Wordlessly, he handed her the computer printout on the night terrors victim.

***

Miriam’s arm flashed up with stunning speed and knocked the cleaver from John’s hand. Instantly, he realized what a mistake it had been to wait for her to wake up. He had stood here, stupidly exulting as she Slept, her body glowing softly in her silk suit. The cleaver had felt good in his hand, the blade was honed to slice deep with the lightest stroke. He could almost hear it singing through the air, almost feel the soft chuck of it connecting with her neck, almost see the awful awareness flashing and then fading in her eyes.

The hand closed around his wrist like a manacle. He tried to pull away, to pry back the fingers. Miriam rose to her feet, snatched his other arm and held them both out before him. He twisted away but she raised him off the floor. He could see her face inches away from his, her teeth gleaming, her eyes darting like a crow’s eyes.

He threw his head back and pushed against her belly with his feet. It was useless, she might as well be a stone statue. His heart bumped in his chest and pain radiated down his arms. “You’re killing me!”

Then she said something that astonished him, especially after what he had seen in the attic. He was certain he had heard the words correctly: “I love you.” She asked his forgiveness and hissed out a prayer. Whenever she was about to enter danger, she called on the gods of her species.

She dragged him to a far corner of the cellar. There came a grating sound: she had lifted with one hand a slate block right out of the floor.

He was still trying to understand what she was doing when he was tossed like a rag into the space beneath the block. He fell hard, landing in six inches of freezing water. With a crash that made his ears ring the slate block was dropped into place above him.

Absolute dark. Dripping water.

John now felt a sweeping wave of despair. He wasn’t going to be escaping from this place. She had buried him alive!

He screamed, he hammered on the slate, he cried out her name again and again. His hands clawed the cool stones until his fingers tore. Death was going to catch him here, jammed into a space barely as large as a coffin!

“Please!”

Dripping water.

Panic. Images of home. Clear sky. Spring meadows. Off to westward, the huntsman’s horn.

Hands clutching him, tearing at him, pressing his face into the muddy, stinking water. Crushing, agonizing weight. Stones. Stones and utter helplessness.

Consciousness left him. But it was not replaced by oblivion. Instead, he was back in the attic, where he had been earlier, searching for Miriam.