by Kester Grant
Gavroche looks slightly put out, and I step hurriedly between them.
“Master Loup, what is happening? Where is the Dead Lord? What has become of him?”
“He cannot return,” Loup says. “They took him, and they put him in the place where we cannot reach him.”
All around us, the Ghosts wail their strange screeching cries.
I frown. “Who did this? Who took him, Master Loup?”
As I ask the question, I realize I already know the answer; it hums in my bones, with a certainty.
“That fiend,” he spits.
And there it is. The tone of Loup’s voice, that bitter loathing, could only be used to talk about the Tiger.
Of all the children of the Miracle Court, the Ghosts prize the Law above the rest. Many years ago, Kaplan broke the Law; he twisted it to his needs and never paid the consequences. His existence is a blasphemous outrage to all, but especially to the Ghosts.
“If you bring me to where the Dead Lord is,” I say, “I’ll give you revenge. You see, I have something the Tiger wants, and your Father can take this prize from him.”
Loup hesitates, and I can see I’ve piqued his interest. The Ghosts are many things, and one of them is curious. Their Father is famous for his stories and legends. I must make this engaging.
“Master, this is my tale.” I raise my voice, spreading my arms out dramatically in my best impression of a storyteller. “My sister is desired by the Tiger.”
“And what have the children of the Dead to do with the Lord of Flesh?” Loup asks.
“She has no Guild, no family to protect her. The Thief Lord won’t cross the Tiger. We asked Lady Corday and Lady Komayd, and they told us only Orso is unafraid of the Tiger. And rightly so, for with such numerous children as he has, whom should he fear?”
The Ghosts are beside themselves, echoing my words until the cavern is loud with their whispers.
“I will give my sister to the Dead Lord as a gift.”
Beside me, Ettie gasps. “Nina! Please!”
I ignore her.
Loup comes toward Ettie, inspecting her. She shudders and steps away from him.
“Where is he?” I ask. “Where is the Dead Lord?”
“In a place we cannot remember,” Loup says. The Ghosts always speak in riddles.
I try again. “What place, Master Loup?”
Loup looks at me. “A place you cannot enter. We have lost many to trying already,” he says, his voice a low warning.
That’s what Corday said too. Because everyone else has failed.
I’m confused, but I won’t let them know it. I need them to take Ettie—it’s her only chance. I shake my head confidently.
“I’m the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild; there’s no place I can’t enter.”
Loup turns to survey the Ghosts. His eyes wander over them. Then he raises a hand and points. Four of the Ghosts rise and glide toward us noiselessly.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, Master.”
“We are grateful.”
“We are grateful.”
Ettie edges near. “What are they doing?”
“I think they’re coming with us.”
“Gavroche knows the way.” Loup indicates the small boy.
“Gavroche.” Ettie looks down at him. “Is that your name?”
He nods and pulls at Ettie to start off.
I hear a muffled yell from St. Juste.
“I will also need the boy—the Day Walker,” I say hurriedly. “He is known to me, and I need his skills.” I have no idea whether this is true, but I owe him for the night he saved me from the Fleshers.
Loup hesitates. “If Orso summoned him as a guest, then what will he say when he returns to find his children picking the boy’s bones clean?” I ask.
Loup sighs dramatically and makes a motion. St. Juste is untrussed, but when they go to remove his gag, I stop them.
“Leave it in—I’ve need of silence while I make my plans. And keep his hands bound, too.” That way he can’t betray us by shouting or throttle me for stealing his pistol years ago. “Just untie his feet so he can run.”
St. Juste gives a noise of deep discontent. It makes me smile.
“Keep close. The tunnels are treacherous,” Loup warns me as the four ghosts, dragging St. Juste along with them, set off into the dark tunnels.
“Thank you, Master of Ghosts.” I bow. “Nous sommes d’un sang.”
“D’un sang,” Loup answers. “If you survive, and if you find him, tell our Father we wait for him.”
