Page 36 (1/2)

A hand clamped her shoulder, spun her around, and in the darkness she could just make out the shape of Terence's face His scent ar, sweat and cinna-mon and rich earth But she didn't want his brand of coo!" she hissed

More voices shouting She glanced back the way she'd coht from the torches of the Blackwood Club and their minions

"Go where? You don't think they'll find you up there?" Terence snapped "There's only tays this can end One of them is with you dead, and I won't see that"

"I'm supposed to trust you?"

"You're supposed to want to put an end to them Take power fro the e them, corrupt thelanced into the passageway, swore, and shot hi the darkness did not prevent hi it

"Deeper it is, then"

Terence sighed and took her hand, and they ran on to-gether Their pursuers had drawn closer during the pause Bright torchlight swept around them

"I see the Whitcoirl!" a woht And she knew of only one woive instructions to these men

Josephine Blackwood herself had descended into the Underground

A gunshot echoed along the tunnel, and Jazz flinched Terence just kept running They darted to the left and the torch beaain A short way ahead the tunnel forked, though the nar-row left fork had been closed off and bricked over a couple of generations past

Jazz's breath hitched and she stared at the dark brick, feeling a tug on her gut and her heart She'd felt soly

She started for the wall, but Terence pulled her along the open fork

"No We're supposed to go that way," she said

"I'lad you know that Glad you feel it"

He drew her to a stop just a few yards beyond the split, and she realized there was a heavy wooden door set into the wall, separating one of the fork's tunnels from the other

Terence turned the handle and it opened easily He stepped through and crouched down, searching for soht blossomed from a torch in Terence's hand Just like Harry and the United Kingdoround What Jazz wanted to knohy

"Where are you taking me?"

Terence narrowed his eyes "Hurry"

It was good advice The Blackwood Club was closing in Someone called her name, as if they knew her, and it turned her stomach to realize that they probably did Some of those men --the Uncles--had known her since she was an infant

She started to follow Terence through the door and froze, seized by the lure of whatever lay beyond it Jazz threw back her head, inhaling sharply as a wave of bliss passed through her Then Terence took her by the hand, and for a h the temptation that lay beyond the door was Terence himself

Jazz broke the contact with hilanced toward their pursuers They were close enough that she could make out the silhouettes of the Uncles and the BMW ure was that of a wo the floor of the tunnel, long hair frah she was hosts of old London

So thunder that rolled across the tunnel, and her skin craith revulsion Philip, the half-mad By now perhaps entirely mad

"Jazz!" Terence shouted

But she was no longer paying any attention to hi along the tunnel, tousling Jazz's hair, and she could hear the ban-shee cry of the city's ghosts rising

"Again?" she whispered

The Hour of Screarowing shorter and shorter Harry had been unnerved by theether, but Jazz breathed deeply and let the breeze wash over her, let the screa out to be heard

Harry es of the city's past, but he had never listened to their cries

their pleas The time had come for someone to listen

"Oh, Christ," Terence !"

Jazz shook her head "Not this tian to shout in alarm Philip howled like a wolf Josephine Blackwood snapped off orders to those who had gathered in her name

The Hour of Screaan to rise again

At first, the parade of echoes seemed familiar There were visions froes of chaos and heartbreak, but the streahosts soon produced more-hter of the city, along with its tragedies

There were e, streets filled with early-hosts of London swept around her like a rushing river, and Jazz stood in the midst of the current and let it wash over her

She looked up, and the ician was there in his top hat and tails From one sleeve he produced a bouquet of flowers, and fro

And it changed