I skimmed through the next few chapters until the first monsters appeared. There was no complexity or depth to de Guerre’s vampires. They were evil, soulless creatures who delighted in blood and death: the perfect complement to Hitler’s Nazi army. The writing was rather dialogue-heavy, but overall the book was better than I had expected. The battle scenes, in particular, were quite strong, written with gritty, vivid detail that suggested de Guerre had done his research.

I continued to skip ahead, scanning the pages for words like “vampire” and “magic.” I stopped on chapter twelve and read more closely. “We’ve got a problem.”

“Only one?”

“Hitler gets his hands on an artifact called the Silver Cross, an angelic tool created by God and used by the Church during the Crusades.” I cleared my throat and read from Hitler’s monologue. “Handed down to King Richard the Lionhearted by the archangel Michael, the cross gives the wielder power over all unnatural creatures. The hellbred spawn of Satan shall be transformed into an army of righteousness, kneeling before he who carries God’s almighty blessing! His servants shall look through the eye of the cross and see God’s true glory.”

“Unnatural creatures,” Lena repeated. “Like me.”

Or the manananggal we had seen in the Detroit nest. I closed the book, marking my spot with one finger. “Hitler’s forces were primarily made up of vampires, but they also included ghosts, werewolves, and more.”

“Can you create your own version of the cross to fight back? Free his servants, or turn them against him?”

“Normally, yes. The book provides a template, so a libriomancer could theoretically make as many copies of the cross as they wanted. At least until the book charred and they lost control of its magic. But not in this case.” I flipped to an earlier chapter. “Jakob’s character has a vision the first time he touches the cross. There’s a flashback to King Richard receiving the cross from the archangel, who warns him not to try to understand or duplicate its power. ‘Remember the lesson of Babel. God’s mysteries are His alone. This is the one true cross, the weapon of the almighty and His faithful. Should any attempt to re-create it, His wrath shall cause the fraudulent cross to sear him with the fires of Hell itself.’ Charles de Guerre, or whoever he is, deliberately wrote this book so that only one cross could exist at a time. If I try to make another, it will come with its own self-destruct mechanism.”