“No,” Santi said. “It’s taken care of. Now spread out and find the entrance.” He stepped up to the nearest statue—the one of Minerva—and felt around behind her in the alcove. Jess held back, letting his gaze move over the gods in succession . . . and settling on one in particular. Pluto. Roman god of the underworld.

He stepped up and felt behind, along the smooth plaster of the alcove. Nothing. But as he did, he braced himself on Pluto’s marble arm, and it moved beneath the black toga the statue wore.

The alcove clicked open.

“Here,” Jess said. “Come on.”

“Dario, bring up the rear. Keep watch,” Santi said. He had his weapon ready, and, Jess realized, so did Glain. Jess quickly followed their lead and waited at the opening. “Jess, go right and see to the automaton. Glain and I go left. Dario, Khalila, stay here until we signal.”

Jess ducked through and immediately turned right. The hallway was just as Wolfe had described it in his Mesmeric trance—a long, straight run with windows that overlooked the Forum. Not glass, certainly, because that would make them easy targets for vandals or Burners. These would be made of something harder and unbreakable. No use giving a desperate captive the chance to throw himself out and escape, either.

Jess heard the lion’s rumbling growl before he’d taken three running steps in its direction and slowed to a fast walk. The lion wasn’t waiting for him; it was pacing toward him, the cabled length of its tail twitching side to side and slamming into walls and windows. It left gouges where it hit. The creature was a big thing, the same size as the one he’d faced down in the tunnels. Seeing it coming at him in harsh daylight was chilling indeed.

You know this. You can do this. The problem was that this lion was in motion, and very probably about to break into a run; it didn’t have the same confusion the one in the tunnel had shown, and it was not undecided about the situation. It had been built to respond to intruders, no matter what uniforms they wore.

Jess broke into a run again, closing the distance fast, and ten steps from it, he threw himself into a slide on the slick marble floor. The lion, confused, tried to slow, but momentum wouldn’t allow it to check so quickly. Jess slid right underneath its open jaws, which hit the floor with a heavy clang just as his head cleared the space, and grabbed one of the thick metal legs to stop his slide. At the same time, he reached up for the depression beneath the lion’s jaw, found it, and pressed as hard as he could.

He heard the roar that had been building inside the thing skew to a strange whining noise and die. The lion took another step forward and froze.

Jess pushed himself out from behind it and cut his arm on the tail when he grabbed hold to stand up; the barbed end of it, he realized, was razor sharp. Even standing still, the thing was capable of harm.