Necropolis

had this all started? She had actually seen Matt, in St. Meredith's. He had been the one who had led her through the door, although now she wondered if he had really been there at all. He had been silent, ghostlike. It wasn't that she had imagined him. But perhaps what she had experienced was some sort of vision. If he had really gone through the door, wouldn't he be here now?
    And then there was the door itself. Scarlett had tried to persuade herself that she had been drugged and kidnapped, but the more she thought about it, the more she accepted that it hadn't happened that way.
    Father Gregory had told her the truth. She had gone through a door in London and ended up in Ukraine.
    There had been no flight, no drugs. And if she accepted that, what choice did she have but to accept the rest?
    She went over to the table and examined the food. It looked far from appetizing, but she made herself swallow it, the soup cold and greasy, the bread several days old. Still, it was all she was going to get, and she needed her strength. The candle in the lamp was only an inch tall, and she wondered how long it would last. When it went out, she would be left in total blackness. The thought made her shudder. There was already so much to be afraid of, but being on her own, locked up in the dark, was somehow worse than any of it.

    It would be better if she could sleep. She didn't undress. It was far too cold to even think of taking off her coat. She climbed onto the bed and pulled the two blankets over her, burrowing into them like an animal in a cave. She lay like that for a long time, and when sleep did finally come, she didn't even notice it. She only knew that she was no longer awake when she realized that she had begun to dream.
    She was back in the strange, airless world that she had visited so many times before. She recognized it and was glad to be there. She was desperate to see Matt and the other three boys. If anyone could help her, they could. At least they might show her a way to break out.
    But there was no sign of them. While part of her slept, alone in her cell, the other part was stranded here, alone on the edge of a grim and lifeless sea.
    Something in the dreamworld had changed. Scarlett became aware of it very slowly, not seeing anything but sensing it, a sort of throbbing in the air that was coming from very far away, from the other side of the horizon. She heard a faint rumble of thunder and saw a tiny streak of lightning, like a hairline crack in the fabric of the world. Her head was pounding. She noticed the water, the surface of the ocean, begin to shiver. A gust of wind tugged at her hair. The sand, or the gray dust, or whatever it was, spun in eddies around her feet, then leaped up, half blinding her and stinging her cheeks. She backed away, knowing that she needed to hide. She still didn't know what she was hiding from.
    And then, in a single moment, the ocean split open. It was as if it had been sliced in half by some vast, invisible knife — and the black water rushed in, millions of gallons pouring from left and right into the chasm — a mile long — that had been formed. At the same time, something rose up, twisting toward the surface. At first, she thought it was a snake, some sort of monstrous sea serpent that had been resting for centuries on the ocean bed and had only now woken up. She smelled its breath — how was that possible…how could you smell anything in a dream? — and cried out as it rushed toward her, its eyes blazing, flames exploding around its mouth. It was a dragon! Straight out of ancient folklore. And yet it was horribly real, howling so loudly that she thought her head would burst.
    signal one
    The two words had appeared in front of her. They were written in neon: huge red letters hanging from some sort of frame, the light so intense that they burned her eyes. Where had they come from? They must have risen out of the ground because only a moment before, the landscape had been empty. The neon buzzed and flickered as some sort of electric power coursed through it. Scarlett looked down at her hands and saw that they were blood red, reflecting the light. It was as if she were on fire.
    signal one…signal one…
    It flashed on and off. The dragon was there one minute, then gone the next, lost in the darkness, reappearing in the light. Each time she saw it, it was a little closer. The wind was blasting her. If it got any stronger, it would throw her off her feet. She tried to