Erin took a few more steps before prompting, "Since that time ...?"

Bathory's fingers dropped from her neck. "We were penniless, persecuted. Then a stranger came offering a path to survival, to lost riches, and also to revenge." She held up her hand, one finger of which bore a large ruby ring. "He even returned some of our family treasures and heirlooms, rescued them in secret before they were lost forever. But such noble generosity came with a stiff price: one woman from every generation had to be bound in servitude to a hard master, chained to His painful will. I am the only woman of my generation. So it fell to me, whether I wished for it or not."

This last was said with a bitterness that stung.

Aghast, Erin fell silent for several steps. They reached a closed door, and Bathory unlocked it to reveal a dingy stairwell. She took a flashlight from her pocket and shone it up. Steps ascended for several stories. It would be a long climb.

"Come."

Bathory pulled Erin into the stairwell behind her as the grimwolf bounded ahead. With each step, the collar pinched against Erin's throat. Fresh blood dripped down her neck. She tried to block the pain out of her mind, struggling to think of some way to escape.

The grimwolf had reached the next flight. The landing ahead had a door. This might be the only chance she would get.

As they reached the next landing, she took a deep breath, then slipped into a quick crouch, sweeping out with her leg, catching Bathory across the knees.

As the woman fell back toward the steep stairs, Erin yanked the leash free from her grip. Bathory went tumbling and crashing below. Erin twisted to the side. The spikes still dug painfully into her neck, but she didn't care. If she could get through that door and somehow seal it, she might be able to lose her captors in the maze of the Hermitage.

Higher up on the stairs, the wolf yelped, as if feeling his mistress's pain.

Glowing red eyes turned to stare down at Erin.

She fell back against the door and fumbled at it with her cuffed hands. She struggled to turn the doorknob-and despaired.

Locked.

9:16 P.M.

Forced down the hallway by a squad of Grigori's acolytes, Jordan smelled the giant, reeking bear. As he marched, he pictured the human skull that had rolled out of its cage, and glanced sidelong at Rhun.

The priest nodded. He knew the truth, too.

Rasputin planned to feed them to the bear.

Jordan had been waiting for a clear moment, but the bastards surrounded him like a wall, less than a step away on all sides. He knew their strength, and his own weakness. He'd lost too much blood to put up much of a fight. Hell, he could barely walk.

Was this how he was going to die, as bear chow? He recalled his desperate plea not to meet his end at the fangs of Grigori's minions. That prayer had been answered, and he was, oddly, still grateful. He would take the maw of the bear over the fangs of a strigoi any day.

Then he pictured Erin's face, remembered her lips, her heated hands on his skin. He had to get free. He had to find her. Every second that passed, Bathory dragged her farther from Rasputin's domain and closer to her death. He'd seen that look in Bathory's eyes. She intended to kill Erin the minute she could do so without disobeying Rasputin.

All to hurt Rhun.

The tunnel ended a short way ahead, the stench of bear overpowering. Jordan spotted the elaborate gate depicting a woodland forest. He and Rhun were pushed forward until they were pressed against its fancy iron scrollwork.

Inside the cage, the bear slumbered on. Maybe it would be too tired to eat them.

Rasputin banged the flat of his palms against the gate, sounding the dinner bell.

The creature lumbered to its feet.

It was feeding time.

9:18 P.M.

Fueled by raw fury, Bathory tucked into a roll as she tumbled headlong down the stairs, pushed by that damned archaeologist. She felt each sharp step against her back, until she finally hit a landing and sprawled out.

Above her, two thuds sounded. She heard a low growl, knew it was aimed at the cursed archaeologist, and felt a wash of satisfaction emanating from Magor, the pleasure of a predator who had cornered its prey.

"Easy!" Bathory called out, sharing in the wolf's joy. It helped dull the pain as she climbed to her feet. She would have some nasty bruises, but nothing serious. She had lived so long with pain she barely noticed it.

She climbed with determination to the landing above. Magor had pinned the woman against the battered door, a paw on either side of her shoulders, his teeth bared at her neck. She felt his longing to tear out her throat. His claws scored the concrete wall.

The archaeologist watched him with wide eyes. She looked ready to faint.

In fact, Bathory was surprised she hadn't.

"Not yet, my pet." She retrieved the end of the leather leash and drew the collar tight. "When we can, I promise you can play with her as long as you like."

Cowed and on shaking legs, the archaeologist trudged after her up the next flight of stairs, her shoulders low.

"Such despair and hopelessness," Bathory taunted. "This isn't what you expected when you started out on this bold quest in Jerusalem, is it? You thought your life might have value because of the prophecy?"

They reached a side door, and she unlocked it before pulling the woman out onto the empty street. Wind ruffled the sable fur of Bathory's coat.

"What prophecy are you talking about?" the archaeologist asked, feigning ignorance ... badly.

Lying took practice, and her prisoner clearly hadn't had much of that.

Moving suddenly, Bathory grabbed her shoulder and slammed her against the side of a silver SUV that was parked roadside.

Magor growled.

"Don't even try to lie to me. I am not a fool. I don't believe in prophecy. So don't think your life has value to me because of a thousand-year-old poem."

The woman struggled to keep her feet on the icy cobblestones. Hauling the leash up, Bathory forced her higher up onto her tiptoes. If the woman should slip, the choke collar might kill her.

Bathory glanced up and down the empty street. No witnesses. But Rasputin would still know. She was not safe from him until she was well off Russian soil.

