He edged down the tunnel, leading with his glowstick and Desert Eagle pistol—

—when with a shrill squeal a small red figure sprang out of a wide shaft in the ceiling, landing on Jack’s shoulders and quickly trying to bite his face off.

Jack caught the attacker at the last instant, grabbing the short man by the throat as they both fell back onto the steps in a jumbled heap.

As Jack desperately held him at bay, the little man snapped and snarled savagely—his red tattooed face a vision from a horror movie—his sharpened fangs, filed to deadly points, clamping together inches away from Jack’s nose.

Jack leaned back, his eyes widening in revulsion and . . . recognition.

He’d seen a man like this once before.

In the Underworld.

Hades’s sinister jester, Mephisto.

The one who had toyed with minotaurs before he killed them for the entertainment of the royal guests.

The one who had stowed aboard Jack’s plane when Jack had departed from the Underworld after the Great Games and who had tried to murder Jack while he slept.

But Jack had turned the tables and caused Mephisto to be sucked horrendously out through one of the plane’s windows, killing him.

This little bastard looked exactly like Mephisto: short in stature but lean and muscled, with tattooed red skin that was spiked in places with horns that had been surgically implanted subdermally.

And like Mephisto, the little fucker could fight.

He produced a short curved blade that Jack caught as it came rushing at his throat.

And those teeth, razor sharp and slashing in a manner that was more animal than human—

Boom!

The little man’s head snapped back in a burst of blood, blown almost completely off his shoulders, as Zoe fired her pistol from point-blank range.

The attacker’s body, its fingernails still clinging to Jack’s jacket, went limp and Jack kicked it off him.

‘Goddamn,’ he gasped. ‘A nasty little welcoming party Sphinx must have left behind.’

Lily slid to Jack’s side. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah. Just some scratches.’

Zoe looked distastefully at the dead attacker. ‘Who the hell is this? What the hell is this?’

She hadn’t been at the Underworld for the Great Games.

Jack said, ‘He looks like that jester from the Underworld. Mephisto.’

‘He is Vandal,’ Easton said, appearing beside them.

‘A Vandal?’ Lily said. ‘Like the ones who sacked Rome in the fifth century?’

‘Yes,’ Easton said.

Jack said, ‘Sister Lynda mentioned Vandals once. She said Sphinx brought some to Novodevichy Convent in Moscow when he came for the Siren bells.’

Easton said, ‘Vandals are small warrior race. Fearsome and fierce, like rabid dogs. Use teeth in combat. Eat flesh. But Vandals very rare now. Only the richest royals keep them.’

‘Like Hades kept Mephisto?’ Lily said.

Easton nodded.

Zoe said, ‘As I recall, Sister Lynda mentioned Sphinx had eight of them.’

‘Seven now,’ Jack said.