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And then suddenly she saw it: Under the staircase was a door that hadn’t been there before It was slick et, glea like bone in the dark

"Jericho!" she called again "I’ after you Don’t move"

The house took a breath and held it A shadow passed before the front s, quick as a bird’s wing He was hoasp, Evie rushed for the cellar door The knob turned easily The door swung open There was nowhere to go but down, into the depths of Naughty John’s killing ground

It was pitch-black on the stairs Evie slid her pale of each step The plaster arm to the touch, damp and sticky Her heartbeat was quick as a bird’s; her head thudded with the pulse of her blood The house had gone quiet again, and she found thatShe hoped Jericho wasn’t hurt She willed herself to keep going until she reached the basement floor at last It was unbearably hot The dirt floor felt soft, sodden under her feet It war her to o? Where was John Hobbes? Should she turn on her flashlight? Or was she safer cloaked in the gloom? What was out there in the vast, unknowable dark?

The walls were breathing Oh, god She could hear the, she clicked on the flashlight

Froh whistle of a nursery song But this song didn’t belong in any nursery

John Hobbes’s voice rang out " ‘The Lord spake as if with the tongues of a thousand angels All that ree of the Beast and the Woman Clothed in the Sun…’ I know you’re here, Lady Sun I can feel you"

Evie’s led to understand He’d called her Lady Sun Her Lady Sun The Wohty John was home He was ho for her--for her! Evie willed herself to keep going, bouncing the light of her flashlight around the roo for Jericho She wished she were far away froton or even in the museum’s dull library She had been foolish to think that she could take on a killer, a ghost, the Beast hi stopped and the song began: "Naughty John, Naughty John, does his ith his apron on Cuts your throat and takes your bones Sells ’em off for a coupla stones…"

Fear thinned Evie’s reason to a useless shaving of itself She had to get out Get away She raced for the rickety steps She didn’t care--she’d take her chances Run up and out Get help Scream her head off till all of New York heard and came But no--Jericho She had to find Jericho first Maybe he’d fallen through and found a way out She told herself this as she willed her legs forward Why, even noas probably running for help, and any odforsaken lair Yes, anyher name: "Evie! Evie! You’re safe Cole and clamped a hand over her mouth

Above her head, the floorboards creaked Her heart doubled its rhythm As daagged The footsteps upstairs thudded with a deliberateness at odds with the chaos raging in her blood Thump Thu the thin crack under the door at the top of the stairs

Sharp, one-word impressions and commands fired in Evie’sDown Hide Where?

She remembered the draft of air she’d felt when she’d come to the house with Mabel, and she sprinted back into the dark cellar and put her hand up, hoping to find it again A cool draft kissed her palm She followed it to the far wall, behind the furnace She ht have missed the hidden door entirely if she hadn’t put out a hand and felt the crack She patted around the seam and choked back a sob when she could find no lock or handle, no way in

The cellar door groaned open Footsteps on the stairs now

And then the door in front of her released of its own accord Light shone froht, Evie realized It was a way out It had to be a way out

Evie passed through a narrow vestibule, which seeht, she realized, ca far above, a s chiht, and shuddered The rooe in It was oddly shaped, like a star In one corner sat an old iron brazier A painted pentacle took up the entire floor A grand altar carved with a comet had been placed at the very center of the pentacle She turned slowly, taking in the whole of the room The walls had been painted with sys, each of the murders