Angel City

by Jon Steele

  “Did you cover the entrance?” Lambert asked.

  Harper looked at Astruc, wondered if mention should be made of the fact they were being tailed . . . Sod it.

  “Done.”

  They walked in a crouch, came to the end of the shaft. There was a roughly dug opening at the base of the wall. Meter wide, meter high. Lambert got to his hands and knees.

  “This shaft was a storage area for the railway until 1916, then it was sealed. It was the only one on the line built like this, but there were no records of where it was. I searched for it for months. When I discovered it, I compared it to my maps of les carrières and realized there was only a separation of two meters. It took me three months to dig this passage. I hope no one is claustrophobic.”

  He got on his hands and knees and crawled in, Astruc followed. Harper looked at Goose.

  “After you, my son,” Harper said.

  Goose shook his head, made a few quick movements with his hands, then pointed to the hole in the wall: After you. No doubt about it, Harper thought; Goose’s hands were louder than words. Especially the f and k signs tagged at the end. Signing slang for fucker. Harper smiled.

  “Whatever you say, kid.”

  He ducked down and crawled ahead. Kept his eyes on the ground, kept moving. Lamplight splattered the close-in walls and lit up bits of dirt falling from the ceiling. He cleared the passage, got to his feet, found himself in a tunnel with just enough room to stand. Sidewalls barely shoulder-wide. It stretched ahead into the dark.

  “Bienvenue aux les carrières, mon père,” Gilles Lambert said.

  “Cheers.”

  Goose emerged from the passage, his backpack lashed to his ankle and dragging behind. Whatever was inside went clank. Goose undid the lashings, and Harper reached for the backpack.

  “Need some help with that, kid?”

  Goose held on to it. Astruc saw the exchange.

  “Just some technical equipment to assist in our investigation, Father Harper. Goose can manage it.”

  “Of course he can,” Harper said.

  Astruc looked at Lambert.

  “How long will it take us to get to the cavern?”

  “Two hours at the least. But I need to show you something. Please, all of you, turn off your headlamps.”

  Lamps switched off. Harper raised his hand before his eyes and couldn’t see it. He heard Gilles Lambert’s voice:

  “The lamps reflect off the limestone walls and offer enough light for us to find our way. But if your lamp fails and you become separated from the group, you will become hopelessly lost. And the clay floors of the tunnels absorb sound waves, so you’ll be deaf as well as blind.”

  Astruc’s voice was next.

  “Then we’ll keep to the present formation. Gilles, me, Father Harper. Goose will bring up the rear to make sure no one lags behind.”

  Lamps switched on, and they marched ahead.

  The tunnel ran straight as a Parisian boulevard for a kilometer. It joined a quarry filled with cataphile graffiti. Initials, dates, wild-eyed creatures that appeared in quick flashes of light, then disappeared. Other side of the quarry, the tunnel continued; they entered it and kept moving. All the walls tagged with graffiti, like the quarry. They passed smaller side tunnels to the right and left. A quick glance with headlamps illuminated the first ten meters, then all light was swallowed by the hungry dark. They came to a four-way intersection.

  “Normally we would go that way, but I heard the tunnels have been sealed with concrete. We must go this way, the long way.”

  Harper wondered what the hell Lambert was talking about till he saw two signs carved into the walls: BOULEVARD JOURDAN, AVENUE DE LECLERC.

  “There’re road signs down here?” Harper said.

  Lambert nodded.

  “Oui, but only in the main tunnels. They follow the streets of Paris, twenty-five meters above. Once you branch off, it gets tricky without a map.”

  “And you have a map, do you?”

  Lambert tapped the side of his head.

  “It’s all up here.”

  They marched up Boulevard Jourdan till Lambert led them into a low-ceilinged quarry, then through a maze of tunnels connecting to side tunnels leading to more quarries. An hour into it, Harper realized his sense of direction was shot to hell. There was no way of knowing north from south, east from west. And without Lambert and the map in his head, there would be no way of finding their way out. That was a good thing, Harper thought. Whatever Astruc and the kid were up to, they still needed Gilles Lambert to find their way back. And as Harper (make that Father Harper, OP, he thought) was Lambert’s chief hand-holder, the same need applied—hopefully. He looked back over his shoulder. Goose was five meters back, his glassy eyes reflecting in the light of Harper’s headlamp. The kid stopped walking, stood still, stared at Harper.

