by Rick Riordan
Alistair shrugged. "You've been ahead of the game so far. You have escaped every trap. You were always Grace's favorites." His eyes glittered, like a starving man looking at a Big Mac. "Let's be honest, eh? We all believe Grace gave you inside information. She must have. Tell me what it is, and I can help you."
Dan clenched his fists. He remembered that video of Grace, how stunned he'd felt when she'd announced the contest. Grace should have given them inside information. If she'd really loved them, she wouldn't have left them in the dark. The other teams were after them now because they thought Amy and Dan were Grace's favorites. But apparently Grace hadn't cared about them. They were just another team in this big cruel game she'd cooked up. The more he thought about it, the more betrayed he felt. He looked at the jade necklace around Amy's neck.
He wanted to yank it off and throw it away. His eyes started to burn.
"We don't have inside information," he mumbled.
"Come now, my boy," Alistair said. "You are
in danger. I could protect you. We could search the Catacombs together."
"We'll search by ourselves," Dan said.
"As you wish, my boy. But be aware: The Catacombs are huge. There are miles of tunnels. Most aren't even mapped. You can easily get lost down there. Special police patrol it to keep out trespassers. Some of the tunnels are flooded. Others collapse from time to time. Searching for Franklin's clue in the Catacombs will be dangerous and futile unless" -- he leaned forward and raised his eyebrows -- "unless you do know something you haven't told me. The almanac had a note in the margin. It mentioned coordinates in a box. You wouldn't happen to know what this box might be?"
"Even if we knew," Dan said, "we wouldn't tell you."
Amy touched the jade necklace at her collar. "Sorry, Uncle Alistair." "I see." Alistair sat back. "I admire your spirit. But what if I were to ... trade information? I'm sure you are wondering about those notes your mother made. I knew your parents. I could explain a few things."
Dan felt as if the air had turned to glass. He was afraid to move or he might get cut.
"What few things?"
Alistair smiled, like he knew he'd hooked them. "Your mother's interest in the clues, perhaps. Or what your father really did for a living." "He was a math professor," Amy said.
"Mmm." Alistair's smile was so irritating Dan was tempted to tell Nellie to whack him
with the backpack again. "Maybe you'd like to know about the night they died?"
The turkey-and-cheese sandwich churned in Dan's stomach. "What do you know about
that?"
"Many years ago, your mother -- " Alistair stopped abruptly. His eyes fixed on something across the street. "Children, we must continue this later. I believe you should
look in the Catacombs by yourselves. I'll stay behind, as a show of good faith." "What do you mean?" Dan demanded.
Alistair pointed with his cane. A hundred yards down the street, Ian and Natalie Kabra were pushing through the crowd, hurrying toward the Catacombs entrance.
"I'll hold them off as long as I can," Alistair promised. "Now get underground quickly!"
CHAPTER 16
Amy hated crowds, but the idea of plunging into the middle of seven million dead people didn't bother her.
Nellie, Dan, and she hurried down a metal staircase. They found themselves in a limestone corridor with metal pipes running overhead and dim electric lights. The warm air smelled of mildew and wet rock.
"Only one exit, guys," Nellie said nervously. "If we get caught down here -- "
"The tunnel should branch out soon," Amy said, trying to sound more confident than
she felt.
The stone walls were etched with graffiti. Some looked recent, some ancient. One inscription was engraved on a marble slab right above their heads.
"Stop, mortals," Nellie translated. "This is the empire of death."
"Cheerful," Dan muttered.
They kept walking. The floor under Amy's feet was slushy gravel. Amy was still thinking about Uncle Alistair. Had he really known something about their parents, or was he just manipulating them? She tried to put it out of her mind. "Where are the bones?" Dan asked. Then they turned a corner into a large room and Dan said, "Oh."
It was the creepiest place Amy had ever seen. Against the walls, human bones were stacked like firewood from the floor to above Amy's head. The remains were yellow and brown -- mostly leg bones, but skulls stared out here and there like patches on a quilt. A line of skulls topped each stack.
