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| - Mira slowly backed away from the werewolf, positioning herself between the snarling beast and the ancient tome encased in glass on its wooden stand. Sabrewulf let forth a feral howl, but the look in his eyes—darting from Mira to the relic and back again—was clearly human. He knew why she had broken into his secret subterranean library. And he was not pleased. He attacked without warning, lunging low and grasping for her legs. But Mira leapt aside at the last second, scrambling up one of the chamber’s massive fifteen-foot-tall bookcase stacks as if she was scaling a ladder. Sabrewulf hurled himself into the lower shelves, smashing the oak planks and sending books flying. Mira leapt to the top of the next stack where she sat hunched like an angry cat. All of a sudden the chamber’s ceiling shook, and grit rained down from above, dusting her head and shoulders. The lights flickered off and on. Something was walking around in the ballroom above. Something incredibly heavy. Mira knew it was the war-golem Aganos. He and his companion, the warrior Thunder, would find the hidden entrance to this library soon enough…and then Mira would be trapped down here. “I don’t have enough elixir to fight all three,” she thought, clenching her fists inside their gauntlets. She wished she hadn’t thrown away her communication device so rashly. She could have called Porfiry and asked for help. A small army of wendigoes would do nicely right now. The skeletal flesh-eating beasts—when controlled by The Coven—were effective and terrifying predators. With a frustrated bark Sabrewulf attacked the lower part of the bookcase she was on, threatening to tip the whole thing over. Mira jumped to the top of the next stack, skidding across its dusty surface and knocking over some moldy boxes that had been stored there. She quickly took in her surroundings. From up here she could see the entire chamber with its dozens of towering book stacks. Porfiry had told her that this room had been built in the Dark Ages, and it had originally been used as a crypt. At the back of the library stood a stone altar, and hanging above it was a life-size gilded crucifix. Staring at the cross pained her eyes and she looked away. “You and I are not so different,” she called to Sabrewulf who was pacing around beneath her perch, whining like a confused dog who had treed a squirrel. “We are both pariahs.” Glancing down at the top of the stack, she noticed that one of the boxes she had knocked over had spilled its contents: old bones, shards of pottery and something sharp—a claw the size and shape of a meat hook. She picked it up carefully and hid it behind her back, then peered down at Sabrewulf who was glaring up at her with a rapacious gleam in his eyes. “The Coven can use fighters like you,” she continued. “We respect and honor those who have…” She paused and chose her next word carefully, “…changed. Look at me, Konrad. I was once a human being, just like you. Now I am something more. Something better!” Sabrewulf ignored her. He grabbed the stack and started rocking it, back and forth. The massive oak casement swayed under his powerful efforts. He gave one final heave and the stack fell like an enormous domino, knocking over several other stacks; but Mira was already dropping to the floor, the claw held out in front of her. Plunging it deep into Sabrewulf’s neck, she rolled away, scrabbling across the stones, putting some distance between her and the wounded lycanthrope. Dust filled the air from the wreckage of the stacks. Mira crouched low and smiled, revealing her long fangs, for Sabrewulf’s neck was spurting blood like a fountain, and his body was convulsing spasmodically. He slumped to his knees and his tongue lolled from his mouth. Then he fell over in a pool of his own gore and was silent. “That was easy,” Mira said. She got up and sauntered over to the relic. Somehow the glass case had managed to remain unscathed amidst the destruction wrought by Sabrewulf. The book of Khepri—with its golden scarab-faced figure mounted to the cover—glowed beneath the glass. The tome was fairly small…no bigger than a modern hardcover novel. But it exuded a powerful pull. A palpable evil. Mira hesitated. She was suddenly loath to touch it. The scarab beetle, she knew, rolled its ball of dung across the desert sands of northern Africa. And the Egyptians—in the days of the Pharaohs—believed that the god Khepri pushed the sun across the heavens like a giant dung beetle with a golden prize, thus it was associated with death and rebirth. But who or what, she wondered, did the Tsar wish to bring back to life? Her grandfather, an expert on Egyptian lore, had explained to her during her education at the Night Guard headquarters, that Khepri rode in a boat held aloft by Nu—the representation of the primordial watery abyss. The world was encapsulated inside of Nu. So Khepri had the ability to traverse between the two worlds…essentially a dimensional traveler. Perhaps this book had something to do with making portals between dimensions. Mira reached tentatively for the glass case, but was stopped short by a hideous scream ripping through the catacomb. She whirled. Eyes wide. Gauntlets raised. Sabrewulf had gotten to his feet and stood there swaying. He grabbed at the claw sticking from his neck, yanked it out with a chunk of fur still attached, then tossed the bloody mess onto the floor. His eyes had changed…they were glowing green now. And his body seemed to be increasing in mass—his muscles expanding rapidly inside his fur-covered hide. He splayed out his fingers as his claws grew to the length of daggers. “Merda,” said Mira under her breath. She realized what she had done: she’d skewered him with the same werewolf claw that had caused his original metamorphosis. And now she had somehow amplified his transformative powers. Sabrewulf bore into her with his crazed eyes. His black lips curled back, displaying his maw of sharp white teeth. Then he spread his arms and thrust out his chest like an enraged silverback gorilla, and let out an earsplitting howl. Swinging his arms back and forth, he shredded one of the oak bookshelves as if it were made of nothing more than straw. The deranged werewolf paused for a moment, breathing hard, eyes bulging from their sockets…then he sprang at Mira. But she twisted in