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"I like the looks of it"

"You haven’t seen it"

"I go on instinct"

"Christophe didn’t tell you the Karnak va Ric and he knows stuff they’re al to find out?"

"Shit No I’m sorry Christophe’s people didn’tabout an ex-FBI man"

"And you?"

"I told you I like you and your back, sight unseen If he’s your main man and if vampires want him that bad, I’ll watch his back if we find him too"

I raised an eyebrow Maybe Sansouci could be an ally, after all "You help save Ric and I’ll"-I really couldn’t offer hi he’d want-"try to return the favor soh"

"You don’tafter your kind?"

"These creatures aren’t my ’kind’, vampire or not" Sansouci frowned at me "I’ve never seen even you so pale, baby pale How’d you get Christophe to go to war?"

"My silver Irish tongue?" My knee-jerk, defensive quip had come too close to the truth And Sansouci was no fool I could feelas if I suddenly stood over a campfire

"Huh You paid his price, whatever it was, didn’t you?"

"So did Cicereau, evidently"

Checkmate

We turned to watch the Inferno forces and Cicereau’sweapons over and torsos and every lirinned "Super-fine equipment Never did cotton to ht now, but they’re fierce fighters even so, and needed so to run into those devil-dogs again?"

"Hyenas with eternal, supernatural strength"

"Good" Sansouci hefted his bandoliers tighter over his wide shoulders "Thanks for the ed as a weapon, ready to turn ainst whoever opposed us When Grizelle strode over, weapon-hung and holding a sword belt for htened with dislike

"I’ot the sword Slash and burn is our game Vamps are super-fast and super-powerful No mercy is the only way to deal with them You ready?"

I nodded I was ultra-ready to show no mercy to someone "What about your boss?"

"What about him?"

"Who’s his partner if you’re with me?"

"Like you’d worry?" Her white ser She nodded to the dark river’s edge

I saw a tongue of stone pier thrusting out into the dark water where the river had widened into a lake as far as was visible in this diure stood at the end of the pier, one dead-white, ungauntleted hand throwing a veil of what appeared to be gray powder into the water

He spoke, intoned, words that echoed off the stones

"In the names of the murderers and the eal I coouille, to rise"

Shivers coursed under arden’s tales of her ancestor, the gargoyle carver of Notre Da This was the dragon of the Seine itself, supposedly burned to ashes by a holy cardinal

Who was Snow that he could cast ashes on the water to rise as serpentine flesh and scale? What was he? Devil or angel or so powers holy or hellish?

But that was then, the legend of the water dragon, in Medieval France, and this was now in Middle-evil Earth, and it was beco reality

The dark river water boiled like a vast pot of oil Then a huge, pale-scaled for its webbed wings against its , serpent-supple neck, but it bowed to Snoho leaped upon it Up he rose to the cavern apex on that thorny, massive brow

"This is a rescue mission, a raid," Snow’s rock-concert voice boomed off the rock walls and water "We will stop all opposition forces encountered hatever means suits their breed and any mortal and immortal allies they may have

"My mount’s fiery breath will sear our foes dead; until they nuet past At that point we’ll be hand-to-hand Grizelle and I will lead, along with Sansouci of the Cicereau syndicate Each fighter reat value to the vampires-and a prize for our party He’ll be hidden and well-guarded"

The dragon began stalking, its huge body as hidden as the bulk of an iceberg, down the shallow river, towing an ares Its cave-entrance-size nostrils snorted mists of steam

The armed forces shouted in triue, and waded to the thigh-tops into the fearsoes

"Where are they going?" I asked Grizelle

She pickedthe dooyptian dead and the teet your feet wet in Hell or in the river of blood that will soon flow under the Karnak"