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The House That Jack Built by Robert Asprin & Linda Evans

Someone was moving through the sewers toward them, splashing quickly through the water. For a long, horrible moment, Jenna thought he was coming back toward them. Noah blew out the candle, plunging them into a terrifying darkness. Lachley’s footsteps approached to within a frightful distance, accompanied by a lantern’s dim glow, then faded once more, moving away down another route and disappearing back into the maze of sewer tunnels.

Jenna discovered that she was shaking violently. Minutes crawled past in the utter blackness of the stinking sewer while doubt and fear banged around the inside of her skull like screaming, imprisoned monkeys. The echoes of Lachley’s footsteps had long since faded, but still they didn’t move, scarcely daring to breathe. At last, Noah shifted. The detective whispered, “Marcus, let’s have a lucifer, please.” A match flared and Marcus relit the candle.

Light sprang up, yellow and warm and glorious, revealing ashen faces. Jenna swallowed hard, hands trembling visibly. “Wherever he was torturing that poor woman, it’s not far.”

“He closed a door of some kind,” Noah mused. “Perhaps another trap door. We’ll try to find it and see if he’s hidden Ianira down here with his other captive.”

A cross-tunnel intersected their own. Noah turned left, opposite the direction Lachley had taken. Jenna cast worried glances back over her shoulder every few seconds, terrified the monstrous killer behind them would turn and come back, having heard their footsteps. Her hand sweat on the grip of her pistol despite the chill in the foetid air. Jenna knew her gun was useless against Jack the Ripper. He couldn’t be killed tonight, not before Mary Kelly died, more than a month in the future. But it was all she had and just holding it made her feel slightly less panic-stricken.

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Categories: Asprin, Robert
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