Prologue

Rouen, France

30 May 1431

Out of breath, feeling as though the hounds of Hell pursued him, Roux whipped his horse mercilessly. The beast barely kept its feet on the muddy road. Bloody slaver covered its muzzle, streaking its neck and chest.

Straw‐thatched houses lined the road, interrupted by the occasional stone building. He guided the horse between them, yanking the bridle hard and causing the animal to stumble.

“They’re going to kill her,” Durand Lassois had reported only a few days earlier. The big warrior had tears running down his scarred face and trickling through his black beard.

“It’s the damned English, Roux. They’re trying her as a heretic. They’re going to convict her and burn her at the stake. There’s nothing we can do.”

Roux hadn’t believed it. The girl was marked for important things. She was a guardian of innocents, a true power to be reckoned with in the mortal world. The English were greedy bastards and fools besides.

He still didn’t believe the girl would be killed now. He’d sensed the strength within her.

Seventeen years old and she’d led men into battle at the besieged city of Orléans two years ago.

That had been the beginning of a string of victories that had lifted the English yoke from French necks. Her efforts, her conviction and her leadership brought the crown to the dauphin and allowed him to be crowned Charles VII.

Hypnotized by the power and a chance to negotiate peace, the new king had failed to act quickly and lost the tide of the war. The girl had been wounded during the attack on Paris. The French army never regained its momentum. She was captured during the attempt to lift the siege at Compiegne in May of last year. For the ensuing twelve months, the English at Rouen had held her.

Another half‐dozen turns and traffic choked the roads leading to the market. Oxen-pulled carts, horses and asses stood in disarray. French peasants who had buried their hatred of the English in fear for their lives and armored English soldiers who pursued French maidens shared the road.

Roux jerked the reins and brought his horse to a stop. The flashing hooves threw mud over bystanders as the exhausted animal sagged to its rear haunches. Roux vaulted from the horse and landed in the mud.

Garin brought his mount to a similar sliding halt inches shy of colliding with Roux. The younger man’s dismount was not nearly so elegant. His foot caught in a stirrup and he tumbled into the mud. When he rose, he was covered. He cursed in German as he tried to brush the muck from him.

Four inches over six feet in height, Roux’s apprentice drew immediate attention because of his size. His straight black hair hung to his broad shoulders. Handsome features and his square‐cut jaw, devoid of a beard because he was vain about his looks, drew a second glance from every female in the crowd. Magnetic black eyes held challenge and ferocity.

Gathering his riding cloak about him, Roux strode through the crowd. Grudgingly, people parted before him. He carried himself like a lord, though he was no such thing.

He looked like an old man, with white hair and a white goatee. His skin was fair, red from the sun and the wind during the long ride. Though not of the best quality, his clothing—pants, blouse and knee‐high boots—showed signs of being well kept. At his side, he carried a saber with a worn handle.

Garin trailed Roux, swaggering through the crowd. He wore a long broadsword scabbarded down his back so the hilt jutted up over his right shoulder.

Only a moment later, Roux stood at the front of the crowd.

The English had tied the maiden to a pillar in the marketplace. She stood atop a pile of wood and more logs were piled up to her calves. Her executioner had also outfitted her with faggots, small bundles of sticks and straw that were tied to her calves, thighs, hands, torso and hair.

Her death was intended to be cruel and painful.

Sickness twisted Roux’s stomach. Steeling himself, he watched with grim expectation.

She will not burn, he told himself. She will not die.

This is not her destiny.

Still, for all that was in him to believe, he doubted. The young woman had always been stronger in her convictions. Her faith was one of the things that had drawn him to her.

That, and the raw, unbridled power that clung to her. Roux had never been able to withstand the pull of that force.

As she faced death, clad in the same male clothing she’d worn so proudly in battle, she stood solemn and unshaken.

She didn’t come here to die, Roux told himself. She’s going to be all right.

“We can’t just stand here and let them kill her,” Garin said softly at his side.

“What do you propose, apprentice?” Roux demanded. “Should we rush in, you and I, and slay all the English warriors and free her?”

“No. We can’t do that. They would only kill us.” Garin’s answer was immediate.

Pierre Cauchon, the presiding judge, stepped forward and read out the charges. Stern and dogmatic, he accused the warrior maiden of heresy and of being opposed to the church. He went on to add that she was a bloodthirsty killer and demon possessed besides. No mention was made of his own part in the bloody Cabochien Revolt in 1413

or his defense of the assassination of the duke of Orléans in 1407.

At the bailiff’s command, soldiers lit fires along the pyre. Flames eagerly leaped up and twisted through the jumble of wood. The stench of smoke filled the air.

The young woman cried out, but not for help. She asked only that her friends hold up a crucifix so that she could look upon it. Two men did. In a strong, brave voice, the maid prayed to her Savior, asking for the aid of the saints.

You can’t just let her die, Roux thought. Not like this. She’s meant for more than this.

His promise to her and to himself haunted him.

Unable to stand anymore, Roux surged forward. “Enough!” he cried, and he put all the long years of command he’d learned into his voice.

Heads turned in his direction. Several townspeople drew back from him fearfully as the English soldiers converged on him with drawn swords and maces.

Roux drew his saber with a rasp of metal. “Set her free!” he thundered. “By God, you’ll set her free or you’ll know the fiery pits of Hell yourselves for judging her so harshly!”

Before he could take another step, something crashed into the back of Roux’s skull.

The English soldiers took away his saber and kicked him dozens of times, breaking his ribs and the fingers of his right hand. They stopped short of killing him.

While Roux was being beaten, the English commander took the maiden warrior’s famed sword and raised it high. The broadsword, plain and unadorned, gleamed in the firelight. He put the tip against the ground and his foot at the center of the blade.

The broadsword shattered, falling into fragments in the mud.

Peasant and soldier pushed forward and snatched the shards from the trampled mud.

The commander tossed the hilt deep into the crowd.

Smoke obscured almost everything by then, but Roux still saw her. She continued praying until the end, until finally the flames climbed her body and she sagged against the restraints.

Roux wept, barely hanging on to consciousness.

“Did you see it?” an English soldier shouted suddenly. The frantic note in his voice drew the attention of his comrades away from Roux. “Did you see the dove? A white dove left her body at the moment she died!”

Consternation filled the crowd. They drew back from the blazing pyre. The French separated from the English. In that moment, Roux couldn’t hold on any longer. He sunk into familiar inky blackness.

1

Lozère, France

Present Day

She was being followed.

Annja Creed knew that from experience. She’d been followed before. Stalked, actually.

On two occasions—once in Venice and once outside Berlin—the experience had ended in violence.

“Wait,” Annja told her young guide.

Avery Moreau, seventeen years old and French, his hair a thick black shock and his demeanor sulky, stopped. Thin and lanky, dressed in his American jeans, red pullover and gray Nike hoodie, he didn’t look as if he’d be particularly helpful in a physical encounter.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I want to look at this.” Annja stood in front of the shop window and gazed with interest.

The young man glanced at the window, then back at her. “You’re thinking about going fishing?”

For the first time, Annja took her attention from the reflection of the two men following her and really looked at the shop window. Pierre’s Rods And Flies was written in French.

It was funnier, Annja supposed, in English. Kind of an unintentional double entendre.

But it was a bad cover to stop and check out the guys following her.

“In case I stay up on the mountain,” Annja said.

“You’re going to stay in the mountains?”

Actually, Annja wasn’t planning on that. She had a day hike in mind. But she was getting a later start than she’d have liked. Finding provisions and supplies in Lozère was proving more difficult than she had expected.

“I’m not planning to,” Annja replied, “but I’ve learned to be ready for anything.”

The two men following her were in their early twenties, no more than two or three years younger than she was. They looked like hard guys off the street, dressed in leather jackets and jeans. Attitude rolled off them in waves. An old woman carrying a bag of groceries crossed the street to avoid them.

They weren’t, Annja decided, the kind of guys who normally hung out in a small tourist town like Lozère. Metropolitan arenas seemed to be their more likely hunting grounds.

They looked like the kind of men a single woman in a strange place would do better to avoid.

She wasn’t afraid, though. At five feet ten inches, athletic and full‐figured, and in shape from running, climbing, and martial arts, she knew she could take care of herself. Her chestnut‐colored hair was tied back. Wraparound sunglasses hid her amber‐green eyes.

However, she was worried about the young man with her. Avery Moreau didn’t look as if he’d had to fight thieves in his short lifetime.

What are you doing here? Annja wondered. Why would anyone be following me?

“What will you do with fishing gear?” Avery asked.

“If I get trapped in the mountains,” Annja explained, “by a storm or by bears—” She looked at him. “You did say there were bears, didn’t you?”

He shook his head. “Wolves. I said there were wolves.”

Annja nodded. “Right. Wolves, then.”

The two men weren’t going away. They stood across the street and tried to look inconspicuous. It didn’t work. They might as well have been standing there with fireworks going off and wearing Scottish kilts in a Marilyn Monroe pose.

Who are you? Annja wondered.

She’d been in France for two days. She was rooming at a bed and breakfast outside of Lozère. So far, no one had bothered her.

But that was before she’d come into town and started asking questions about La Bête.

The creature was one of French legend and its mystery had never been solved. She’d come to Lozère in an attempt to solve it.

And to get paid by Chasing History’s Monsters, the cable show she did occasional pieces for to subsidize legitimate work in her field. It was strange how archaeologists could get paid more for something that remained mysterious, riddled with myth, and might never have been factual at all than for an honest look at history.

During the past two days, however, the local populace had learned that “the insane American woman”—they didn’t know how well she spoke French or how acute her hearing was—was seeking the legendary monster.

“Well?” Avery prompted. He acted surly, as if he had something else he’d rather be doing.

“What?” Annja asked.

“Did you want me to take you to your car?” Avery had arranged to rent a truck that Annja would drive up into the Cévennes Mountains.

“In a moment.” Annja nodded toward the shop. “Let’s go inside.”

She led the way, opening the door and causing the little bell over it to tinkle. Avery followed glumly.

Inside, the shop had a wooden floor and a simple demeanor. Shelves built into the walls held lures, line, reels and other fishing gear. Racks in the center of the room held up waterproof pants, vests and shirts. Farther back, displays of rubber boots, waders, seines and other equipment filled the floor.

“May I help you, miss?” a tiny old man behind the scarred counter asked. He polished his glasses on his shirt, then blinked at her and waited.

“Yes,” Annja replied in French. “I’m looking for a tent pole.”

“You don’t have a tent,” Avery said.

The old man pointed to one of the back corners.

Annja spotted a bin containing wooden dowels an inch in diameter and four feet long.

They were treated and varnished, improving their strength against wear and the elements.

Retreating to the back of the shop, Annja took one of the rods from the bin. She spun it experimentally for a moment, moving it from one hand to the other, and found the dowel acceptable.

She returned to the counter. “This is great. I’ll take it.”

The old man rang up the price.

Annja paid and thanked him, then asked, “Is there a back way out of here?”

“Mademoiselle?” The old man’s gaze told her he didn’t think he’d heard her right.

“A back way.” Annja pointed to the rear of the store. “A way out into the alley?”

“Yes, but why would you want to—?”

Annja laid a hundred euros on the counter. “Please,” she said.

The old man pointed with one hand and picked up the money with the other.

Annja grabbed Avery by the arm, guiding her guide for the moment.

“What are you doing?” he protested, pushing her hand away.

“Trying to keep you from getting hurt,” she answered.

“Hurt?” Avery brushed at his hoodie, smoothing the lines.

“Didn’t you see the two guys across the street?” Annja threaded her way through the displays at the back of the shop.

A small metal door let out into the alley. She opened the door and went through.

“No,” Avery said defensively.

Gazing back, Annja saw that the two men were in motion, heading for the shop. “The two guys who were following us?” she persisted.

Avery shook his head.

He’s just a kid, Annja reminded herself. He’s probably never seen a mugging in his life.

She took a quick breath.

“Okay,” she said, “there were two guys following us for the last three blocks.” It might have been longer than that. She wasn’t sure. She was still jetlagged from the long trip from New York.

“Oh,” Avery said, sounding confused.

The alley was narrow and the walls of the two adjacent buildings were crooked. Stones jutted out in a random pattern.

“I want you to go to the car,” Annja said.

“Aren’t you coming?” Avery looked worried.

“In a second.” Annja slid her backpack from her shoulders and handed it to him.

The bag carried her cameras, journals, maps and pocket PC. Replacing those items would cost a few thousand dollars, but she figured they were safer in Avery’s hands than hers for the next few minutes.