the air, eluding Sabrewulf’s attack, and he landed on the glass case, shattering it. The book of Khepri sailed across the room and skidded on the flagstones. She dove for the book, grabbing it and clutching it to her breast. Before Sabrewulf could attack again she plunged into the wreckage of the toppled bookshelves, squirming her way between the broken stacks. Sabrewulf bellowed and started tearing the rest of the library apart, spinning around and smashing everything in sight. He was out of his mind now—nothing more than a berserk killing machine bent on murder. Mira crawled as fast as she could through the narrow space between two fallen stacks, making her way to the back of the chamber. But Sabrewulf was right behind her, churning through the bookshelves like a combine blade harvesting a field of wheat. She scrambled from the debris, emerging at the altar. Jumping on top of the flat stone, she reached up and clutched the base of the gilded cross—the touch of it sent a burning shockwave through her hand and arm and she cried out in agony. But the crucifix moved, and the wall behind it slid open to reveal a dark passage. Porfiry, the imp, had done his homework. He’d told her about this secret door in her mission briefing. Mira shot into the black entrance as the door slammed shut automatically behind her; and her eyes adjusted instantly to the darkness as she rushed down a long corridor. After fifty paces the shaft ended, and she saw a flight of steps leading up. Clamping the book under one arm, she sprinted up this twisting stairwell, eventually emerging inside a hidden niche behind the furnace in Sabrewulf’s ballroom-turned-alchemical-lab. She was now opposite the secret bookshelf entrance leading to the underground library. Aganos was there with his back to her, standing near her wrecked Ferrari. The gigantic masked war-golem—a collection of boulders knit together with vines—was trying to forge an opening with his stone club big enough for him to enter the catacombs below. Mira realized she could easily make her escape from this room up the main stairway leading to the balcony. But the instant she took a step forward something kicked her hard in the side, and she tumbled forward, landing face first on the smooth marble floor, her metal palm guards scraping noisily as she slid to a stop. She cursed under her breath. The book of Khepri had flown from her grasp. Springing to her feet she spun around to face her attacker. It was Thunder—the Native American warrior, his muscles rippling as though he were carved from mountain stone. He scraped his axes together, sharpening them for the kill, and squinted at her menacingly. Then he called to Aganos: “This one brings bad medicine, piswéeqiiwn. Her blood is tainted. She is Coven-born.” He started walking toward her, kicking the book of Khepri aside as he came. “Letuchiye myshi!” Mira cried in Russian, and a stream of silver bats shot from her hands, blasting Thunder in the face. But he forged ahead, swinging his axes at the bats like scythes, forcing Mira to back up toward the wall where Aganos waited with his giant club. The stench of death hit Mira’s nostrils the second before she heard the unearthly cries—a crazed yapping that sounded like a hyena crossed with a lunatic. A horde of wendigoes appeared at the arched windows, crawling over the low wall and into the laboratory like spiders, red eyes glowing in their skeletal heads. They resembled decaying elk with the teeth of wolves, and the sight of them made Thunder stop and stare with hatred. “I do not fear these cannibals!” he cried. “Tuman vampira!” Mira cried in the language of the Coven, and a silvery mist sprayed from her hands, shrouding her in a cloak of vapor. She sprinted forward, bending down to snatch up the book of Khepri, and darted from the hall as a pack of wendigoes swarmed on top of Aganos. Another group surrounded Thunder. Mira bounded toward the stairs leading to the balcony; but as she passed the niche by the furnace, Sabrewulf leapt out from where he’d been hiding and gave chase. Rushing out onto the terrace, Mira staggered back as she was hit by a powerful blast of wind. A black military helicopter swooped down, hovering near the second story platform, blinding her with its spotlight. Mira heard Sabrewulf snarling right behind her. Moving without thinking, she put the book’s front cover in her mouth and bit down hard, and then sprang onto the balcony’s narrow railing before leaping at the helicopter. For an instant she was suspended in mid-air, and then her hands found the landing skids and she grasped them. But Sabrewulf had caught her by one foot. He tried to drag her back to the terrace, fighting against the pull of the helicopter, with Mira stretched out like torture victim on a Medieval rack. She felt her hands slipping from the skids. The sound of automatic gunfire blasted from the helicopter. Sabrewulf barked and released Mira from his clutches. Then she was flying away from the mansion, dangling from the helicopter precariously. She twisted her head around and looked back at the balcony—saw the werewolf swarmed by wendigoes. But then the helicopter’s spotlight swiveled, and the castle was lost in darkness. “Welcome aboard,” yelled a voice as Mira swung herself up and through the open gun door. She lay sprawled on the floor of helicopter for a moment, catching her breath. Porfiry was grinning at her from his seat behind a heavy machine gun attached to a swivel mount. She pulled the book from her mouth. Her fangs had made puncture holes in the thick leather cover, but other than that the precious thing was intact. She sat down on the seat across from Porfiry, and put on a headset so that they could hear each other over the noise of the rushing wind and rotors. “I’ve been following you the whole time you’ve been in Germany,” Porfiry said through the headset. “To make certain that you didn’t fail.” “I’m glad you did,” she replied calmly into her microphone. Her hand still burned and throbbed from touching the crucifix, but she clenched her teeth and refused to reveal that she was in pain. “Truly?” he asked, smiling widely and showing his stubby little fangs. “I could have gotten out of there on my own,” she said with a shrug. “But I had some car trouble. At least now I don’t have to walk back to Russia.”
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