The murmuring now had a backbeat of gurgling and slapping. Water covered my laces. My back and hamstrings screamed from the strain of doubling over.

Reverse?

Go forward?

I’d lost all feeling in my fingers and toes. I was shivering wildly. Fever? Hypothermia?

Find an out! Break free!

I continued onward, every cell in my body dedicated to escape.

My scalp tingled.

I ignored it.

Again the tingle, now on my forehead.

Feathery legs brushed my eyelid. The bridge of my nose.

A spider!

My hand flew up and my fingers raked at my face.

Trembling from revulsion, cold, and exhaustion, I leaned into the wall, despair threatening to overwhelm me.

Screw the batteries. I had to have light!

I flicked the switch.

The beam was almost useless except as an emotional crutch. I aimed it ahead, toward the source of the murmuring sound. Saw inky black.

My body was racked with ever more violent shivers.

As I wrapped my arms around my torso, amber light skimmed the brick at my shoulder.

Picked out something.

Breath suspended, I drew the flash close to the wall.

THE FUZZY AMBER SPOT CRAWLED BLACK MARKS ON THE BRICK.

Stenciled letters, faded and chipped.

I inched the light along, forcing my addled brain to fill in the blanks, form words, derive meaning,

ALEX DRE DE S VE ET DU PAR L FONT INE

Street names.

Rue Alexandre-de-Sève Rue du parc Lafontaine.

An intersection.

Dear God, that corner was just blocks from the lab!

The brackish water. The stench.

The tunnel had to be a sewer. Did it underlie one of those streets?

But I’d awakened in a tomb.

It made no sense.

The bitter cold was jumbling my newly emerging cognition.

I struggled for a mental map of the terrain overhead.

Veterans Park. The entrance ramp toward the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. Rue Logan. Malo. Avenue Papineau. De Lorimier.

Another flash. Not recent. This synapse came from way, way back. From a written page.

Veterans Park was the site of the Old Military Burying Ground.

Had I been sealed in a tomb built for dead soldiers?

No way. Those graves were exhumed and moved in the forties.

Had some been missed? Raines was an urban archaeologist. He’d know about cemeteries. Tombs. Sewers.

My abductor had to be Raines.

I was starting to feel dizzy.

How much time had passed since I’d left the tomb? How long until I succumbed to hypothermia?

I tried to think clearly.

My brain screamed one word.

Move!

Jaw clamped against the tremors, I resumed hunchbacking forward, palm skimming the wall.

The downhill slope sharpened.

The murmuring-gurgling-slapping grew louder.

Water now lapped my ankles.

I slogged on, beam reduced to one strip of amber filament.

Another ten feet and I came to an opening, round, the lower half filled with broken brick and debris. From beyond came the unmistakable rush of moving water.

I pointed the beam through the gap.

The sewer I occupied was joining another. A main collector? Water ran through the larger shaft, a knee-deep river of swirling black sludge.

My eyes squinted for detail the light couldn’t find. Saw only a collision of shadows.

My ears told me the current was swift, strong enough to sweep my feet from under me.

My only choice lay behind me.

The tomb. The silent dead.

Don’t be stupid. You’ll never get back into it. The opening is too high.

It was then that the beam died altogether.

Desperate, I shook the flashlight.

The bulb sputtered to life, wavered, went out for good.

Using the cadence of my hammering heart, I hypnotized myself calm. You’re OK! You’re OK!

How long since I’d left the tomb? An hour? A minute? Time still meant nothing.

Plan your next move. Think. You have to keep moving.

Then, over the watery snarl, my ears picked out another sound. Grating, like metal scraping concrete.

Craning my head into the junction, I peered in both directions down the main line.

To the left, light seeped from a circular opening in the tunnel’s arched dome.

Had it been there before? Had I missed it?

No.

Then how?

A manhole!

Someone was entering the sewer!

As I stared, two legs appeared. A torso. A human figure began descending a ladder now visible against the curved tunnel wall.

“I’m here.” Pure instinct. Yet the cry was feeble.

The figure continued its downward climb.

“Je suis ici.” Still hoarse, hardly above a whisper.

Two more rungs. The figure gleamed oddly, as though made of satin or plastic.

“Help me!” This time I shouted with all my strength. “Please!”

The figure froze.

“Over here.” My shout echoed.

The figure scrabbled down the last few rungs, then scuttled into shadow.

I waited, blades of hope and fear windmilling in my chest.

Had I imagined it? Was I hallucinating?

No, the man was real.

Why didn’t he answer?

My stomach curdled at a terrifying thought.

The man was not a city worker.

My abductor had returned to finish me off!

It had to be Raines.

But no.

Raines was a gorilla. The figure on the ladder had long spider legs.

Spider.

The spider on my face.

Duclos’s “spider” tooth.

The itsy bitsy spider went up the waterspout …

My lids felt heavy.

I allowed them to drift down.

Briel took the spider tooth from Bergeron’s tub and placed it with the Lac Saint-Jean child.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out …

Like I’d soon be washed out.

In a sewer.

What do you explore?

Underground stuff.

Drainsplorers.

Joe.

Joe had access to the tub.

Not Briel.

I had a key.

Joe had a key.

I was so tired. I wanted to drag myself back uphill to the tomb. To hide.

Spine to the wall, I slid downward into the fetid water. Hugged my knees in an attempt to preserve heat.

A million miles away I heard splashing. Shouting.

No. Not distant.

Here.

Now.

Dragging my lids apart, I muscled myself forward and peeked into the intersecting sewer.

A two-headed monster-marionette stumbled and splashed in the pale circle of gray cast by the open manhole. Four legs struggled in the swirling black water, two glistening, two dark. Four arms flailed.

As I watched, the marionette-monster exploded down the middle. Two puppets emerged. Both were tall and lanky. One wore a tassled hat. The other had hair that was spiked on top.

Spike lurched left.

Tassle lunged after and grapple-hooked Spike around the throat.

Both puppets toppled backward but were not swept away. Their thrashing sent waves cascading outward into the darkness.

Angry shouting bounced down the tube. I could not catch words.