Amy walked in awed silence. The next room was the same as the first -- wall after wall
of moldering remains. Dim electric lights cast eerie shadows over the dead, making
their empty eye sockets look even scarier.
"Gross," Nellie managed. "There's, like, thousands."
"Millions," Amy said. "This is only one small part."
"They dug all these people up?" Dan asked. "Who would want that job?"
Amy didn't know, but she was amazed how the workers had made patterns with skulls
in the stacks of femurs -- diagonals, stripes, connect-the-dot shapes. In a weird,
horrible way, it was almost beautiful.
In the third room, they found a stone altar with unlit candles.
"We need to find the oldest section," Amy said. "These bones are too recent. Look at the plaque. It's from 1804."
She led the way. Eyeless sockets of the dead seemed to stare at them as they passed. "These are cool," Dan decided. "Maybe I could -- " "No, Dan," Amy said. "You can't collect human bones." "Awww."
Nellie mumbled something that sounded like a prayer in Spanish. "Why would Benjamin Franklin want to come down here?"
"He was a scientist." Amy kept walking, reading the dates on the brass plaques. "He liked public works projects. This would've fascinated him." "Millions of dead people," Nellie said. "Real fascinating."
They turned down a narrow corridor and found themselves facing a metal gate. Amy shook the bars. The gate creaked open like it hadn't been used in hundreds of years. "Are you sure we should go down there?" Nellie asked.
Amy nodded. The dates were getting older. On the other hand, there were no metal pipes on the ceiling up ahead, which meant no electric lights. "Anybody got a flashlight?" she asked. "Yeah," Nellie said. "On my keychain."
She pulled out her keys and handed them to Amy. There was a little push-button pin light. Not much, but better than nothing. They kept going. After a hundred feet, they emerged in a small room with only one other exit.
Amy shone the flashlight on an old plaque framed in skulls. "1785! These have to be the first bones put down here."
The wall they were looking at was in bad shape. The bones were brown and crumbly, and some had scattered across the floor. The skulls along the top had been crushed, though the ones quilted into the wall looked fairly intact. They were done in a square pattern -- nothing exciting. "Search around," Amy said. "It has to be here."
Dan stuck his hands into some of the gaps in the bone wall. Nellie checked the top of the stack. Amy looked into the skulls' eye sockets with the flashlight, but she saw nothing.
"It's hopeless," she said at last. "If there was anything here, another team must've
found it."
Dan scratched his head. Then he scratched a skull's head. "Why are they numbered?" Amy wasn't in the mood for his games. "What numbers?"
"Here on the forehead." Dan tapped one of the skulls. "This guy was number three. Were they on a football team or something?"
Amy leaned in closer. Dan was right. The number was very faint, but scratched into the skull's forehead, like someone had carved it with a knife, was the Roman numeral
III.
She examined the skull below it. XIX. A square pattern. Skulls with numbers. "Check them all. Quick!"
It didn't take long. There were sixteen skulls woven into the pile of bones, done in four rows and four columns. Three of the skulls didn't have numbers. The rest did. They looke
d like this:
[proofreader's note: the numbers on the skulls are
XVIII
III
VI
IV
XIX
XI
I
XV
IX
XIII
A few of the skulls have no numbers on them.]
A chill went down Amy's back. "Coordinates in a box. A magic box!"
"What?" Dan said. "What magic?"
"Dan, can you memorize these numbers and their placement?" "I already have."
"We need to get out of here and find a map. This is the clue -- well, the clue to the real
clue, whatever Franklin was hiding."
"Wait a sec," Nellie said. "Franklin scratched numbers on skulls. Why?"
"It's a magic box," Amy said. "Franklin used to play with numbers when he got bored.
Like when he was sitting in the Philadelphia Assembly and he didn't want to listen to
the dull speeches, he would create magic boxes, number problems for himself. He
would fill in the missing numbers. The sums had to match, horizontally and vertically."
Nellie scowled. "You're telling me Benjamin Franklin invented sudoku?"
"Well, yeah, in a way. And these -- "
"Are coordinates," Dan supplied. "The missing sums show the location of the next clue."
Clapping echoed through the room. "Bravo."