“Take this to the car. I’ll be there shortly.” Annja put a hand on his thin shoulder and gave him a gentle push. “Please, I want you to be safe.”

Clasping the backpack to his chest, Avery looked uncertain.

“I’ll be there,” Annja told him. “In a minute. Now go.”

Reluctantly, the young man left. In a handful of steps he was out of sight behind the twisting alley walls.

Threading her tent pole through her belt, Annja turned toward the back wall of the fishing shop. An accomplished rock climber, she skillfully scaled the wall and came to a rest atop the doorway. Turning around so that she faced the alley was difficult, but she managed.

She took the tent pole in both hands and waited.

HENRI FOULARD GAZED around the fishing shop. He didn’t see the American woman anywhere. Growing anxious, he trotted to the back of the shop and looked through the displays.

“She’s not here,” Jean said.

“I see that,” Foulard snapped. At that moment, the cell phone in his pocket rang. He answered it at once. “Yes.”

“Do you have the woman?” Corvin Lesauvage’s tone was calm and controlled. He always sounded that way. But to the trained ear, his words held a dangerous edge.

“Not yet,” Foulard answered. His head swiveled, searching desperately for the woman.

“I want to talk to her.”

“I know. You will.” Foulard pushed through a rack of jackets.

“If she knows something about La Bête that I do not know, I must be made aware of it.”

“Soon,” Foulard promised.

“Do not disappoint me.”

Foulard could not imagine anything in the world that he would want to do less.

Lesauvage was a violent man with an unforgiving nature. People who crossed him died. Foulard had helped bury some of them in shallow graves. Others he had chopped into pieces and fed to the fish in the Seine.

The phone clicked dead.

Replacing the device in his pocket, Foulard turned to the old man whose owlish eyes were narrow with disapproval. Foulard knew the old man was not as annoyed as he was.

“Where’s the woman?” Foulard demanded.

The old man gripped the lapels of his vest. “You need to leave my shop.”

Foulard crossed to the man in three angry steps.

Reaching beneath the counter, the old man took out a phone. “I will call the police.”

Without pause, Foulard slapped the phone from the old man’s hand, then grabbed a fistful of his vest and yanked him close. Effortlessly, Foulard slipped the 9 mm pistol from beneath his windbreaker and put the muzzle against the old man’s forehead.

“The woman,” Foulard repeated in a deadly voice.

Trembling, the old man pointed to the rear of the shop.

Rounding the counter, Foulard stomped the phone to pieces. “Don’t call the police. I’m cutting you a break by letting you live. Understand?”

The old man nodded.

Foulard shoved him back against the shelves. The old man stayed there.

“She spotted us,” Jean said.

“You think?” Foulard shook his head and started for the back door. He kept his pistol in his hands.

“It’s hard to stay hidden in a town this small,” Jean said as he drew his own pistol. He held it like a familiar pet, with love and confidence.

“Lesauvage wants the woman alive,” Foulard reminded him, knowing how his cohort loved to kill.

“Maybe he won’t want to keep her that way for long,” Jean said hopefully.

“She’s just a television person,” Foulard said. “A historian. She won’t be any trouble.

Don’t break her.”

Jean grinned cruelly. “Maybe we can just scare her a little.”

Foulard grinned at the thought. “Maybe.”

Together, they passed through the back door.

Foulard stood at the doorway.

Two paths lay before him. He didn’t know which direction the woman went. Avery Moreau should have left him a clue. The boy knew what he was supposed to do.

“Should we split up?” Jean asked.

Foulard didn’t want to do that. He didn’t like the possibilities that existed when Jean was out of his sight.

Then a cell phone chirped.

At first, Foulard believed that his employer was calling back. Lesauvage could be an impatient man and a demanding taskmaster. Then, his hand on the phone in his pocket, he discovered that the device wasn’t ringing and didn’t even sound like his phone.

The noise came from above.

He looked up and his pistol followed his eyes.

AVERY PRESSED HIMSELF against the alley wall. Even though he hadn’t been running, his lungs constricted and his own breathing sounded loud to his ears. His heartbeat was a snare drum in his heaving chest.

He felt bad at having left the woman. Of course he had known the two men were there. He had contacted them to let them know she was seeking to uncover the mysteries of La Bête.

Corvin Lesauvage, the man Avery had gone to with his own problems only weeks ago, was interested in La Bête. Everyone in Lozère knew that. In fact, most who lived around the Cévennes Mountains knew of Lesauvage’s interests.

When he’d first offered his services to Annja Creed, Avery had mentioned that she should meet Lesauvage, that he was something of an authority on the subject. She had declined, saying she wanted to form her own opinions before she talked to anyone who might influence her views.

Avery grew afraid for the woman. He knew the kind of men who followed her.

Lesauvage maintained two kinds of businesses. The two men on the woman’s trail were of the dangerous kind.

Squeezing his eyes shut, willing himself not to cry, Avery thought of his father. Surely his father was cold in his grave now. The funeral had been two—no, three—weeks ago. He’d lost all sense of time. It was June now.

Pressing tight against the wall, Avery waited. He concentrated on the fact that what he was doing would help him get revenge for his father’s murder. The policeman who had killed Gerard Moreau would not bask in his glory much longer. He would freeze in a grave during winter. Avery had sworn that.

A cell phone chirped down the alley. It was her phone. He breathed a sigh of relief to know she was still there. He’d been worried she’d figured out he’d led the men to her.

More than anything, he couldn’t fail Lesauvage.

Then a gunshot shattered the quiet locked in the narrow alley.

OKAY, ANNJA THOUGHT grimly as she listened to the strident ring of her cell phone in her pocket, the element of surprise is surprisingly gone.

The two men whirled to look up at her. Both of them held pistols and looked ready to use them.

With the tent pole in both hands, Annja leaped, propelling herself upward and out.

One of the men fired, and the bullet tore through the space she would have occupied if she’d thrown herself directly at them. The steel‐jacketed round fragmented against the stone wall and left a white scar.

Annja flipped through the air and landed gracefully in the alley, now to the men’s backs.

“No shooting!” one of the men bellowed.

With her feet spread apart, knees bent to remain low, Annja swiveled her makeshift bo stick from her left hand to the right and hit the shooter in the side of the face. His sunglasses shattered and blood sprayed from the impact. He squealed in pain.

Moving quickly to her left, using the stumbling man as a barrier to prevent his companion from aiming at her, Annja gripped the stick in both hands again. This was so not a good idea, she told herself.

She wasn’t by nature a violent person, but she immediately resented anyone who tried to take advantage of or intimidate her. That was one of the reasons she’d taken every martial‐arts class she could in New Orleans as she’d grown up.

Plus, Sister Mary Annabelle at the orphanage—eighty years old and still spry—was a firm believer in a sound mind and a sound body. Sister Mary Annabelle had never missed a single tai chi class. She was an embarrassment to the other nuns, but she didn’t care and Annja had loved the old woman for it.

Annja went on the attack at once. Outrunning a pistol in the twisting confines of the alley was out of the question.

Her phone rang again, sounding inordinately loud in the alley even after the thunderous peal of the gunshot. She wondered if anyone had called the police.

She stepped forward, her mind working rapidly as it always did. She wasn’t scared.

During her experiences as an archaeologist working in countries far from home, she’d encountered a number of potentially threatening situations caused by weather, ancient traps, geology and men.

Being scared wouldn’t help anything.

Striding forward, her left hand over the top of the stick and her right hand under it, Annja slid her right hand down, leaving her right knuckle over the top of the stick as it came over and down, and struck.

The stick slammed against the man’s forearm. Something cracked. He released his pistol and screamed. Annja cut off the scream with her next blow, an up strike that caught him under the jaw and dropped him to his knees.

Whirling, knowing the first man she’d attacked was regaining his balance, Annja took another grip on the stick. Stepping forward, she slammed the blunt end of the stick into the man’s stomach, doubling him over.

Unbelievably, he brought his pistol up and squeezed the trigger. Two shots ricocheted from the wall behind Annja, missing her by inches.

Dodging again to the left, Annja spun the stick and swung at his gun hand, aiming for the thumb and wrist. Bones broke like dry branches cracking in a campfire.

Staying on the attack, Annja whirled again. She hit the man across the back, aiming for his kidneys. Then she struck him across the backs of his knees, dropping him to the ground.

Even then, doubtless blossoming with pain, he tried to face her. Annja drove the blunt end of the stick against his forehead. He was unconscious before he sprawled on the ground. Blood dripped from the half‐moon wound on his forehead.

The other man reached for his dropped pistol.

Annja drove the end of the stick forward, catching the man in the side of the neck and knocking him aside. She kicked the pistol away.

Over the past few years, she’d learned how to use pistols, but she didn’t want to touch either of theirs. There was no telling how many crimes were attached to them, and she didn’t want to confuse the issue with her fingerprints in case they were all taken into custody.

Before the man could get up again, Annja pinned him to the ground with the stick against the base of his throat. “No,” she said.

The man grabbed the stick in both hands and wrenched it away. She kicked him in the face with her hiking boot. The black La Sportiva with Gore‐Tex lining had plenty of tread. For hiking slippery slopes and kicking butt, Annja thought, they just can’t be beat.

The tread ripped at the man’s face, opening a cut over his right eye. Annja put the end of the stick against his throat again, almost making him gag.

“Do that again,” Annja said in an even voice, “and you’ll regret it.”

The man held his hands up beside his head in surrender. Blood trickled into his eye, forcing him to squint.

Holding the stick in place, Annja carefully stretched to search the unconscious man.

She found money, two clips for the pistol, but no identification.

“Who are you?” Annja asked the pinned man.

The man growled a curse at her.

Annja pressed the stick against his throat and made him retch. She let him up enough to turn over and vomit.

“Bad mistake,” she said.

A siren wailed in the distance, growing closer.

Annja decided she didn’t want to be around to answer questions from the Lozère police. As an American, even one with a proper passport, things could become tense.

She wasn’t on a dig site with administration backing her.

She tapped the man hard on the back of the head with the pole. “Don’t let me see you again.”

The man cursed at her again, but he remained on the ground.

Annja held on to her stick and jogged down the alley. Her mind whirled and the adrenaline rush started to fade and leave her with the quaking aftermath. Her legs felt rubbery.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was in Lozère hunting an old monster story.

According to plan, she’d be in and out with a few details that would satisfy the young crowd who watched Chasing History’s Monsters, and a paycheck would soon—she hoped—follow.

Was this a mugging? She wondered. Maybe the two men had heard about her or simply were intrigued enough about the backpack to come after her.

But she got the feeling something more was going on. She just didn’t know what.

Get out of town, she told herself. Get to the mountains and see if you can find enough to do the story. Once you finish, you can get back to Brooklyn and edit it, get paid and maybe get to North Africa for Poulson’s dig.

Poulson’s dig site was interesting to her. The team was looking for one of Hannibal’s campsites when he marched across with his elephants. Annja had never been to Africa.

She’d always wanted to go. But Poulson’s team was privately funded and he didn’t have the budget to pay her way.

Still, he’d invited her. If she could make it on her own.

That was why she was here in Lozère chasing after a monster she didn’t truly believe existed.

She kept running, telling herself that another day or two and she would be clear of France, and whatever problems the two men had brought with them.

2

The rental Avery had arranged turned out to be an old Renault pickup truck. If Annja had been a layman, maybe she’d have mistakenly called it ancient. But she was a trained archaeologist and she knew what ancient meant.

The man who’d rented it to her had seemed somewhat reluctant, but that had lifted once she’d put the money in his hand and promised to get the vehicle back in one piece.

For the money she’d handed over, Annja thought perhaps the man would replace the truck with a better one. But there weren’t many vehicles to be had in town that the owners would allow to be driven where she was going.

At least the old truck looked high enough to clear the rough terrain.

After thanking Avery for his help and a final goodbye, Annja climbed behind the steering wheel, stepped on the starter and engaged the transmission with a clank. She headed toward the Cévennes Mountains.

Once out of town, following the dirt road leading up into the mountains, Annja took out her cell phone. It was equipped with a satellite receiver, offering her a link in most parts of the world. Still, the service was expensive and she didn’t use it any more than she had to.

Caller ID showed the number that had called her while she’d been in the alley. She recognized the number at once.

Steering one‐handed, trying to avoid most of the rough spots, Annja punched the speed‐dial function and pulled up the number.

The phone rang three times before it was answered.

“Doug Morrell.” His voice was crisp and cheerful. He sounded every bit of his twenty-two years of age.

“Hello, Doug,” she said. “It’s Annja. I’m returning your call.”

