She gaped at him, trying to make sense of his words.
“I’m sorry, Erin,” Rhun said. “But Jordan is truly gone.”
A crunching in the snow told her that someone moved toward her, but she did not care who. A hand, skin cracked and bleeding, touched Jordan’s chest.
She raised her head to find the boy crouched next to her, barely on his feet. He slipped the coat off his shoulders—Jordan’s coat—and returned it to its former owner, gently draping it over the wound.
The boy licked his cracked lips. “Thank you.”
Erin knew he was thanking Jordan for far more than the coat.
“Enough,” Iscariot said as the sirens crashed louder around them. “Take him.”
One of his burly assistants picked the boy up as if he were a sack of potatoes, carrying him in his arms. The boy cried out at the rough handling, fresh blood dripping from his many wounds, melting holes into the snow.
Erin half stood, wanting to go to him. “Please don’t hurt him.”
She was ignored. Iscariot turned and held out his hand, and Bathory took it, her white hand coming to rest in his, making her choice of whom to follow.
“Stay, Elisabeta,” Rhun pleaded. “You do not know this man.”
The countess touched the scarf that covered the barely healed incision on her neck. “But, my love, I know you.”
Covered in moths, Rhun could only watch as they departed.
Erin returned to Jordan’s body. She caressed his lifeless cheek, his stubble rough under her fingertips. She touched his upper lip, then leaned forward, kissing him one last time, his lips already cold, more like Rhun’s.
She pushed that thought roughly away.
At her shoulder, the two Sanguinists chanted a prayer. She recognized the words, but she stayed mute. Prayers did not comfort her.
Jordan was dead.
None of their words could change that.
29
December 19, 10:11 P.M. CET
Cumae, Italy
Leopold stood on the shore of a blue lake in southern Italy, starlight reflecting in the quiet waters. He took in a deep breath, readying himself for what must come. He noted traces of sulfur in the air, the odor too faint for mortal senses to detect, but it was still there, revealing the volcanic nature of Avernus Lake. Thick woods rose along the ancient crater’s steep banks. Across the water, a scatter of lights marked distant homesteads and farms, and much farther out the city of Naples glowed at the horizon.
In the past, the lake had once steamed heavily with volcanic gases, so strongly that birds passing overhead would drop from the sky. Even the name Avernus meant without birds. Ancient Romans came to believe that the entrance to the underworld could be found near this lake.
How true they were . . .
He studied the unruffled blue waters, picturing this peaceful place birthed out of fire, born from lava blasting into the sky, burning the land, killing every creature that crept, crawled, or flew. Now it had become a calm valley, offering a haven for birds, fishes, deer, and rabbits. The surrounding pines and shrubs teemed with new life.
He took that lesson to heart.
Sometimes fire was necessary to cleanse, to offer a lasting peace.
That was Leopold’s hope, to bring salvation to the world through the fires of Armageddon.
He stared out at the lake, pausing from his task to thank God for sparing the lives of those on the train. He had called the Damnatus after viewing his own coffin at Castel Gandolfo, only to learn that the others had survived, that the Damnatus had made a pact with that Russian monk to ambush the others in Stockholm.
Resolved to do what he must, he turned his back on the lake. His leather sandals scuffed red volcanic soil as he followed a path that led toward the Grotta di Cocceio. It was an old Roman tunnel, a kilometer long, built before the birth of Christ, burrowing from the lake to the ruins of ancient Cumae on the far side of the crater wall. Damaged during World War II, the tunnel was closed to the public, serving now as the perfect place to hide secrets.
Leopold reached the entrance, an archway of dark stone sealed with an iron gate.
It took little of his strength to break the lock and slip inside. Once through, he had to crawl and traverse a broken landscape of rock, to reach the main tunnel. With the way now open, he ran through the darkness, not bothering to hide his unearthly speed. No one would see him here.
His footsteps slowed when he reached the far end, where it opened into a complex of ruins outside the crater. He stepped out into the cool breezes off the neighboring sea. Above his head, perched at the rim of the valley, was a temple to Apollo, an ancient complex of broken pillars, stone amphitheaters, and crumbling foundations of structures long gone. That was not his destination. From the tunnel entrance, he turned right, ducking into another tunnel. The passageway here was cut through yellow stone, carved trapezoidal in shape, narrow at the bottom with walls that slanted outward.