Amy turned. Standing in the entrance were Ian and Natalie Kabra.
"I told you they could do it," Ian said to his sister.
"Oh, I suppose," Natalie conceded. Amy hated that even underground in a room full of bones, Natalie managed to look glamorous. She was wearing a black velour catsuit, so she looked eleven going on twenty-three. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. The only part of her outfit that didn't match was the tiny silver dart gun in her hand. "Perhaps it wasn't
All bad that Irina failed us."
"You!"
Dan yelled. "You convinced Irina to set us up at the Ile St-Louis. You almost got us buried in cement!"
"A shame it didn't work," Natalie said. "You would've made a fine welcome mat for the mausoleum."
"But -- but why?" Amy stammered.
Ian smiled. "To put you out of commission, of course. And to give us extra time to find this place. We needed to make sure this wasn't some clever misdirection by our dear cousin Irina. I should've noticed the magic box earlier. Thanks for your help, Amy. Now, if you'll move aside, we'll just copy down those numbers and be off." Amy took a shaky breath. "No."
Ian laughed. "Isn't she cute, Natalie? Acting like she has a choice." "Yes." Natalie wrinkled her nose. "Cute."
Amy blushed. The Kabras always made her feel so awkward and stupid, but she couldn't let them get the clue. She snatched up a leg bone. "One move and I'll -- I'll crush the skulls. You'll never get the numbers."
It didn't sound like a very convincing threat, even to her, but Ian paled. "Now let's not be stupid, Amy. I know how nervous you get, but we won't hurt you." "Not at all," Natalie agreed. She pointed her dart gun at Amy's face. "I think poison six will be adequate. Nothing lethal. Just a deep, deep sleep. I'm sure someone will find you down here ... someday."
A shadow loomed up behind the Kabras. Suddenly, Uncle Alistair charged into the
room and knocked Natalie to the ground. Her dart gun skittered away and Ian dove after it. "Run!" Alistair yelled.
Amy didn't argue. She, Nellie, and Dan raced through the other exit, into the darkness -- deeper into the Catacombs.
They ran for what seemed like hours, with nothing but the pin light to guide them. They turned down one corridor and found it blocked by a mound of rubble. They doubled back and followed another tunnel until it submerged completely in murky yellow water. Soon, Amy had no idea which direction they were heading. "Alistair said there are police down here," she murmured. "I wish one would find us." But they saw no one. The little flashlight started to dim. "No," Amy said. "No, no, no!"
They forged ahead. Fifty feet, sixty feet, and their light went out completely. Amy found Dan's hand and squeezed it tight.
"It's going to be fine, kiddos," Nellie said, but her voice was quavering. "We can't be lost down here forever."
Amy didn't see why not. The Catacombs went on for miles and had never been mapped completely. There was no reason anyone would come looking for them.
"We could shout for help," Dan said.
"It won't do any good," Amy said gloomily. "I'm sorry, guys. This is not how I wanted things to end."
"It's not the end!" Dan said. "We could follow one wall until we find another exit. We could -- "
"Shhh!" Amy said. "I'm just saying -- "
"Dan, seriously! Be quiet! I thought I heard something."
The tunnel was silent except for the distant drip of water. Then Amy heard it again -- a faint rumbling from somewhere in front of them.
"A train?" Nellie asked.
Amy's spirits lifted. "We must be near a Metro station. Come on!"
She shuffled forward with her hands outstretched. She shuddered as she touched a wall of bones, but she followed the corridor as it twisted to the right. Gradually, the rumbling sounds grew louder. Amy groped to the left. Her hand touched metal.
"A door!" she cried. "Dan, there's some kind of lock mechanism here. Come here and figure this out."
"Where?"
She found him in the dark and guided his hands to the lock. Within seconds, the hatch creaked open and they were blinded by electric light.
It took Amy a few moments to comprehend what she was seeing. The hatch was more like a window than a door -- a square opening about five feet off the ground, just big enough to crawl through if they climbed up to it. They were eye level with the side of some railroad tracks -- metal rails on wooden ties. And something brown and furry was scampering over the gravel bed. Amy jumped. "A rat!"
