Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)

by Victoria Schwab

“Cass, get the door,” says Mom, her arms full of food.

  I nudge the door shut with my foot and tug the camera strap over my head, retreating to the little bedroom. Jacob and I flop down on my bed.

  What a strange day, I think.

  “Even stranger than usual,” admits Jacob.

  I roll over with a groan, and I’m just reaching for one of the comics in my bag when Mom’s voice cuts through the suite.

  “Cassidy!”

  Jacob sits up. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  My mom has a lot of voices. There’s the I’m proud of you voice. The You’re late for dinner voice. The I need to talk to you about this life-changing decision your father and I have made voice. And then there’s the You are in so much trouble voice.

  That’s the one Mom’s using.

  I head into the main room and find her standing, arms crossed, by the hotel room door. It’s open.

  “What did I ask you to do?” she snaps, and I look from her to the door in confusion.

  “I closed it!” I say, glancing toward Jacob, who only shrugs.

  “Don’t look at me,” he says. “I didn’t open it.”

  And I don’t really understand the big deal until I hear Dad out in the hall, calling “Here, kitty, kitty” and rattling Grim’s food dish.

  Uh-oh.

  “He got out?” I cry.

  Here’s the thing: Grim isn’t a normal cat. He’s not a hunter, and not even all that fast. Back home, he moved around about as much as a loaf of bread. So even if I did leave the door open, which I know I didn’t, the chances of him going anywhere are slim to none.

  And yet, he’s not here.

  And he’s not in the hallway, either.

  We split up. Dad makes his way up the stairs toward the third floor, Mom heads down to the lobby, and Jacob and I comb the space between.

  How did he get out? Why did he get out? Grim’s never shown much interest in the outside world—the few times he wandered beyond our front porch, he made it as far as the nearest patch of sun before sprawling out on his back to take a nap.

  “Grim?” I call softly.

  “Grim!” echoes Jacob.

  My throat tightens a little. Where is he?

  We look behind potted plants and under tables, but there’s no sign of the cat on the second floor, or the first. No sign as we reach the lobby, where Mom’s talking to the concierge, and I decide to check the salon where we had breakfast. It’s out of service for the night, but one of the glass doors is open a crack. A gap just large enough for a cat.

  I slip through, Jacob on my heels. I paw at the wall, searching for the light switch, but I can’t find one. Even though the curtains have been pulled shut, the Rue de Rivoli shines through, just enough light to see by.

  “Grim?” I call softly, trying to keep my voice steady as I creep between the tables.

  And then, between one step and the next, I suck in a breath. It’s like hitting a patch of cold air. A sudden shiver rolls through me.

  “Jacob—”

  Ding … ding … ding …

  Jacob and I both look up. A chandelier hangs overhead, crystals chiming faintly as they sway.

  Jacob and I glance at each other.

  My look says, Was that you?

  And his says, Are you crazy?

  The cold gets worse, and as I watch, the tablecloth begins to slide from a nearby table, dragging the place settings with it. I lunge toward it, a fraction too late. The plates and silverware go crashing to the floor, and a second later, a shape darts through the darkness to my left. It’s shadow on shadow, too dark to see, but one thing’s for certain.

  It’s larger than a cat.

  Before I can follow it, Jacob calls out, “Found him!”

  I turn back, and see Jacob on his hands and knees on the other side of the room, looking beneath a chair.

  Sure enough, there’s Grim.

  But when I get close, he hisses.

  Grim never hisses, but now he looks up at me, his green eyes wide and his ears thrown back, fangs bared. And when I reach for him, he darts past me, through Jacob’s outstretched hands and out of the salon. We chase after him into the lobby, where the very displeased desk clerk who checked us in yesterday catches him by the scruff of the neck.

  She turns toward Mom.

  “I believe,” she says curtly, “this belongs to you.”

  Mom scowls at the cat. “I’m so sorry,” she says, taking the thoroughly unhappy Grim, turning her glare on me. “It won’t happen again.”

  But as I follow her back upstairs, all I can think is, I’m sure I closed our door.

