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putting some distance between herself and the screen.
    The men entered a cavern. There was not much to see, except far on the right she glimpsed a pillar. The camera jerked in that direction and then steadied long enough to see that there were two pillars, rough and squat, framing what might have been a door—but that was now a cracked heap of large rock. Beyond, lights flashed.
    The camera bounced closer. Soria glimpsed Serena in the shadows, leaning over an enormous stone structure, long and waist-high. There was nothing fancy about it. To Soria, it appeared as though it had been hacked straight from the earth.
    A tomb,
she thought.
A coffin.
    “More than a year ago there was a major earthquake in Chengdu,” said Serena softly, as on the screen she and several other men pushed and pulled at a flat slab of stone resting atop the carved mound. “I think you might have heard about it.”
    Almost seventy thousand people had died. Soria had heard a great deal about the earthquake from her hospital bed in San Francisco. Cartoons, soap operas, and death had been her televised companions. She’d had her friends there, too, and family. But not Roland. Hardly even a phone call.
    “The ground opened in the mountains,” Serena continued. “Some locals found artifacts. When our archaeologists went in, they discovered a great deal more than that.”
    Soria gave her a sharp look.
“Your
archaeologists?”
    Serena’s mouth tilted coldly. “You would think, given the diversity of your agency, that there would be more interest in relics of the past, in the reality behind myths and legends. Instead, you people focus on small things.”
    “Like saving lives,” Soria replied, crumpling her empty sleeve. “You make it your business to investigate all major archaeological finds?”
    “Before anyone else does.”
    “So you’re grave robbers.”
    “One must respect the past.”
    “For profit?”
    “Money is irrelevant. Money can be earned or stolen.” Serena tapped the screen. “Knowledge is quite different.”
    Soria wanted to argue, but instead she looked at the screen as the video suddenly jumped—violently enough to make her light-headed. The image steadied just as the stone slab was pushed aside. The person holding the camera moved closer, revealing the interior of the mound, which indeed had been hollowed out to form a coffin.
    Even without much light, Soria could see the outline of a massive body crammed inside. Not a skeleton. Certainly not some desiccated mummy. She saw bulky muscle, which looked firm and very much alive.
    Serena wore sunglasses even while underground. In the video, she leaned in for a closer look, staring at the corpse. Quite abruptly, her entire body stiffened, as if in pain or shock. Even now, watching the video, Soria felt the shape-shifter tense, ever so subtly.
    Bad memories,
she thought. And moments later, she understood why.
    The body moved. Soria jumped, startled, as did everyone else on the screen. The camera jerked sideways and then steadied. Golden light seemed to shimmer in the air above the body, and over Serena as well, who in the video stood closest of all to the coffin.
    More movement, a rocking motion. A man sat up.
    Soria could not see much of his face, but his body was unmistakable. He was also very clearly dazed, swaying within the coffin, hands pressed to his head. His mouth moved.
    “I need to hear him,” she told Serena.
    The shape-shifter, frowning, tapped a button on the laptop. Crackling sounds immediately filled the air, layers of sound that in real life would have been hardly noticeable but on tape were each as loud as breaking glass. Soria could hear the rush of deep breaths, the scuff of rock underfoot, and gears creaking. She could hear the silence surrounding those sounds, and in that silence a man’s voice floated, his words flowing softly together.
    To anyone unfamiliar with his language it would have sounded as though he were growling, rumbling, even snarling. On