She loosened the leash, opened the SUV's door, and shoved the archaeologist into the backseat. Magor jumped in after her, pushing his muzzle close to the prisoner's throat. A tongue, frothing and thick with drool, licked the blood dribbling from under the spiked collar.

The archaeologist smothered a scream. She was a brave one, Bathory thought, but she had limits, too.

"Easy, Magor. If the Cardinal believes that she has a special destiny, she might have some use for us yet as a pawn in the game to come."

The woman twisted her face away from the wolf, her voice tight and hard. "I don't think the Cardinal cares that much about me."

"Then you don't know this Cardinal very well." Bathory smiled. "Either way, remember that the prophecy never specified the condition you must be in when the book opens."

Bathory read the understanding, the fear, in the archaeologist's eyes.

Smart.

Maybe she was indeed the Woman of Learning.

"We will probably need you alive," Bathory cruelly acknowledged. "But unwounded?"

She shook her head and smiled.

No.

53.

October 27, 9:20 P.M., MST Under St. Petersburg, Russia Standing in the tunnel outside the cage's gate, Rhun watched the Ursa, and the Ursa watched Rhun. Her red eyes glinted with old malice, her hatred of him undiminished across the past century. Drool slavered from her muzzle, and her impossibly long tongue slid across lips as black as rubber.

He suspected she remembered how he tasted. His leg throbbed and threatened to buckle. His limb remembered her, too.

Grigori wrapped his fingers around the branch of a wrought-iron oak sculpted into the gate. "If God loves you, Rhun, He will help you to escape the bear. Remember the lesson of Daniel and the lions? Perhaps your belief will close her mouth."

Rhun didn't think it would be that simple.

He studied the tiles that covered the chamber where the tunnels met, finding no break, no other way out. He shifted his attention to the iron gates.

When unlocked, they parted down the middle into two halves, opening like French doors. Two thick iron rods, one on each side of the gateway, had been drilled into the concrete and attached each side of the gate to the floor and ceiling. Less than an inch of a gap surrounded the gateway, and the elaborate patterns woven through the bars left openings no bigger than a few inches.

Once Rhun went into the room, there would be no escape.

Jordan dropped a warm hand to his shoulder. Rhun met his questioning blue eyes. The soldier glanced surreptitiously to Grigori and the strigoi. It was plain that he was asking if they should make their stand here, go down fighting before Rhun could be thrown in with the bear.

Affection rose in his breast. Jordan was a true Warrior of Man to the end. "Thank you," Rhun whispered. "But no."

Jordan stepped back, his eyes scared-but less for his own safety than for Rhun's.

Unable to face that raw humanity any longer, Rhun turned to the gate. "I am ready, Grigori."

Acolytes grabbed Jordan's arms; others held Rhun in place while Grigori unlocked the thick steel lock and wrenched open the door.

Rhun was shoved bodily through the gate and into the cage.

The Ursa's head swung toward him.

"Yes, my love," Grigori called. "Sport with him as long as you like."

Keeping back and staying low, Rhun circled her. The room was large, about fifty feet by fifty. He must use that space wisely. Overhead, the creature's shoulders brushed the ceiling. Rhun could not jump over her.

A twig cracked under his shoe, releasing the sharp smell of spruce, the only natural scent in the cavern. He drank it in.

Then the Ursa lunged.

Her giant paw drove through the air with unnatural speed.

He had expected it. Long ago, she had always led with her left paw. He dove under her claws and rolled. The movement took him to the center of the room.

Ahead, a glint caught his eye. He ran forward and snatched it from the floor. A holy flask. Another Sanguinist had been sacrificed here. As he searched, he discovered other evidence: a pectoral cross, a silver rosary, a scrap of black cassock.

"May God have mercy on your soul, Grigori," Rhun called out.

"God forsook my soul long ago." Grigori rattled his gate. "As He did yours."

The Ursa spun to face Rhun.

He swept the chamber swiftly with his eyes. If the murdered Sanguinist had been armed, perhaps his or her weapons remained. If he could- The Ursa charged again.

He stood his ground.

The floor shook under her paws. He listened as her old heart stirred to passion again, beating hard.

When her carrion breath touched his cheek, he dropped flat to his back, letting her momentum carry her across his body. The sea of dark fur passed inches from his face. He lifted his own cross and let it drag across her stomach, setting her fur to smoldering.

She shrieked.

He had inflicted no serious damage, but he had given the bear a reminder that he was no mosquito to be squashed.

Jordan cheered from outside the gates.

Rhun rolled across the floor, his hands seeking the objects he had spotted before the attack. Two wooden staffs lay on the floor, both ends tipped with silver. He knew those unique weapons. His brother of the cloth-Jiang-had died here. Rhun had watched him practice with those staffs for hours, deep below the necropolis of Rome, where the Sanguinists made their home.

Still addled by the burn, the Ursa swept her head from side to side.

Rhun crouched perfectly still and measured the sides of his prison with his eyes.

With the hint of a plan in his mind, he darted to the iron gate that was farthest from Grigori.

The Ursa caught his movement and barreled toward him.

Leaping and twisting at the last moment, he cracked one of the staffs across her muzzle and rolled to the side.

Her enormous bulk plowed straight into the gate, knocking one of the two iron support rods loose from the floor. That corner of the gate bent, creating an opening too small for Rhun to squeeze through, but such an escape was not his intent.

He led her around toward where Grigori and Jordan watched the blood sport.

She came after him. He performed the same maneuver, but this time she skidded and stopped less than an inch from the gate. Her paw swatted through the air and caught him across the back as he leaped away. A glancing blow, but it cut through his leather armor and ripped into the flesh of his back.