  Mom and Dad set out the makeshift picnic on the low coffee table, and the tension dissolves as we sit on pillows on the floor, eating apples and cheese and fresh baguette. As my parents discuss the day’s filming, my mind wanders back again and again to the cold. I felt it at lunch, right before the awning broke, and again on the path in the gardens, and again downstairs in the salon. And every time, it came with the feeling, just as strong, that I wasn’t alone.

  Something certainly spooked Grim. He’s handled it by collapsing into a fluffy mound, snoring softly at the foot of my bed.

  What did he see? What did I see?

  I think of the shadow in the salon. Maybe it was a trick of the eye, streetlights making shapes …

  “You okay, Cass?” asks Mom. “You look a mile away.”

  I manage a smile. “Sorry,” I say. “Just tired.”

  I push up from the table and grab my phone.

  I need a second opinion.

  I text Lara.

  Me:

  Can you talk?

  Me:

  Need help.

  Ten seconds later, the phone rings.

  I head for the bathroom, and Jacob follows me inside. He’s careful to keep his back to the mirror as I close the door and answer.

  “Cassidy Blake,” says a prim English voice. “In trouble already?”

  I hit the video chat button, and after a second of buffering, Lara Chowdhury appears on-screen. She’s sitting in a high-back chair, a cup of tea balanced on a stack of books beside her.

  Her attention flicks to Jacob. “I see you still have your pet ghost.”

  Jacob scowls. “Jealous you don’t have one, too?”

  “Lay off,” I say, addressing both of them.

  Lara sighs and leans her head on one hand. Her black hair is pulled up in a messy bun on top of her head. It’s the first time anything about Lara could be described as messy, and—

  “Are those … Harry Potter pajamas?” I ask.

  She looks down at herself. “Just because they’re blue and bronze—”

  “They’re totally Harry Potter pajamas, aren’t they?”

  Lara bristles. “They’re comfortable. If they just happen to accurately represent my chosen house—” She shakes her head and changes course. “How’s Paris?”

  “Haunted.”

  “Tell me about it,” she says. “I was there last summer, and I certainly had my hands full. Where have you been so far?”

  “The Tuileries, the Luxembourg Gardens, the Eiffel Tower. Oh, and the Catacombs.”

  “You went into the Catacombs?” Lara sounds almost impressed.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a day at the beach, but with so many skeletons, I thought it would be worse …”

  Lara shrugs. “Graveyards are usually pretty quiet.”

  “I know, but since the bodies were disturbed, I thought—”

  “Oh, please,” says Lara, “if ghosts got riled up every time their bones were moved, there wouldn’t be room in the in-between.”

  “But the Catacombs are haunted,” I say.

  “Of course they’re haunted,” says Lara. “All of Paris is haunted. But I’m sure the Catacombs aren’t six-million-angry-spirits haunted.” Lara straightens in her chair. “Well? You didn’t call just to catch up.”

  “No.” I chew my lip. �
��Something weird is going on.”

  I tell her about the awning breaking at lunch, the sense of being followed, Grim getting out, and the tablecloth that moved in the salon—not to mention the shadow. And I tell her about the cold rush I felt right before each one.

  Lara’s eyes narrow as I talk. “Cassidy,” she says slowly, when I’m done. “You might have attracted a poltergeist.”

  She sounds nervous. Which makes me nervous.

  “What’s a poltergeist?” asks Jacob.

  “It’s a spirit drawn to spectral energy,” says Lara, keeping her attention on me. “It was probably dormant until it sensed yours, Cassidy.” Her eyes flick toward Jacob. “Or his. That cold sensation you’ve been feeling, it is a kind of intuition, a warning that strong spirits are near.”

  “Okay,” I say, perching on the bathtub. “But a poltergeist is just a kind of ghost, right?”

  “A very dangerous kind of ghost,” says Lara. “They feed on chaos.”

  “Cassidy!” calls Mom, knocking on the door. “Everything all right in there?”

