Innocent Blood by James Rollins, Rebecca Cantrell Read Free Book Online Page B

he had loosed this monster once again upon the unsuspecting world.
    Still, he pictured her as he once knew her, so full of life, always in sunlight. He had always called her Elisabeta, but history now christened her by another name, a darker epitaph.
    Elizabeth Bathory —the Blood Countess.
     
    2:22 A.M. CET
    Rome, Italy
    As befit her noble station, the apartment Elisabeta had chosen was luxurious. Thick red velvet drapes cloaked tall arched windows. The oak floor beneath her cold feet glowed a soft gold and breathed warmth. She settled into a leather chair, the hide finely tanned, with the comforting scent of the long dead animal under the chemical smell.
    On the mahogany table in front of her, a white taper sputtered, near to expiring. She held a fresh candle to its dying flame. Once the wick caught fire, she pressed the tall taper into the soft wax of the old one. She leaned close to the small flame, preferring firelight to the harsh glare that blazed in modern Rome.
    She had claimed these rooms after killing the former tenants. Afterward, she had ransacked drawers full of unfamiliar objects, trying to fathom this strange century, attempting to piece together a lost civilization by studying its artifacts.
    But her clues to this age were not all to be found in drawers.
    Across the table, candlelight flickered over uneven piles, each gathered from the pockets and bodies of her past kills. She turned her attention to a stack crowned by a silver cross. She reached toward it but kept her fingers from the fiery heat of the metal and the blessing it carried.
    She let a single fingertip caress the silver. It burned her, but she did not care—for another suffered far more because of its loss.
    She smiled, the pain drawing her into memory.
    Strong arms had lifted her from the coffin of wine, pulling her from her slumber, awakening her. Like any threatened beast, she had stayed limp, knowing stealth to be her best advantage.
    As her eyes opened, she recognized her benefactor as much from his white Roman collar as from his dark eyes and hard face.
    Father Rhun Korza.
    It was the same man who had tricked her into this coffin.
    But how long ago?
    As he held her, she let her arm fall to the ground. The back of her hand came to rest against a loose stone.
    She smiled up at him. He smiled back, love in his shining eyes.
    With unearthly speed, she smashed the stone against his temple. Her other hand slipped up his sleeve, where he always kept his silver knife. She palmed it before he dropped her. Another blow, and he fell.
    She quickly rolled atop him, her teeth seeking the cold flesh of his white throat. Once she pierced his skin, his fate lay at her mercy. It took strength to stop drinking before she killed him, patience to empty half the wine from the coffin before she sealed him inside it. But she must. Fully immersed in wine, he would merely sleep until rescued, as she had done.
    Instead, she had left only a little wine, knowing he would soon wake in his lonely tomb and slowly starve, as she had while imprisoned in her castle tower.
    Lifting her finger from his stolen cross, she allowed herself a moment of cold satisfaction. As she moved her arm, her fingers dragged over a battered shoe atop another pile.
    This tiny bit of leather marked her first kill in this new age.
    She savored that moment.
    As she fled the dark catacombs—blind to where she was, when she was—rough stones cut through the thin leather soles of her shoes and sliced her feet. She paid them no heed. She had this one chance of escape.
    She knew not where she ran to, but she recognized the feel of holy ground underfoot. It weakened her muscles and slowed her steps. Still, she felt more powerful than she ever had. Her time in the wine had strengthened her, how much she only dared to guess.
    Then the sound of a heartbeat had stopped her headlong flight through the dark tunnels.
    Human.
    The heart thrummed steady and calm. It had not yet sensed her presence. Faint with