I didn’t hear it, because it made no sound at first. But I felt it coming in my gut. and I turned around. It came down on me with a roar, a Neapolitan hearse drawn by six screaming black horses. I watched it all with horrible clarity. The coachman smiled down at me, his visage straight from the Pit. He had row upon row of long, needlelike teeth, and his dead gray skin was drawn tightly across his skull, splitting his mouth into a cyanide grin. His eyes were black and sunken, gleaming wetiy in their sockets. From the depths of each one came a pinprick of hellish red light. The horses were monstrous, their bodies strange and misshapen, thick with freakish muscles and writhing tendons. Their eyes were white and sightless, rolling with rage and insanity. They tossed the black plumes on their heads and bared their jagged teeth as they bore down on me. Red sparks flew from their pounding hooves. The coach’s ruby lantern swung crazily, throwing crimson light across the horses like convulsions in a fever dream. Here was Black Ice of the deadliest caliber.