Loup is right: the bone-encrusted tunnels, elaborate as a spider’s web, crisscross in a huge network beneath the city. Gavroche and the others move with ease, taking sharp, sudden turns, bumping St. Juste along behind them while I follow closely, realizing that without them we will be lost in the darkness.
Eventually, the Ghosts slow, and the tunnel narrows as we start our ascent. Winding stairs, slick and damp, lead to the surface, until patterns of light illuminate a grate above us. The largest of the Ghosts reaches up and, with only a faint noise of metal scraping, moves the grate aside. Gavroche scrambles up the larger Ghost’s shoulders. And out we go.
I emerge, blinking, beneath the blinding streetlamps. Then there’s the smell. Salt and rot. Old blood.
I know where we are.
We have come out under a bridge, the Pont au Change. It’s low tide, and the waters of the fetid Serpent, the Seine, have rolled back, leaving a thick, rank sludge, the sewage and waste of the whole city. Beside me, Ettie points, and I turn my head. On the banks of the river, the dark mud appears to move, heaving and slithering like a great monster with a thousand glittering eyes. I smile.
“Mudlarks.”
The city has a way of breeding a certain desperation. So it is for the mudlarks, the urchins and the ragged elderly who brave the river’s poisonous banks, hunting among decaying animal flesh, burning chemicals, and human waste for anything they might salvage: bits of metal, leather, an ancient coin from the time of the Parisii, a ring from one of the river’s many suicides.
We clamber up the slippery steps to street level. The bridge continues into a road that turns into a courtyard. To the left of it is a gendarmerie. I frown. Children of the Miracle Court tend to keep away from the police. They’re corrupt, inept servants of Those Who Walk by Day.
The lights of the gendarmerie blaze. A large building with towers looms beyond it, its shadow casting a deep dread over me.
My own words come back to mock me.
I’m the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild. There’s nowhere I can’t enter.
Stupid.
“Where are we?” Ettie asks at my shoulder.
“Le Grand Châtelet.”
She tenses, looking up at me with incredulous eyes.
This is what the Ghosts meant.
They knew. They all knew. Corday, Lady Komayd. Even Loup, though he tried to warn me.
You must be very good at getting into hard-to-reach places, Corday said.
They don’t care about Ettie.
They want to free the Dead Lord from the Châtelet, the most feared prison in city.
No one has ever broken in to the Châtelet. No one has ever broken out.
I glance around to get my bearings. A street sign reads la Vallée de Misère. The Valley of Misery. An apt street name. In the darkness, I hear the clear chimes of la Samaritaine, the giant clock tower, which sings out every hour.
Think, Nina.
There are two guards at the entrance to the Châtelet, and two more on the top of its tower. Their rotations will be timed so there’s always someone on watch. There’s no way of getting in. In fact, you can’t get anywhere near the tower, because it backs onto the gendarmerie, and there will be police patrolling the streets at regu
lar intervals. How do you get into an impenetrable prison? How do you slip past so many guards unseen? And for that matter, once you’re in, how do you get out with a whole other person? It is impossible.
“How often do the guards on street level make rounds?” I ask the Ghosts.
“They dance continuously through darkness and daylight.”
I shake my head at the typical Ghost answer. One has to know how to talk to the Ghosts.
“How many dances between the chimes?”
“Four sets,” they reply.
“Every fifteen minutes,” I translate for Ettie.
Not enough time to slip past them from the street. Or to scale the Châtelet tower without being spotted.
I close my eyes and listen to the voice of the city. I hear its pulse; years of death, war, and suffering. The worst of all humanity lies here. These are streets washed in blood, filth, and pain.
I raise my head and sniff the air again: rot, death, and waste. I grin.
“I think I have a plan.”
I signal to the Ghosts, and keeping to the shadows, we move together, avoiding the glow cast by the streetlamps.
“One stays here to watch,” I order when we come to a stop.
Gavroche looks surprised. He points at the dark tower insistently. I know Orso is in there, but we’re not marching straight into a lit courtyard full of patrolling police. We’re going the long way around.
