A gasp escaped him, equal parts pain and defiance.

The Ursa sank onto her rear haunches and pulled her bloodied paw to her maw. With tiny eyes watching him, she licked each drop of his blood from her claws, huffing with pleasure.

He waited at the far side of the room, next to the damaged gate. The iron smell of his own blood coated his nostrils. He slid one staff down his bleeding back and through his belt, hooking the top through his priestly collar. That left him a staff in one hand, and the other hand free.

He broke the staff across his knee and set both pieces on the ground.

Then he dropped to that same knee, bowed his head, and muttered a prayer, calming his mind. A holy kiss on his pectoral cross burned his lips. His pain drew to a single point, centering him.

He touched his forehead with his index finger. "In nomine Patris ..."

He touched his breastbone. "Et Filii ..."

He touched first his left shoulder, then his right. "Et Spiritus Sancti."

Then he crossed his thumb across his index finger and kissed it.

He gathered up the two pieces of the staff.

The bear came.

He whispered, "By the sign of the cross, deliver me from my enemies, O Lord."

The Ursa thundered toward him, almost upon him.

At the last moment he leaped straight toward the ceiling, flattening his body against the roof as only a Sanguinist could, sliding between the bear's back and the roof. He found narrow passage, only inches to spare.

Below him, the Ursa hit the gate with a tremendous crack. The second rod holding it to the floor broke away, and the gate was now bent more than a foot. If Rhun had been willing to abandon Jordan, he could have escaped.

Instead, he twisted in midair and fell back down upon the dazed beast. Before the Ursa had time to shake her stunned head, he stabbed one half of his broken staff toward one shaggy paw.

His aim was true.

His weight and momentum thrust the silver-tipped piece of the staff through her paw and deep into the hole that had been drilled into the concrete long ago for the gate's iron rod.

She bellowed in pain, from the wound and the precious silver.

Before the beast had a chance to move, Rhun leaped onto her back and rolled across to her other side, shifting the second piece of the broken staff into his right hand.

He drove it through her other paw and into the other hole on the floor, imprisoning both limbs.

The Ursa collapsed forward, her muzzle knocking under the broken gate into the tunnel. With her forelegs splayed to each side, her body formed the sign of a cross.

Rhun had crucified the bear.

She howled.

He jumped atop her head and drew the unbroken staff from behind his back. Kissing the silver end first, he jammed it through her eye and deep into her brain. She twitched and heaved, dying. He read her demise in the vast chambers of her ancient heart.

Dominus vobiscum.

He bowed his head and made the sign of the cross over the beast's massive form. As he finished his prayer, the red glow faded from her remaining eye, leaving it black.

After centuries, she was finally freed of her tainted servitude.

Rhun turned to this nemesis, his face defiant, triumphant in his glory.

9:33 P.M.

Jordan's arms were let free. He stared around, surprised. He swiped his hand down his jacket, as if dusting off the places where Rasputin's congregants had touched him. Would that Russian monk keep his word and let Rhun and him go? If not, he intended to go down fighting side by side with Rhun.

Rasputin stepped back from the cage's gate, his blue eyes wide. "God truly loves you, Rhun. You are indeed His most chosen one."

Rhun knelt down and gathered a rosary, a silver cross, and a flask. Jordan bet they had belonged to another Sanguinist, someone killed by the bear.

Rasputin unlocked the cage.

Rhun's hatred for Rasputin burned so palpably that the monk fell back a step. His minions retreated as if blown by a fierce wind.

"Where has Bathory taken Erin?" Rhun asked, biting off each word.

Rasputin's voice cracked. "To Rome."

Rhun glared, searching the other's face for the truth. "Are we done here with your challenges to God, Grigori?"

Rasputin tilted his head. "Why do you scold me so, Rhun? Your dear Bernard sought to force the prophecy. He thrust you next to Elisabeta in the past, his alleged Woman of Learning ... and her husband, that mighty Warrior. Look how that meddling turned out." He lifted his hands in supplication of forgiveness. "I merely sought to test the prophecy here today. If you were truly one of the prophesied, God would spare you from the bear."

"And here I stand," Rhun said. "But your test is not over, is it? That is why you sent Erin off. You sundered the trio, to test if the three of us would find one another again and fulfill our duties. In this way, you continue to challenge God, as you once challenged the Church."

Rasputin shook his head. "Not at all. I challenge only you, my friend. The one whom the Church loves as much as it hates me."

Turning on a heel, Rasputin swept his minions aside with a wave of his hand, opening up a path to freedom.

Jordan waited for Rhun to reach him. Together, they walked through the gauntlet of Rasputin's dark flock. With each step, Jordan's bite wounds throbbed. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He tensed, waiting for an attack from behind, a final betrayal by Rasputin.

None came.

"Find your woman, Rhun," Rasputin called after them. "Prove that the Church placed its faith in the correct bloodstained hands."

Rhun swept down the tunnel toward the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, not seeming to notice that his own blood pattered onto the frozen ground behind him.

PART V.

And they sang a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood ...

-Revelation 5:9.

54.

October 28, 2:55 P.M., Central European Time.

Rome, Italy.

Erin jerked awake, chased by nightmares. She batted at the darkness around her, but it wouldn't go away. Only now did the full desperation of her plight wash back over and fill her with an icy dread that did little to settle her waking panic. She stretched her eyes wider-not that it did any good. The place where they had imprisoned her was so dark that it made no difference whether her eyes were open or closed.

