Cemetery Dance

staircase ended at a half landing that led to a second staircase, this one of stone, spiraling down into blackness. When at last they reached the bottom, D'Agosta saw that a brick corridor stretched in front of them, damp, heavy with cobwebs and efflorescence. The air smelled of earth and mildew. From behind and above came muffled cries, the sound of fists pounding on wood.

D'Agosta pulled out his own flashlight.

'We need to find stonework matching that in the video,' Pendergast said, shining the light along the damp walls. He moved swiftly through the dark, robe trailing behind him.

'Those bastards upstairs are going to be after us in a moment,' said D'Agosta.

'They aren't what concerns me,' murmured Pendergast. 'He is.'

They passed beneath several archways and a stone staircase leading upward. Beyond, the tunnel branched, and after brief consideration Pendergast chose the left — hand fork. A moment later they came to a large, circular room, with niches hewn at regular intervals into the walls. Within each niche, human bones were stacked like cordwood, the skulls hung on the long bones. Many still had wisps of hair clinging to the crania by bits of desiccated flesh.

'Charming,' muttered D'Agosta.

Pendergast abruptly halted.

Then D'Agosta heard what stopped him: a disjointed shuffling, coming out of the darkness behind them. From beyond his light came a loud, phlegmy sniffing sound, as if of someone testing the air. A shambling tread, growing in speed, moving along an invisible passageway seemingly parallel to their chamber. D'Agosta caught the strong, gamy whiff of horseflesh drifting in the damp air.

'You smell that?'

'Only too well.' Pendergast focused his light on a nearby archway, from which the smell seemed to flow on a draft of fresh air.

D'Agosta pulled his Glock, feeling a strong spike of fear despite himself. 'That thing is in there. You take the left side, I'll take the right.'

Pendergast drew his.45 from beneath his robe and they crept up to the doorway, one on either side.

'Now!' D'Agosta cried.

They spun into the doorway, D'Agosta with his own light held against his gun; within he saw nothing but blank walls of damp brick. Pendergast pointed to the floor, where a series of bloody footprints led off into blackness. D'Agosta knelt and touched one; the blood was so fresh it hadn't even congealed.

D'Agosta rose. 'This is fucking weird,' he muttered.

'It's also wasting time we don't have. Let us keep moving. Fast.'

They backed out of the room and jogged across the open necropolis into a passageway at the far side. It soon opened into another cavern — like space, this one very crude, rough — hewn out of the living rock. They entered and shined their lights around.

'The walls are still unlike the stonework in the video,' said Pendergast, sotto voce. 'This is schist, not granite, and not cut the same way.'

'It's like a maze down here.'

Pendergast nodded toward a low archway. 'Let's try that passage.'

They ducked into the low tunnel. 'Jesus, that smell, ' said D'Agosta. It was a cloying stench of horse blood, thick, with an edge of iron to it, all the more horrible for its obvious freshness. It was accompanied by occasional eddies of cool air, coming from some invisible vent to the outside. In the distance, echoing through the tunnels, he could hear the cries and shouts of pursuing congregants, who also appeared to have gained the underground and were spreading out, searching for them.

They continued down the tunnel, Pendergast moving so swiftly D'Agosta had to jog to keep up, splashing through standing pools of water and slime. Nitre and cobwebs coated the sweating walls, and as they moved D'Agosta could see white spiders scurrying into holes in the brickwork. At the edge of darkness, red rats' eyes gleamed and flickered at them as they passed.

They approached a junction in which three cross — tunnels met, forming a hexagonally shaped space. Pendergast slowed, putting his finger to his lips and gesturing for D'Agosta to creep along one wall of the tunnel while he took the other.

As they reached the junction, D'Agosta felt, rather than saw, a rapid movement above him. He dropped and rolled to one side just as something — the zombii — creature — dropped down, the tatters of ancient finery whipping and rustling over his knotted limbs like ruined sails in a strong breeze. D'Agosta squeezed off a shot, but the man — thing was ready, and it moved so unexpectedly that his shot went wide. It raced across his field of view, flashing through the beam of his flashlight, and as D'Agosta dropped to the ground to escape the charge a momentary, terrifying impression burned into his retinas: the single lolling eye; the whorls and curlicues ofveve painted or pasted on his skin; the wet lips quivering in a grin of desperate hilarity. And yet there was nothing vague or hilarious in its movements — it came after them with single — minded, horrifying purpose.

Chapter 65

D'Agosta fired again, but it was a gratuitous shot: the thing had flitted back into the darkness and disappeared. He lay on the ground, shining the light around, this way and that, gun at the ready.

'Pendergast?'

The special agent stepped out of the darkness of a doorway, crouching, his Colt drawn and held in front of him with both hands.

Silence fell, broken only by the sound of dripping water.

'He's still out there,' murmured D'Agosta, rising to a half crouch and making a three — hundred — sixty — degree turn with his gun. He strained to see into the darkness.

'Indeed. I don't think he will leave until we are dead — or he is.'

The seconds dragged on into minutes.

Finally, D'Agosta straightened up, lowering the Glock. 'There's no time for a waiting game, Pendergast. We've got to—'

The zombii came like a dull flash from the side, going straight for his light, slashing at it with a spidery hand and sending it spinning into the darkness with a crash. D'Agosta fired, but the thing had darted out of view and back into the relative protection of the darkness. He heard Pendergast's.45 go off almost simultaneously with his, a deafening double blast — and then darkness fell abruptly with the sound of Pendergast's own flashlight shattering against a wall.

The passageway was plunged into profound darkness — and almost immediately afterward, he heard the sounds of a desperate struggle.

He lunged toward the noise, holstering the Glock and pulling his knife, better for close — in work in the dark and less likely to hit Pendergast, who was now apparently locked in a life — or — death battle with the creature. He collided with the zombii's sinewed form and immediately slashed at it with the knife, but for all its shuffling movements it was dreadfully strong and quick, turning and clawing at D'Agosta like a panther, enveloping him in a suffocating stench. The knife was torn from his hands, and he went at the man — thing with his fists, pummeling it, seeking the soft gut, the head, all the while fending off the wiry hands that clawed and raked at him. In the dark, enveloped in a robe, he was at a disadvantage; the ragged creature, on the other hand, seemed to be in its element: no matter how D'Agosta twisted and struggled, it kept the advantage of position, aided by the slickness of its body, coated with sweat and blood and oil.

What the hell had happened to Pendergast?

An arm fastened around his neck, suddenly constricting like a steel cable. D'Agosta wrenched sideways, gasping and choking, trying to throw off his attacker while simultaneously feeling for his gun. But the slippery man — thing had muscles as hard as teak: no matter how D'Agosta struggled, one hand maintained its grip, constricting his airway, while the other pinned his gun hand. A cry of triumph went up from the creature, a banshee — like wail: oaahhuuuooooooooo!