Innocent Blood(99)
A rustling of sheets drew his attention around. She sat up, as beautiful in the firelight as she was in every light.
Her eyes saw what his fingers held. “You read this?”
He looked away, but he felt her gaze burning into him.
“Have you read them all?” she asked.
He could not lie to her, turning to her. “I wanted to preserve them in case you should change your mind, so that your gift was not lost to the world.”
“Gift? It is no gift. And it was my choice to decide what to do with it. I trusted you, alone of every man in the world, to understand that.”
“I thought that I was serving you.”
“How? When? For one hundred years, you have betrayed me.”
A line of tears glistened in the firelight. She wiped the back of her hand across one smooth cheek. He had gone against her deepest wishes, again and again. He read in her eyes that there could be no forgiveness for his actions.
“I did it for you,” he whispered.
“For me?” Her voice hardened. “Not for your own curiosity?”
He had no answer to that question, so instead asked another. He lifted the leaf. “How long? How long until this prophecy is fulfilled?”
“It is but a prophecy.” Her face was a blank slate on which he could read nothing. “One possible shadow of the future. It is not certainty, nor necessity.”
“This shall come to pass,” he insisted.
He had known its truth the instant that he read her words.
He had betrayed Jesus.
Now he must betray the world of man.
“You cannot know this.” She crossed the room to stand before him. “You must not do this dark thing based on my words. Nothing in this world is set. As all men, you were imbued by God with free will.”
“My will does not matter. I must find Christ’s Gospel. I must set these events in motion.”
“A prophecy cannot be forced.” Her voice rose in rare anger. “Even with all your arrogance, you must know this.”
He lifted the leaf again, matching her anger. “I see this. I know this. We must do what we were created to do. I am a betrayer. You are a prophetess. Did you not defy God by failing to share your prophecy of Lucifer’s betrayal? Were you not cast down because of it? And now you seek to defy Him again!”
Stricken, she stared at him. He knew that he had spoken her greatest fear aloud, and he wished that he could call his words back.
Tears shone in her bright eyes, but she blinked them away. She turned from him, lifted the hood of the cloak so that it hid her face, and ran out the door into the starry night.
He waited for her to come back to him, for her anger to be spent, that he might beg her forgiveness. But by the time the morning sun rose, she had not returned, and he knew that she never would.
Judas breathed deeply of the night air, remembering all.
After Arella left him, he traveled to Europe where he spent many years researching whispered rumors of Christ’s lost Gospel. He learned of another prophecy concerning the book, one that spoke of a sacred trio.
So he sought them, too.
One fall evening, following a rumor among the Sanguinists, he sought out Countess Elizabeth Bathory—the learned woman married to a powerful warrior and bound to a knight of Christ.
Like the Church, he thought that these three might be the prophesied trio—until Father Korza had turned the countess into a strigoi, and she was supposedly slain.
Yet he remained convinced of the power of the Bathory family. Each generation, he selected a single woman from that lineage to train and protect, poisoning her blood against the strigoi, to ensure she would never be turned as her ancestor had been.
Most of the women had served him well, until the line had ended with Bathory Darabont. But by then the lost Gospel of Christ had been brought back into the world, heralding what Judas must do next.
He lifted the glass block and read those words.
The one who took Him from this world will serve in bringing Him back, sparking an era of fire and bloodshed, casting a pall over the earth and all its creatures.
At long last, that time had come.
37
December 20, 5:22 A.M. CET
Mediterranean Sea
Tommy shivered in the breezes blowing across the open platform of the oil rig, the wind driving away the last dregs of his sleepiness.
He stared across the pad to a silver helicopter parked there. It had blacked-out windows and a large radar array sprouting from its nose. From the sleek lines and unusual features, it looked custom-made and expensive. A pilot stood next to the helicopter, dressed in a black flight suit, including a helmet and gloves.
Not a scrap of skin showed, suggesting he was like Elizabeth and Alexei.
Strigoi.
Elizabeth stood next to him. Even though sunrise was two hours away, she was also encased from head to toe. She wore high boots, black pants, a long-sleeved tunic and gloves, along with a veil that covered her face. It left a slit open for her eyes, but she held a pair of sunglasses, ready for the approach of dawn.