  Astruc’s voice called, “Let’s keep moving, Father Harper.”

  Harper looked ahead, saw two headlamps shining back at him. Couldn’t see Astruc or Lambert, just their lamps.

  “Goose is lagging behind. We need to wait for him.”

  “Goose is fine. He likes to keep his distance from strangers. That’s all.”

  Harper walked ahead, looked back over his shoulder. The kid was standing still, waiting for Harper to walk on.

  “Right.”

  They met a series of low-ceilinged passages. They walked in a crouch through some, crawled on hands and knees through others, always moving through the dark in a battery-powered bubble of light. They came to a rusted iron door built into the tunnel wall. Harper saw the numbers 1643 etched into metal. A door built to lock out smugglers, Lambert said.

  “Could someone help me move it?”

  “Sure,” Harper said.

  He knelt on the clay floor next to Lambert, and they set their shoulders into the iron door and heaved. The door groaned on its hinges. Lambert was right, the sound didn’t echo away. It just dropped dead in the tunnel. Harper illuminated the darkness beyond the door and realized the limestone walls ahead, like all the walls since they left the main tunnels a long while ago, were bare of graffiti.

  “Somewhat off the beaten path, I take it,” Harper said.

  “Very much so, mon père. But it is the only way.”

  Lambert ducked in, and Harper ducked behind him, but a big hand grabbed his shoulder, stopped him.

  “Stick to the formation, Father Harper.”

  “Of course. What was I thinking?”

  Astruc went in. Harper looked at Goose. He was leaning against the tunnel wall like a teenager hanging outside a 7-Eleven, both hands in the front pouch of his hoodie, holding something.

  “Don’t get lost, kid.”

  Harper ducked into the tunnel. It was high enough to walk through, but the clay floor soon became damp, then muddy, then it was flooded. Lambert stopped.

  “We’re very near the water table down here. You need to brace your hands against the walls and keep your feet on the stone foundations at either side of the tunnel comme ça. Be careful not to slip—the water turns the clay floor into quicksand.”

  It was a long slog till the water receded and they entered a shoe box–shaped quarry supported by two limestone pillars. There was a small cove cut into the far wall.

  “We should take a break here,” Gilles Lambert said. “The next part is very difficult.”

  Harper looked at him.

  “The next part?”

  Astruc and Goose slumped to the ground, sat on either side of the tunnel entrance. Harper walked to the far wall, slid down next to the cove. Lambert sat on a chunk of limestone rock in the corner. Headlamps crisscrossed the quarry and lit their faces. All of them covered with dust and grime. They sat quietly a moment, catching their breath. A soft sound rushed through the tunnel just outside the quarry: whoosh.

  “Th
at’s the number four line of the Métro,” Gilles said. “It runs directly above us, twenty-six meters up. The train’s weight bears down on the earth and forces air to move through the tunnels.”

  Harper took another look at the limestone pillars in the center of the quarry. Not even pillars. Just a pile of mismatched rocks, like the one Lambert was sitting on, stacked and pinned between the floor and ceiling.

  “That’s what’s holding up the number four line of the Métro?”

  “And the water and sewer lines, and the sixth arrondissement of Paris.”

  “The sixth?”

  “Oui, we are under Rue d’Assas now, in the sixth.”

  The location registered with Astruc.

  “Then we’re very close to the quarries beneath Lycée Montaigne?”

  Lambert pointed to the opening next to Harper.

  “Through there,” Lambert said.

  Harper leaned down and looked in. His headlamp lit up the cove, only it wasn’t a cove. It was a narrow shaft with a great pile of human bones blocking the way. Harper looked at Lambert.

  “It’s full of skeletons, Gilles.”