Doug Morrell was a friend and one of her favorite production people at Chasing History’s Monsters. He lived in Brooklyn, not far from her, and was a frequent guest and dining companion. He was young and trendy, never interested in going out into the field for stories as Annja did.

“I was just looking over the piece you’re working on,” Doug said. He affected a very bad French accent. “The Beast of Gévaudan.”

“What about it?”

“French werewolf thing, right?”

“They don’t know what it was,” Annja countered.

“Looking over it today, after Kristie did the werewolf of Cologne, I’m thinking maybe this isn’t the story we want to pursue. I mean, two stories set in France about werewolves might not be where our viewers want to go.”

Annja sighed and avoided an angry response. Evidently lycanthropy wasn’t as popular as vampirism because Chasing History’s Monsters had done a weeklong series on those. And neither history nor geography was something Doug had an interest in.

“Peter Stubb, the so‐called Werewolf of Cologne, was German, not French,” Annja said.

“French, German—” Doug’s tone suggested an uncaring shrug “—I’m not seeing a whole lot of difference here,” he admitted. “Europe tends to blur together for me. I think it does for most of our fans.”

That was the difference between a big‐name show and one that was syndicated, Annja supposed. The networks had audiences. Cable programs had fans. But she could live with that. This check was going to get her to North Africa.

“Europe shouldn’t blur together,” Annja said. “The histories of each country are hugely different.”

“If you say so.” Doug didn’t sound at all convinced. “My problem is I don’t especially feel good about sticking two hairy guys on as my leads so close together.”

“Then save the La Bête piece,” Annja said as she became aware of the sound of high-pitched engines. Her wraparound sunglasses barely blunted the hot glare of the early-afternoon sun. Just let me do my job and give me my airfare, she almost said aloud.

“If I save the La Bête piece, I’ve got a hole I need to fill,” Doug said.

“The pieces are different,” Annja said. “Peter Stubb was more than likely a serial killer.

He claimed victims for twenty‐five years between 1564 and 1589. Supposedly he had a magic belt given to him by the devil that allowed him to change into a wolf.”

Doug was no longer surprised by the amount of knowledge and esoteric facts Annja had at her command. He partnered with her at the sports bars to play trivia games on the closed‐circuit televisions. He knew all the pop‐culture references and sports, and she had the history and science. They split the literature category. Together, they seldom lost and in most of Brooklyn’s pubs no one would wager against them.

“There’s no mention of a magic belt in Kristie’s story,” Doug said.

Annja wasn’t surprised. Kristie Chatham wasn’t noted for research, just a killer bod and scanty clothing while prowling for legends. For her, history never went past her last drink and her last lover.

“There was a magic belt,” Annja said.

“I believe you,” Doug said. “But at this point we’ll probably have to roll without it.

Should send some of the audience members into a proper outrage and juice up the Internet activity regarding the show again.”

Annja counted to ten. “The show’s integrity is important to me. To the work I do.”

Archaeology was what she lived for. Nothing had ever drawn her like that.

“Don’t worry about it,” Doug said. “When the viewers start trashing Kristie’s validity, I’ll just have George rerelease video clips of her outtakes in Cancun while she was pursuing the legend of the flesh‐eating college students turned zombies during the 1977 spring break. Her bikini top fell off three times during that show. It’s not the same when we mask that here in the States, but a lot of guys download the European versions of the show.”

Annja tried not to think about Kristie’s top falling off. The woman grated on her nerves.

What was even more grating was that Kristie Chatham was the fan‐favorite of all the hosts of Chasing History’s Monsters.

“The ratings really rise during those episodes,” Doug continued. “Not to say that ratings don’t rise whenever you’re on. They do. You’re one hot babe yourself, Annja.”

“Thanks loads,” Annja said dryly.

“I mean, chestnut hair and those amber eyes—”

“They’re green.”

“You think they’re green,” Doug amended. “I’ll split it with you. We’ll call them hazel.

Anyway, you’ve got all that professorial‐speak that Kristie doesn’t have.”

“It’s called a college education.”

“Whatever.”

“She still has the breakaway bikini.”

Doug hesitated for a moment. “Do you want to try that?”

“No,” Annja said forcefully.

“I didn’t think so. Anyway, I think we’ll be okay. Maybe I can sandwich a reedited version of the zombie piece between the German werewolf and your French one.”

“La Bête was never proved to be a werewolf,” Annja said, skewing the conversation back to her field of expertise. “Between 1764 and 1767, the Beast of Gévaudan killed sixty‐eight children, fifteen women and six men.”

“Good. Really.” Doug sounded excited. “That’s a great body count. Works out to an average of thirty‐three people a year. People love the number thirty‐three. Always something mystical about it.”

Annja ignored his comment because they were friends. She didn’t bother to correct his math, either. Counting 1764, La Bête had killed for four years. “The creature was also reputed to be intelligent. It was an ambush predator and often avoided capture by leading horsemen into bogs around here. It also outran hunting dogs.”

“This wasn’t included in your outline.”

“You said you don’t like to read.”

“Well, I don’t,” Doug admitted grudgingly. “But maybe you could put interesting details like this into your proposal.”

“There’s only so much you can do with half a page,” Annja pointed out. “Double-spaced.”

“Yeah, but you need to learn the right things to include. Body count. That’s always a biggie.”

When I get back, Annja promised herself, I’m going to finish that résumé. There has to be another cable show out there that’s interested in archaeology. She knew she’d miss Doug, though.

“At any rate,” Annja said, “no one ever found out what the creature was. It was supposed to be six feet tall at the shoulder.”

“Is that big?”

“For a wolf, yes.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t a wolf.”

“I said no one knew what it was.”

“So it’s not a wolf, not a werewolf. What the hell is it?”

“Exactly,” Annja agreed.

“A mystery,” Doug said with forced enthusiasm. “Mysteries are good. But only if you have answers for them. Do you?”

“Not yet. That’s why I’m headed into the Cévennes Mountains right now.”

“This creature was supposed to be up in those mountains?” Doug asked.

“Yes. According to some people, La Bête is still around. Every now and again a hiker goes missing and is never seen or heard from again.”

“Cool. Sounds better already. How soon are you going to have this together?”

“Soon,” Annja promised, hoping that some kind of breakthrough would take place. At the moment, she had a lot of interesting research but nothing fresh.

And she didn’t have Kristie Chatham’s breakaway top. Nor the desire to stoop so low.

She said goodbye, then closed the phone and concentrated on her driving.

Glancing up at the mountains, Annja couldn’t help thinking it would be better for her ratings if she actually ran into La Bête. Probably not better for her, though.

“THE WOMAN GOT away.” Foulard sat in a small café across from the fishing shop. He held his beer against his aching jaw. The swelling made it hard to talk.

“How?” Lesauvage wasn’t happy.

“She ambushed us.” Foulard still couldn’t believe the woman had leaped from above the door and taken them down so easily. It was embarrassing.

Lesauvage cursed. “Do you know where she’s going?”

Foulard looked across the table at Avery Moreau. The young man was scowling. He sat with arms folded over his chest and blew out an angry breath now and again.

Foulard just barely resisted the impulse to reach over and slap the young man. It would have been a mistake. The police were still canvassing the neighborhood.

“The boy—” Foulard called Avery that on purpose, watching the young man tighten his jaw angrily “—says she is headed up into the mountains.”

“Why?”

“That’s where La Bête was known to roam.” Foulard didn’t believe in the great beast.

But he believed in Lesauvage and the magic the man possessed. Foulard had seen it, had felt its power, and had seen men die because of it.

Lesauvage was quiet for a moment. “She knows something,” he mused quietly,

“something that I do not.”

“The boy insists that she didn’t.”

“Then why go up into the mountains?”

Foulard cursed silently. He knew what was coming. “I don’t know.”

“Then,” Lesauvage replied, “I suggest that you find out. Quickly. Take Jean—”

“Jean is out of it,” Foulard said. “The police have him.”

“How?”

“The woman knocked him out. I couldn’t wake him before I had to flee. I was fortunate they didn’t get me.” Foulard rolled his beer over his aching jaw. “She fights very well.

You didn’t tell us that.” He meant it almost as an accusation, suggesting that Lesauvage hadn’t known, either. But he wasn’t that brave.

“I didn’t think she could fight better than you,” Lesauvage said. “And I heard there were shots fired.”

Wisely, Foulard refrained from speaking. He’d already failed. Lesauvage appeared willing to let him live. That was good.

“Find her,” Lesauvage ordered. “Go up into the mountains and find her. I want to know what she knows.”

“All right.”

“Can you get someone to help you?”

“Yes.”

Lesauvage hung up.

Pocketing the phone, Foulard leaned back and sipped the beer. Then he reached into his jacket and took out a vial of pain pills. They were one of the benefits of working for Lesauvage.

He shook out two, chewed them up and ignored the bitter taste. His tongue numbed immediately and he knew the relief from the pounding in his head would come soon.

Turning his attention to Avery Moreau, Foulard asked, “Do you know which campsite she’ll be using?”

Arrogantly, Avery replied, “I helped her choose it.”

“Then you know.” Foulard stood. He felt as if the floor moved under him. Pain cascaded through this throbbing head. He stoked his anger at the woman. She would pay. “Come with me.”

“What about Richelieu?”

It took Foulard a moment to realize whom the boy was talking about. “The policeman?”

Avery’s blue eyes looked watery with unshed tears. “My father’s murderer,” he said.

Waving the statement away, Foulard said, “Richelieu will be dealt with.”

“When?”

“In time. When the time is right.” Foulard finished the beer and set it aside. “Now come on.”

“Lesauvage promised—”

Reaching down, Foulard cupped the boy’s soft face in his big, callused hand. “Do not trifle with me, boy. And do not say his name in public so carelessly. I’ve seen him bury men for less.”

Fear squirmed through the watery blue eyes.

“He keeps his promises,” Foulard said. “In his own time. He has promised that your father’s killer will pay for his crimes. The man will.” He paused. “In time. Now, you and I have other business to tend to. Let’s be about it.”

Avery jerked his head out of Foulard’s grip and reluctantly got to his feet.

Across the street, the Lozère police were loading Jean’s unconscious body into the back of an ambulance. The old shopkeeper waved his arms as he told his story. Foulard thought briefly that he should have killed the man. Perhaps he might come back and do that.

For the moment, though, his attention was directed solely at the woman.

A SNAKE LAY SUNNING on the narrow ledge that Annja had spent the past hour climbing up to. She had been hoping to take a moment to relax there. Climbing freestyle was demanding. Her fingers and toes ached with effort.

The snake pushed itself back, poised to strike.

Great, Annja thought. Climbing back down was possible, but she was tired. Risking a poisonous snake bite was about the same as trying to negotiate the seventy‐foot descent without taking a break.

She decided to deal with the snake.

Moving slowly, she pulled herself almost eye to eye with the snake. It drew back a little farther, almost out of room. Freezing, not wanting to startle the creature any more than she already had, she hung by her fingertips.

Easy, she told herself, breathing out softly through her mouth and inhaling through her nose.

The snake coiled tightly, its head low and its jaws distended to deliver a strike that would send poison through her system.

At a little over twenty inches long, it was full‐grown. A string of black splotches from its flared head to the tip of its tail mottled the grayish‐green scales and told Annja what kind of venomous adder she faced.

Ursini’s vipers were known to have an irritable nature, to be very territorial and struck quickly when approached.

Their venom was hemotoxic, designed to break down the blood of their prey. Few human deaths were attributed to Ursini’s vipers in the area, but Annja felt certain a lone climber miles from help in the mountains would be a probable candidate.

The ledge Annja clung to extended six feet to her left.

Okay, she mentally projected at the snake, not wanting to speak because the vibrations of her voice might spook the nervous viper, there’s enough room for both of us.

Moving slowly, she shuffled her left hand over a few inches. The snake tightened its coil. She stopped, clinging by her fingertips. If she’d been wearing gloves she might have felt more comfortable taking the risk of movement. But at present only a thin layer of climbing chalk covered her hands.

She stared at the snake, feeling angry as it kept her at bay. She didn’t like being afraid of anything. She was, of course, but she didn’t like it. That something so small could impede her was irritating. If she’d worn a harness and had belayed herself to a cam, getting around the snake would have been a piece of cake.

But she hadn’t.

“Bonjour,” a voice suddenly called from above.

Gazing upward briefly, Annja spotted an old man hunkered down in a squatting position thirty feet up and to the right of her position.

