“They used to have gladiator fights here thousands of years ago, before they built the other two arenas. See that gate across from us? The gladiators entered there and then fought to the death. When a fighter died, their flame would go out.”

Something shiny caught the light at the base of the closest crescent. I squinted. A metal bug as big as my fist. There was another one on top of this crescent, and two more at the opposite tower. Soot marked the stone around the bugs. Sean was right. Someone had set up a short-term portal. The beetles packed enough power for a couple of hours and then burned themselves out.

Directly opposite us, something stirred in the gloom of the gate. Something large.

A massive leonine paw moved into the light, easily five feet across. Claws shot out and struck the stone.

Oh no.

A colossal shoulder followed, then the other, then the broad muscular chest sheathed in sandy fur, a thick neck crowned with a dark rust mane, and finally the giant head, a strange, disturbing mix of lion and human, anthropomorphic, horrifying, yet cohesive. This wasn’t a mishmash of two species. This was a naturally evolved being, who just happened to resemble a huge predatory cat with human eyes on its face.

Sean’s upper lip wrinkled in a precursor to a snarl. If there ever was a monster designed to terrify his people, an Auul kaiju guaranteed to evoke instant revulsion among the werewolves, the creature in front of us would be it.

“Is that the witness?” I asked.

“Yep.”

A sphinx. Crap.

4

When we last left our intrepid heroes, they found clues that Wilmos’ disappearance was linked to the corrupted ad-hal threat encountered in previous adventures. A most mythical guardian now stands in the way to more answers.

Settle in for a guessing game.

The sphinx approached, his movements unhurried, almost lazy, circled the two towers, and lowered himself to the ground. His head was by the left tower, his tail by the right. He curled around the two spires like a cat clutching a toy to his belly. The huge gold hoops in his ears tinkled.

Sean watched him. He wasn’t focusing on him the way he sometimes zeroed in on his opponent. Rather he was watching him with the detachment of a satiated wolf seeing a bunny hop around in a distant field, curious, but not enough to get up. It was a ruse. Sean was all in. The sphinx had put himself between Sean and Wilmos, and Sean wouldn’t tolerate that.

The sphinx stretched. The sun slid over his isabelline fur, highlighting the paler belly and chest and drawing the eye to the rust-brown bands on his limbs and tail. A thick line of darker fur ran from the inner corners of his brilliant violet-blue eyes over his upper lids to the outer corners and across his cheeks, a feature that once inspired centuries of kohl eyeliner.