The man folded his apelike arms, which made his muscles bulge all the more against the plaid-printed material of his shirt. “It’s Timon. We don’t have time for this get-to-know-you nonsense. Your friends aren’t gonna last another five minutes before they come in here after you.”

“Fine, then talk,” Isaac said, not believing for a second that the man’s name was actually Timon. Timon? Really? His name had to be Slayer. “What did you call us in here for?”

The man replied tersely. “Have you heard of the Godhead? Do you know anything about them? Has she . . . has Kletter talked about them?”

Isaac opened his mouth but no words came out. Godhead? He did remember her mentioning that word before, but that was it. Easy to forget amidst a life-changing sea voyage.

“Like in the Bible?” Sadina asked. “Never read it.”

“No I’m not talking about the damn Bible,” the man shot back. “What has Kletter . . .” He stopped, rubbed his bearded face, visibly shaken with uncertainty. “Listen. You need to come with me, right now. Out the back door, away from that woman. We can get help and we can save your friends later. If you don’t even know what the Godhead is, then we’re about twenty steps behind the mule.”

“Isaac? What’s going on?”

It was Kletter, her voice like a crack of thunder without lightning, right behind them. Isaac swung around, filled with a suspicion that had no justification, based only on a few words from a man they’d never met. But he felt a wash of terror at her sudden intrusion, with a stab of guilt. She stood silhouetted in the light of the doorway, appearing taller than she’d ever seemed before, thicker, a malign presence without a face.

He searched for words. “We . . . uh . . .”

Something slipped over his head, cloth, black, cutting off his vision. It cinched around his throat and then he was being jerked backward, toward the spot where Timon had been standing. A stifled yell escaped his lips, swallowed in the scratchy material that pulled against his mouth and nose, making it hard to breathe. Then the world tilted, darkness spiraling on darkness, and his back slammed against the floor with a thud that thrummed through his bones. He heard a muffled shriek from Sadina, a thump, and knew she’d met the same fate as he had.

“What—” he started to yell, but a hand as hard as iron clamped against his mouth, pressed against his teeth. He kicked out with his legs, tried to squirm away from that grip, but other hands had him by the arms, pushing down on his chest, others now squeezing him by the ankles, holding him in place as if he were about to have a limb amputated without numbing herbs. Where had all these people come from? It was as if the undead had risen through the floorboards, as if . . .