He was in his sixties or seventies, leathery with age. Sweat‐stained khaki hiking shorts and a gray T‐shirt hung from his skinny frame. His white hair hung past his thin shoulders and his beard was too long to be neat and too short to be intended. He looked as if he hadn’t taken care of himself lately. He held a long walking staff in his right hand.

“Bonjour,” Annja responded quietly.

“Not a good spot to be in,” the old man observed.

“For me or the snake?” Annja asked.

The man’s face creased as he laughed. “Clinging by your fingernails and you’ve still got wit.” He shook his head. “You seldom find that in a woman.”

“You aren’t exactly enlightened, are you?” Annja shifted her grip slightly, trying to find a degree of comfort. There wasn’t one.

“No,” the old man agreed. He paused. “You could, of course, climb back down.”

“I hate retreating.”

“So does the snake.”

“I suppose asking for help is out of the question?”

The old man spread his hands. “How? If I try to traverse the distance, should I be that skilled, I would doubtless send debris down. It might be enough to trigger a strike.”

Annja knew that was true.

“It is poisonous, you know. It’s not just the sting of a bite you’ll have to contend with.”

“I know.” Back and shoulders aching, Annja watched the snake. “I have a satellite phone. If I fall or get bitten, maybe you could call for help.”

“I’d be happy to.”

Annja held up a hand, letting go of her fear and focusing on the snake. Its wedge-shaped head followed her hand. Then, getting the reptile’s rhythm, she flicked her hand.

The viper launched itself like an arrow from a bow.

Without thinking, Annja let go the ledge with her left elbow and swung from her right, crunching her fingers up tightly to grip and hoping that it was enough to keep her from falling.

The snake missed her but its effort had caused it to hang over the ledge. Before the viper could recover, Annja swung back toward it.

Trying not to think of what would happen if she missed or her right hand slipped from the ledge, she gripped the snake just behind its head. The cool, slickly alien feel of the scales slid against her palm.

Move! she told herself as she felt the snake writhing in her grip. Skidding across the rough cliff surface, feeling her fingers give just a fraction of an inch, she whip‐cracked the snake away from the mountain.

Airborne, the snake twisted and knotted itself as it plummeted toward the verdant growth of the forest far below.

Flailing with her left hand, Annja managed to secure a fresh grip just as her right hand pulled free of the ledge. She recovered quickly and let her body go limp against the cliff side. Her flesh pressed against the uneven surface and helped distribute her weight.

“Well done,” the old man called. He applauded. “That took real nerve. I’m impressed.”

“That’s me,” Annja agreed. She blew out a tense breath. “Impressive.”

She hoisted herself up with her arms, hoping the viper had been alone and hadn’t been among friends. Even with the ledge, she tucked herself into a roll and luxuriated on her back.

The old man peered down at her. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Just resting. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Taking out a pipe, the old man lit up. The breeze pulled the smoke away. “Take your time,” he invited. “Take your time.”

Annja lay back and waited for her breathing to calm and the lactic acid buildup in her limbs to ease. You should go home, she told herself. Just pack up and go. Things are getting way too weird.

For some reason, though, she knew she couldn’t turn and go back any more than she could have retreated from the snake. As she’d begun her ascent on the mountain, she’d felt a compulsion to continue her quest.

That was dumb, she’d thought. There was no way she was going to uncover the secret of La Bête after three hundred years when no one else had been able to.

But something was drawing her up the mountain.

3

A dull roaring sounded in the distance.

Recognizing the noise, Annja sat up on the cliff’s edge and peered out into the forest that broke across the foothills of the mountains like an ocean of leaves.

Six Enduro motorcycles bobbed and slid through the forest. The riders wore brightly colored leathers and gleaming helmets.

“Are you expecting company?” the old man asked from the ledge above.

“No.”

“Perhaps they just came out here for the view,” the old man suggested. “Or maybe they brought their own entertainment.”

Meaning booze or drugs? Annja thought that was possible. But she didn’t mean to get caught standing on a ledge if that wasn’t the truth.

“Are you coming on up, then?” he asked politely.

“Yes.”

“Good.” The old man took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face. “It’s rather warmer up here than I’d thought it would be.”

Annja stood, balancing precariously on the narrow ledge. She reached into her pack and took out a bottle of water. After drinking as much as she could, she replaced the bottle in her pack and started climbing again.

“There’s a rock to your left.” The old man pointed to the outcropping with his staff.

She curled her hand around the rock and heaved.

“There you go,” he congratulated.

Listening to his speech, Annja wondered at his accent. He spoke English, but she believed that was because he knew she was American. But his French accent wasn’t something she was familiar with.

Moments later, Annja gained the top of the ridgeline. The motorcycle engines had died and the silence seemed heavy.

“Thanks,” Annja said.

The old man shrugged. “It was nothing. You climb well,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“But you shouldn’t climb alone.”

Looking around innocently, Annja asked, “Where’s your partner?”

He shrugged. “I’m an old man. No one will miss me if I fall off the mountainside.” He started up the ridgeline.

Having no other destination in mind at the moment, Annja followed. The compulsion that she only halfway believed in seemed to be pulling her in that direction anyway.

“What brings you up here?” the old man asked.

“La Bête,” Annja answered.

Halting, he peered over his shoulder. “Surely you’re joking.”

“No.”

“La Bête is a myth,” the old man stated. “Probably a story made up by a serial killer.”

“You would know about serial killers?”

“I would.” He didn’t elaborate. Instead, he turned and continued up the ridgeline.

“What are you doing up here?” she asked.

“Searching for something that was lost.”

“You lost something up here?”

“No.” The old man swung around a boulder and kept going up. “It was lost a long time ago. Hundreds of years ago.”

“What was it?”

“Nothing you’d be interested in, my dear.”

“I’m an archaeologist. I like old things.” Annja instantly regretted her words when the old man turned around. If he was an old pervert, she’d just given him the perfect opportunity for an off‐color remark.

“You?” he asked as if in disbelief. “An archaeologist?”

“Yes,” Annja declared. “Me.”

The old man blew a raspberry. “You’re a child. What would you know about anything of antiquity?”

“I know that old men who think they know everything don’t know everything,” she said. “Otherwise children like me wouldn’t be discovering new things.”

“Learning about them from a book is one thing,” the old man said. “But to truly appreciate them, you have to live among them.”

“I try,” Annja said. “I’ve been on several dig sites.”

“Good for you. In another forty or fifty years, provided you don’t die of a snakebite or a long fall, perhaps you will have learned something.”

A tremor passed through the ground.

Annja froze at once, not certain if she’d truly felt it.

The old man turned around to face her. His face knitted in concern. Irritably, he tapped his staff against the ground. “Did you feel that?” he asked.

“Yes,” Annja said. “It’s probably nothing to worry about.”

“It felt like an earthquake. This isn’t earthquake country.”

“Earthquakes take place around the world all the time. Humans just aren’t sensitive enough to feel all of them,” Annja said.

The ground quivered again, more vigorously this time.

“Well,” the old man said, “I certainly felt that.” He kept walking forward. “Maybe we should think about getting down.”

Annja stayed where she was. Whatever was pulling at her was stronger than ever. It lay in the direction opposite the way the old man had chosen. Before she knew it, she was headed toward the pull.

“Where are you going?” the old man asked.

“I want to check something out.” Annja walked along the ridgeline, climbing again. A small trail she hadn’t noticed before ran between bushes and small trees.

A game trail.

Despite the tremors, Annja went on.

FOULARD’S MOOD HADN’T lifted. A burning need for some kind of revenge filled him.

The woman, Annja Creed, had to be delivered alive to Lesauvage, but she didn’t have to be unbroken.

He parked his motorcycle beside a new SUV. The five men with him parked nearby.

They dismounted as one, used to working together. Jean had been one of them, one of Lesauvage’s chosen few.

Drawing his 9 mm handgun, Foulard took the lead. The other men fell in behind.

They went quickly. Over the past few years, they had learned the Cévennes Mountains.

Lesauvage had sent them all into the area at one time or another. Foulard had been several times.

None of them had ever found anything.

Foulard truly didn’t believe the woman had found anything, either. He hoped she hadn’t. Once Lesauvage saw that she knew nothing, he would quickly give her to them.

Eagerly, Foulard jogged up the trail. His face and arms still hurt, but the pain pills had taken off the edge.

When the first tremor passed through him, Foulard thought it was the drugs in his system. Then a cascade of rocks rushed from farther up the grade and nearly knocked him from his feet.

“What the hell is that?” one of the men behind him yelled.

“Earthquake,” another said.

“We don’t want to be on top of this mountain if it’s about to come down.”

Foulard spun toward them. “We were sent here to get the woman,” he said. “I won’t go back to Lesauvage without her.”

The men just stared at him.

The ground quivered again.

“I’ll kill any man who leaves me,” Foulard promised.

They all looked at him. They knew he would.

Another tremor passed through the earth, unleashing more debris that sledded down the mountainside.

“All right,” Croteau said. He was the oldest and largest of them. “We’ll go with you. But make it quick.”

Turning, Foulard kept his balance through another jarring session, then started to run.

THE GAME TRAIL LOOKED old and, judging from the bits and pieces of it Annja saw along the mountainside, it went all the way to the top.

The ground heaved this time, actually rising up and slamming back down beneath Annja’s feet. She dropped to all fours, afraid of being flung from the mountainside.

“This way,” the old man shouted. “Come back from there before you get yourself killed.”

This is insane, Annja thought. She felt the earth quivering beneath her like a frightened animal.

“Don’t be foolish,” the old man said.

Frustrated, Annja took out her Global Positioning System device. She took a reading.

Twenty‐four satellites bracketed the earth. Every reading taken by the device acquired signals from at least twelve of them. When she returned to the mountains, she’d be within inches of the exact spot where she now stood.

Returning the GPS locater to her pack, she turned and started back down the mountain. The compulsion within her surged to a fever pitch with a suddenness and intensity that drove her to her knees in an intense attack of vertigo.

“Are you all right?” the old man asked.

She wasn’t. But she couldn’t speak to tell him that.

Without warning, she was no longer on the mountaintop. She stood in the middle of a blazing fire. Pain threatened to consume her.

Her whole life she’d suffered from nightmares about fire but, for the first time, it was happening while she was awake.

“Girl!” the old man bellowed.

“Girl!” he roared again. Panic strained his features. Some other look was there, as well.

Perhaps it was understanding.

Annja didn’t know. The nightmare abated. She focused on the old man.

Forced to use his staff to aid with his balance across the heaving earth, he came toward her. He held out his hand. “Come to me. Come to me now!”

Feeling drained and totally mystified, Annja tried to walk toward him. Then the ground opened up at her feet. In a heartbeat, the earth shifted and yawned till a chasm twenty feet across formed. Rocks and grass and debris disappeared into the earthen maw.

Barely staying on her feet, Annja backed away. She didn’t want to try leaping down into the crevasse. During a quake, the earth could close back together just as quickly as it opened up. If the earth caught her, it would crush her.

“I can’t reach you,” she said.

The old man pointed, leaning on his staff as another quake shuddered through the earth. “There’s a trail. Back that way. Just head down.”

Turning, Annja gazed down the other side of the mountain. Here and there, just glimpses, she thought she saw a trail.

“Do you see it?” the old man called.

The earth heaved again, shifting violently enough that Annja almost lost her footing.

“Yes!”

“Go!” the old man called. “Not much farther down, you’ll find a campsite. I have a truck there. I will meet you.” With more agility and speed than Annja would have believed possible, he started down the crest where he stood.

Annja didn’t know what the old man was doing in the mountains. There were a number of hiking trails. Even famed author Robert Louis Stevenson, though in ill health, had been compelled by his curiosity about the Beast of Gévaudan to try his luck at solving the mystery in the mountains. The trail Stevenson had taken was clearly marked for tourists interested in the countryside, the legend or the author of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The mountain shook again and Annja started running. Never in her research had she heard of any earthquakes in the area.

She followed the narrow path across worn stone that led through boulders and cracks along the mountainside. As she ran, the ground trembled and heaved. Several times she tripped and fell against the rock walls. Her backpack and the pouch containing the climbing chalk thudded against her.

“There she is!” The young male voice ripped across the sound of falling rock.

Going to ground immediately, Annja peered around.

Farther down the slope, one of the motorcycle riders, still wearing his riding leathers, peered up at her. For a moment she thought perhaps he was coming to help her.

Then she saw the small, black semiautomatic pistol in his hand and the bruises on his face. It was the man from the alley.

She turned and fled, racing back up the mountain.

The earth shook even more violently than before. A horrendous crack sounded nearby.

Nearly knocked from her feet, aware that hundreds of pounds of rock and debris were skidding toward her, she pulled up short and tried to alter her course.