  “Yep!” I call back. “Just brushing my teeth.” I lower my voice as I turn back to Lara. “But how can a poltergeist cause trouble in the real world? Shouldn’t it be locked in the Veil?”

  Lara pinches the bridge of her nose. “Poltergeists are wanderers. They’re not stuck in a loop or a memory, and they aren’t tied to the place they died. They’ve come loose from the in-between. They can move freely through it, and even reach across the Veil into our world.”

  “Like the Raven in Red,” I say, recalling the ghostly woman who haunted Edinburgh, stealing its children before she stole my life.

  “Yes,” says Lara. “And no. Even the Raven couldn’t leave the in-between until she had your life. That’s why she had to lure you in. But poltergeists already have one foot on either side. So congratulations, you’ve managed to wake something even more dangerous.”

  My stomach drops at the thought. The Raven wasn’t exactly a piece of cake.

  “It’s like a video game,” says Jacob, “where the boss on each level is harder to beat.”

  Lara frowns. “That’s an overly simplistic way of looking at this. But I suppose so.”

  “Okay,” I say, mind spinning. “But a poltergeist is still a spirit. So I just need to find it and send it back.”

  “Yes,” says Lara. “As soon as possible. Poltergeists start with little things, acts of mischief, but eventually they turn to menace and then mayhem. Violence.” I think of the torn awning, the glass shattering on the table, how lucky I was I didn’t get cut. “They don’t have any qualms about hurting people, even killing them,” warns Lara. “And the more trouble a poltergeist causes, the more powerful they get.” She looks to Jacob, and then back at me, her next words pointed. “Spirits this strong have no place in our world, Cassidy. Every minute they’re loose, they cause damage to the balance, and the Veil.”

  Jacob looks down at the floor, hands closing into fists. We both know she’s talking about more than the poltergeist.

  I clear my throat. “Well, great,” I say, “thanks for the pep talk. Sure you don’t want to make a trip down to Paris?”

  A sad smile flickers across Lara’s face. “I wish,” she says. “But I’m here, if you need me. And, Cassidy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do be careful. And, you”—she glares at Jacob—“as long as you’re here, make yourself useful.”

  She hangs up, and I’m left staring down at the darkened screen.

  “You know,” says Jacob dryly, “I think she’s starting to like me.”

  I sigh and kick him out so I can brush my teeth for real.

  I need my sleep—tomorrow I’m going to hunt a poltergeist.

  By the time I climb into bed, Jacob’s nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t stick around at night, but the truth is, I don’t know where he goes.

  Sometimes, even psychic ghost best friends have secrets.

  Something jerks me out of a heavy, dreamless sleep.

  I don’t know what it is—a weight on the edge of my bed, Grim walking around—only that I’m awake, and the room is dark. The night is still thick beyond my window. My door is ajar, and I hold my breath and listen, straining to hear something, anything—Dad’s snoring, the ambient sounds of late-night tourists on the street—but the suite is unnaturally quiet.

  Until I hear the click of a lock, the faint groan of the hotel door swinging open.

  The poltergeist.

  Thin red light spills in from the hall, and I’m on my feet, padding barefoot through the dark. By the time I reach the doorway, the crimson glow is sliding down the stairs. I step into the hall and reach for my mirror pendant, only to realize I’m not wearing it. I must have left the necklace on the bedside table. As I turn back to get it, the hotel door swings shut, locking me out.

  A draft rolls down the hall, sudden and cold, and I fight back a shiver.

  “Cassidy …”

  My name is a whisper on the air, faint and far away, but I know that voice.

  “Jacob?” I call out, trying to keep my voice low.

  “Cassidy …” he calls again, his voice drifting up through the floor. Something crashes, and I hurry toward the stairs, sure that the poltergeist has Jacob, that he’s in danger.

  Hold on, Jacob, I think, plunging down the stairs. Hold on, hold on.

  They don’t have any qualms about hurting people, Lara said.

  Hold on.

  With every downward step, the temperature falls.

  By the second floor, I’m cold.

  By the first, I’m shivering.

