Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)

by Victoria Schwab

  Mom sighs, but Dad only shakes his head and checks his watch. “If you’re coming, you should put on a jacket. It’s colder at night.”

  I resist the urge to throw my arms around his waist. There’s happy, and then there’s suspiciously excited, and I can’t afford for them to wonder.

  Luckily, they have plenty on their minds.

  Pauline meets us in the lobby.

  She’s opted for a hired car. Anton and Annette are already seated inside. Dad hands off the film to them with a round of profuse apology, but Anton waves him off and takes the case.

  “C’est la vie,” he says. “Things happen.”

  “Unless you’re Cassidy Blake,” says Jacob as the car pulls away. “And then you make them happen.”

  It’s dark by the time we pull up in front of the little green shack.

  A security officer is waiting as we climb out onto the curb, and I snap a photo of the entrance sign with my phone and send it to Lara.

  Me:

  Going in. Hope to make things right.

  Me:

  If I die, don’t reap Jacob.

  I switch the phone off, slip it into my pocket, and take a deep breath.

  Confession: I’m pretty scared. Scared that my plan will work. Scared that it won’t. Scared of what’s waiting down there in the dark.

  I wish the sun were still up.

  I know it shouldn’t make a difference—after all, it’s always dark down there, beneath the earth. It shouldn’t make a difference, but it does. As we walk toward the door, I can feel that shift Mom always talks about, in the way the world tastes and feels when the sun goes down.

  No warmth in the air to keep the chill at bay.

  No light to push the shadows back.

  I know the dark is no more haunted than the day.

  Or rather, the day is no less haunted than the dark. But it’s still a whole lot scarier.

  “Ghost five, for luck,” says Jacob, holding his palm low instead of high. I bring my hand to rest just above it.

  For luck, I think, but instead of making the usual sound of skin hitting skin, we both leave the gesture quiet. We let our hands linger, one above the other. The closest we can get to comfort.

  My hand drifts up to the camera around my neck. I didn’t actually load a new film cartridge, but it’s still a talisman. A good-luck charm. A little extra bit of magic. And of course, its bright white flash is always good for stopping ghosts.

  The security officer slips a heavy key into the lock and slides back the iron gate, just far enough for us to squeeze through. I think of Thomas, so small he could simply slide between the last bar and the wall.

  The crew goes through first, then Mom, then Dad. I’m about to follow when I realize Adele isn’t with me. I look back and see her hovering on the threshold, her gold sneakers shifting nervously on the curb. She’s biting her lip, looking past me into the darkened hut.

  “Alors,” she says softly. “You know, it’s getting late.” She keeps her chin lifted, her head high. “I should probably go home.”

  Up until now, she’s been so bold, so brave, it was easy to forget: She’s still a kid.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Your mom is probably getting worried.”

  “Yes,” she says. “It’s not that I don’t want to go,” she adds with a proud sniff. “It’s just …”

  “It’s okay,” I say, putting my hand on her shoulder. “You’ve been so helpful. I couldn’t have gotten this far without you. But I’ll take it from here.”

  Her sharp eyes find mine. “You’re sure you can do it?”

  No, I think. I’m a mile from sure. But what I say is, “I hope so.”

  Adele swallows and nods. “Okay.”

  My hand falls away from her shoulder. She’s starting to walk away when I have an idea.

  “Wait,” I call, ducking back inside the green hut. I run up to Dad and tug the salt-and-sage pouch from the inside pocket of his coat. He’ll have to do with one less charm.

  “Where did that come from?” he asks, but I’m already heading back toward Adele.

  Jacob shuffles away, holding his breath, as I give her the little pouch. “To keep you safe,” I say. Adele looks down at the pouch, and then throws her arms around my waist.

  “Bonne chance, Cassidy Blake.”

  “Is that French for be careful?”

  Adele shakes her head.

  “No,” she says with a smile. “It means good luck.”

  I smile back. “Merci, Adele Laurent.”

  “Bye, pipsqueak,” adds Jacob as the girl heads for the Metro station down the block.

