Innocent Blood(92)

Erin joined him with Rhun. “Maybe they went down,” she said. “Crashed.”

“Maybe,” Christian said. “But there are easier explanations. She might have found the tracker, or ditched the cloak where I hid it, or maybe even the battery died in the unit. I can’t say.”

Jordan sighed his frustration, rubbing at the burn in his shoulder. The fire blazing along his tattoo had settled into a steady heat, keeping him from truly sleeping on the flight here.

“No matter the reason, she’s gone,” Christian concluded, glancing back over his shoulder. “So what now?”

“We’ll land in Naples as planned,” Rhun said. “Contact the cardinal in Rome and decide how to proceed from there.”

Resigned that the hunt had gotten much harder, Jordan headed back to his seat with the others, but first he diverted to the rear of the cabin and grabbed the first-aid kit from the bathroom.

When he returned to his seat, Erin asked, “What are you doing?”

He opened the kit on the small walnut table in front of their seats. “I want to take a look at those mechanical moths. If we’re going to tangle with that bastard again, we need to find a way of neutralizing that flying threat. Or we’re screwed.”

He pulled on a pair of latex gloves from the medical kit and lifted up the box where Erin had stored the handful of moths she had collected from the ice maze. He tweezed one out that looked mostly intact and placed it gently on the table.

Rhun recoiled slightly in his seat.

Good instinct.

The residual venom inside could probably still kill him.

Erin shifted closer to Jordan, which he didn’t mind one bit.

He examined the green wings. They definitely looked organic, likely plucked from a living specimen. He turned his attention next to the body, an amazing bit of handiwork in brass, silver, and steel. He inspected the tiny, articulated legs, the thin threads of antennae. Keeping his fingers away from the needle-sharp proboscis, he flipped the body over and probed the bottom side, discovering tiny hinges.

Interesting . . .

He sat straighter. “We know the moths have the capability to inject poison into strigoi or Sanguinists,” he said. “But it doesn’t affect us humans, so maybe there is a clue there. Time to do a little experimenting.”

He glanced over to Rhun. “I’m going to need a few drops of your blood.”

Rhun nodded and pulled the karambit from his sleeve. He cut his finger and dribbled a few crimson drops onto the tabletop where Jordan indicated. In turn, Jordan used a razor from the kit to nick his thumb and do the same.

“Now what?” Erin asked.

“Now I need some of the toxin from inside the moth.” Jordan tugged back on his latex glove after placing a bandage on his thumb.

“Careful,” Rhun warned.

“Trust me, during my years of forensics work with the military, I handled both poisons and explosives. I’m not taking any chances.”

Bent over the brass body of the moth, he used tweezers from the medical kit to undo the hinges on the underside of the moth. Once free, he pried open the moth’s body with great care, revealing tiny gears, springs, and wires.

“Looks like the inside of a watch,” Erin said, her eyes shining with amazement.

The craftsmanship was exquisite.

Rhun leaned forward, too, curiosity outweighing his earlier caution.

Jordan noted a tiny glass vial occupied the anterior end of the mechanism. It had cracked, but small streaks of blood remained inside it.

“The blood of Iscariot,” Erin said.

Rhun leaned back again. “Smells like death. The taint is plain.”

Jordan stuck his tweezers into the broken vial and pried it farther open. Then he used two cotton swabs to scoop out droplets of the remaining stain. The first swab he pressed into his own blood.

As expected, nothing happened.

So far, so good.

He picked up the second swab and dipped it into Rhun’s blood. With an audible snap, Rhun’s blood vaporized, leaving only a smudge of soot on the walnut surface.

Into the stunned silence that followed, Jordan met the priest’s wide eyes. “So Iscariot’s blood is definitely inimical to the blood of a Sanguinist.”

“And the blood of strigoi,” Erin added.

One and the same in my book, Jordan thought, but he kept that to himself.

Instead, he turned to his bag of discarded winter clothes and rummaged through it until he found one of his woolen gloves. It was stained with Tommy’s blood from when he had helped extract the boy out of the ice sculpture.

“What are you doing?” Erin asked.

“We know Iscariot and this kid are similarly unique immortals. I want to check if the boy’s blood is toxic, too.”