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gaining ground, dragging his monstrous branch over the tunnel floor. In the dim light I could make out an earring in his one remaining ear and a soccer ball tattoo on his neck.
    When the prisoner began to run, his pursuer ran, too.
    “ Halt .” The German thumped the branch on the stone floor.
    The prisoner ran faster and faster. As the tunnel dipped sharply, the terrible whispering I’d heard outside began again. It couldn’t be coming from the insects in the trees since we were underground. We turned a corner and ran headlong into thick veils of ominous black smoke that clung to the walls and floor as it streamed downhill. I had no sense of smell and could only wonder if the ruins were on fire.
    The prisoner hurried deeper underground into the oppressive gloom as the whispering and black smoke grew thicker. I still couldn’t make sense out of what I was seeing. Tendrils of black smoke twisted into shapes that almost resembled desperate outstretched hands and then drifted apart. More smoke flowed in from a narrow doorway in the tunnel wall, but the prisoner raced past the opening as if he was afraid to take it.
    The German was almost upon us.
    The tunnel turned, and we ran from the manmade ruins into an enormous natural cavern with ancient stalagmites that had formed rock columns over the centuries. Nightmarish shapes twisted around the rock into those same terrible outstretched hands, drifted apart, and twisted again under that same faint green light, but I couldn’t see the source of the light. The rush of incomprehensible whispers grew almost unbearable.
    The prisoner splashed into an underground stream that wound down to a mirrored black lake in the cavern’s deepest recesses, but his pursuer’s footfalls were right behind him.
    The German’s meaty hand reached out. “ Stopp .”
    Breathing hard, the prisoner smashed his shoulder against the German and knocked him over into the stream. Water splashed. Legs and arms flew everywhere as the two men went down together, snorting and gasping. The prisoner grappled for the tree branch with his legs, but it sank under the water.
    The German wrenched him up with powerful arms and rammed a fist into his face so hard the prisoner’s knees buckled and his head lolled back. The huge man spat off an insult. With his face inches away, he gritted his teeth and pulled as if he were trying to rip the prisoner apart. His eye bugged out and his muscles shook and then I heard metal snap and suddenly understood.
    Freed after all this time, the prisoner lifted his hands in slow amazement and reached out to pound the German on the shoulder in a gesture of heartfelt thanks. I wondered why he didn’t speak.
    The German ’s grin spread across his filthy face. “ Da staunste, was ?”
    Thock.
    The hunter.
    My heart raced at the horrible, familiar sound. A burning hole appeared in the German’s forehead. Blood spurted from his nostrils. The man’s eye glazed over as he tottered, died on his feet, and collapsed face down in the stream. Water spread over the silver box on his back. He was another prisoner.
    A second thock hit the water. Whirling around, the prisoner gave the German a frantic shake, but the man stayed face down in the water with a bloody hole in his skull. Whispers rushed toward us, desperate, urgent, pleading over and over. The prisoner fled from the corpse and ran along the lake where the strange shadowy smoke drifted and twisted and drifted apart. When another thock echoed through the cavern, he plunged into the black water up to his chest.
     
     
    * * *
     
     
    Seconds later, a force ripped me out of the ruins to my bedroom, where I held my head, nauseated and panting for breath. The dull ache in my wrists radiated to every finger. The clock said midnight. I’d been away for two hours according to the gold lines on the side of the device. I’d discovered the controls. Then I leaned over the side of the bed and threw up on the floor.
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
     
    I