There was no sound here except for the faint rustling of rats and insects running from the light and the trickle of water in the tunnel’s center. He passed another engraving in the left-hand wall, then another, and then, finally, the tunnel split again. One side veered right and up. The other went down.

He dropped another glow and followed the left-hand path into the dark. It seemed to be a long journey, and then, suddenly, he heard something that didn’t belong here. Something up ahead, a scraping noise that sounded deliberate. A faint whirring.

He doused the glow and blinked, because an afterimage of it remained printed on his eyes. No, the glow he saw was a faint red.

Growing brighter now.

Spilling over ridges and curves that he didn’t understand at first, and then suddenly, chillingly, did.

There was a lion in the tunnel.

Jess stopped. Running would be useless; even at his best speed he doubted he could outrun the stride of a Roman lion in these cramped confines. The growling rumble of the thing echoed off the bricks, and he realized that he’d stopped breathing, as if that might hide him. It wouldn’t. Stay ready. Stay calm. Running would be death.

The lion padded toward him at a slow, inexorable pace. He backed away, moving one slow step at a time, and as if in a terrible dance, the lion paced him move for move, gliding forward as he retreated.

Jess stopped cold in his tracks, staring at the lion. He wasn’t looking at the ferocious, crushing jaws now, or the huge paws ready to smash the life out of him. The sphinx’s switch had been hidden just behind the thin beard, under the chin. The design of Roman lions, though different, would follow the same logic. Pick a spot no one in their right mind would reach for. Either inside the mouth, or . . .

Or just underneath it, beneath the lion’s bearded chin. The challenge was that it was much harder to reach.

He heard the low, rumbling growl grow louder and echo in a continuous, angry pulse from the tunnel walls. The lion paused, very still, only a short distance from Jess, and the red illumination of its eyes turned everything bloody. It must have been confused, Jess realized; his High Garda uniform, the band he wore on his wrist must have made it pause and wait to see what he’d do. Any casual intruder would have already been dead.

That didn’t mean the lion wouldn’t decide at any moment that High Garda or not, Library band or not, he needed to die. Don’t hesitate. Just keep moving.

Jess slowly raised his right hand. His fingers were trembling and twitching with the need not to go near this thing, but he controlled that and his natural desire to run for his life. His fingertips touched warm, slightly rough metal: the underside of the lion’s jaw. A jaw that could open at any instant and bite off his entire arm. A mouth that held razor-sharp teeth longer than his fingers and so much more terrifying than the sphinx he’d faced in Alexandria. This is a bad idea. So very bad.