Immediately, a putrid odor assaulted his nostrils. Sewer, he thought. He stopped involuntarily for a moment, then moved forward again.
The pipe ended, opening into blackness. Gingerly, he brought his feet outward and downward. A hard, firm dirt floor met his shoes a foot or so beneath the mouth of the pipe. He could hardly believe their luck: a chamber of unknown size, hung suspended here between the basement and subbasement. Probably some architectural palimpsest, a long-forgotten by-product of one of the Museum’s many reconstructions. He clambered out and moved a few inches forward, then another few inches, sweeping his feet over the blackness of the floor. The stench around him was abominable, but it was not the smell of the beast, and for that he was profoundly grateful. Dry things—twigs?—crunched beneath his feet. Behind him, he could hear grunting, and the sound of others moving down the pipe toward him. The feeble light from D’Agosta’s flashlight in the subbasement beyond could not penetrate the blackness.
He turned around, knelt down by the mouth of the pipe, and began helping the bedraggled group out, directing them off to the side, warning them not to stray too far into the dark.
One at a time, people emerged and spread out against the wall, feeling their way gingerly, collapsing in exhaustion. The room was quiet except for the sound of ragged breathing.
Finally, Smithback heard the voice of D’Agosta coming through the pipe. “Christ, what is that reek?” he muttered to Smithback. “That damned flashlight finally gave out. So I dropped it into the water. Okay, people,” he said in a louder voice, standing up, “I want you to count off.” The sound of dripping water started Smithback’s heart racing until he realized it was simply D’Agosta, wringing out his sodden jacket.
One by one, in tired voices, the group gave their names. “Good,” D’Agosta said. “Now to figure out where we are. We may need to look for higher ground, in case the water continues to rise.”
“I’d like to look for higher ground anyway,” came a voice from the darkness. “It stinks in here something awful.”
“It’ll be tough without light,” Smithback said. “We’ll need to go single file.”
“I’ve got a lighter,” one voice said. “Shall I see if it still works?”
“Careful,” said someone else. “Smells like methane, if you ask me.”
Smithback winced as a wavering yellow flame illuminated the chamber.
“Oh, Jesus!” somebody screamed.
The chamber was suddenly plunged into darkness again as the hand holding the lighter involuntarily jerked away—but not before Smithback got a single, devastating image of what lay around him.
Margo strained ahead in the dimness, slowly moving the flashlight around the hall, trying to keep from deliberately spotlighting the beast as it crouched at the corner, observing them.
“Not yet,” Pendergast murmured. “Wait until it shows itself fully.”
The creature seemed to pause for an eternity, unmoving, as silent and motionless as a stone gargoyle. Margo could see small red eyes watching her in the gloom. Every now and then the eyes disappeared, then reappeared, as the creature blinked.
The creature took another step, then froze again as if making up its mind, its low, powerful frame tensed and ready.
Then it started forward, coming down the hall toward them with a strange, terrifying lope.
“Now!” cried Pendergast.
Margo reached up and fumbled for the miner’s helmet, and the hall was suddenly bathed in light. Almost immediately she heard a deafening WHANG! as Pendergast’s powerful handgun barked next to her. The creature stopped briefly, and Margo could see it squinting, shaking its head against the light. It bent back as if to bite its haunch where the bullet had passed. Margo felt her mind receding from the reality: the low, pale head, horribly elongated, the crease of Pendergast’s bullet a white stripe above the eyes; the powerful forequarters, covered with dense fur and ending in long, rending talons; the lower rear haunches, wrinkled skin descending to five-clawed toes. Its fur was matted with crusted blood, and fresh blood shone on the scales of the hindquarters.
WHANG! The creature’s right foreleg was yanked behind it, and Margo heard a terrible roar of rage. It spun back to face them and sprang forward, ropes of saliva swinging madly from its jaws.
WHANG! went the gun—a miss—and the creature kept coming, accelerating with horrible deliberation.
WHANG!