Machiavelli

by Michael Scott

  “Because people who go into the church do not come out again. It is said to be haunted by the ghost of Joan of Arc.”

  “I doubt that very much,” I said.

  “Why, do you not believe in ghosts?” Vidocq demanded.

  “Of course I believe in ghosts. But I saw Joan about ten years ago, and she was very much alive. So whatever is haunting the church, it’s not the ghost of the Maid of Orléans.”

  I turned back toward the stairs before he could ask the question on his lips. “Let’s have a closer look at the church everyone is afraid to go into.”

  “You’re going into it, aren’t you?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking I might just have to,” I answered. “You don’t have to come, of course. It will be dangerous. In fact, perhaps you should go and find the fish-man. Tell him where I am or, better still, bring him here.”

  Vidocq shook his head firmly. “I’m not letting you do this on your own. You’ll go in there, rescue the children, and claim all the praise.”

  “I promise you, no matter what happens tonight, no one will ever hear of it. Try to stay invisible, Monsieur Vidocq. There is an old Irish saying you might take to heart: Happy is the man who remains unknown to the law.”

  8

  We stood in an alleyway, looking toward the church. The small wooden building was dilapidated and run-down, but it was still in better repair than most of the houses around it. It had obviously once been a small country church and had simply been swallowed by the city, then enclosed within the Court of Miracles.

  “You were joking when you said you’d seen Joan of Arc,” Vidocq said. In that moment he sounded very young indeed. “She died…” He struggled to remember the date. “Fourteen something…”

  “It was 1431. Over three hundred and sixty years ago.”

  “So when you said you saw her…you saw a relative, a descendant of hers?” he said hopefully. “Someone who looked like her. Perhaps you saw her in a dream.”

  “No, it was Joan herself in the flesh. She was rescued from her English executioners by Scathach the Shadow—someone you definitely do not wish to meet—and made immortal. Luckily, she did not see me. Last time we met, we did not part on the best of terms.”

  The young man looked at me as if I’d gone mad.

  “What would you say if I told you I am just a little younger than Joan? That I was born in the year 1469, which makes me three hundred and twenty-four years old?”

  Vidocq’s mouth opened and closed as he tried to find words. “And I suppose you’re going to tell me that the fish-smelling man is hundreds of years old also.”

  “No. I’ll not tell you that. What I will tell you is that he is thousands of years old and is not even human. He is Dagon, and in the ancient past he was worshiped as a god.” I gripped Eugène’s shoulder and squeezed tightly, focusing his attention. “And I am telling you this so that you will know that there are creatures other than humankind in this world, and that monsters are real.”

  “Monsters are real,” he repeated.

  “So that when we go into the church, you will be prepared for whatever we might find there. I don’t want you freezing in terror.”

  Vidocq looked from me to the church and then back to me. “What do you think is in there?” he asked in a ragged whisper.

  “I don’t know.” I closed my eyes and, tilting back my head, breathed in the night air. All the smells of the Court of Miracles came rushing in. I identified them one by one and then dismissed them…which left me with the faintest hints of orange, mint, and licorice drifting from the church. Suddenly I recognized the previously unidentifiable scent: it was the smell of wet earth, an odor I always associated with an open grave.

  “I think I know where the children are.” I looked at Vidocq. “Last chance: You could go and find Dagon.”

  Without a word, the young man drew a long dagger from beneath his coat.

  I lifted my crutch and pressed the hidden buttons, snapping it in two, leaving me with two batons.

  “I knew you didn’t really need the crutch,” Vidocq said. “Sometimes you forget to limp.”

  9

  I pressed my hand flat against the church’s wooden door. Time had worn it smooth, and I noticed that the iron studs that usually dotted these types of doors were missing, the holes stuffed with moss and mud to prevent the wood from rotting.

  Vidocq watched me pick away the moss filling one of the holes. “The studs are gone. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe someone was brave enough to steal a little scrap metal.”

  I shook my head. “The studs were not stolen; they were deliberately removed. Some of the non-human races cannot stand to be around iron. It is poisonous to them.”

  Vidocq swallowed. He looked at the knife in his hand. “Should have brought a bigger knife,” he muttered.

  I tapped the knife with one of my batons. “An iron blade: you brought the perfect weapon.”

  I pushed open the door, expecting it to squeal and groan, but it opened smoothly without a sound, and we slipped inside.

  “Hinges have been oiled,” Vidocq said. “Thieves will sometimes do that when they’re going to break in so no one hears the door opening or closing. Or so I’ve been told,” he added quickly.

  The interior of the building was bare. Where there should have been rows of pews facing an altar, there was nothing but dust, scraps of wood, a scattering of feathers, and a few ancient bones. The main altar and all the other signs of religion—the statues, the side altars, even the stained glass—were missing.

  Vidocq lit a candle stub and held it up, throwing yellow light around the space. Then he tapped my arm and pointed down.

  Barely visible beneath a thick covering of dust, the floor was a patchwork of black and white tiles. Marble, and no doubt worth a fortune; that they had not been stolen was a testament to the locals’ fear of this place. A path, worn clear by many feet, wound its way through the dust. All the footprints were child sized.