First I order the Ghosts to leave St. Juste in a dark alley and rebind his feet. He growls at me through his gag, and I reward him with a quick smile.
“It’s only for a little while. I’ll be back, I promise,” I call over my shoulder as we shamelessly abandon him. He will only get in the way, and we can’t afford to have him slowing us down.
We stick to the houses and dart down the rue de la Joaillerie, circling the Châtelet on the right, heading toward the source of the smell: the numerous slaughterhouses that give the city’s butchers their meat and the Châtelet its sour perfume of rot and old blood.
“Another watches here,” I command. The Ghosts nod in perfect submission. They’re good at taking orders, and I watch them melt into the darkness with satisfaction. I’m light-headed and dizzy with anticipation. Can I do this? I glance at Ettie. She’s curled herself into a dark corner. If I don’t try, he’ll take her.
I disappear into the shadows with Ettie and the two remaining Ghosts.
Somewhere in the distance there’s the low hoot of an owl—a Master Call. I plaster myself to a nearby wall, flattening Ettie next to me, my hand over her mouth.
Two police officers appear. One holds a lantern and is walking a little ahead of the other. From the cut of his uniform and the absence of badges, it’s clear he’s accompanying a senior officer, whose dazzling array of badges and trim betrays his inspector’s rank. They must be heading to the gendarmerie.
I squint. The inspector cuts a slim figure. Most officers on a dark street would march quickly, not wanting to look into the darkness for fear of what might be looking back. But this officer walks with a measured step, his eyes taking in every shadow. He comes right alongside us, and in the halo of the lantern, I see that “he” is in fact a woman. Her face is white in the lamplight, her red hair tied behind her neck into a long tail. Policewomen are rare. Only the Sûreté have them. And the Sûreté are never good news.
She moves on. I watch in silence till she has disappeared from view.
I count to ten, then call the nearest Ghosts with a low whistle. I cross the street. Around the back of the Châtelet is a smaller edifice. There are no lights or guards, yet it is one of the most popular sights in Paris. By day, rich and poor alike line up for hours to press greasy faces against the glass of its window in the hopes of a better look. At night, nobody keeps watch over the contents because no one would steal from this place.
“I need two of you to carry,” I say.
Their eyes travel from me to the dark entrance.
“For your Father,” I add, and make short work of the two meager locks on the door.
Another time I’d have let Ettie practice her lock-picking. But the sight of the inspector spooked me. I want to be done with this. We push the door open and face the stench of decaying flesh. I breathe through my mouth. Beside me, Ettie hastily lifts her scarf over her nose and tries not to gag. I should have warned her.
The building is one giant room with a grimy storefront window. The whole space is filled with long wooden tables arranged with as little room between them as possible. They have raised edges so that their contents don’t slip off, and they are tilted so the Lookers can get a better look. Laid out on each table is a body.
Men, women, and children of differing ethnicities and backgrounds lie equal on the tables of the city morgue. Some bodies are whole: pale, terrible, eyes wide and staring. Others come up swollen from the Seine, with cut throats or missing limbs. The ones I hate seeing the most are the infants, little shrunken figures of skin and bone. The Lookers buy packets of peanuts and stand at the window asking What could have happened to that pour soul? in horrified delight. The people of Paris come to look at their dead for the price of a few sous.
“I want the freshest one,” I say into the darkness, and around me the Ghosts whirl into action.
The tower of the Châtelet looms above me, reminding me there’s no way to breach it. I flex my fingers, which I’ve wrapped in rags, and steady myself. I’m the Black Cat of the Thieves Guild, and I will do what I always do: I’m going to steal something. Fearful excitement ripples up my spine as I move between the shadows, noting the guards at the tower’s summit. There’s a building constructed of wood; it looks like it was added as an afterthought. It’s tall, rising to the platform where the guards patrol every quarter of an hour.