The ground opened up and swallowed her.

4

Out of control, Annja threw her hands out instinctively in an effort to catch hold of the sides of the fissure. Stone whipped by her fingertips, but she managed to somewhat slow her descent from a fall to a slide something short of maximum velocity.

Not a fissure, she told herself, her brain buzzing at furious speed the way it always did when she was in trouble. This is a sinkhole.

She felt the roughly circular contours of the shaft around her as she stretched to fill it.

A sinkhole was a natural formation of a cave that finally hollowed out to the point it nearly reached the surface. As a nation, France was probably more honeycombed with caves and cave systems than any other country in the world.

The Cévennes Mountains held many volcanic caves, created by lava after it had cooled and the volcanoes had subsided. Along the coast, sea caves formed by waves had provided hidden harbors in the golden age of piracy. Limestone caves in the interior were made by erosion. There were even many caves made by the passage of glaciers across the land millions of years ago. Cro‐Magnons had lived in caves at Pech‐Merle and Lascaux, leaving behind cave paintings millions of years old.

Annja wasn’t surprised to find a new cave in the mountains. In fact, in scaling the cliff she’d been hoping to find some sign of one. Le Bête had taken up refuge somewhere all those years ago.

However, she hadn’t expected to plummet into her discovery.

In a hail of flying stones, she hit the ground hard. The impact drove the breath from her lungs. Blackness ate at the edge of her conscious mind, but she struggled through it and remained alert.

It’s not the fall that kills you, she reminded herself. It’s the sudden stop at the end.

She covered her head with her arms as more debris rained down around her. Several pieces of stone hammered her back and legs hard enough to promise bruises for a few days.

Then everything was quiet.

You’re alive, she told herself. Get moving.

She pushed herself up. Nothing felt broken. That was always a good sign.

When her lungs finally started working again, dust coated her tongue. Reaching into her backpack, knowing by touch and years of experience where the contents were, she took out a bandanna, wet it with the water bottle and tied the material around her nose and mouth. The water‐soaked cloth would keep her from suffering respiratory problems caused by inhaling too much dust.

Wet cloth won’t protect you from carbon dioxide buildup or poison gas, she reminded herself. Carbon dioxide wasn’t a natural byproduct of a cave the way coal gas was, but if humans or animals had frequented it, the gas could have filled the chamber. She hoped the opening created by the sinkhole would help.

Echoes sounded around her, indicating that the cave was large or long.

Fishing out one of the two halogen flashlights she habitually carried, she turned it on.

Then she took off her sunglasses and stored them in the backpack, marveling that they hadn’t broken during the fall.

The flashlight beam cut through the darkness but was obscured by the swirling dust that filled the cave. The chamber was at least thirty feet across and almost that high.

The sinkhole was at the back of the cave. At least, it was in the area she decided to refer to as the back of the cave. Almost four feet across, it snaked up but the twists and turns were so severe that no outside light penetrated the chamber.

Going back up is going to be a problem, Annja realized. If it’s possible at all. She carried rope in her backpack. Over the years spent at dig sites, she’d learned that rope was an indispensable tool. She never went anywhere without it. But she wasn’t sure it could help her now.

Bats fluttered from the stalactites. She swept the flashlight beam after them.

Okay, Annja thought, if you guys are in here, there’s got to be another entrance.

Unless the sinkhole that had opened up had originally been some small holes that had allowed the bats to enter and exit. She didn’t want to think about that possibility.

The air was thick and stank from being closed up. More than that, it smelled like an animal’s den. That was good news and bad news. If the cave did provide a home to an animal, the chances were good that another entrance was large enough to allow her passage. The bad news was that wolves were in the area, as well as bears. Large predators weren’t going to be welcome. Especially not in their den.

A swift examination of the chamber revealed a passage. She went to it, finding she had to hunch down to pass through and that the floor was canted. At least the structure looked sound. No cracks or fissures showed in the strata. If there was another tremor, she felt reasonably certain the rock would stay intact and not come down on top of her.

The passage went on for fifteen or twenty feet, then jogged left and opened into another chamber nearly twice the size of the one she’d fallen into.

When she passed the flashlight beam over the wall to her right, drawings stood out against the stone. Seeing what they were, guessing that no one in hundreds or thousands or millions of years had seen them, all thoughts of anything else—the earth tremors, the motorcyclists, the old man—were gone.

Playing the flashlight beam over the rough rock surface, Annja made out mastodons, handprints, figures of people, fires, aurochs—ancestors of modern cattle—and other images of Cro‐Magnon life.

Excitement flared through her. During her career, she’d seen cave paintings. She’d even seen similar paintings at Lascaux after the cave had been closed to the public.

But she had never found something like this.

Hypnotized by the images, she took a credit‐card‐sized digital camera from her backpack. With the low light, she didn’t know if the images would turn out, but whatever the camera captured would surely be enough to get funding for a dig site.

The Cro‐Magnon painters had used animal fat and minerals to make colors. Black had been a favorite and easy to make. All that was required was charred bone ground into a fine powder mixed with animal fat.

She walked along the wall, taking image after image. Only a little farther on, the scenes on the wall were marred. Long, deep scratches ran through them, as if they’d been dug into the stone by great, dull claws. The claw marks were seven and eight feet high, so close together it looked as if an animal had been in a frenzy.

An animal marking its territory? she wondered. Or the desperation of an animal trapped inside this cave?

In that moment, Annja remembered she’d traveled to the Cévennes looking for La Bête. Then she tripped and nearly fell. Something furry brushed against her ankle.

For one moment she thought she felt it move. Stepping back quickly, she swung the flashlight around, prepared to use it as a weapon.

The light beam fell in a bright ellipse over a scene straight out of a nightmare. The half-eaten and mummified corpse of a sheep lay on the floor amid a pile of bones.

Tracking the bone debris, Annja shone her beam over the stack of skulls that had been arranged in an irregular notch in the chamber. At least seventy or eighty skulls filled the area.

Was this a place of worship? Annja wondered. Or an altar celebrating past triumphs?

She tried to imagine Cro‐Magnon men sitting in the cave bragging about their success as fierce hunters. Except that the sheep’s body was anachronistic. None of the sheep’s forebears had looked like that in Cro‐Magnon times. This sheep was small and compact, bred for meat and wool, not far removed from the sheep Annja had seen on farms she’d passed on her way to the mountain range.

Looking closely, she noticed that several of the skulls were human.

Used to handling human remains on dig sites, she had no fear of the dead. She set down the flashlight to illuminate the scene.

Upon further inspection, she discovered that several of the ribs, and arm and leg bones were likely human, as well. Shreds of clothing that looked hundreds of years old clung to some of the bones. Boots stood and lay amid the clutter.

A cold chill ran down her spine. Whatever had lived in the cave had preyed on humans.

Shifting the light, heart beating a little faster, Annja spotted the great body stretched out on the floor. For a very tense moment, she’d thought the animal was lying there waiting to pounce. She froze.

The light played over the mummified lips pulled back in a savage snarl that exposed huge yellow teeth. The eye sockets were hollow, long empty and dry. In that moment, the animal musk she’d smelled seemed even more intense.

Death had stripped the fantastic creature of much of its bulk, but it was still easy to see how huge it had been in life. The head was as big as a buffalo’s but more bearlike in shape. Its body was thick and broad and the limbs were huge. It was unlike anything Annja had ever seen before.

Making herself move despite the fear and astonishment she felt, Annja took pictures of the creature with the digital camera. Maybe she’d made two incredible discoveries in the same day.

Finished with the camera, she hurriedly took out a small drawing pad and a mechanical pencil from her backpack. If the camera failed to capture images, she could at least draw them.

On closer inspection, Annja saw a broad‐bladed spear shoved through the beast’s chest. Beneath the corpse of the impossible animal was a human corpse.

Decomposition hadn’t settled in. Locked in the steady climate of the cave environment, kept bug‐free by depth and ecology, the dead man had mummified as the beast had. His hands, the flesh so dehydrated it was almost like onionskin over the bones, still held tightly to the spear. Man and beast, locked in savage combat, had killed each other.

Kneeling beside the dead man and beast, she reached out her empty hand.

Something gleamed at the dead man’s throat.

Taking a surgical glove from her backpack, Annja plucked the gleaming object from the corpse. It had partially sunk into the dead man’s chest. A leather thong tied the object around the corpse’s neck.

After freeing the gleaming object, Annja held it up so her flashlight beam could easily illuminate it. A jagged piece of metal, no more than two inches to a side, dangled from the leather thong.

The piece looked like an ill‐made coin, hammered out on some smith’s anvil in a hurry.

One side held an image of a wolf standing in front of a mountain. The wolf was disproportioned, though the oddities seemed intentional, and it appeared as though the wolf had been hanged. The obverse was stamped with a symbol she couldn’t quite make out.

Annja remained kneeling. She was checking the image when a flashlight beam whipped across her face.

Instinctively, she dodged away, remembering the motorcyclists and the old man she’d seen outside. She tucked the drawing pad, pencils and charm into her backpack as she scooped up her flashlight and switched it off.

“Where the hell did she go?” someone demanded in French.

Shadows created by the glow of the flashlight trailed the beam into the chamber.

Annja stayed low as the light sprayed around the room. She barely escaped it before reaching the pile of skulls. Once there, she flattened herself against the wall.

Light played over leather‐clad bodies that stepped into the chamber.

Evidently the motorcyclists had made their way down the sinkhole. They’d come along the passage Annja had found. She’d been so absorbed by her discoveries that she’d forgotten all about them and hadn’t noticed them. Silently, she cursed herself.

“She can’t have just vanished,” another man said.

In the soft glow of the reflected light from the flashlight, all six of them stood revealed.

All of them held pistols.

“If we lose her, Lesauvage is going to kill us.” The speaker’s voice was tight with fear.

“We haven’t lost her,” someone stated calmly. “We came in that hole after her.

There’s no other way out.”

“You don’t know that, Foulard.”

Another man gave a startled curse. “What the hell’s lying there?”

Foulard aimed his flashlight at the creature’s huge mummified body.

“The Beast of Gévaudan!” someone said. “It must be! Look at it! My grandfather told me stories about this thing!” His voice dropped and took on a note of awe. “I never believed him. Thought it was all crap old men told kids to scare the hell out of them.”

Hidden by the shadow of the skulls, Annja’s mind raced. They came here looking for me.

“Forget about that damned thing,” Foulard commanded. “Spread out. Find the woman. Lesauvage wants to speak with her. I don’t want to go back and tell him we lost her.”

He directed his flashlight at the cavern’s ceiling, providing a weak cone of illumination from above.

Thankfully, the light didn’t quite reach the cavern floor. Annja sank down low. Her free hand plucked up one of the human skulls. Her fingers slipped easily through the empty eyeholes to secure her hold. It wasn’t much as weapons went, but she hoped to improve her standing.

5

Annja leaned forward, skull in one hand and flashlight in the other, hunkered down in a squatting position.

The six men spread out. Foulard took his own path, but the other five stayed close enough to take comfort in the presence of the light.

“Do you think that really is the Beast of Gévaudan?” one of them asked.

“I don’t know, but I heard the creature was a werewolf,” another said. “He was supposed to be a guy, Count Vargo, who got cursed by a band of gypsies after he raped one of their daughters.”

That was not a werewolf, Annja thought fiercely as she remembered how the great beast looked. It’s some kind of mutated species. She pressed against the wall, profiling herself into it.

One of the men came close to her. Annja waited as long as she could, knowing their eyes were adjusting to the darkness. His body language, that sudden shift to square up with her, gave away the fact that he had seen her.

She rose, uncoiling as the viper had done earlier, and swung the skull with all her strength. The aged bone shattered against the man’s face, driving him backward.

“There!” one of the men yelled. “Over by Croteau!”

Foulard swung the flashlight in Annja’s direction.

Scuttling quickly, flinging away the remnants of the skull, she slid low along the unconscious man. Her partially numbed fingers found the 9 mm pistol lying on the cave floor. She fumbled it into her grip as the flashlight splashed over her and blinded her.

“She has Croteau’s gun!”

“Kill her!” Foulard yelled. His pistol barked and spit flame that lit up the angry terror on his face. She recognized the bruises on his face and knew he was the man from the alley.

The wind from the bullet cut the air by Annja’s left cheek. If she hadn’t already been moving to her right, it would have crashed through her head.

“Lesauvage wants her alive!” someone yelled. “Stop shooting!”

Firing on the fly, Annja put two rounds in Foulard’s immediate vicinity. Someone yelped. She’d taken one man out of play.