  The young man traced the route with the blade of his knife. “Goes around there, back where the altar would have been,” he whispered. “The footprints are heading in one direction.”

  “And none return,” I noted.

  “Maybe they go out the back door,” he suggested. He caught my look and shrugged. “Just a thought.”

  We set off along the track cleared by countless children’s feet.

  The smell of sugar and honey grew stronger the deeper we moved into the church. I dropped to my knees, pressing my face close to the floor.

  Eugene knelt beside me. “What do you smell?” he asked.

  I tapped the floor.

  Holding the candle away from his face, he drew in a deep breath. “Burnt sugar. It’s stronger down here.” He looked up, eyes wide. “The smell is rising. Do you think there are crypts under the church?”

  “I’m sure of it. Limestone—le calcaire lutécien—has been mined from the ground beneath us since the time of the Romans. Much of the city was built with it, and there are miles of old uncharted tunnels below us.”

  Behind where the altar would have once stood, the trail of footsteps disappeared.

  Vidocq moved the candle around. Standing the stub upright on the stones, he took the point of his knife and slid it into the join between two marble tiles. Then he pried gently…and a section of the flooring shifted. I quickly slipped one of my batons into the opening, and then, together, we lifted the slab. It was lighter than I expected. A square of wood had been painted black and white to look like the marble tiles. The flickering candle revealed stone steps disappearing into the darkness below.

  And while the stink of burnt sugar was strong, the stench of opened graves was even stronger.

  “Crypts,” Vidocq whispered. “I hate crypts. Full of dead people.”

  “I don’t mind them so long as the dead stay dead.” I
looked at the young man. There was no doubting his courage, but it was a bravery born of ignorance. He had no idea what he was up against, and although I had told him my age, the better to prepare him for what we might encounter, I knew he didn’t believe me. “Perhaps you would like to get Dagon now,” I offered again.

  For a moment, it looked as if he might agree, but then we both heard a sound echoing up from below: the thin, heartbreaking sobbing of a child.

  Without a word, the young man snatched the candle and disappeared down the steps. I made a vow as I followed him: no matter what happened, if we survived this night, I would ensure that Eugène François Vidocq would want for nothing ever again. And in years to come, when the time was right, I knew an ancient Egyptian king who could make him immortal. I’d make sure Eugène knew the true cost of immortality before he made any decision.

  10

  I reached over, took the candle from the young man’s fingers, and blew it out.

  “I can’t see,” he whispered.

  “But I can: a side effect of my immortality. And this candle will blaze like a beacon, warning whatever lies at the other end of this tunnel.”

  “Where are we?” he asked.

  I looked around. “A crypt, as we suspected. There are coffins set into the walls. Mostly stone, but some wood. Most of the stone coffins have cracked, and the wooden ones have rotted through.”

  “Can you see bodies?” he asked, horrified.

  “Why would I be looking at…” I stopped. “No,” I said finally. “All the tombs and coffins are empty.”

  With Vidocq tightly gripping my sleeve, I moved as quickly as possible down the narrow tunnel. My enhanced vision allowed me to see the imprint of countless children’s footprints on the ground. But there were other prints too—skeletal feet, and something like the claw of a huge bird: a trio of spikes, with the middle toe twice the length of the others. It was on top of the other prints, which suggested that the creature was following the children. I wished Dagon were with me now; my experience with inhumans was limited, whereas he had met all of them at one time or another. He’d immediately recognize the owner of the claw marks.

  “We’re going deeper,” I whispered to Vidocq, aware that he could not see. “We are in the ancient mining tunnels.”

  “Are there still tracks?” he asked.

  “Yes. Still children’s. And—you need to know this—there are skeletal footprints as well.”

  “You’re telling me we might come across skeletons?” His voice was dry and raspy with fear.

  “I think we’ll be lucky if we only encounter skeletons. If you must fight one, try to twist its head around backward. That confuses them.”

  “I’ll try to remember that.”

  “Oh, and don’t let them bite you or stab you with their finger bones.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Will that turn me into a skeleton?”

  “No. It will just really hurt,” I said. Then I stopped so suddenly he ran into me.

  “Is it skeletons?” he whispered.

  I moved aside so he could see down the tunnel. There were lights in the distance.

  “What’s that sound?” he asked.

  I tilted my head and concentrated. Faintly, very faintly, I could make out a metallic plinking sound. “Metal on metal?” I suggested.

  “Chains?”

  I nodded. It certainly sounded like chains. I could imagine the kidnapped children chained together.

  We moved deeper into the tunnels, heading toward a flickering light. The odor of burnt sugar and honey was eye watering, but it was mingled with other odors now: the cloying scent of too many unwashed humans and the heavy earthiness of freshly turned soil.

  The tunnel grew even brighter; Vidocq no longer had to hold on to me. Noises were clearer now. The plinking sound was clearly metal hammering metal or stone, and was accompanied by a rasping shuffle and the click-clack of what could only be bone on stone. We dropped to the ground and crawled the last few feet to the tunnel’s entrance.