  “Cassidy!” calls Mom from inside the hut, and I take a deep breath.

  “You ready for this?” asks Jacob.

  “Not really.”

  He swallows. “But we’re going to do it anyway, aren’t we?”

  I square my shoulders toward the door. “Yeah. We are.”

  We follow the rest of the group through the turnstile, pausing at the top of the spiral steps that coil tightly down into the dark. Mom and Dad go first, followed by Anton and Annette, their cameras up on their shoulders, the red lights a signal that they’re already rolling. Then me, Jacob, and Pauline.

  Six sets of steps echoing on the stairs.

  Un, deux, trois, I count as we head down one floor, two, three. Quatre, cinq, I finish as we reach the bottom.

  A breeze, stale and cold, wafts toward us, as if the tunnels are breathing.

  I pull my jacket close, the old photographs of Thomas and his family rustling faintly beneath it. And then we start the ten-minute walk through the empty tunnels toward the entrance of the Empire of the Dead.

  Water drips from the low ceiling. Footsteps echo off damp stone.

  “Now?” asks Jacob. He shoves his hands in his pockets, clearly eager to get this over with.

  I shake my head. Thomas and Richard wouldn’t have played their games out here, where there are no twists and turns, nothing to hide behind. No, they’d have been farther in, where the halls begin to wind and the walls are full of bones and shadows.

  But I can’t blame Jacob for wanting this to be over.

  The air is damp and cold, and every step we take is one step away from safety. The Veil begins to get heavier. It leans against me, pushing me forward, trying to drag me across the line, into the dark.

  Not yet, I think, pushing back. Not yet.

  We reach the end of the galleries.

  ARRÉTE! warns the sign over the doorway. STOP!

  We’ve come too far to turn back now.

  And so, with a deep breath, we step through.

  Buried beneath Paris, the Catacombs are home to more than six million bones …”

  My parents walk ahead, recounting the history and the lore of this place. They’re telling the same stories as before, but the energy is different this time. They are clearly on edge, ruffled from the whole briefcase incident. It makes them tense and jumpy in a way that’s probably great for a show about paranormal activity. Even Dad’s usual unflappable calm has tightened, making him seem, for once, truly nervous.

  Mom’s voice is tense, even as her hand dances through the air over the skulls.

  “The tunnels snake beneath the city, so vast that most Parisians are walking on bones …”

  “Now?” asks Jacob, and I nod, knowing this is the closest I’ll get to a chance. I back away one step, two, and then turn, about to reach for the Veil when a hand catches my wrist.

  Pauline.

  “Don’t go wandering,” she warns, careful to keep her voice low, because everything echoes here.

  “I’m not,” I whisper, lifting the camera a little. “I was just looking for a good shot.” I point over her shoulder toward my parents, who are still walking away. The glow of the tunnel lights ahead of them creates an eerie halo, turning them to silhouettes.

  Pauline’s grip loosens, and I see my chance.

  By the time her hand falls away, I’m already reaching for the Ve
il. It parts around me, and the last thing I see is Pauline turning back, her eyes widening in surprise as I vanish through the invisible curtain.

  My heart lurches with panic as I’m plunged back into the dark.

  The air is heavy and stale. All I can think is that I’m five stories underground and last time there was a lantern on the ground, but now there’s not, and I can’t breathe. Panic fills the place where air should be, and it takes all my strength not to reach for the Veil and cross back into the safety of the light.

  “Jacob,” I whisper, half-afraid that no one will answer. Half-afraid that someone else will. But then I feel him, a shift in the air beside me.

  “Cass,” he whispers back, and I realize that I can almost, almost see the outline of his face. I blink, desperate for my eyes to adjust, and when they do, I realize that the darkness isn’t absolute.

  There must be a light somewhere, around the corner, the thinnest glow spilling through the tunnels. I make my way forward, keeping one hand against the wall for balance. The wall that isn’t a wall of course, but a stack of bones. My fingers skip over the hollows of a skull, the dips and grooves where bones lock together like puzzle pieces.

