Blood Brothers: A Short Story Exclusive by James Rollins, Rebecca Cantrell Page A

compressed in a thin line as coffins went into the ground. Good soldiers, every one.
    He was a by-the-book commander and had handled Jordan’s debriefing faultlessly. In turn, Jordan did his best to stick to the lie that the Vatican had prepared: the mountain had collapsed in an earthquake, and everyone died. He and Erin had been in a corner that hadn’t collapsed and were rescued three days later by a Vatican search party.
    Simple enough.
    It was untrue. And unfortunately, he was a bad liar, and his CO suspected that he hadn’t revealed everything that had happened in Masada or after his rescue.
    Jordan had already been taken off active duty and assigned psychiatric counseling. Someone was watching him all the time, waiting to see if he would crack up. What he wanted most was to simply get back out in the field and do his job. As a member of the Joint Expeditionary Forensic Facility in Afghanistan, he’d worked and investigated military crime scenes. He was good at it, and he wanted to do it again.
    Anything to keep busy, to keep moving.
    Instead, he stood at attention beside yet another coffin, the cold from the marble floor seeping into his toes. Sanderson’s sister shivered next to him. He wished he could give her his uniform jacket.
    He listened to the military chaplain’s somber tones more than his words. The priest had only twenty minutes to get through the ceremony. Arlington had many funerals every day, and they set a strict schedule.
    He soon found himself outside of the chapel and at the gravesite. He had done this march so many times that his feet found their way to this grave without much thought. Sanderson’s casket rested on snow-dusted brown earth beside a draped hole.
    A cold wind blew across the snow, curling flakes on the surface into tendrils, like cirrus clouds, the kind of high clouds so common in the desert where Sanderson had died. Jordan waited through the rest of the ceremony, listened to the three-rifle volley, the bugler playing “Taps,” and watched the chaplain give the folded flag to Sanderson’s mother.
    Jordan had endured the same scene for each of his lost teammates.
    It hadn’t gotten any easier.
    At the end, Jordan shook Sanderson’s mother’s hand. It felt cold and frail, and he worried that he might break it. “I am deeply sorry for your loss. Corporal Sanderson was a fine soldier, and a good man.”
    “He liked you.” His mother offered him a sad smile. “He said you were smart and brave.”
    Jordan worked his frozen face to match that smile. “That’s good to hear, ma’am. He was smart and brave himself.”
    She blinked back tears and turned away. He moved to take a step after her, although he didn’t know what he would say, but before he could, the chaplain laid a hand on his shoulder.
    “I believe we have business to discuss, Sergeant.”
    Turning, Jordan examined the young chaplain. The man wore dress blues just like Jordan’s uniform, except that he had crosses sewn onto the lapels of his jacket. Looking closer now, Jordan saw his skin was too white, even for winter, his brown hair a trifle too long, his posture not quite military. As the chaplain stared back at him, his green eyes didn’t blink.
    The short hairs rose on the back of Jordan’s neck.
    The chill of the chaplain’s hand seeped through his glove. It wasn’t like a hand that had been out too long on a cold day. It was like a hand that hadn’t been warm for years.
    Jordan had met many of his ilk before. What stood before him was an undead predator, a vampiric creature called a strigoi . But for this one to be out in daylight, he must be a Sanguinist—a strigoi who had taken a vow to stop drinking human blood, to serve the Catholic Church and sustain himself only on Christ’s blood—or more exactly, on wine consecrated by holy sacrament into His blood.
    Such an oath made this creature less dangerous.
    But not much.
    “I’m not so sure that we have any business left,” Jordan said.
    He