Cemetery Dance

Not five feet before him was a pit, faced in stone. It was clearly an old well, with slick, rock — mortared walls. He approached it gingerly, held his lighter over its dark maw. It appeared bottomless. All around were stacked heaps of ancient furniture, broken ceramic tiles, moldy books, and other junk. He cast about desperately for a hiding place. There were plenty, but none would last long if these freaks on his tail were to search every nook and cra

He heard the door of the well — room roughly opened behind him, heard the ru

Spying an arched passageway at the far end of the crypt, he ran for it, dashed along its length, turned at an intersection, chose another tu

Crawling through a low archway, he found himself in a chamber whose walls sported floor — to — ceiling niches, each one of which held one or more skeletons. Without thinking, he forced his way into the biggest niche, favoring his broken arm, pushing the bones aside, wriggling as far to the back as he could, and then awkwardly scraping the bones back around with his feet to form an obscuring wall.

Then he waited.

The searchers were closer now: he could hear their voices echoing strangely through the underground spaces. This was no good: they were going to find him eventually. He examined the niche with his lighter and discovered it retreated still deeper into the earth. By squirming he could wedge his way farther in, all the while sweeping back with his legs the bones he'd pushed aside. Fortunately, dampness kept any telltale dust from rising from his efforts, although an unpleasant moldy, decaying stench now enveloped him. Some of the corpses still sported shreds of clothing, hair, belt buckles, buttons, and shriveled — up shoes. It seemed that the occupants of the Ville placed the corpses of their dead in these deep niches — and just kept shoving the old corpses back as new ones were placed inside.

The slickness of the walls allowed him to move farther back along the slight downslope as he pushed as deeply as he could into the niche.

And then he waited, listening, as the voices of the searchers waxed and waned, gradually growing closer. And then they grew all too clear: his pursuers were now in the chamber.

He was far back in darkness, too far for a flashlight to penetrate. He heard rattling sounds: they were jabbing a pole into the burial niches, trying to root him out. In a moment the pole came sliding into his own crawl space, knocking the bones aside, but he was too deep and the pole fell short. It prodded this way and that before finally withdrawing. He heard them probing in successive niches. Then, suddenly, their voices rose in both pitch and excitement. He heard the sound of retreating footsteps and then, quite quickly, their voices died away.

Silence. Had they been called back to defend the Ville? It was the only possible explanation.

He waited a minute, then another, just to be safe. Then he moved to extricate himself from the niche. It was useless: he discovered that, in his panic, he had wedged himself in very tightly. Too tightly. A horrible sense of claustrophobia washed over him; he struggled to master it, to regulate his breathing. He wriggled again but he was firmly stuck. The panic threatened to surge back, stronger.

It couldn't be. He'd gotten in; surely he could get out.

He bent his leg, wedged it between the ceiling and the floor, and tried to leverage himself out while pushing with his good hand. No luck. The walls were slippery with damp and slime and the pitch was slightly uphill. He struggled, grunting, his good hand scrabbling on the wetness. In a fresh wave of panic, he dug his nails into the moist earth and tried to push his way forward, breaking several of them in the process.

My God, he thought. I'm buried alive.

It was all he could do to keep from screaming.

Chapter 69

It took Special Agent Pendergast ten minutes of wrong turns and doubling — back to reach the dumbwaiter leading up to the pantry. He pulled out the groaning, semi — conscious man, climbed in, and — by reaching through a panel in the top and grasping the cables — was able to haul himself up and out of the basement. When the dumbwaiter bumped to a stop against the shaft ceiling, Pendergast slid open the door and jumped out. From the church came the sounds of a loud disturbance, one that seemed to have drawn off all members of the Ville within earshot. That left him an escape route. He sprinted through the darkened rooms of the old rectory, out the side door, and down the crooked back alley. In less than five minutes he was once again in the woods of Inwood Hill Park. He shrugged out of the cloak and hood and dropped them on the leafy ground, pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

"Hayward," came the clipped answer.

"Pendergast here."

"Now why does hearing your voice fill me with dread?"

"Are you in the vicinity of Inwood Hill Park?"

"I'm with Chislett and his men."

"Ah, yes. Chislett. A testament to the ultimate futility of higher education. Now listen: D'Agosta is in the basements of the Ville. He might be in a difficult situation."

A brief silence. "Vi

"I think you can guess — he's looking for Nora Kelly. But I've just now realized Nora isn't there. There's a confrontation brewing—"

"It's not just brewing. It's fully brewed, and—"

Pendergast cut her off. "I think Vincent might need your help — and need it rather badly."

A silence. "And what, exactly, are you up to?"

"No time for that, every minute counts now. Listen: there's something inside the Ville, something they themselves unleashed. It attacked us."

"Like a zombii?" came the sarcastic answer.

"A man — or, at least, a creature that was once a man, now transformed into something extremely dangerous. I repeat: Vincent needs help. His life might be in danger. Be careful."

Without waiting for a reply, Pendergast snapped the phone shut. In the distance, through the trees, he could see moonlight sparkling off the Harlem River. There was a sound of a motor, and then a searchlight probed through the darkness: a police boat, cruising back and forth, belatedly on the watch for protesters coming from the west or north. Quickly, Pendergast sprinted through the woods toward the river. As he reached the edge of the trees he slowed to a walk, adjusted his torn suit, then sauntered out onto the marsh grass and down to the pebbled beach. He waved to the police boat, pulling out his FBI shield and brandishing it with the aid of his penlight.