“It burns,” the woman moaned. Her fingers clutched her blackened throat, squeezing as if to hold back the poison.
But it was useless. The darkness moved up her cheeks, consuming her—though it spread through more slowly than it did with the strigoi, it appeared as inevitable.
Christian looked helplessly at Erin. “What can we do?”
The answer came from the far side of the storm. “Nothing,” Iscariot called, hearing his plea. “Except watch her die.”
Nadia’s body arched back, racking into a convulsion.
Something hit Erin from the side. A small boy clutched at her, one of the strigoi, half his face gone. Tears wept from his one eye. She dropped and held him, his tiny hand clutching hers, perhaps knowing that she could not save him, but not wanting to be alone. He looked up at her with an anguished sky-blue eye. She held his cold hands tightly until he went quiet, the corruption consuming him entirely.
She stared across the snow.
None of the children moved now; their ravaged bodies draped the snow.
Nadia gave one final gasp—then lay motionless in death.
Christian bent over her, his eyes shining with tears.
Erin released the strigoi’s tiny hands—or what was left of them.
Obeying some silent signal, the moths lifted around them, ascending high, but remaining a threat above. She counted the few survivors: Rasputin and the other Sanguinists. She suspected they only lived because their master willed it.
She stood and faced Iscariot. “Why?”
Judas held out his hand and a moth landed gracefully in his palm, silvery-green wings opening and closing. “A lesson for you all.” He nodded to Nadia’s body. “To prove to the Sanguinists that their blessing will not protect them from my curse, from my blood.”
So it was his tainted blood inside the moths.
Erin watched as Nadia’s form dissolved to ash and bone. The brave woman had saved her life countless times. She did not deserve such an ignominious and pointless death.
And not just her.
Rasputin moaned, on his knees among his fallen children. “Then why this? What lesson are you trying to teach me?”
“No lesson, Grigori. Only punishment. For keeping secrets from me.”
Moths swirled lower again, threateningly. One wafted about Rhun’s shoulder.
Erin’s mind raced, sensing Iscariot was not done with them. Her best hope was knowledge. She remembered the black palm print that had decorated the throat of Bathory Darabont, marking her blood as tainted. Erin sensed that palm belonged to Iscariot. Had he used some alchemy of his own blood to corrupt the woman’s, to protect her among the strigoi she had commanded? Darabont had served the Belial, a group of strigoi and humans working together, manipulated by an unknown puppet master.
Erin again pictured that black palm print and looked at Iscariot. “You are the leader of the Belial.”
Her words drew his attention. “It seems your former title as the Woman of Learning was not unjustified, Dr. Granger.” He faced the survivors here. “But I am not done here.”
Before anyone could move, the moths fell from the skies and covered the Sanguinists, landing atop Rasputin, even Bathory, too many to stop. As they began to struggle anew, Iscariot bellowed an order.
“Stop!” Iscariot threatened. “Fight and you will all die!”
Recognizing the futility, they obeyed, going still. Moths fluttered to perch across shoulders and limbs.
“I have no wish to kill you all, but I will if forced.”
Iscariot kept his gaze fixed to Rhun, who remained standing like a suit of armor, a true Knight of Christ.
He pointed a finger at Rhun. “It is now time for the Knight of Christ to join his sister of the cloth. To leave his world in peace and ascend to his place in the heavens.”
Rhun’s eyes flicked to hers, as if to say good-bye.
“Wait,” Erin said. “Please.”
Iscariot turned to her.
Erin had only one card to play, remembering Rasputin’s dealings with the Belial before. Back in St. Petersburg, the monk had turned over the Blood Gospel and Erin to Bathory Darabont, but only after exacting a promise from her. Erin remembered Rasputin’s words, of the debt sworn.
I promised you the book as a gesture of goodwill . . . if, in return, your master grants me the life of my choosing later.
It had been agreed.
Erin turned toward Rasputin. Would the monk be willing to call in that debt now to save Rhun? Would Iscariot honor it? She had no other choice but to make her case.
She faced Iscariot. “Two months ago, Rasputin made a deal with your Belial forces. In exchange for his cooperation, he would be granted a life of his choosing. The pact was made. It was witnessed by all.”
Iscariot looked to Rasputin, who knelt among his children’s bodies. Tears ran down his cheeks and disappeared in his beard. In spite of his evil, he had loved his children like a true father, and he had watched them die in agony, victims of his own plotting.