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Will not be caught in predator&039;s stare

I had no idea how late it was and I didn&039;t care I called Bruiser and told hiue When I reached the vaate and up the shell drive to the chapel without setting off any alarms I killed the bike and stalked to the steps The Kawasaki calance back, but I could sun oil and knew Rick had drawn his weapon

I raced up the steps Banged ainst the crypts behind me I heard the softerscrunch of shell as Rick left his bike and joineda little toher own fierce frustration, bled strength into ripped the door handle and turned

Threw ing into the inside wall With Beast&039;s night vision I took in the place at a glance

The chapel was one long room, white-painted walls and backless wood benches in rows

Moonlight poured through red-paned stained glass s, tingeing everything with the tint of watered blood At the front was a tall table holding a candle and a lol of incense, se, and so chair sat beside the table, and on its other side, a low stone bier carved with a statue lying faceup, marble hands crossed on her chest I strode to the bier and identified the carving as Sabina It was her coffin I had a feeling she slept in it

I pushed the stone cover, bending and putting Beast&039;s strength into it The top hed several hundred pounds I heaved, breathed with a groan, shoving, the air painful in hter clicked and fla one, he joined , into the crypt

The stone bier held no coffin, but was padded and lined with tufted white silk There were boxes inside and I pulled three of theard for va in one a bit of parch, bits of brown flaking away I closed the box and lifted the next one There was a name burned into the top, Ioudas Issachar

Whichit, I found a velvet-lined interior, cradling the cross the priestess had used to dispel the liver-eater when it attacked her

"That&039;s the cross in the picture," Rick said "The one the burning va"

I pulled it from its velvet bed and Rick moved the candle closer She had called it the Blood Cross The as unshaped, tightly grained, the pieces like rough stakes, the splintered ends smoothed and oiled The wire that wrapped the two pieces, shaping theris The cross eighty, much heavier than it appeared, and it was old Ancient I held it to my nose and smelled no smoke, no flames, and the as discolored only by time, not fire

"You would dare to steal from me?" Before I could turn, Sabina was on s snapped down Faster than I could draw a breath, she bent hs sloung down, three inches long, white in the candlelight, touching my throat above ; I ht not survive this one A harshschnick sounded and Rick held the barrel of his gun to her teer moved The taint of fear poured from his pores She had immobilized him with her mind He couldn&039;t even breathe I knehat it felt like to be held like that The adrenaline-spiked terror

I sed A bead of cold sweat trickled fro "No Not steal Borrow Whatever this is, it works like a weapon on vampires I just need it to save three witches, two of them children, ill be sacrificed in the next few hours or days" I felt her tighten, a near-human reaction, to my words "I need to use it like you did, when you raised the flaic they tried" Her body reacted again, easing, softening I heard Rick take a strangled breath "Let me use the Blood Cross," I whispered Her head snake-tilted, the motion eerie "Do you claim to be our savior, then?"

"I don&039;t think it&039;s likely," I said

"Yet you dare to touch the Blood Cross The cross of the curseThe cross of Ioudas Issachar "

"Ioudas Issachar," Rick forced out, theS s sibilant with his straining "Judas Iscariot"

The priestess and I looked at Rick His face was grayish, his eyes fighting panic I felt Sabina release hih for hiain "Judas Iscariot" His eyes tilted to me "Catholic school Latin 101"

"You know the history of sin and shaht?"

Rick&039;s expression said he had nothing else to offer I took a shot and said, "The Sons of Darkness And the Blood Cross"

Sabina&039;s expression didn&039;t change, but when she opened her hed The sound was lonely as a wolf howl, the power in it thudding into the walls andThe candle flames wavered with its vibration A desolate humor, bitter as ood, slicked my skin with its desperation "The Sons of Darkness"

Just as she had taken us over, she released us Faster than I could follow, she was gone; the candle fla in the small ind of her movement

She was across the chapel in an eyeblink She stared at the cross infaintly now, a curious phosphorescence Rick took several gasping breaths, loud in the silence, his knuckles white on his weapon We shared a glance, and he blinked, breathing hard, deciding So ator in dark water

Carefully, he slid the 9 , a fine treun wouldn&039;t have killed Sabina fast enough to do us any good anyway, even if it was loaded with silver shot and he emptied the clip at her She was too old She would have killed us both as she died

Rick controlled his breathing, andthe priestess

"Who were they?" I asked "The Sons of Darkness? What is the Blood Cross?"

Sabina stood, white in the disturbed candle fla more intense than relief flashed over her An emotion so sharp it left a residue on her flesh like a scar, like a battle ended, and then it was gone

She took a breath she didn&039;t need and sighed Her eyes bled back to near-hus clicked back into the roof of her mouth When she spoke, it ith the formal cant of an oft-repeated quote "&039; Ioudas Issachar, son of Simeon, then one of the twelve, went to the chief priests, and said to theive lad, and they proave unto him thirty pieces of silver&039; You know this story?"

"The story of Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of the Christ"

"The thief," she said "The er of evil"

I nodded

" &039;And the thief betrayed his reat teacher and healer, he ithout sin, was killed upon a cross And Ioudas hanged hih all believed that he was dead, the to his followers They claimed he rose from the dead But what the Christian scriptures do not say is what happened on the fourth day

"When the sons of Ioudas heard that the master had risen, they went to the mount of the skull to find the cross where he died, to steal the wood bathed in his blood, to work arcane ics with the blood and the cross But the crosses of the thief, the murderer, and the rabbi had been pulled down, broken up, and piled together, the wood confused andmy blood My hands clenched on the Blood Cross I looked at it, at the wood that was gloith a strange, steady warht they pulled their father&039;s body frorave, and with their witch power and arcane rites they laid his body on the pile of bloody, broken wood Some say they sacrificed the life of their small sister on the wooden pile Soht by their h he was yet dead, his soul given over to the night and the dark Soulless, he walked for two nights, a ravening beast And he could not be killed, though he rotted and the flesh fell fro that soleaned from their sin, his sons drank the blood and ate the flesh of their father And they were changed&039; " Her eyes focused, co to the now from the story she told, the history she recounted Sabina looked back and forth between us A bloody tear trailed down her pale cheek though her face was empty, hard and cold as a carved stone

" &039;They rose, but not as they had hoped Because of this aboic, they were cursed to live only in the night, Sons of Darkness, they and their descendants

They craved blood ever after, rising each night, feeding and killing And after a tieny rose as ravening beasts, bloody murderers The devoveo&039; " Her face was almost pensive Almost, but the difference, the

lackwas unsettling

"As we inherited the curse, so we inherited the wood of the Blood Cross Though it often kills the bearer, burning her unto true-death, with it we can bring ainst blood rites and evil It is our only salvation"

I wasn&039;t sure what she meant Not quite Notreally "The cross" I lifted it, stared at it The soft phosphorescent glow brightened under aze PricklesRick took a half step away, brought hi at the cross I held "The Blood Cross It&039;s wood Wood from the cross of" - I took a breath that ached, cold and dry, like breathing down ashes -

"Christ?"

"Or the wood from the cross of the thief or murderer," Rick said, his voice cool and dry

Sabina didn&039;t answer I set the glowing cross in the box In the velvet bed shaped for it

And pulledonly wood I closed the box and set it behind me on the stone bier

Had I held part of the cross of Christ? Or only bespelled wood? Could I believe anything Sabina had said? Could it possibly be true? The i, I realized, was that she believed it Whatever this cross was h htfast, faster than a nor, perhaps