  “Oui, they were dumped here—”

  “During the plague, I know. I saw it on the History Channel. Question is, how do we get through?”

  Lambert crossed the quarry and knelt next to Harper. He began to remove the skulls and bones from the entrance. He placed them carefully on the quarry floor. He reached deeper into the tunnel again and again, laying remnants of human existence on the clay floor of the quarry. At one point, he pulled out a broken skull, held it out to Harper.

  “It will go faster if you help me, mon père.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Could you help me?”

  Harper looked back at Astruc and Goose. They watched. Maybe the big man was squeamish about skeletons. Maybe he wanted Harper to have another go in the pastoral concern department to keep Gilles Lambert in line. Maybe Astruc and the kid were sitting on either side of the only way topside for the sole purpose of making sure nobody tried to leave. Harper took the skull from Lambert’s hand.

  “Sure.”

  He laid it on the clay floor, then an ulna, then a femur, then a rib, then another skull. They were dry and chalky to the touch. And as he added vertebrae, sternums, tibias, fibulas, and skulls upon skulls to the pile, a cloud of fine dust hovered above the bones.

  “So what is this passage, Gilles?”

  “It must have been a service shaft to the Lycée quarries once, to pass tools through. But from my research, I found there was a massive cave-in during the sixteenth century, and it was sealed. It was never used again.”

  “A cave-in?”

  “Oui. An entire street was swallowed as people slept in their beds. That’s why no cataphiles come this way. On all the official maps, this is a dead end.”

  Harper looked at the bones he’d stacked on the clay floor.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  Gilles Lambert backed out from the tunnel.

  “You can see it now, the way me must go.”

  Harper looked in the shaft. His headlamp lit up a massive giant slab of collapsed rock ten meters ahead. He saw a gap in the lower corner. Looked fit for a large rabbit.

  “Doesn’t look too stable in there.”

  “It isn’t. It’s never been reinforced.”

  Harper looked back at the bones.

  “How did you think to look behind the skeletons to find the shaft?” he said.

  Gilles shook his head. “I didn’t look behind them, I was coming the other way. I had to dig through the bones to get out.”

  “What?”

  “I was so upset with what I heard in the cavern, I began to panic coming out. I lost my sense of direction. Instead of going back into the quarries under the Lycée, I came out here. It was an accident.”

  Astruc moved closer and looked into the tunnel.

  “How far now?” said Astruc.

  “Once we get through here, it’s not far. But getting there is very difficult. Crawling under the rubble, there’s not enough room to use your legs, and you can’t raise your head to see where you are going. You must feel your way, reach ahead and pull yourself along. After a hundred meters the passage splits. To the right is the way to the Lycée quarries near le Jardin du Luxembourg, to the left the tunnel angles down and leads to the corridor and cavern.”

  “Good, very good,” Astruc said, turning to Goose and signing for him to come. Goose rushed over, dropped his backpack on the floor again, and again it went clank. The two of them studied the way ahead. Gilles Lambert sat up, adjusted his headlamp, looked at Harper.

  “But before we go, would you offer a prayer, mon père? For our continued protection?”

  Harper had to remind himself, again, of his recent ordination into the Dominican Order. His mind raced through Catholic prayers, trying to find one for the occasion of being thirty meters under Paris with a pile of skeletons at your knees.

  “Is there any particular prayer you have in mind, Gilles?”

  “Non, mon père.”

  Astruc straightened up.

  “Perhaps, if Father Harper would allow, I could offer a prayer.”

  Harper nodded. “Go right ahead.”

  Gilles Lambert bowed his head with Astruc. The two of them closed their eyes. Goose caught the move and crossed the quarry. He knelt close to Astruc, locked his glassy eyes on the big man’s lips. It was Harper’s turn to watch.

  “Notre Père, qui es aux cieux . . .” Harper listened to the sound of the voice. “. . . délivre-nous du mal . . .” Watched Goose’s lips forming silent words in perfect unison with Astruc. “. . . mais delivre-nous du Mal . . . Amen.”

  In the resultant silence, Harper looked at the two of them. They believe. Astruc opened his eyes.

