The Cro-Magnon painters had used animal fat and minerals to make colors. Black had been a favorite and easy to make. All that was required was charred bone ground into a fine powder mixed with animal fat.

She walked along the wall, taking image after image. Only a little farther on, the scenes on the wall were marred. Long, deep scratches ran through them, as if they'd been dug into the stone by great, dull claws. The claw marks were seven and eight feet high, so close together it looked as if an animal had been in a frenzy.

An animal marking its territory? she wondered. Or the desperation of an animal trapped inside this cave?

In that moment, Annja remembered she'd traveled to the Cévennes looking for La Bête. Then she tripped and nearly fell. Something furry brushed against her ankle.

For one moment she thought she felt it move. Stepping back quickly, she swung the flashlight around, prepared to use it as a weapon.

The light beam fell in a bright ellipse over a scene straight out of a nightmare. The half-eaten and mummified corpse of a sheep lay on the floor amid a pile of bones.

Tracking the bone debris, Annja shone her beam over the stack of skulls that had been arranged in an irregular notch in the chamber. At least seventy or eighty skulls filled the area.

Was this a place of worship? Annja wondered. Or an altar celebrating past triumphs?

She tried to imagine Cro-Magnon men sitting in the cave bragging about their success as fierce hunters. Except that the sheep's body was anachronistic. None of the sheep's forebears had looked like that in Cro-Magnon times. This sheep was small and compact, bred for meat and wool, not far removed from the sheep Annja had seen on farms she'd passed on her way to the mountain range.

Looking closely, she noticed that several of the skulls were human.

Used to handling human remains on dig sites, she had no fear of the dead. She set down the flashlight to illuminate the scene.

Upon further inspection, she discovered that several of the ribs, and arm and leg bones were likely human, as well. Shreds of clothing that looked hundreds of years old clung to some of the bones. Boots stood and lay amid the clutter.

A cold chill ran down her spine. Whatever had lived in the cave had preyed on humans.

Shifting the light, heart beating a little faster, Annja spotted the great body stretched out on the floor. For a very tense moment, she'd thought the animal was lying there waiting to pounce. She froze.

The light played over the mummified lips pulled back in a savage snarl that exposed huge yellow teeth. The eye sockets were hollow, long empty and dry. In that moment, the animal musk she'd smelled seemed even more intense.

Death had stripped the fantastic creature of much of its bulk, but it was still easy to see how huge it had been in life. The head was as big as a buffalo's but more bearlike in shape. Its body was thick and broad and the limbs were huge. It was unlike anything Annja had ever seen before.

Making herself move despite the fear and astonishment she felt, Annja took pictures of the creature with the digital camera. Maybe she'd made two incredible discoveries in the same day.

Finished with the camera, she hurriedly took out a small drawing pad and a mechanical pencil from her backpack. If the camera failed to capture images, she could at least draw them.

On closer inspection, Annja saw a broad-bladed spear shoved through the beast's chest. Beneath the corpse of the impossible animal was a human corpse.

Decomposition hadn't settled in. Locked in the steady climate of the cave environment, kept bug-free by depth and ecology, the dead man had mummified as the beast had. His hands, the flesh so dehydrated it was almost like onionskin over the bones, still held tightly to the spear. Man and beast, locked in savage combat, had killed each other.

Kneeling beside the dead man and beast, she reached out her empty hand.

Something gleamed at the dead man's throat.

Taking a surgical glove from her backpack, Annja plucked the gleaming object from the corpse. It had partially sunk into the dead man's chest. A leather thong tied the object around the corpse's neck.

After freeing the gleaming object, Annja held it up so her flashlight beam could easily illuminate it. A jagged piece of metal, no more than two inches to a side, dangled from the leather thong.

The piece looked like an ill-made coin, hammered out on some smith's anvil in a hurry. One side held an image of a wolf standing in front of a mountain. The wolf was disproportioned, though the oddities seemed intentional, and it appeared as though the wolf had been hanged. The obverse was stamped with a symbol she couldn't quite make out.

Annja remained kneeling. She was checking the image when a flashlight beam whipped across her face.

Instinctively, she dodged away, remembering the motorcyclists and the old man she'd seen outside. She tucked the drawing pad, pencils and charm into her backpack as she scooped up her flashlight and switched it off.

"Where the hell did she go?" someone demanded in French.

Shadows created by the glow of the flashlight trailed the beam into the chamber.

Annja stayed low as the light sprayed around the room. She barely escaped it before reaching the pile of skulls. Once there, she flattened herself against the wall.

Light played over leather-clad bodies that stepped into the chamber.

Evidently the motorcyclists had made their way down the sinkhole. They'd come along the passage Annja had found. She'd been so absorbed by her discoveries that she'd forgotten all about them and hadn't noticed them. Silently, she cursed herself.

"She can't have just vanished," another man said.

In the soft glow of the reflected light from the flashlight, all six of them stood revealed. All of them held pistols.

"If we lose her, Lesauvage is going to kill us." The speaker's voice was tight with fear.

"We haven't lost her," someone stated calmly. "We came in that hole after her. There's no other way out."

"You don't know that, Foulard."

Another man gave a startled curse. "What the hell's lying there?"

Foulard aimed his flashlight at the creature's huge mummified body.

"The Beast of Gévaudan!" someone said. "It must be! Look at it! My grandfather told me stories about this thing!" His voice dropped and took on a note of awe. "I never believed him. Thought it was all crap old men told kids to scare the hell out of them."

Hidden by the shadow of the skulls, Annja's mind raced. They came here looking for me.

"Forget about that damned thing," Foulard commanded. "Spread out. Find the woman. Lesauvage wants to speak with her. I don't want to go back and tell him we lost her."

He directed his flashlight at the cavern's ceiling, providing a weak cone of illumination from above.

Thankfully, the light didn't quite reach the cavern floor. Annja sank down low. Her free hand plucked up one of the human skulls. Her fingers slipped easily through the empty eyeholes to secure her hold. It wasn't much as weapons went, but she hoped to improve her standing.

Chapter 5

ANNJA LEANED FORWARD, skull in one hand and flashlight in the other, hunkered down in a squatting position.

The six men spread out. Foulard took his own path, but the other five stayed close enough to take comfort in the presence of the light.

"Do you think that really is the Beast of Gévaudan?" one of them asked.

"I don't know, but I heard the creature was a werewolf," another said. "He was supposed to be a guy, Count Vargo, who got cursed by a band of gypsies after he raped one of their daughters."