The Trojan Icon (Ethan Gage Adventures Book 8) Read Online Free PDF

a coma and pounded to get out of their coffins. Sometimes the dying insist they be buried with picks so they can dig their way back to the surface.”
    “That’s not what I’m talking about. Here, people sometimes don’t die at all. Possessed people. Evil people. Heads are severed from corpses and their mouths stuffed with rocks or garlic to ensure they don’t arise. By lore the
upyr
still exist, and retain strange powers and ancient possessions. My Polish mother told me many tales when thunder rolled.”
    “Which surely you didn’t believe.”
    “You haven’t wandered the trackless taiga, Ethan, or the crags of the Carpathian Mountains. The Russian serf believes the forest is both haunted and blessed, and healers are called tree-teachers. Morana is a seductress who captivates men to lead them astray. Wolves are the devil incarnate, and saintly relics are a shield. Do you know the story behind the great church being built near your apartment?”
    “The Cathedral of Kazan?”
    “Its central icon is a religious painting claimed to have repelled a Mongol army at the city of Kazan in eastern Russia. It hardly mattered if the assertion by a possessed child was true. Russian troops believed it true, and victory resulted, just like Joan of Arc. Franklin sought to link lightning to electricity to explain the world. Russians observe lightning to experience the
next
world, because fire is a window to the divine. And tonight you straddle those worlds, Ethan, the West and East, the rational and the mystical, and in that way too we’re alike.”
    “So that’s why we’ve formed our cozy cabal?”
    “Not exactly.” He took a heavy book down from a shelf. “Yes. And no. My motive is very practical. I know you’re a thief of the sacred, Ethan. Don’t deny it, I’ve heard too many stories of the wayward American prying into tombs and seeking lost oracles. You’re the perfect man for Poland, and the perfect man for our times. You’ll advise the tsar, who is well meaning but inconsistent. We’ll make peace with Napoleon, reconstitute Poland, and I’ll persuade Alexander to make you a prince as a reward.”
    “A prince!” I couldn’t help grinning. I’d denigrated Dolgoruki’s title to my wife but I too would puff if someone gave me that name. Prince Gage! It was absurd, but then wasn’t life? Hadn’t I met men and women in ridiculous positions of wealth and power because of wild twists of fate? Why not me?
    “Or a count, at least.” Everyone hedges.
    “But you want me to commit a crime?” I remembered Elizabeth’s word.
    “Not a crime, but a recovery. Not a theft, but a liberation.”
    “The rightful owner is you?”
    “Poland. When Catherine the Great dismembered my country she tried to take our soul. Prussia and Russia agreed in 1797 to even remove the name ‘Poland’ from common usage. They also took our symbols of nationhood. Berlin stole our Six Sacred Crowns. Even more precious relics were spirited away to St. Petersburg. Now they’re about to be even further lost.”
    “Destroyed?”
    “Given away to German brutes in return for alliance against Napoleon. Lothar Von Bonin was sent from Prussia to bring my Polish heritage back to Berlin as trophies, to seal Prussia’s pact with the tsar. The man is a lizard, and you and I must stop him.” He gripped my shoulders. “A night of daring can change history, rescue Poland, ensure peace, and make us both rich.” He leaned forward as if to share a great confidence. “All you have to do, my American friend, is risk life, freedom, and your eternal soul.”

 
     
    CHAPTER 4
     
     
     
    Astiza’s Story
     
     
     
     
     
    M y husband apologizes for the dangerous task we’ve agreed to, but it’s rekindled our energy. I’ve locked away my worry and kept the Tarot cards unturned. I’m wary of ambition, but Ethan says—or hopes, promises, yearns—that our luck has finally changed. We all needed rest after reaching St. Petersburg from the terrors