She pressed her palms against her cheeks, surprised that she had fallen asleep. But the exhaustion and total sensory deprivation here must have finally overwhelmed her.

How long have I been asleep?

She remembered the flight from St. Petersburg by private jet last night. They had kept her hooded the entire time, but she had overheard enough of the conversation around her to know that the destination was Rome. The trip had taken about four hours. Once they had landed, another hour's ride brought them into the predawn city. Erin could hear the sound of honking horns and the shouts and curses in Italian, and smell the Tiber as they crossed one of the city's major bridges.

If she wasn't mistaken, they were heading in the general direction of Vatican City.

What was Bathory planning?

What does she want with me?

The SUV that had shuttled them from the private airstrip eventually stopped and Erin had been dragged, still hooded, into a cold early morning. She could see enough under the lower edge of the hood to determine that it was still before sunup.

Then back underground they went, using stairs, tunnels, and ladders-the last especially difficult when blindfolded. They must have traversed the subterranean world of Rome for a full hour. She was familiar enough with the city to know that a good portion of the ancient world still existed below its surface, in a series of interconnected catacombs, wine cellars, tombs, and secret churches.

But where had she ended up?

At the end of the journey, she had been thrust into this dark cell, with the bloody collar still clamped around her neck. She had sat against the wall for ten minutes, hugging her knees, hearing no one, before she tugged off the hood and discovered the collar unlocked. She removed it and tossed it aside gladly. Shortly after that, she must have fallen asleep.

She raised her fingers now and felt the ring of scabs around her neck.

She always had a good internal clock, and now she wagered it must be somewhere around midafternoon in the world above.

She stretched out her other senses and heard the slow drip of water, the echoing giving her some indication that the space beyond her cell was cavernous. The air smelled old and stale, with a hint of mildew. She reached out and slid her palm along the floor. Stone. Her fingertips picked out chisel marks.

A tomb?

Erin's hands slipped into her jacket pockets, searching. Of course, they had taken her flashlight, but she discovered the scrap of quilt in her pants pocket. At least they let her keep that.

Scooting up onto her hands and knees, she swept her hand from left to right in bigger and bigger arcs, stirring up a thick carpet of dust that made her eyes water and drew several sneezes. When she rubbed the dust between her fingers, it felt like wood slivers and rock dust.

Continuing on in a wider sweep, her fingers bumped against a rounded object. She picked it up and brought it to her lap. Bone. Her fingers filled in what her eyes could not see. A skull. She gulped, but still blindly examined its surfaces: an elongated nose, a small brainpan, long curved incisors.

Not human. Not even strigoi.

A giant cat. Probably a lion.

She sat back, pondering the implications of her discovery. She must be in some sort of Roman circus, an arena where gladiators and slaves fought one another and wild beasts. But the beast to which this skull had belonged had been buried with the remains of the spectacle in which it lost its life.

She paired that information with her knowledge of the path she had just taken through the city.

Toward Vatican City.

She knew of only one cavernous circus in that region. The Vatican itself had been built over half of the blood-drenched place.

The Circus of Nero.

Almost two thousand years ago, Nero had completed the circus started by Caligula. He had built enormous tiers of seating for the audience to watch his brutal games. At first, he sacrificed lions and bears to cheering crowds. But slaughtering animals hadn't been enough for the ancient Romans, so he moved on to gladiators.

And eventually Christians.

The blood of Christian martyrs soon drenched the soil of the arena. They weren't just ripped apart by animals and gladiators. Many were crucified. Saint Peter himself had been nailed upside down on a cross, near the obelisk in the center of the arena.

The circus was also famous for its vast network of underground tunnels, used to shuttle prisoners, animals, and gladiators to and fro. The builders had even installed crude elevators for delivering wild beasts or warriors directly to the sands above.

Erin stared up, picturing how St. Peter's Basilica sat partly on top of this cursed place. During her postgraduate studies in Rome, she had read a text written a century ago-Pagan and Christian Rome by Rodolfo Lanciani. It depicted a map of the two overlapping structures-the horseshoe-shaped Circus below, the cruciform Basilica above.

In the dark, the schematic glowed again in her mind's eye.

If she could get free of her cell, climb up, and reach the outside, she should be very near to St. Peter's Basilica.

With help close at hand.

With renewed determination, she explored the edges of the room. It was about eight by ten feet, with a modern steel gate installed at the front. No weaknesses that she could detect.

She needed help. Two faces flashed before her: one as pale as his eyes were dark, but always shining with noble purpose; the other grinning, with flushed cheeks and laughing eyes the color of the sky.

What might have happened to Rhun and Jordan in that time?

She shied away from that thought.

Not in the dark.

After what seemed an eternity, Erin noticed a light approaching. She jammed her face next to the bars. Four figures and what looked like a huge dog were walking toward her down a stone tunnel, one carrying a flashlight. The dog walked next to a woman with long hair.

Bathory and her grimwolf.

Behind them, two taller figures who looked like brothers dragged along a third man, his arms slung over their shoulders. At the sight, her throat closed up. Was that Jordan? Or Rhun?

Reaching the cell without a word, Bathory unlocked the door and swung it open.

Erin tensed. She wanted to charge out, but she wouldn't make it two steps down that tunnel.