  “Are you ready to continue, Gilles?”

  Gilles nodded, nervously.

  “Yes, yes. I am ready now, et merci.”

  Lambert crawled into the opening, hands and knees making small crunching sounds on bits of bones. At the collapse he lay flat on the clay floor, reached into the gap, and pulled himself ahead. Harper watched him disappear, then he looked at Astruc. The big man stared back.

  “Something on your mind, Father Harper?” Astruc said.

  “Notre Père.”

  “What about it?”

  “Haven’t heard it in French in a long while.”

  Astruc looked at Goose and ripped off a few quick signs—watch him, be careful—then he got onto his belly and crawled after Gilles. Harper gave the big man time to pull himself under the rubble pile, and he stared at Goose. Goose signed his own version of Astruc’s question: Something on your mind, fucker?

  Harper gave the skeletons a once-over, then crawled into the shaft. At the face of the collapse, he lay on his stomach and targeted his headlamp into the hole. Like crawling into the belly of a worm, he thought. He saw the two headlamps of Lambert and Astruc moving slowly forward. Then they began to turn and sink deeper into the Earth. Harper reached in, caught two outcrops of rock, and pulled. He dragged himself over rocky floor, reached ahead again, pulled. There wasn’t enough room to raise his head to see the way, or to look behind himself to check if Goose was following him. He reached the bend in the tunnel, then it began to slope downward, then came the rumble of falling rock. A tremor rolled through the close-in walls, and a cloud of thick dust filled the tunnel.

  “Oh, shit.”

  Harper hid his eyes in the crook of his arm, waiting for the tunnel to collapse on top of him. He heard Gilles Lambert’s muffled voice calling back through the dust instead.

  “We’re at the place connecting to the Lycée Montaigne. The collapse has slipped a little, but I think we can still get through. I need to pull some rocks out of the way.”

  Harper he
ard Goose coming up behind him, felt the kid’s hands tap at his legs as if asking what was happening. Harper wondered how the hell you tell a deaf person who can’t see your lips or hands that presently, you’re bloody well stuck.

  The tapping came again, then a shove.

  Harper pulled the lamp from his head; he pointed it back over his shoulder. His fingers found the on/off switch. He flipped the light on and off: Dot, dot, dot. Dash. Dot, dot, dash. Dash, dot, dash, dot. Dash, dot, dash. S-T-U-C-K. Harper was only half-surprised when Goose answered in dots and dashes: Roger. Then Harper wondered: If Gilles couldn’t clear the passage and the only way to get through the tunnel was to pull yourself ahead with your hands and there was no way to turn around, how the fuck were they supposed to back up? Then he realized: They wouldn’t be able to. He buried his face in the crook of his arm.

  “This really is so bloody swell.”

  And he couldn’t help but laugh to himself when he imagined the dead man who wasn’t supposed to be in his head anymore joining in the conversation: Tell me about it. There was another shudder through the tunnel, not as bad as the last one, but enough for Harper to feel the walls close in just a bit more.

  “It’s all right,” Lambert’s muffled voice called back. “I’ve cleared the way.”

  Harper heard Gilles and Astruc crawl forward. He grabbed ahold of the sidewalls and pulled himself ahead. The tunnel turned at a sharp angle where it split right and left. To the right, the tunnel angled upward and it was filled with rocks and fresh concrete. Had to be the way to the caverns under Lycée Montaigne, Harper thought. He could raise his head a bit now. He saw Gilles and Astruc in the left tunnel. They were sinking down at a very steep slope. Harper followed. Fifteen minutes later, the tunnel ended at a hole in the wall. He crawled through and came into a corridor of black rock.

  Harper got to his feet, stretched his arms and back for the first time since they’d gone underground. His headlamp caught Astruc and Gilles Lambert enjoying the same freedom. As they waited for Goose to clear the tunnel, Harper looked around. They stood at the end of the corridor, angling down at thirty degrees. He stepped closer to the wall. His headlamp caught the hundreds of divots in the stone, as if the tunnel had been hand-carved from solid rock.