Annja tried to get her bearings. Maybe they’d used a rope to get down through the sinkhole, and maybe that rope was still there, just waiting. All she had to do was reach it.

Instead, still suffering from partial blindness caused by the bright flashlight beam, she ran into one of the other men in the gloom, unaware that he’d been there. He caught her gun wrist and shoved his own pistol into her cheek below her left eye.

“Move and I’ll kill you!” the man shouted.

Immediately, Annja drew her knee up into the man’s groin, twisted her head to the left and snapped backward. The pistol barked and the superheated barrel painfully kissed her lips with bruising force.

The detonation temporarily robbed her of her hearing, rendering her partially deaf in addition to the blindness. The man also stripped her borrowed pistol from her fist.

Before her would‐be captor recovered, she butted her forehead into his face, breaking his nose and splitting his lips, causing him to stagger back.

Foulard fired again. His bullets ripped into the man who’d held Annja. Crying out in pain, the man dropped to the floor.

Annja was in motion at once, knowing that the bullets had been meant for her. She bent, trying to find one of the lost pistols. Her backpack spilled and something metallic slid free, dropping onto the dust‐covered floor.

She skidded to a halt and reached for the necklace. Before she could close her hand on it, Foulard fired three more shots.

Two of the rounds thudded into the dead man and the third struck the metal charm, sending it skidding across the cave floor.

As Annja spun to look at the man, to attempt to read his next move, another figure stepped into the light pool created by Foulard’s flashlight.

Savagely, the old man with the walking stick rammed the bottom of his thick staff into the back of Foulard’s skull. Crying out in pain, Foulard sagged to the cave floor.

Moving quickly, the old man surprised the remaining men and came out of the darkness. He swung the staff, taking each man’s feet from beneath him, then driving the end of his weapon into each man’s chest hard enough to take away his breath.

The old man looked at Annja. “Come on, then. It wouldn’t do to stay around until they get a second wind.”

Despite the fact that an earthquake had occurred and the men had pistols and didn’t seem afraid to use them, the old man acted perfectly calm. As if this was something he did every day.

Fisting the charm, Annja stood. The metal caught the glow of the light for an instant, twirling in her grip.

“What is that?” the old man demanded. “What did you find?”

Foulard roared a foul curse and pointed the pistol at them.

“Which way?” Annja yelled. The old man hadn’t come from the passageway that led to the sinkhole.

“Here.” The old man turned and ran as bullets struck the cave walls.

Almost immediately, the earth quaked again.

Thrusting her arms out in front of her, not understanding how the old man appeared able to see so well in the darkness, Annja located the opening in the wall by feel just in time to keep her face from smashing into it.

For a moment, until they left the glow of the flashlight behind them, the old man was a dimly visible patch of gray ahead of her. Then they twisted around a bend in the tunnel and he vanished.

“Watch your head,” he advised.

Annja put a hand over her head in time to ward off the passageway’s low ceiling. The rough impact bruised her forearm. How can he see down here?

“Who are those men?” Annja asked.

“I don’t know. They were after you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“At present, saving you. Unless you want to go back there and get acquainted with those highwaymen.”

Highwaymen was an odd description. Annja thought about that for a moment, but swiftly geared her mind back to self‐preservation as a flashlight beam cut through the darkness behind them. Foulard and his companions had evidently rallied.

“Left,” the old man called.

Annja didn’t respond at once and crashed into the bend of the passageway.

“Aren’t you listening?” the old man snapped.

“Yes.” Annja recovered and flicked on her flashlight.

The old man stood around the bend. He didn’t protect his eyes from the sudden light that sent painful splinters through Annja’s.

Satisfied that she was intact, the old man turned and ran with improbable speed. He carried his staff close to his body as if it were an appendage.

Annja followed through the next turn, then the opening of another chamber dawned before them. Low‐level light from outside filled the chamber, coming from an entrance in the mountainside.

“I have a truck,” the old man said. “Farther down the mountain. Try to keep up.”

Try to keep up? Annja couldn’t believe he’d said that. Who is this guy? she wondered.

Then he was outside the cave, sprinting down the steep, trembling mountainside as surefootedly as a mountain goat. Annja was hard‐pressed to keep up, but she knew despite his boasting that she could have outrun him. If she’d known which way to go.

They ran, crashing through brush and avoiding trees and boulders that were in their way. An elegant light blue Mercedes SUV sat parked beneath the heavy boughs of a towering Scotch pine only a short distance ahead.

“There,” the old man said.

“I see it,” Annja acknowledged. She ran to the passenger side as the old man headed to the driver’s side.

The Mercedes’s alarm system squawked as he pressed the keyless entry on the fob he’d fished from a pocket.

“Belt yourself in.” The old man started the engine and pulled the SUV into gear. He didn’t bother backing up, just pushed through the brush and came around in a tight circle to get back onto a narrow road that wound through the thick forest. Splashes of sunlight whipped across the dusty windshield.

Annja fumbled with the seat belt and got it strapped just as she heard motorcycle engines roar to life. As she glanced over her shoulder through the back window, the old man put his foot down harder on the accelerator.

“Did you manage to get one of their guns?” he asked.

“No.”

“You had one,” he accused.

“They took it back.” Anger surged in Annja at his tone. Despite the fact that they were running for their lives, the old man’s rudeness bothered her on some baseline level.

Like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“You should have shot them,” he said.

“I tried.”

Shaking his head, barely navigating a sudden turn that sent them skidding out of control for a moment, he reached under his seat and pulled free a rack. Restraining straps held two pistols and a cut‐down shotgun securely in place.

“Do you always go this well prepared while hiking?” Annja couldn’t help asking.

“Yes. It usually saves me from embarrassing situations like running for my life down a mountainside.”

Annja couldn’t argue the point.

Behind them, two motorcycles roared in pursuit, quickly closing the distance. Bullets crashed through the back glass and broken shards ricocheted inside the SUV. The old man pulled fiercely on the steering wheel again.

“Can you shoot?” he demanded.

Without responding, Annja freed one of the pistols. It was a .40‐caliber Heckler & Koch. She racked the slide.

“It’s already loaded,” the old man said.

A fat round spun through the air. Annja dropped the magazine from the pistol, and replaced the bullet. She popped the magazine back into place with her palm.

“It would be pretty foolish to carry around an unloaded weapon, now, wouldn’t it?” he asked sarcastically.

Another fusillade of bullets hammered the SUV.

“Perhaps,” the old man said in exasperation, “you could try shooting back at them.”

“I was just listening to that last‐minute pep talk,” Annja replied.

Hunched over the steering wheel, holding on with both fists, the old man grinned at her. “You do have a certain amount of spunk. I like that.”

Annja didn’t care what he liked. Despite the fact that he’d helped save her life, the old man annoyed her in ways she’d never before encountered, at a level that she hadn’t believed possible.

Twisting in the seat, Annja rested her right hand in her left and took aim with both eyes open. The British ex‐SAS officer who had taught her to shoot had ground that into her on the indoor and outdoor firing ranges. A shooter was never supposed to limit vision, not even on a scoped weapon.

The motorcycles had closed to within thirty yards and were coming closer, fishtailing and lunging as they pursued their prey. Annja couldn’t help thinking of the hunters who had chased La Bête all those years ago. Surely they had pursued it through these same woods.

But they’d never found the lair, had they? Despite her concern over her present situation, Annja couldn’t help feeling a little joyful triumph mixed in.

She squeezed the trigger, blasting through a 3‐round salvo. One of the bullets hit the lead motorcycle’s handlebars and jarred the wheel. The rider quickly recovered and opened fire again.

“You missed!” the old man roared.

“I see that,” Annja replied. “I kind of got that when he didn’t fall off the motorcycle.”

Bullets bounced off the SUV’s exterior again, sounding like hail.

“Hold steady,” Annja instructed, taking aim again.

“On this pathetic excuse for a road? Ha!” The old man jerked hard left, following the twists and turns.

Annja fired again, deliberately aiming toward the center of the lead rider’s chest. She kept up the rate of fire, hoping to get lucky or at least give their pursuers something to think about.

One of the bullets struck the motorcycle’s front tire. Rubber shredded and the motorcycle went out of control, lunging suddenly into the forest and smashing against a boulder the size of an earthmover. The gas tank ignited and exploded, blowing the rider free.

Her weapon empty, Annja reached for the second pistol. More rounds hammered the Mercedes.

The old man cursed, but his words were in Latin. And very descriptive.

“Latin?” Annja asked in surprise.

“I find the language more…native to my tongue,” the old man said. He followed another turn and the road flared out straight for a hundred yards. “Hold on.”

Annja didn’t have time to brace herself on such short notice. The seat belt bit into her chest as it clamped down when the old man jammed his foot on the brakes. She whipped her head around, watching as the last motorcycle following them down the mountainside tried to stop.

The man’s efforts only succeeded in locking up his brakes and sending him into an out-of‐control skid. He hit the back of the SUV and flipped over the top, landing on the hood of the Mercedes. He lay there for a moment, then weakly, tried to bring up the pistol he’d somehow managed to hang on to.

Annja lifted her own weapon, but the old man shoved the transmission into reverse and spilled the man from the hood before she could fire. Then the old man shifted back into a forward gear, floored the accelerator and ran him down as he tried to get to his feet.

A dull thud sounded as the man struck the front of the SUV. A moment later the Mercedes rocked back and forth as it crunched over the man’s body.

In disbelief, Annja whipped her head around and looked back. The man lay twisted and broken in the path.

“That was cruel,” she said.

“You’re right,” the old man agreed. “Shooting him would have been much more merciful. After all, for reasons unknown to me, he was willing to kill me to get you.

However, I didn’t see that we were going to be successful in persuading him to stand still long enough for you to shoot him several times. He’d probably have preferred blowing up against the side of a boulder like his friend.”

“I don’t know who they were,” Annja said. “We could go back and check for identification.”

“Men like that, assassins, rarely carry identification,” the old man said, continuing to gain speed. “Feel free to jump out and go back. I won’t have hurt feelings. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve saved someone’s life only to have them squander it foolishly against the very person or thing I saved them from. Do you know if the other men in the cave are dead?”

“No,” Annja replied.

“Well, I suppose you might consider the possibility that they’re still indisposed is worth the risk. I, however, don’t.”

“Your attitude leaves a lot to be desired.” Annja settled back in the seat, loosening the belt.

The old man shook his head and laughed. “You’re hardly the grateful sort yourself.” He shoved out his hand.

She took it, surprised at the strength she felt in his grip. Then it felt as if she’d grabbed hold of a branding iron.

The old man took his hand back and the strange sensation ended.

“Are you all right?” Concern touched his blue eyes beneath the thick white eyebrows.

“Yes,” Annja replied, annoyed that he would think she wasn’t.

“Good.” He paused and looked back at the road. “My name is Roux,” he said, as if it would explain everything.

TWO HOURS LATER, Annja sat waiting quietly in the Lozère police station. She was pointedly ignored.

“I think you’ve disrupted their day,” Roux said. “Now there will be paperwork generated, reports to file.”

“This is ridiculous,” Annja said.

“You’re an American.” Roux sat in a chair against the wall. He held a deck of cards and shuffled them one‐handed. “They aren’t particularly fond of Americans. Especially ones that claim to have been shot at.”

“There are bullet holes in your vehicle.”

Roux frowned and paused midshuffle. “Yes. That is regrettable. I don’t get overly attached to vehicles, but I did like that one.”

Annja shifted in the hard chair she’d been shown to. “Don’t you want to know who was shooting at us?”

The old man grinned. “In my life, I’ve found that if someone truly wishes to harm you and you survive the attempt, you usually get a chance to get to know them again.” He paused and looked at her. “You truly don’t know who tried to kill you?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

“Back at the cave, one of the men mentioned someone named Lesauvage,” Annja said.

Roux took a moment to reflect. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know anyone named Lesauvage.”

Working quickly, he shuffled, cut the deck and dealt out four hands on the chair between them. When he turned the cards over, she saw that he’d dealt out four royal flushes.

“Are you certain you won’t play?” he asked.

“After seeing that?” Annja nodded. “I’m certain.”

Smiling a little, like a small boy who has performed a good trick, Roux said, “Not even if I promise not to cheat?”

“No.”

“You can trust me.”

Annja looked at him.

“I believe in the game,” Roux said. “Cheating…cheapens the sport.”

“Sure.”

Roux shrugged. “Let’s play a couple hands. I’ll put up a thousand dollars against the trinket you found in that cave.”

“No.”