  I peered over the edge of the opening, then ducked again. Even as Vidocq was raising his head to look, I clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his horrified scream and dragged him back, out of sight.

  “Now do you believe me?” I asked him.

  His eyes were wide circles. Finally, he blinked, swallowed, and hiccupped. “Did I just see…?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  11

  “Stay here.” I pushed Eugène down, crawled back to the edge of the tunnel, and peered out over a scene straight from a nightmare. “There is good news and bad news,” I whispered back to him.

  “I saw some of the bad news,” he muttered. He was taking great heaving breaths, clearly trying to settle a churning stomach.

  “We’ve found the missing children,” I said.

  The tunnel opened into a huge circular chamber. Hundreds of candles were stuck to every niche and crevice in the walls, shedding a thick wax that coated the stones like a lizard’s skin, turning the ceiling soot black. At least a dozen smaller tunnels radiated in every direction. Children were streaming in and out of the small narrow tunnels. They were all carrying small hammers, picks, and shovels and dragging cloth bags. They emptied the bags, dumping out stones and freshly turned earth at one end of the chamber, then trudged back into a tunnel. What were they mining in the tunnels? I wondered.

  And there were skeletons guarding them.

  Vidocq crawled up beside me and peered into the chamber. “Skeletons.”

  I nodded. “That’s the bad news. All from different periods of history. Look at their clothing, armor, and weapons.” Some of the creatures still had flesh, though it was weathered to deep wrinkled leather, while others were nothing but shining bone. They all carried swords and spears.

  “Skeletons,” he repeated. “Hundreds of them.”

  “Dozens,” I corrected him, but still, I had never seen so many animated skeletons in one place.

  “Where are they coming from?”

  “There’s your answer.” I pointed to one of the side tunnels. We watched as a trio of children—they could not have been more than twelve or thirteen—dragged a rotting wooden coffin out of the narrow opening. A fourth child, a girl, used a small hand ax to chop open the coffin lid and peel back the wood with her bare hands.

  “They’re digging them up…,” Vidocq breathed, horrified.

  The children scattered as an enormous skeleton, all dried leather skin and poking yellow bones, dragged itself toward them. He was huge, nearly seven feet tall, still wearing the ragged chain mail and rotting white robe of a Crusader knight. Reaching into the coffin, he hauled out another skeletal figure, slung it over his shoulder, and turned back to the center of the chamber, where an enormous black pot sat on a bed of white-hot coals. It was bubbling furiously, spitting a thick orange-black liquid into the air. The pot was the source of the stinking sugar-and-honey odor. The Crusader dropped the skeleton to the ground, with its head facing the pot. Laid out around the cauldron, in an ever-growing circle, were hundreds of skeletal figures. Many of them had weapons by their sides or in their bony hands.

  We watched as another group of children dragged an ancient-looking stone coffin from a narrow tunnel. Four of them tried to open the lid, but it refused to move, sealed by time and dirt. The huge Crusader stomped over, lifted a battle-ax, and brought it crashing down on the stone, which shattered into dust. The skeletal knight peered inside the coffin, then turned away without lifting out the contents.

  “Why?” Vidocq wondered, and then answered his own question. “Too decomposed.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “You’ll note all the corpses he’s chosen are in relatively good condition.”

  “Someone is building an army,” he whispered.

  “Exactly. I came here thinkin
g the children were going to be the soldiers. But they are just laborers, chosen because they can get in and out of small tunnels.”

  “And will not be missed,” Vidocq added. “But who is gathering this dead army?”

  “What is the better question,” I answered.

  12

  A bell rang, its chime high and pure, sounding completely out of place in the underground chamber. Children began to stagger from the tunnels, obviously drawn by the sound. They were all filthy and ragged, and there were far more than I’d thought.

  “There must be a hundred,” Vidocq breathed.

  This time I could not correct him.

  Vidocq tapped my arm and pointed to two children at the end of one line. “Simplice and Marius, Madame Bougon’s children. They look to be in slightly better condition than some of the others.”

  “Because they were taken recently,” I noted.

  He nodded. “How long has this been going on?”

  “Too long.”

  We watched as the children formed a long line in front of the bubbling pot. No one spoke, but we could see that some were crying, while others kept looking about.

  “So they are alert?” I said. “I thought they might be under a spell.”

  “Maybe they can’t dig if they are ensorcelled.”

  “Good point. And why waste a good spell if keeping them in terror will do?” I said. “Think how you felt when you saw the skeletons. Now imagine being down there amongst them, forced to dig bodies out of the ground.”

  “I’d be terrified out of my mind,” Vidocq admitted.

  The bell rang again.

  The skeletal guards lined up on either side of a tunnel that was taller and wider than the rest.

  “Prepare yourself,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure if I was speaking to Vidocq or myself.

  At first glance, the figure who stepped out of the tunnel looked like a hunchbacked old woman, wrapped in filthy rags. One by one, the skeletons knelt—or attempted to kneel—as she passed between them. None of the children even looked at her; their eyes were fixed firmly on the ground beneath their feet.