Only one head crowned its long, serpent-supple neck, but it bowed to Snow who leaped upon it. Up he rose to the cavern apex on that thorny, massive brow.

"This is a rescue mission, a raid," Snow's rock-concert voice boomed off the rock walls and water. "We will stop all opposition forces encountered with whatever means suits their breed and any mortal and immortal allies they may have.

"My mount's fiery breath will sear our foes dead; until they number few enough to get past. At that point we'll be hand-to-hand. Grizelle and I will lead, along with Sansouci of the Cicereau syndicate. Each fighter must be on the alert for a mortal prisoner, a Latino man of great value to the vampires-and a prize for our party. He'll be hidden and well-guarded."

The dragon began stalking, its huge body as hidden as the bulk of an iceberg, down the shallow river, towing an armada of empty shallow-bottomed barges. Its cave-entrance-size nostrils snorted mists of steam.

The armed forces shouted in triumph at the size and power of their leading edge, and waded to the thigh-tops into the fearsome dark shallows to scramble aboard the barges.

"Where are they going?" I asked Grizelle

She picked me up like a doll.

"Where we are. Along the doom-driven river Styx to the sacred river of the Egyptian dead and the temple of Karnak. I'm here on orders that you don't get your feet wet in Hell or in the river of blood that will soon flow under the Karnak."

Chapter Thirty-three

The dozen or so barges were shaped like long-necked Viking craft with dragon figureheads.

Gliding along without the aid of oars in the deeper middle of the river, they were as silent in motion as ghost ships.

Armed warriors lined their sides. One thought of shields when envisioning Vikings, but these fighters wore their shields. I would bet the steel-studded wetsuits were fashioned of some impervious blend of materials that made them as supple as second skins and tougher than crocodile hide, chain mail or Kevlar.

The dragon's rear was a dinosaur-size mountain blocking everything ahead, a beaten metal wall of gorgeous scales. Every so often its submerged tail would twitch out of the oily water, splashing the fighters and making their Viking ships wallow wildly.

No wonder this uniform I wore was based on a modern wetsuit. Inside my own impervious body armor, I felt empty and anxious.

I couldn't believe I'd set this awesome force in motion.

I couldn't believe Snow as a dragon-rider, despite his stage shtick, much less as a dragon-raiser.

Some entrepreneur had imported the historical London Bridge to the Arizona desert as a tourist attraction back in the last century, making it a bridge over untroubled sand. The dragon, La Gargouille, though, had been called up from its own ashes. Why was Snow the custodian of such a legendary creature and how could he raise the dead beast?

I shuddered inside my taut leather and steel second skin, wishing I could have worn it for the Brimstone Kiss. Wishing I could slough my real skin like a snake and disown my Brimstone Kiss moments.

Yet, perhaps some events were foreordained.

If I hadn't unknowingly followed Caressa to Las Vegas and finally fulfilled the canceled Kansas interview, I'd never have known about the dragon. According to the legend, a saint had interred the creature's ashes. Was one required to raise it?

That would make Snow a good guy and my crawling skin wasn't about to concede that. The Devil, maybe, had called the monster home after its death in the mortal world and held it in waiting in this New Hell on earth of post-Millennium Revelation Las Vegas.

Snow's true nature didn't matter now, though, only that my conclusions were right: Kephron and Kepherati, the twisted soul sister and brother, held Ric captive and he needed to be rescued as soon as possible. If he was still alive to save.

The silver familiar had quit pretending to be subtle, changing into a scale-armored metal serpent as thick around as a cane. It sped over my body taking the positions of a scout. Once it wrapped itself around my forehead and assumed the position of the Egyptian Uraeus. It seemed to be straining to see ahead.

Grizelle, still in human form, hissed at it like a big cat. "I don't like snakes. Where did you get that bizarre familiar?"

"Why?"

"It creeps me out."

I was almost tempted to tell her the talisman was the spawn of her own master's long white albino locks, but resisted.

Lanky Grizelle looked pretty serpentine herself in the form-fitting black wetsuit with the hood almost matching the rich ebony color of her face. None of her white dreadlocks showed, but they bulked out the back of her skull. The effect reminded me a bit too much of the head of that classic bitch-monster, the creature from the Alien film franchise. She turned that formidable head to glare at me. The serpent swiftly slipped down to coil around my neck and hiss at her.

It had never made a sound before. I stiffened with alarm as much as Grizelle did.

"Does it bite?" she asked.

"I don't know. If it does, it would be better if the bite was venomous. The Egyptians have cobras to command."

"Do they swim?"

"Not that I know of."

Grizelle grinned at the dark oily water pooling around the sides of our craft, which were not wood, but scales, I noticed. Dragon hide?

She tapped one side with a cat-long claw. "Man-made. Metal."

"Did you read my mind just now?"

"No. What would I find there?" Her smile was sharper than her tiger claws. "Some human stew of unpleasant emotions, no doubt. My master is adept at drawing those out."

"Why?"

"His business. As this expedition is not." Disapproval dripped from her tone.

"I'm paying for it."

"Paid," she corrected me. Her green eyes studied mine. "I can't say I understand these human bargains. Unhuman bargains are sealed with blood, not a kiss."

"Then Snow isn't unhuman," I pounced.

"It was your bargain, not his." She was just as quick on the draw as I was at implications. "I don't understand why he'd mount such an aggressive underground force on your say-so."

"Ric-" I began.

"Why should anyone care about him besides you?"

She'd shocked me into silence. At Our Lady of the Lake, we were taught that every human soul was precious. So was every life. Yet, what would still count in these post-Millennium Revelation days?

"Maybe what I want is more important than you think," I told her, lifting my head, and the silver serpent rising to strike in tandem.

She shrugged metal-glinted broad shoulders. What would happen to her wetsuit when she shifted to her white tiger form, I wondered? Her use of the suit implied her human form was vulnerable and so was the tiger, I guessed.

Vulnerable to injury, I reminded myself, not necessarily vulnerable to feeling.

We spoke no more, because the scenery was changing.

The rock walls were lightening to sandstone color and the water, reflecting them, looked muddy brown instead of deepest green-black.

Our river-borne war party was floating into the River Nile and Egypt land beneath the Las Vegas Strip.

The hush that fell over the company as we floated past larger-than-life-size friezes of ancient Egyptian scenes made me release a relieved breath. The extent of the Karnak 's hidden empire was living up to my advance warnings.

Heaving flames from wall-mounted torches along the route made the figures almost seem more real than painted, which made the armed invaders jumpy. I heard the creak of leather bandoliers, the scrape of metal being shifted, the click of firearms being taken off safety settings.

And La Gargouille began unfolding and flexing its huge leathery wings, adding to the thunderous echoes.