“We could be here for hours.” Roux shuffled the cards hopefully.

“Mademoiselle Creed.”

Glancing up, Annja saw a handsome man in a black three‐piece suit standing in front of her. His dark hair was combed carefully back and he had a boyish smile.

“I’m Annja Creed,” she said.

The man looked around. No one else sat in the waiting room.

“I’d rather gathered that you were.” He held out his hand. “I am Inspector Richelieu.”

“Like the cardinal,” Annja said, taking his hand and standing.

“In name only,” the inspector said.

Since Cardinal Richelieu had been responsible for thousands of people being beheaded on the guillotine, Annja realized her faux pas.

“Sorry,” she said. “I haven’t met anyone with that name before. I meant no insult.”

“I assure you, mademoiselle, no insult was taken.” Richelieu pointed to the rear of the room. “If you would care to join me, I will take your statement in my office.”

6

Brother Gaspar of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain sat at his desk and contemplated his future. It was not a pleasant task. Thankfully, there was not much of it left. Surely no more than three or four more thousand mornings and as many evenings.

He wore a black robe against the chill that filled the room. The years had drawn him lean and spare. Beneath his cowl, his head was shaved and his skin was sallow from seldom seeing the light of day. He got out at night. All of his order did, but they couldn’t be seen during the day because it raised too many questions among the townsfolk.

As leader of the Brotherhood of the Silent Rain, he did not truly have a future. His mission was to protect and unlock the past. If he succeeded in the first, no one would ever know the monstrous predations his order had allowed to take place three hundred years ago.

But if he succeeded in the second and unlocked the past, made everything right again, his whole life would change. He looked forward to that possibility.

Even at sixty‐eight years old, he believed he had a few good years left. It wasn’t that he looked forward to getting out into the world. He had renounced all of that when he took his vows. But he had read all the books and manuscripts in his small post.

He longed for the true manuscripts, the ones he had seen as a child in Rome, where he’d been trained in the secrets he had to keep. The documents that told of secret histories and covered holders of power who weren’t known to the general masses.

He sighed and his gentle breath nearly extinguished the guttering candles that illuminated the stone cave. The monastery, hidden from sight, was located deep inside the Cévennes Mountains. It wasn’t a true edifice built by the hand of men in service to the church. Rather, it was an aberration within the earth that earlier monks had discovered and elaborated on.

On good days, Brother Gaspar thought of the monastery as a gift from God, made expressly for his order. On bad days, he thought of it as a prison.

He sat at his desk and wrote his weekly letter to Bishop Taglio, who guided his moves and provided counsel when needed. Although written with handmade ink, in elegant calligraphy, on paper made by the order, the letter was merely perfunctory. It was merely a chore that occupied his head and his hands for a short time.

After thirty‐seven years, since he had taken on the mantle of the leader of the order, Brother Gaspar had begun to have difficulty finding ways to express the situation.

Everything is fine and going according to plan. We are still searching for that which was lost.

He kept the references deliberately vague. Enemies didn’t quite abound these days as they had three hundred years ago, but they were still out there.

In fact, even a few treasure hunters had joined the pack. Corvin Lesauvage had snooped around for years. Over the past few the man had become extremely aggressive in his search. He had killed two monks who had fallen into his hands, torturing them needlessly because they didn’t know anything to assuage his curiosity.

Only Brother Gaspar knew that, and he shuddered to think about falling into Lesauvage’s hands. Of course, he would not. He would die before that happened.

His fellow monks had orders to kill him the instant he fell into someone else’s custody.

Since he never went anywhere alone, and seldom ventured outside the monastery walls, he didn’t think he would ever be at risk.

Only the imminent disclosure of the secrets he protected would bring him forth. God willing, he would find the truth of those secrets himself. But, as they had remained hidden for three hundred years, there was little chance of that.

“Master.”

Startled, Brother Gaspar looked up from his broad table and the letter he had been writing. “Yes. Come forward that I may see you.”

Brother Napier stepped from the shadows. He wore hiking clothes, tattoos and piercings, and looked like any young man who prowled the Parisian streets.

“Yes, Brother Napier,” Brother Gaspar inquired.

“I did not mean to bother you while you were at your letter,” the younger monk stated.

Brother Gaspar put his pen in the inkwell with slow deliberation. “But you have.”

“For good reason, master.”

“What is it?”

“The woman has found something.”

“The American?”

“Yes, master. She found La Bête’s cave.”

Angry and frightened, Brother Gaspar surged to his feet. He leaned on the desk and his arms trembled. “It can’t be.”

Kneeling in supplication, Brother Napier held up his hands. Sheets of papers containing images rested on them. “It is true, master. I saw the cave myself. But only for a short time. The earth closed back over it.” He looked at Brother Gaspar. “I saw it, master. I saw the Beast of Gévaudan. The stories were true.”

Of course they were, the older monk thought. Otherwise we would not all be trapped here.

Rounding the desk, Brother Gaspar took the papers from the young monk’s hands. He stared at the pictures. They showed the young American woman on the mountaintop and apparently running for her life. Other pictures showed motorcycles chasing an SUV.

“You saw La Bête?” Brother Gaspar asked.

“Yes.”

“Was it—” he hesitated “—alive?”

“No. It was dead. Very dead. A warrior killed it.”

“A warrior?” Excitement flared through Brother Gaspar. The old stories were true. The knowledge offered validation for all the years he had spent at the monastery. “How do you know a warrior killed it?”

“Because he was still there.”

“The warrior?”

“Yes, master.”

“He was dead, as well?” Brother Gaspar doubted the man could have been in any other shape, but just knowing the story was true and knowing all the arcane things connected with it, he felt compelled to ask.

“Yes, master. It looked as though he and La Bête had fought and killed each other.”

Brother Gaspar felt the air in the cave grow thicker than normal. “Did you examine La Bête’s body or that of the warrior?” he asked.

“I did. But only for a short time. The cavern was shaking. The earthquake was still going on. Luckily, I got out before the cavern closed.”

“It closed?”

“Yes, master.”

“You could find this place again?”

The young monk nodded. “But it would do no good, master. The earth has sealed the cave tightly.” He paused. “Perhaps a quake another day will reveal it again.”

“We will watch for this, then,” Brother Gaspar said. His hand caressed his throat.

“When you looked at the warrior, did you see anything?”

“You mean the necklace?”

Brother Gaspar’s heart beat sped up. “Yes,” he replied in a hoarse whisper.

The necklace was the greatest secret of them all.

“The American woman carried a necklace from the cave,” the young monk said.

“You followed her?” Brother Gaspar asked.

“As far as I could,” the young monk agreed. “She was pursued.”

“By who?”

“Lesauvage’s men.”

That announcement poured ice water into the old monk’s veins. “How did they get there?”

“They followed the woman. I only happened to be in the mountains when I saw her with the old man.”

“What old man?” Brother Gaspar was alarmed.

“I do not know, master.”

Brother Gaspar went through the sheets of pictures. “Is he in these?”

“Sadly, no. I thought I took his picture, but when I developed the images, I found I had not.”

Brother Gaspar, whose life had been so carefully ordered for so very long, felt very unsettled. He didn’t like the fact that Lesauvage’s men had been so close to the discovery of La Bête or that his monks had merely been lucky.

When he had found out about the American television person, he had dismissed her at once. Chasing History’s Monsters was pure entertainment and a complete waste of time. No one doing research for such a show presented any threat to uncovering his secrets. Or so he had believed.

“Who has the necklace now?” Brother Gaspar asked.

“The woman, I think.” Brother Napier looked flustered. “Lesauvage’s men gave pursuit, but the American woman and the old man shot back at them and escaped.”

“Where is the American woman?”

“She was staying in Lozère. I don’t know where.”

Lamenting that he hadn’t given more thought to the threat the woman might have posed, Brother Gaspar sighed. “Find her. Find out if she still has the necklace.”

“And if she does, master?”

“Take it from her and bring it to me.”

“Of course.” Brother Napier bowed and backed out of the room.

Resentfully, Brother Gaspar glared at the table. His nearly completed letter sat there.

It would have to be rewritten, of course. And he would have to call the bishop.

Perhaps, Brother Gaspar thought, he would soon be free of his prison.

7

Inspector Richelieu’s office was neat and compact. Not the kind of office Annja expected of a working policeman. She’d seen cop’s offices before. None of them were this pristine.

She wondered if maybe Richelieu was gay or lived with his mother. Or perhaps he was a control freak. A personality trait like that was a real relationship killer.

Not that Annja was looking for a relationship. But the inspector did have nice eyes and nice hands. Her mind wandered for a moment.

“Have a seat,” Richelieu invited, waving to the chair across from his tiny metal desk.

Annja sat. In the too neat office, she felt dirty and grimy. Outside in the main office with the other policemen, she’d felt that she belonged. Now she wanted a hot bath and a change of clothing. And food. She suddenly realized she was starving.

“I gave a statement to one of the officers,” Annja said.

“I know.” Richelieu sat on the other side of the desk. “I read it. Both versions.”

While waiting for something—anything—to happen, Annja had written up her statement herself in addition to the one the policeman had taken. She hadn’t trusted his eye for detail. Or his ear.

“Your penmanship and your French are exquisite,” Richelieu commented.

“Thanks,” Annja said, “but I wasn’t here for a grade.”

Richelieu smiled. “I’ve also been investigating the supposed site of the chase down the mountain.”

“Supposed?” Annja echoed.

“Yes.” The inspector looked concerned for a moment. “Would you prefer to speak in English? I’m quite good at it and perhaps it would be easier.”

“French is fine,” Annja said.

“I thought perhaps you hadn’t understood.”

“I understood perfectly.” Annja put an edge to her words. Getting dismissed out of hand in the field of archaeology because she was a woman was something she’d had to deal with often. She didn’t take it lightly. “There was no ‘supposed’ chase site. It was there. Along with two or three dead men.”

Richelieu waited a moment, then shook his head. “No dead men.”

Annja thought about that. “Perhaps Lesauvage had the bodies picked up.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I don’t know,” Annja replied. “I came here to you to find out why he would send men looking for me in the first place.”

“Do you know that he sent the men?”

“I overheard one of the men say that they were working for Lesauvage.”

“But you don’t know that they, in fact, did.”

“Why would they say they were if they weren’t?”

The inspector looked amused and perplexed. “I’m quite sure I wouldn’t know.”

“I could ask Lesauvage,” Annja said.

“I thought you didn’t know him.”

“Maybe you could introduce us,” Annja suggested with a smile. The inspector wasn’t the only one who could play games. He was just the only one at the moment with some reason to.

A sour smile pulled at Richelieu’s lips. He pulled at his left ear. “You’re intimating that I have some kind of personal relationship with Lesauvage?”

Returning his gaze full measure, Annja asked, “Are you sure speaking French works for you? Maybe English translates more plainly.”

Richelieu scowled. “I didn’t come here to listen to disparaging remarks directed at me, Miss Creed.”

“I didn’t come here to cool my heels for three hours, then get patted on the head and sent away.”

Opening the slim notebook computer on his desk, Richelieu opened a file that displayed several pictures. “We investigated the site. I took these pictures. I found expended cartridges, bullets in the trees and scorch marks.” He paused. “No bodies.

No motorcycles.”

“Then Lesauvage picked them up.”

“Why?”

“So he wouldn’t be implicated.”

Closing the computer, Richelieu looked at her. “I was hoping to establish the veracity of your claim, Miss Creed. I did find damage done out in the forest—which is federally protected, I might add, and something you might be called upon to answer for—but nothing that you and your friend couldn’t have done yourselves.”

“We didn’t intentionally damage the forest,” Annja said. She was annoyed. Truthfully, she hadn’t expected much in the way of help from the police. This man, Lesauvage, appeared to have a large organization at his beck and call. Assuming he had inroads with the local police was no great leap of imagination.

“So you say,” the inspector said.

“I do say.”

“I will note your disavowal in my reports.”

“Why would we do something like that?” Annja asked, exasperated.

Richelieu spread his hands. “You’re a television personality, Miss Creed. Here in Lozère chasing a monster that’s three hundred years old. Perhaps you thought tales of a running gun battle through the forest would, perhaps, spice up your tale. For your viewers. I am told that you people in television will do anything to improve your ratings.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Annja said angrily.

“Perhaps not. But there were no bodies out there. Nor was there a giant crevasse leading to an underground cave containing the remains of La Bête.”

“The earthquake must have closed it back up.”

Richelieu nodded. “Amazing, isn’t it, that nature herself would align against you?”

“What about the bullet holes in the old man’s SUV?”