The rodent regarded her, clearly unimpressed, then scurried on its way. "It's a rail pit," Dan said. "We can climb out and-"
The light got brighter. The whole tunnel rumbled. Amy fell back and cupped her ears against the sound -- like a herd of dinosaurs. A train blasted past in a blur of metal wheels. It sucked the air right out of their tunnel, pulling her clothes and hair toward the hatch. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.
When she was sure her voice would work again, she said, "We can't go out there! We'll
get killed!"
"Look," Dan said. "There's a service ladder about five feet down. We'll crawl up to the rails, run to the ladder, and climb to the platform. Easy!" "That's not easy! What if another train comes?"
"We can time it," Nellie suggested. "I've got a clock on my iPod "
She pulled it out of her pocket, but she'd hardly pressed the wheel before another train roared by.
Nellie's glittery eye shadow made her face look ghostly in the dim light. "That was less than five minutes. The rails must be for express trains. We'll have to hurry."
"Right!" Dan said, and just like that he scrambled up and out of the hatch. "Dan!" Amy shouted.
He turned, crouching on the tracks. "Come on!"
In a daze, Amy let Nellie give her a boost. With Dan's help, she crawled out. "Now help me with Nellie!" Dan said. "But watch the third rail."
Amy stiffened. Two feet away was the black electric rail that ran the trains. She knew
enough about subways to understand that one touch would be worse than a thousand
Franklin batteries. She helped Nellie out of the hatch, but it was a tight squeeze. They
lost time. The rails hissed and clicked beneath them.
"I'm okay!" Nellie said, brushing off her clothes. "Let's get to the ladder."
Dan started to follow, but he lurched when he tried to stand, like he was caught on
something.
"Dan?" Amy said.
"It's my backpack," he said. "It's wedged ... "
He tugged at it helplessly. Somehow, one strap had gotten loo
ped around a metal rail, and the rail had shifted, clamping the pack into place. "Leave it!" Amy cried.
Nellie was already at the ladder, yelling at them to hurry. Passengers on the platform were starting to notice them, too. They were yelling in alarm, shouting in French. Dan slipped the backpack off his shoulder, but it was still stuck to the rail. He tugged at it and tried to open it, but he wasn't having any luck. "Now!" Nellie yelled. Amy could feel a faint rumbling in the tracks at her feet. "Dan!" she pleaded. "It's not important!" "I can get it. Just another second."
"Dan, no.
It's just a backpack!" "It won't open!"
The far end of the tunnel lit up. Nellie was right above them on the platform, reaching out her hand. A lot of other passengers were doing the same, imploring them to grab
hold.
"Amy!" Nellie cried. "You first!"
She didn't want to, but maybe if she went first, Dan would see reason. She grabbed Nellie's hand and Nellie hauled her from the rail pit. Immediately, Amy turned and stuck her hand out to Dan. "Dan, please!" she called. "Now!"
The train's headlight flashed into sight. Wind rushed through the tunnel. The ground trembled.
Dan gave the backpack another tug, but it wouldn't budge. He looked at the train, and
Amy saw he was crying. She didn't understand why.
"Dan, take-MY-HAND!"
She leaned out as far as she could. The train barreled down on them. With a cry of anguish, Dan grabbed her hand, and with more strength than Amy knew she had, she yanked him out of the pit so hard they tumbled over each other.
The train rushed on. When the noise died, the passengers on the platform all broke loose at once, scolding them in French while Nellie tried to explain and apologize. Amy didn't care what they were saying. She held her brother, who was crying harder than he had since he was little.
She looked over the edge of the pit, but the backpack was gone, swept away into the tunnels by the force of the train. They sat for a long time while Dan shivered and wiped his eyes. Eventually, the passengers lost interest in them. They drifted away or stepped onto other trains and disappeared. No police came. Pretty soon it was just Nellie, Amy, and Dan, sitting in a corner of the platform like a homeless family. "Dan," Amy said gently. "What was in there? What did you have in the backpack?" He sniffled and rubbed his nose. "Nothing."
