ANY REASONABLE PERSON would expect a hot bedroom scene to follow the life-threatening stress I'd faced at the Gehenna tonight and Ric's return to walk-around good health.

Yeah, me too.

We nuzzled naked in my four-poster bed long enough to drive Quick out an open window to patrol what was left of the night.

And we came mutually... to an agreement that we'd better save what was left of our strength for our covert assault on the Karnak in the morning. Make war, not love.

Ric went home early the next morning and returned to the cottage wearing undercover black, a heavy Kevlar vest lacking only the big white letters, FBI, and high-top butt-kicking rubber-soled boots. He applied black camo face greasepaint from his kit bag once here and was much impressed by my Assault on the Karnak ensemble of steel-studded spandex patent-leather catsuit and matching crotch-high boots.

My silver familiar had assumed the form of a Wonder Woman brow coronet. When the silver familiar had the chutzpah to mock me I actually felt stronger.

"New bling, huh?" Ric teased, his forefinger touching the central five-pointed star. "One way to keep the hair out of your eyes for battle."

Quick wore his usual thick fur coat. I'd noticed that the silver circles on his black leather collar changed to represent all the phases of the moon: full, quarter, and half. Today they were almost at the full. His pale blue eyes were all black iris. When he grinned, it was to display a lethal mountain range of jagged teeth. I almost glimpsed a diamond glitter, but maybe that was his magic healing saliva.

I texted Manny's Demon-phone for him to meet Ric, Dolly, Quick, and me in the Inferno entryway at 10:00 A.M.

The lure of Dolly's chrome and horsepower and a big tip had Manny paying another parking valet to take his place while he ferried us to the Karnak parking garage. From there we'd sneak into the Karnak underbelly on our private commando mission.

I drove Dolly directly there, Ric and Quicksilver safely hidden in the car's hearse-size trunk. Facing the Karnak vampires still didn't faze him, but Ric had been nervous about this trunk part of the plan.

"NO OFFENSE, DELILAH," he'd whispered in my ear when Quick's furry back was turned, as if that would do any good with those sharp, pricked wolfish ears, "but he is your dog. I'd trust him with your life, but not, uh, my back. He's really possessive of you, not that I blame him. One session of playing ball doesn't mean he wouldn't snap mine right off."

Ric didn't know Quicksilver and his magic saliva, delivered by licking, had healed him not just once, but twice. From some supersensitive canine sense, Quicksilver had moved Ric up to Priority One after his Karnak ordeal and my supernaturally successful Kiss of Life efforts.

He hadn't been present at the Inferno when I reluctantly accepted Snow's Brimstone Kiss in the first place. Grizelle had been, and for me that had been one tiger and one human female too many for witnesses.

On the other hand, the canine/lupine breed depended on judging friend or foe by crotch sniff. When Quick had first met Ric, he'd made clear that if he didn't like how Ric treated me, the "spleen" would be the first to go.

Obviously my hundred-and-fifty-pound adopted shelter doggie had never had a sexually active human companion, or any human home.

It took those observant and rare wolfhound-blue eyes only seconds to figure out that Ric might look like he was attacking me, but in a welcome way. In those first awkward moments, both man and dog had been a bit uneasy with each other. Perhaps I should say, a "bite" uneasy.

Now I was asking them to make like littermates in the cavernous trunk of my car, which even then was not roomy enough for Ric when it involved getting down with doggie breath.

"Quick and I are a team, yes," I told Ric. "So are you and I. It's time we merged the K-nine operation with the human one. I'm counting on you guys to get along for the sake of the mission. Right, Quick?"

A short, sharp bark of agreement.

"Ric?"

"Some of my best friends in the FBI had hairy backs, and they had my back too."

"Then let's go kick Karnak butt."

"SHE'S YOURS AND Manny's if we don't come back in twenty-four hours. Or so," I told Hermie as I handed him Dolly's keys when we met at the Inferno drive-through. "I figured you and Manny would do anything for Dolly. And me."

Manny was off parking Hermie's personal '66 Mustang somewhere dark and deep in the hotel garage.

"You boys would have to ferry her back and forth between the Karnak and the Inferno," I added, "but Hell could use a new Charon franchise these days anyway."

I slid into the passenger side of the bench seat, knowing Ric would seethe at the idea of my letting a minor parking-valet demon behind Dolly's wheel before I let him drive her. I'd owe him a long desert drive in Dolly after this expedition. With benefits.

Hermie was in tears. True, they were purple and sizzled. I knew he was more blown away by my bequest of the car than fearful of any dread outcome by which he would get it. I was still touched as we zipped up the Strip.

Hermie drove Dolly to the lowest level of the Karnak garage and parked her in a dim, specially tagged area where she'd be safe and Ric and Quick could exit the trunk like shadows. God, their names rhymed! I hadn't realized until now.

I was still grinning when I sprang them from Dolly's trunk.

"OK, boys?"

They couldn't wait to jump out and stretch. Nice muscles, furred or not. Ric smeared my face with black greasepaint. In our skintight black outfits with the war paint I bet we looked like rogue Cirque du Soleil cast members.

"Come on," Hermie prodded. "This is a top-secret route."

He led us to an elevator door cleverly disguised as a fire hose installation panel.

The lower you went in Las Vegas these days, the closer you got to hellishly intemperate zones. Sweat started trickling down my back. My steel-studded pseudo "wet suit" was living up to its name. At least the catsuit was a strong second skin with first-rate protection against fangs, venom, and weapons.

The elevator was the size of a large upright coffin or a royal mummy case. Ric and I squeezed in, black on black, Quicksilver between us, panting up a storm.

Ric and I grinned at each other. Our shared inhaled doggie breath carried a faint overtone of fresh blood.

We shrugged. Carnivores Are Us.

The letter on the single button on the gilt panel was a weird hieroglyph, a star shape with five lines rayed out. It could represent a human with a wide stance and wide, welcoming arms.

Oddly, it recalled the famous Leonardo da Vinci figure of a man with radiating arms and legs symmetrically splayed to contact the edges of a circle. The Circle of Life. And Death.

Quicksilver frowned, salivating without compunction. Healing was the last thing on the lupine half of his mind.

I glanced at Ric. His features were as focused and intent as a hunting falcon's. If a human being could salivate, this was it.

"Where are we going?" I asked Ric. He must have rambled in the belly of the beast deeper than I had.

"I don't know. I just bet I'm going to enjoy it."

"You figure your instincts will lead you back to those lost souls?"

"Yup. That vision of Hell haunts my dreams, and I dowse for the dead on instinct. Maybe I can detect the dying too."

So here we were: one woman, one resurrected man, and one rescue dog with "gifts." We might be up against the entire immortal Egyptian empire, but we were ready to rock and roll.

The only thing we weren't willing to do was roll over and play dead. We all had a lot at stake. Oops. Bad expression.

Quicksilver thirsted to confront his ancient hyena enemies.

Ric ached to destroy anyone or anything that preyed on innocent victims.

I needed to redeem the unhappy pasts of both my partners, man and dog.