“A lover’s quarrel?”

Frowning, Annja said, “Me? And that old man? Please.”

Richelieu laughed. “Perhaps it was over business. Perhaps you were both shooting at game and hit the truck instead.”

“No.”

“Your report here could be just to falsify an insurance claim.”

“That’s not what happened.”

“But you are on the show with the woman with the…problematic apparel.”

Terrific, Annja thought. Maybe poltergeists could get chased away from historic manors, but she’d be haunted by Kristie Chatham’s bodacious ta‐tas forever.

“I have never had a problem with my apparel,” Annja pointed out.

“I have made a note of that, as well.”

Annja reached into her pack and took out her digital camera. She switched it on and brought up the pictures she’d shot inside the cave. In spite of the darkness, the images had turned out well.

“This is La Bête,” Annja said.

Taking the camera, Richelieu consulted the images, punching through them one by one. He handed the camera back. “Anyone with Photoshop could make these.”

“And take the time to put them on a camera?” Annja couldn’t believe it.

“It would,” the inspector said as inoffensively as he could, “make your story seem more legitimate. When The Blair Witch Project appeared in theaters, many people believed the video footage was part of an actual paranormal investigation. And Orson Welles anchoring The War of the Worlds in news reports on the radio in 1938 was also deliberate, causing mass hysteria throughout your country. Media people know best how to present anything they wish to.”

“Those are real pictures,” Annja stated.

“If you insist.”

Angrily, Annja put the camera away. “Who is Lesauvage?”

“A figment of your overactive imagination,” Richelieu said.

Without a word, Annja got up to leave.

“Or…” Richelieu let the word dangle like a fishing lure.

Annja waited. Mysteries always kept her hanging well past the point she should leave.

“Or he’s a man named Corvin Lesauvage,” Richelieu said. “If it is this man, he’s very dangerous. He’s a known criminal, though that’s never been successfully proved.

Witnesses have a tendency to…disappear. Likewise, so do past business associates.”

“Can you help me with him?”

“Can you offer me any proof that he’s truly after you, Miss Creed?”

Annja thought for a moment. “There was a man who was knocked unconscious in an alley earlier this morning. In the downtown area.”

More interested now, Richelieu leaned forward. “Do you know something about that?”

Ignoring the question, Annja asked, “Did he work for Corvin Lesauvage?”

“We don’t know.”

“Then I suggest you ask him.”

Richelieu frowned. “We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“He was killed. Less than an hour after we took him into custody.”

Annja thought about that. Evidently there was something at stake here that she didn’t know about. “Did Lesauvage do it?”

“We don’t know who did it.”

Meaning you don’t know if it was done by an inmate or a police officer, Annja thought.

“There was a local boy with me this morning,” Annja said. “His name is Avery Moreau. I hired him to set up my trip, arrange for things.”

Richelieu nodded. “I know Avery. He’s a sad case.”

“Why?”

“His father died quite suddenly a few weeks ago.”

“I don’t understand,” Annja said.

“His father was shot to death.”

“By Lesauvage?” Annja asked, thinking maybe the men had been after Avery more than her.

“No,” Richelieu said. “By me.”

Annja didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing. She wondered if perhaps Richelieu was warning her.

“Gerard Moreau, Avery’s father, was a small‐time burglar,” Richelieu said. “He’d been in and out of jail for years. That is a matter of record and was covered in the media. It was only a matter of time before we put him away for good or a homeowner shot him.

As it happened, I shot him while investigating the report of a burglary. He hadn’t made it out of the house and came at me with a weapon.” The inspector leaned back in his chair. “Needless to say, Avery Moreau has been less than cooperative.”

Thinking about things for a moment, Annja said, “Let’s say for a moment that you believe me about the chase down the mountain.”

Richelieu smiled. “Let’s.”

“Why would Lesauvage recover the bodies of the dead men?”

“To avoid being implicated.”

“Which is what I said.”

“You did. It’s a conclusion that fits the facts as you present them. We’re entertaining that for the moment.”

“Why would Lesauvage risk sending men after me in the first place?”

“You know, Miss Creed,” Richelieu said with a smile, “as I read your reports and listened to you now, I have asked myself that several times. I’m open to your suggestion.”

Annja had no idea what was going on. The weight of the charm rested heavily in her pocket. She hadn’t told the inspector about it. If she had, he would have taken it away.

Countries were funny about things that might be national treasures.

“I don’t know,” Annja finally said. “But I intend to find out.”

OUT IN THE MAIN ROOM, Roux was playing poker with some policemen. He looked up as Annja stepped from the inspector’s office.

Annja walked past him.

“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure, but I’m afraid I have to go now,” Roux said as he gathered the pile of money he’d won. He winked at the policemen and fell into step with Annja. “Are we going somewhere?”

“No.”

“Humph,” Roux said. “Our friend the inspector didn’t believe your story?”

“Someone removed the bodies,” she said. “The quake closed the cave again.”

“Pity. It would have been an exciting episode for your show.”

She whirled on him. “You know about Chasing History’s Monsters?”

“I must confess,” Roux admitted, “I’m something of a fan, I’m afraid. Not quite as stimulating as Survivor, but well worth the investment of time. I particularly like…I can’t remember her name. The girl with the clothing problems.” He smiled a little.

“You would,” Annja said, disgusted.

Look at the fire in her, Roux thought. Simply amazing.

“I’m a man of simple pleasures,” Roux said.

“Mr. Roux,” Inspector Richelieu called out.

Roux turned to face the man. “Yes, Inspector?”

“Would you like to make a statement?”

Grinning, Roux shook his head. “No. Thank you.” When he turned around, he discovered that Annja had left him. She was making her way out the door. He hurried to catch up.

Night had fallen while they were inside the police station. Shadows draped the streets.

“You’ll have a hard time finding a cab at this time of night,” Roux said.

She ignored him, arms folded over her breasts and facing the street.

“Probably,” Roux went on, “walking back to wherever you’re staying wouldn’t be the wisest thing you could do.”

She still didn’t respond.

“I could give you a ride,” Roux suggested. More than anything, he wanted a look at the metal charm she had found in the cave. If it was what he thought it was, his long search might at last be over. “I at least owe you that after what we’ve been through.”

She looked at him then. “You didn’t try to tell them about the men who chased us.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I knew they wouldn’t listen.”

She continued to glare at him.

“Corvin Lesauvage,” Roux said, “is a very connected man in this area. A very dangerous man.”

“Tell me about him.”

“Over dinner,” Roux countered. “I know a little bistro not far from here that has some of the best wines you could hope for.”

She looked at him askance.

“You won’t regret it,” Roux said.

8

The bistro did carry a very fine selection of wines. Roux insisted on their sampling a variety during dinner. The meal was superb. Annja devoured filet mignon, steamed vegetables, baked potatoes smothered in cheese, salads and rolls as big as her fist and so fresh from the oven they almost burned her fingers.

She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so she didn’t strive for modesty. She ate with gusto, and Roux complimented her on her appetite.

As it turned out, Roux didn’t know much about Corvin Lesauvage. All he had was a collection of vague rumors. Lesauvage was a murderer several times over. He ran drugs. He peddled archaeological forgeries. If an illegal dollar was made in the Lozère area, ten percent of it belonged to Corvin Lesauvage because he brokered the deal, allowed it to take place or kept quiet about it.

The bistro was quiet and dark. French love songs played softly in the background. A wall of trickling water backlit by aquamarine lights kept the shadows at bay. The wait staff proved almost undetectable.

Warmed by the wine, exhausted by her exertions, Annja found herself relaxing perhaps a little more than she should have. But her curiosity about Roux was rampant.

“Are you French?” she asked after they had finished discovering how little he knew about Lesauvage.

“As French as can be,” Roux promised. He refilled her glass, then his own.

“Yet you speak Latin fluently.”

Roux gestured magnanimously. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“No. What do you do, Mr. Roux?”

“Please,” he said, turning up a hand, “just call me Roux. It’s a name that’s suited me long enough.”

“The question’s still on the table,” Annja pointed out.

“So it is.” He sipped his wine. “Truthfully? I do whatever pleases me. If fortune smiles on me, there’s a reason to get up in the morning. If I’m truly blessed, there are several reasons.”

“Then you must be independently wealthy,” Annja said, half in jest.

“Yes,” he admitted. “Very. I’ve had plenty of time to amass a fortune. It’s not hard if you live long enough and don’t try to be greedy.”

“Where do you live?”

“In Paris.” Roux smiled. “I’ve always loved Paris. Even after it’s gotten as gaudy and overpopulated and dirty as it has. You open the window in the morning there, you can almost feel the magic in the air.”

“How did you make your fortune?”

“Slowly. Investments, mostly. I’ve been very lucky where investments are concerned.

I’ve always been able to take the long view, I suppose.”

Annja eyed him over her glass. “How old are you?”

“Far, far older than I look, I assure you.” His blue eyes twinkled merrily.

Santa Claus should have eyes like that, Annja couldn’t help thinking.

“You are quite aggressive in your investigative approach,” he said gently.

“I’ve been accused of that before.” Annja leaned forward, studying him. “I’ve made my peace with it. As an archaeologist, you’re trained to ask questions. Of the situation. Of the people around you. Of yourself.”

“I see.”

“What were you doing up in the mountains this afternoon?”

“Taking a constitutional.”

Annja smiled. Despite the abrasive nature the old man brought out in her, there was something about him that she liked. He was as openly secretive as the nuns at the orphanage where she’d grown up.

“I don’t believe you,” she told him.

“I take no offense,” he told her. “I wouldn’t believe me, either.”

“You were looking for something.”

Roux shrugged.

“But you’re not going to tell me what it is,” Annja said.

“Let me ask you something.” Roux leaned in close to her and spoke conspiratorially.

“You found something in that cave this afternoon, didn’t you?”

Annja picked at a bit of leftover bread and used the time to think. “I found La Bête.”

“A creature that you believe was once La Bête.”

“I showed you the pictures.”

“I saw it, too,” Roux reminded her.

“You don’t believe it was La Bête?” Annja asked.

“Perhaps.” Roux lifted his shoulders and dropped them. “The light was uncertain.

Things were happening very quickly in there.”

“What do you think it was?”

“A fabrication, perhaps.”

“It was real.” Annja had no doubt about that.

“There’s something else I’m interested in,” the old man replied. “Something you haven’t told me. I saw you in that cave. You had something in your hand.”

“A human skull,” she replied.

“That isn’t all.”

The charm was still in Annja’s pocket. She’d had it out only once. That was back in the police station bathroom. She’d been afraid the police were going to take charm away from her so she’d made a rubbing of both sides in her journal.

“I saw you with something else in your hand,” he said. “Something shiny. Something metallic. It looked old.” He paused. “If you found it in the cave, I would think it was very old.”

“Not when compared to the Mesozoic period.”

Roux laughed. The sound was easy and pleasant.

Annja found herself laughing with him, but thought it was as much because of the wine as of the humor in the situation. She didn’t trust him. She was certain his presence in the mountains was no accident.

“Touché,” he replied. He sipped more wine. “Still, you have me intrigued, Miss Creed.”

She looked at him. “I don’t trust you. But don’t take that personally. I don’t trust most people.”

“In your current state of affairs, with a criminal figure pursuing you for some unknown, nefarious reason, I wouldn’t be the trusting sort, either.”

“I was taught by the best to be slightly paranoid.”

Roux lifted his eyebrows. “The Central Intelligence Agency?”

“Worse than that,” Annja said. “Catholic nuns.”

Roux grinned. “Ah, that explains it.”

“The paranoia?”

“The fact that you don’t come bursting out of your shirts on the television program.”

Roux looked at her appraisingly. “You’re certainly equipped.”

Annja stared at him. “Are you coming on to me?”

“Would it be appropriate?”

“No.”

Roux tapped the table with his hand. “Then that settles it. I was not coming on to you.

It’s the wine, the candlelight in your hair and the sparkle in those marvelous green eyes. A moment in a beautiful restaurant after a delightful repast.”

“I think,” Annja said, “that you probably hit on anything that has a heartbeat and stays in one place long enough.”

Leaning back in his chair, Roux laughed uproariously. He drew the unwelcome attention of several other diners. Finally, he regained control of himself. “I do like you, Miss Creed. I find you…refreshing.”

Annja sipped her wine and considered her options. So far, the origins of the charm had stumped her. She looked at the old man. “I’m going to trust you. A little.”

“In what capacity?”

“Something professional.”

Anticipation gleamed in his bright blue eyes. “Whatever you found in the cave?”

“Yes. How experienced are you in antiquities?”