Dance Of Death

He paused. Was that another sound? Was somebody down here with him?

Heart still hammering uncomfortably in his chest, he stopped to wait again. But he heard nothing but the faint squeak of mice and, after another minute, resumed his slow progress.

Suddenly, his hands encountered another wall: rough stone, slick with moisture. Following it to the right, he encountered a perpendicular wall, with what felt like a steel door bolted into it. His fingers probed along the jamb until they found the handle. He seized it, turned.

The handle refused to move.

Taking a deep breath, he yanked with all his might. No good: the thing wouldn't budge.

With a curse, he went back along the wall in the other direction. After about twenty paces, the wall ended and his hands groped once again on open space. He turned the corner, then stopped, his heart in his throat.

There was a sudden glow of light ahead, framing a turn in the corridor. Someone had just turned on the lights up ahead. Or had they been on all this time?

Smithback paused, frozen with indecision. That was the way he had to go, he was sure of it, and the light was welcoming. But was anyone waiting up there for him?

He crept forward, keeping close to the wall, and peered around the corner.

The corridor ahead was lit by a string of dim bulbs hanging from the ceiling. They were few and far between, and the light they shed was feeble, but at least he'd be able to see where he was going. Best of all, the corridor was empty. Nobody had turned on the lights, Smithback decided-they'd been on all along. He just hadn't noticed them at first. Or maybe he'd been too far away to catch their light.

He walked slowly down the stone corridor. On both sides, ancient doors lay open, yawning gulfs of barely penetrable murk. He paused to look into a few. A wine cellar, rows of bottles and heavy oaken kegs covered in dense cobwebs. An old storage room, wooden file cabinets bursting with yellowing documents. A billiard room, the felt of its table torn and curled. Just what you'd expect in a manor house that had been converted into an insane asylum for the rich.

Smithback walked on, confidence returning. It was a good plan.

The basement couldn't go on forever. He had to be getting near the loading dock. He had to…

There it was again: that nagging sensation he was being stalked; that someone was deliberately trying to conceal the sound of their footsteps with his own.

He stopped abruptly. He couldn't be certain, but he thought he'd heard the sound of an interrupted tread, as if someone in the darkness behind had frozen in the act of taking a step. He wheeled. The corridor, at least the lighted part, stretched empty behind him.

Smithback licked his lips. "Pendergast?" he tried to say, but his throat was thick and dry and his tongue didn't want to work. Just as well, because he knew in his gut there was somebody back there, and it wasn't Pendergast; oh, God, no, it wasn't Pendergast…

He began walking forward again, heart pounding furiously. Suddenly, the pools of faint light were no longer a godsend. They were treacherous, revealing… And he was suddenly terribly certain somebody had turned on the lights, the better to see him with.

There is a killer after you. A supremely dangerous killer of almost supernatural ability…

He fought against the instinct to run. Panic wasn't the answer here. He needed to think this through. He needed to find a dark corner, a place where he could hide. But first he had to be sure. Absolutely sure.

He passed quickly beneath another bulb and into the interval of darkness beyond. He slowed his pace, trying to get the timing right. Then, tensing, he turned abruptly.

Behind, a dark form-cloaked, strangely muffled-shrank back from the light into the dark oblivion of the basement.

At this sight, expected yet unutterably awful, Smithback's failing nerves deserted him. He turned and ran like a frightened rabbit, tearing down the corridor, heedless of any hidden obstacles to his escape.

The sound of heavy boots closing in from behind spurred him on.

Lungs burning, Smithback tore down the corridor, beyond the last of the hanging bulbs and back into absolute, endless, protective darkness…

And then something cold and unyielding slammed up against him, stopping him dead. A savage pain tore through his head and chest; white light exploded in his skull; and, as consciousness fled away and he sank to the ground, his last impression was of a claw-like grasp, hard as steel, fastening onto his shoulder.

THIRTY-THREE

"who?" Margo almost shrieked, holding the box cutter toward the sound, swinging it back and forth. "Who is it?"

"Me."

"Who is 'me' and what the hell do you want?"

"I'm looking for an honest man… or woman, as the case may be." The voice was small and almost effeminate in its exactitude.

"Don't you come near me," she cried, brandishing the box cutter in the blackness. She tried to calm her pounding heart and focus. This was no joker: she sensed instinctively that this man was dangerous. The emergency lights would come back on shortly; they must-it was automatic. But as the seconds ticked by, she felt her terror continue to escalate. Had the man himself cut the emergency backup? It didn't seem possible. What was going on?

Struggling to master herself, she inched forward as silently as possible, sliding her feet along the floor, stepping carefully over objects as she encountered them, poking the box cutter out in different directions. She had a vague idea of where the entrance was, and for now the man seemed to have shut up-perhaps as confounded by the darkness as she was. She reached the far wall and began feeling her way along it. Then her hands encountered the cool steel of the security door. With a flood of relief, she felt for the handle, found the card reader, pulled her card from her bag, and swiped it through.

Nothing.

As quickly as it had come, the relief ebbed away, replaced by a dull, pounding fear. Of course: the magnetic lock was electric and the power was off. She tried opening the door, rattling the knob and throwing her weight against it, but it didn't budge.

"When the power goes off," came the thin voice, "the security system locks everything down. You can't get out."

"Get close to me and I'll cut you!" she cried, spi

"You wouldn't want to do that. The sight of blood leaves me faint… faint with pleasure."

In the clarity of her fear, Margo realized that she had to stop responding. She had to go on the offensive. She fought to control her breathing, control her fear. She had to do something unpredictable, surprise him, turn the tables. She took a noiseless step forward.

"What does the sight of blood do to you, Margo?" came the gentle whisper.

She inched toward the voice.

"Blood is such a strange substance, isn't it? Such a perfect, exquisite color, and so teeming with life, packed with all those red and white cells and antibodies and hormones. It's a living liquid. Even spilled on a dirty museum floor, it lives on-at least for a time."

She took another step toward the voice. She was very close now. She braced herself. Then, in one desperate motion, she sprang forward and brought the box cutter around in a slashing arc; it contacted something and ripped through it. As she jumped back, she heard a stumbling noise, a muffled sound of surprise.

She waited, tensing in the blackness, hoping she'd opened up an artery.

"Brava, Margo," came the whispery voice. "I'm impressed. Why, you've ruined my greatcoat."