Chapter 27
THE NIGHTMARE WAS THE WORST HE HAD EVER HAD.
He awoke sweating and panting, the bed-sheets a tangled Gordian knot about his feet. He shivered in the sudden chill of night and pulled the sweat-soaked sheets and blankets up to his throat again, feeling the rank dampness of his nightgown swathed about him like a gravedamp shroud. The nightmare, the dread hallucination of sleep, had been so real.
He was trapped again beneath the scum-foul waters of the river – drowning, drowning – unable to draw breath, the cruel spikes of the wrought iron grille driving like the nails of crucifixion into his back and thighs, scraping, scraping away the flesh that floated past his eyes in b****y slivers. He spiralled down deeper into the icechill water. Blackness. Pain. Blood was everywhere. Now