  We round the corner, and I find the oil lamp on the ground. I crouch and turn the knob up, and the tunnel brightens a little, but not nearly as much as I’d like. I look around, but there’s no sign of Thomas. No sign of anyone, for that matter. The tunnels are empty.

  “Thomas?” I call. But all I hear is my own voice echoing back. And there’s no sign of him, or the red light that seems to trail him through the Veil.

  But he has to be here. He has to.

  And if he’s not?

  I look down at the lantern on the dirt floor, then straighten. I have an idea.

  “Hey, Jacob,” I say. “Want to play a game of hide-and-seek?”

  He looks at me for a long moment, then swallows and holds out his hands. One fist rests in the other open palm: the universal gesture for rock-paper-scissors.

  “Winner hides,” he says. “Loser seeks.”

  “No way,” I say. Rock-paper-scissors isn’t a fair game when one of us is psychic. I pull a coin from my back pocket and flip it.

  “Tails,” calls Jacob as the coin glints in the dark.

  I catch the coin, slap it against the back of my hand.

  Heads.

  I’m relieved. The only thing creepier than being down here in the dark would be closing my eyes. Jacob groans and turns to face the nearest column of bones, putting his hands over his eyes.

  “One, two, three …” he begins.

  And instead of running to hide, I slip into a shadowed gap nearby, and wait. Wait for movement. Wait for the sight of red eyes in a small round face. I chew my lip.

  Jacob gets to ten, and there’s still no sign of Thomas.

  Fifteen.

  Twenty.

  And then, just as Jacob is saying “Twenty-one,” I hear the shuffle of feet. I look up and see Thomas. The little boy peers around the corner, red eyes wide with curiosity. He doesn’t see me. But he sees Jacob. He watches Jacob for a long moment, then turns and slips away into the dark.

  I follow, careful to keep just enough distance that he doesn’t know I’m there, but not so much that I lose him. It helps that his whole body is tinged with red. His edges glow, the air around him curling with wisps of colored smoke. I slip along in his wake, and soon he stops and crouches. He folds himself into a low arch, the bones beneath long crumbled.

  Just like the nook in Adele’s story.

  I squat in front of Thomas’s hiding place.

  “Caught you,” I whisper. But for a moment, all I see is darkness, shadow, and I think he somehow got away. And then I realize he’s there. His head was down, bowed against his folded arms. Now he looks up, red eyes glowing in the dark.

  And scowls.

  I jerk backward, shocked by the anger in that small face. The venom in his look as he crawls out from his hiding place, red eyes so bright they seem to burn the air in front of him.

  “Thomas …” I start, drawing the photos from my jacket as he gets to his feet.

  His expression flashes with the kind of temper that only a kid his age can muster. Indignation. Betrayal.

  He mutters something in French, and even though I don’t understand the words, the sentiment is clear. I cheated. I didn’t play fair.

  “Thomas,” I say again, trying to keep my voice steady. I hold out one of the photos of him and his brother, but he doesn’t even look. His eyes slide past the images, like oil on water, and land on me.

  And then his hand shoots out with lightning speed.

  I jump back, assuming he’s aiming for me. But instead, he slams his hand against the nearest wall of bones like a child knocking over blocks.

  Only these blocks don’t fall.

  They tremble and shake, glowing red with the force of his power.

  Outside the Veil, Thomas was strong.

  Here, inside it, fueled by all that mischief and menace and mayhem, he’s something else entirely. As if he can pull on the energy of the space itself, on the restless dead, on the centuries of loss and fear and sadness. The Catacombs bend around him, to him. This isn’t just a tomb for him.

  It’s a playground.

  And as the walls shake, something begins to seep through them, leaking between the bones like smoke. And then it takes form. A young couple with backpacks. A teenage girl with lank black hair. A middle-aged man with a disheveled beard. They come one, two, five, ten, and as the spirits pour out of the bone-strewn walls, shuffling, grimacing, angry, I retreat, realizing with horror that the Catacombs have never been that empty.

  They were just asleep.

  My camera flies up, my index finger already hitting the flash. The bright glare buys me a second.

