Napoleon Bonaparte had brought chests and crates of antiquities back from his travels through and conquest of Egypt, and the objects were being sold and distributed throughout Europe. Surely there was something in the ancient world of pharaohs and sun gods that would help Dimitri banish the demon of darkness who’d lured him into an unholy contract decades ago. Even though Vlad Tepes, the Count Dracula, had made his agreement with Lucifer in the fifteenth century, Dimitri suspected that his ancestor hadn’t been the first mortal to sell his soul—and that of his progeny—to the devil. The legend of Johann Faust had become popular after Vlad’s agreement, but there had to have been others since the beginning of time. He’d studied manuscripts and writings of the Greeks and Romans, even some from Aramea and other parts of the Holy Land.

Perhaps there would be something he could glean from the Egyptian antiquities and hieroglyphs that would give him direction. Not that anyone had been able to break the code of the Egyptian alphabet yet, but Dimitri was determined to try his hand at it.

After all, he had forever to do it.

And now the stele that had been found in Rosetta several years ago by the French, and was currently in the possession of the Antiquarian Society here in London, looked promising for translating the hieroglyphs. Thus, Dimitri was hopeful. He would love to get his hands on the stone himself, but that would mean having to be around people and playing politics and listening to gossip and jests and having to avoid the sun in public company…and all sorts of things he’d much rather avoid.

He’d considered stealing—rather, borrowing the so-called Rosetta Stone for a time in order to work on it himself, but in the end decided against it. Perhaps he might break into the British Museum, where it was kept, and make a rubbing of it one night—if he didn’t have to spend his bloody time accompanying debutantes to masques and balls. His jaw hurt where his teeth ground together.