It has a crude door, rough-hewn and without a lock. It’s not guarded, and for good reason: only a madman would try entering the Châtelet this way. Most madmen wouldn’t fit. I lift the metal latch and pull Ettie’s scarf over my nose, tightening it behind my head as if it’ll make a difference. I don’t think she’d have lent it to me if she had known where I was going. My insides are churning, as they do each time, no matter how many jobs I do. It’s always the same.
Everyone is afraid, Azelma used to say.
I pull open the door, and the smells assail me. My eyes burn with tears. The entire room is covered with mountainous piles of human excrement. Even in the cold, a storm of flies is swarming overhead with frenzied buzzing. Welcome to the cesspit of le Grand Châtelet.
I take a breath and go in, closing the door behind me and giving my eyes time to adjust to the darkness. The only light shines from a small, round opening high above my head. I reach into my coat and take out my claws—hooks I’ve spent hours honing. Sharp ends and blunt grips. I attach one to the cap of each boot and wind the others around my gloves, fastening them tight. Then I turn to the wooden wall, and lifting my leg high, I kick with all my strength. The hook catches fast in the wood; I step up, testing to see if it will carry my full weight. It holds. I drive the other hook in, then each of my clawed hands, one at a time, and so I rise. I climb to the top of the building slowly, in half an hour, to avoid any noise. At the top I embed my hooks in the ceiling and hang there. The hole in front of me is too small for any grown man to fit through. Thanks to a lifetime of malnourishment, I’m just the right size. I hook my gloved hands around the rim and climb through into the garderobe. It’s a small room containing only a bench to relieve oneself through. I head to the door and open it an inch. My observations were correct: the guards are at the far end of the tower, with their backs to me. I look around. A metal door leads into the tower. I rush to it, pull it open, and slip into the prison.
I try to recall every tale I have ever heard about the Châtelet. It has three levels. The upper floor, which I tiptoe through, is large and well aired. The cells here are roo
ms, with doors and tiny grated windows. Inside are the rich prisoners, those who can pay for the meager comfort the upper levels afford them.
There’s a clattering of boots on stone from the end of the corridor. My heart leaps into my throat. I’ve mistimed my entry, or the guard is early. The twinkling of a distant lantern grows stronger in the dark stairwell before me. I have only seconds and so I climb, scaling the wall, till I’m at the ceiling. I dig my claws in above, and my toes into the corner. Here I hang, suspended. Patience is ninety percent of being a Cat: sitting, waiting in the shadows till the right moment. I relax my muscles to avoid cramping and try to calm my breathing, to ignore the sweat gathering on my forehead as, below me, the guard arrives. Most people who walk into a room never look up. Neither should he. Bored, he strolls through the corridor, lantern in hand. Then he pauses, and sniffs.
Ysengrim be damned! The smell of excrement coming off my boots is strong. I hold my breath. He looks around for the source of the odor but sees nothing. He rubs his nose, sighs, and walks through the door beneath me, just seconds before a soft lump of something foul dislodges itself from my boot and falls to the floor.
Once I’m convinced that the guard is safely gone, I head down the winding stone stairs, counting the floors as I go. Le Fosse, la Gourdaine, le Puits. The staircase gets damper and steeper, and each corridor I pass has more cells squeezed into the same amount of space. I speed up, not knowing when the guard will return. Finally, the staircase ends, in a corridor of complete and utter darkness.
A place we cannot remember, Loup whispers in my mind.
My fingers brush the plaque on the wall, which bears the dungeon’s name: les Oubliettes. The place of forgetting.
The air down here is stale. The floor is covered in rough straw. Something scrambles near my foot, and I keep myself from flinching. It’s only a rat.
There are ten cagelike cells with iron bars. I reach into my jacket and pull out my tin box of matches. I light one and hold it up to the first set of bars. An emaciated man, more skeleton than human, barely moves. He might be dead. In the next cell is an old man with long hair and a beard. His cheeks are hollow, his fingernails long claws, and though his eyes are open, he doesn’t seem to notice the light. I move on to the third cell, casting my light before me. A pile of rags in the shape of a person faces the wall. I go nearer to the bars and, in a low voice, whisper, “Good hunting.”