  And in that second, I turn and run.

  My shoes slip on the damp stone.

  I hit the end of the tunnel before a ragged old man rises up through the floor, blocking my way. I skid backward on my heels and tear down another, darker path, dragging the necklace over my head right before I collide with another body. I’m already bringing the mirror up when a familiar hand catches my wrist.

  “Jacob,” I gasp, turning the mirror away from him.

  He looks over my shoulder, his eyes widening at the tide of spirits, the rumbling bones.

  “What did you do?” he demands.

  “I found Thomas,” I say, pulling Jacob after me. A gate hangs open up ahead, and we stumble through. I turn and slam the iron bars shut behind us.

  “Upside,” I say, breathless, “Thomas is definitely here now. Downside,” I add, sinking back against the bars, “he’s stronger than I expected.”

  I close my eyes as a wave of dizziness washes over me, the Veil beginning to steal my strength, my focus.

  “So what’s the plan?” asks Jacob, and I’m about to reply when he pulls me away from the gate, seconds before a hand shoots through.

  A woman stands beyond the bars, reaching for me, whispering a stream of desperate French. I hold the mirror out, trapping her attention.

  “Watch and listen. See and know. This is what you are.”

  Her eyes widen a fraction, and I thrust my hand into her chest, pulling out her thread. She crumbles, but before she’s even gone, the walls are shaking, rousing more spirits, and I know the only way to stop them all is to stop the one who woke them up.

  Thomas.

  I back away from the bars.

  “Come on,” I say, grabbing Jacob’s hand. We can’t stay here.

  “We can’t just keep running, either,” says Jacob.

  “I know,” I say. “I’m just buying time to—”

  We round another corner, and a spirit—a middle-aged man in old-fashioned clothes—slides forward out of the dark.

  “Chérie, chérie,” he sings, and I don’t know who Chérie is, but something about the ghost catches my eye. Not the concerning lack of teeth in his grin.

  It’s his
hat.

  A newsboy cap, the kind with a stiff front brim.

  I’ve seen one just like it, in the old photos I have in my pocket. And suddenly, I have an idea.

  Jacob is already backing away from the specter, but I rush forward.

  “Excuse me,” I say, “could I borrow your—”

  The man snarls and grabs me, shoving me against a wall of bones that rattle as they dig into my back. I gasp, but I manage to swipe the cap from his head before Jacob lunges at the spirit from behind, hauling him backward.

  Freed, I slump against the bones, and Jacob slams the other ghost into a pillar of skulls. The bones topple with a crash, and the man drops, dazed, to his hands and knees.

  “Come on!” says Jacob, but my gaze flicks from Jacob’s shirt, with its large comic book emblem, to the man’s jacket, weathered and old. I press the stolen cap into Jacob’s hands and reach for the fallen ghost, plucking at one of his gray cuffs.

  “A little help?” I snap at Jacob when he just stands there, looking from the cap in his hands to me.

  “Help you do what?” he demands.

  “Get—this—coat—” I say, tugging at the ghost’s sleeve. The spirit is beginning to fight back, but with Jacob’s help, I manage to wrestle the jacket off the dim-witted spirit, a task just as difficult and awkward as it sounds.

  I toss the coat to Jacob and shove the mirror into the spirit’s face, reaping his thread as quickly as possible. By the time he vanishes, I’m already doubling back down the tunnel, searching for the right place to set my trap.

  “Are you going to tell me what is going on?” asks Jacob, clutching the coat and hat as he follows me.

  Finally, I find it.

  A stretch of tunnel lit by an oil lamp, one side dissolving into darkness, and the other capped by a dead end.

  I turn toward Jacob. “Time for a different kind of game. Put those on.”

  He looks at me, aghast. “You want me to play dress-up in another ghost’s clothes?”

  I pull out one of the photos. The shot of Richard, standing alone after Thomas’s death. “I want you to dress up as him.”

  Jacob looks at the photograph for a long moment, and I wait for his witty retort, but he says nothing, only stares, his face unreadable.