  “Jacob?” I call again, my breath fogging in front of me as I reach the lobby, slipping on the marble floor. I scramble to my feet, ready to fight, ready to save my best friend—

  But there’s no one else here.

  No poltergeist attacking him, only Jacob, on his knees in the center of the lobby. His head is in his hands as the air around him churns into a frenzy. The chandelier swings, and the paintings shake, and a chair scrapes across the floor, and I realize with horror that all of it is coming from him.

  “Jacob!” I shout over the howling wind. “Can you hear me?”

  He lets out a low groan. “What’s happening to me?” His voice sounds strange and hollow. “Cassidy …”

  He trails off, the color seeping out of his clothes, his skin. Water drips from his hair, his jeans, pooling around him on the marble floor until he looks the way he did that one time I saw him in a mirror.

  He looks gray and wet and lost.

  He looks dead.

  No. No. No.

  “Cassidy!” calls a voice, but it’s not coming from Jacob.

  It’s Lara.

  She’s standing behind the front desk, bracing herself against the worst of the chaos, her black braid whipping in the wind. Lara, who always seems to have an answer, who always knows what to do. But her eyes aren’t wide with worry. They’re furious.

  “I warned you this would happen!” she calls, her voice warping from the force of Jacob’s whirlwind. “I told you he was getting stronger.”

  I duck as a vase shatters against the pillar over my head, raining down shards of glass and broken flowers that are then yanked back up before they ever hit the marble floor.

  “Cass!” screams Lara as the chaos in the lobby reaches a high, keening pitch. “You have to send him on.”

  But I can’t. I won’t. There has to be another way.

  Jacob curls in on himself at the center of the storm, and I try to get closer, to grab his hand, to pull him back from wherever he is. I can save him. I know if I can just get close enough—but the whirlwind around him is too strong, and it slams me backward until I hit a marble pillar and—

  I sit up, gasping in the dark.

  It was just a bad dream.

  “You’re acting weird,” says Jacob the next morning.

  He looks like Jacob again. No ghoulish face, no empty eyes, no pool of water at his feet, just
my best friend in all his semitransparent glory. I wish I could throw my arms around him. Instead, I do my best to clear my mind, grateful he can’t read my dreams as well as my thoughts.

  “Just tired,” I say as we step off the Metro.

  The truth is, my morning isn’t off to the best start.

  I nearly jumped out of my chair at breakfast when someone in the salon dropped a coffeepot. No spirit activity there, just a server with slippery fingers. I know not everything is a portent of danger, but it still put me on edge.

  I tried to shake it off, but it only got worse. As we were leaving the hotel, a car alarm went off down the street. And then another, and another, the horns blaring like dominoes.

  “Bit nervous this morning?” asked Dad, patting my shoulder as I squinted through the crowded sidewalk, trying to catch sight of whoever triggered the first one. I thought about cutting through the Veil—but I couldn’t, not in front of my parents, Pauline, and the film crew.

  Now we step through the cemetery gates, and I feel the temperature dip.

  “Are you catching a cold?” asks Mom when she sees me pull my sweater close against the chill.

  “Maybe,” I say, shoving my hands in my pockets and clutching the mirror necklace. I feel like my nerves are wound tight enough to—

  A tree branch crashes to the ground on the path in front of us.

  Mom jumps, her arm holding me back.

  “That was close,” she says, looking down at the branch.

  “Way too close,” I mutter.

  What was it Lara said? First comes mischief, then menace, then mayhem.

  I need to take care of things before they escalate.

  And a graveyard seems like a good place to start.

  I study the large paper unfolded in Mom’s hands.

  “What kind of cemetery needs a map?” I ask.

  She beams at me, eyes bright. “A very, very big one.”

  That, it turns out, is an understatement.

  Père Lachaise is like a city within a city. There are even street signs, blocks, neighborhoods. Cobbled paths wind between graves. Some graves are low, like stone caskets, and others looming, like small houses side by side. Some of the crypts are new and others are old, some sealed while others yawn open, and here and there old trees threaten to unbury tombs, roots pushing up between—and beneath—the stone.