sent Christ from this world. By my actions, I will bring him back. That is the purpose of my curse. To open the gates of Hell and prepare the world for His return, for the Second Coming of Christ.”
To his horror, Rhun understood.
He intends to bring about Armageddon.
28
December 19, 10:02 P.M. CET
Stockholm, Sweden
Erin struggled against the weight of the history that stood before her, to keep it from crushing her into immobility. If this man spoke the truth and was not some deluded soul, here stood Judas Iscariot, the most infamous man in history, the betrayer who sent Christ to the cross.
She listened to his confession, to his goal to end the world.
“And you believe that is your purpose?” she challenged him. “You believe Christ set you on this long path so that you could orchestrate His return?”
In the distance came the wail of police sirens, reminding her of this modern world, of this age, where few believed in saints and demons. Yet before her was a man who claimed to encompass both. If he spoke the truth, his eyes had witnessed Christ’s miracle, his ears had heard His parables and lessons, those very lips had kissed Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and condemned Christ to death.
The sirens grew louder, closing in on them.
Had their trespass been noted by neighbors? Had an alarm been raised?
Iscariot’s eyes turned in that direction—then back to them. “The time for talk is over. I will have this angel and be gone.”
Sensing a threat behind his words, both strigoi and Sanguinist tensed for battle.
Jordan pulled Erin behind him.
Iscariot simply lifted his index finger, as if summoning a waiter to the table—but instead he summoned the strange flock that heralded his arrival. The flutter of moths in the air settled over their gathered forces.
One landed on Erin’s hand as she held up her arm, warding against whatever threat these bits of brilliance posed. Tiny brass legs danced over the wool of her glove until it reached a bare patch of skin exposed at the end of her sleeve. A tiny silver proboscis jabbed her flesh, needling deep.
She dropped her arm and shook her hand against the sting.
The moth dislodged and, with a slow beat of its wings, fluttered off.
What the hell?
She scrutinized the drop of blood welling from the puncture wound.
Jordan swore, slapping at the back of his neck, crumpling a moth that fell to the snow. She watched as the others were similarly assaulted. She still failed to understand the threat—until she saw Olga stumble away from the cluster of strigoi children.
Emerald wings battered at her small cheek. Then she screamed, falling to her knees. The moth flittered up from its perch on her nose and wafted away. A black corruption started at her cheek and quickly ate away her face, exposing bone, blood boiling from cracks. Her small form convulsed. More of Rasputin’s flock fell, writhing, dropping to the snow.
Erin glanced to the spot of blood on her wrist, recognizing what was happening.
Poison.
The butterflies carried some form of venom.
She rubbed at her arm, but she remained unaffected.
So did Jordan.
Rasputin fell among his flock, but he was brought low not by poison, but by grief. “Stop!” he wailed.
Erin remembered another creature that had died by a similar corruption. She pictured the grimwolf in the tunnel under the Vatican. She had shot the beast with bullets tainted by the blood of Bathory Darabont. The woman had carried some form of venom in her blood that was poisonous to strigoi—even to Sanguinists.
Panicked, she turned to Rhun, to the other Sanguinists.
Nadia was on her knees, cradled by Christian, while Rhun battered against the emerald storm around him, using his leather armor as a shield.
Erin rushed over, drawing Jordan with her. “Help them!” she called out. As humans, they seemed to be immune to this poison. “Keep those moths away!”
Still, she remembered the first moth, its emerald wings coming to perch on Nadia.