Jack Templar and the Lord of the Vampires (15 page)

L
ocked. We stood outside a small, black wooden building with a small sign,
Les Catacombes de Paris
, on the metal gate blocking the entrance. Thick chains wrapped around the gate with an impressive padlock in the center of it. A quick study of the hours listed on the sign showed we were already a few hours late for the last tour. I knocked on the window that faced the street, hoping someone would come out so that we could at least try to bribe our way in. Nothing.

“I guess I should have read the brochure more carefully,” I said, seeing now that the hours were on the handout I carried in my hand. It had only been a twenty-minute walk to get there so it wasn’t the end of the world. I really wanted to get a look at the catacombs though. I could tell Eva felt the same way since she was busy trying to pick the padlock.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” said a French-accented voice from behind us. Eva stepped back quickly, her hand with the hook falling to her side. I used to think she did that because she was embarrassed of her missing hand. Now I knew she did it to keep the element of surprise for when she needed to use the hook in a fight.

We both spun around and saw an odd-looking boy watching us. I say boy, but he was probably seventeen or eighteen, a little shorter than average, but he had a scruffy goatee that made him look older. He had hair as dark as pitch that he wore long and pulled back in a ponytail. His skin was a burnt brown like he spent every waking moment in the sun. He wore baggy clothes cinched at the waist by a rope. A gold earring hung from one ear. I thought for a second that he might be a pirate from some tourist dinner show in town, but the clothes were well-worn and didn’t look like a costume. He was ridiculously good-looking and eyed Eva appreciatively. I disliked him immediately.

“Big brother, he is watching you,” he said, nodding to the cameras mounted on the roof. “And he likes to keep his locked things locked up.”

“We were just excited to see the catacombs,” I said, guiding Eva away. “We’ll just have to come back another time I guess.”

Our new friend padded after us. “You are American?” he asked with the easy graciousness of a talented panhandler. “I am Pahvi.” He held out his hand to Eva and she shook it.

“I’m Ashley,” she lied. “This is Matt. He’s American. I’m British.”

“Ahh…” Pahvi grinned. “So much more beautiful…” I looked at him oddly. “The sound of her speaking is what I mean,” he said, obviously not meaning it that way at all.

“And you are Romani?” Eva asked.

Pahvi’s eyes lit up. “You know the proper name. Very good. Gypsy has so many conjugations to it.”

“I think you mean connotations,” I said, stepping up the pace a bit and hoping Eva would keep up. I put my hand next to my pocket with my wallet to keep it safe.

“Yes, connotations,” Pahvi agreed. “Excusing me. English is still very hard. But connotations, yes. Like you, American. I say gypsy and now look at your hand.”

Self-consciously, I pulled my hand away from my jean pocket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Pahvi laughed loudly, like I had just said the funniest thing in the world. “I like you, American.” He produced my wallet from his own pocket and tossed it to me. “It’s a good trick, no?”

I took my wallet, opened it to make sure everything was there, and then shoved it deeply into my pocket. The Romani, or gypsies as they were called by the politically incorrect, were notorious for many things, excellent pickpockets being one. We needed to get rid of our little friend as quickly as possible. “Yeah, good trick. Nice to meet you. Maybe we’ll see you around Paris.”

Pahvi slowed, and we pulled ahead of him. I thought we were rid of the pest until I heard him say seven words that brought me to a stop, “I can get you into the catacombs.” Eva and I both turned and faced him. The smile was gone and he was all business. “One hundred euros is un tour privé. How you say? A private tour. Unofficial. You get to see things the tourists don’t.” He broke back into his ingratiating smile and gave Eva a short bow. “The lady, of course, is free.”

I noticed Eva flash an involuntary smile at the gesture before catching herself. She looked at me and nodded. “Pahvi, do you think my friend and I could talk about this for a second?” I asked.

“Of course, take time. I will be over here trying to listen to what you say.” He grinned.

I forced a laugh that came out as a short bark and drew Eva away to confer. “What do you think?’

“Why wouldn’t we do it? Access to the catacombs afterhours is perfect. We can really explore,” Eva said. “Wasn’t that the whole point?”

“Part of the point was to blend in with the crowd and not draw attention to ourselves. Crashing a national monument with gypsy-boy over there is a different deal,” I said.

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

“He has buddies down there ready to jump us,” I answered.

Eva arched an eyebrow at me. “And that worries you? We’ve defeated vampires, zombies, and a goblin army. I think we can take a few Romani teenagers, don’t you?”

I shook my head, feeling the short sword I carried strapped to my leg. “I guess so. Okay, but first sign of trouble, we’re out of there.”

“You got it, boss.” Eva walked over to Pahvi. “We’re in. When can we get started?”

Pahvi clapped his hands and smiled. He shook both of our hands vigorously. “Excellent, excellent. We can go now?”

“Now is good.” Eva waved at me. “Pay up, Jack.”

“No need,” Pahvi said. He held up my wallet that he had lifted off me again when he shook my hand. He tossed it back to me, now a hundred euros lighter. “Follow me. Stay close. The catacombs can be deadly.”

Turns out that was the understatement of the century.

***

Pahvi took us away from the entrance and led us down a side alley between two buildings. There, he paused in front of a rusty metal door, pulled some tools from his pocket, and went to work on the lock. A minute later, we were inside. From Pahvi’s cool efficiency, it was clear he had done this many times before.

We walked through the small museum on the ground floor of the building. Without any lights, it was hard to make out any of the pictures on the walls or see any of the artifacts laid out in glass cases lining the edges of the rooms we passed through. Soon enough, we reached another door. This one had keys hanging on a hook next to it. I thought it was interesting that the door down to the catacombs would be locked with the keys so obviously close. That’s when it hit me. The door wasn’t locked to keep people from going into the catacombs. It was locked to keep whatever was in the catacombs from climbing out.

“This is the way,” Pahvi said cheerfully. “On the way down the stairs I will tell you the history of this place. Please take these.” He held out small candles, the same kind we’d burned in Notre Dame for our prayers.

“Did you steal these from a church?” I asked.

Pahvi stroked a match and lit his own candle. He pretended to be offended. “Steal? No, mon Dieu. Of course not. I only prayed for a way to control my costs for these tours, Iooked down, and voila. God provided.” He touched his candle to Eva’s and lit hers. “Is he always like this?” he whispered.

Eva grinned and eyed me mischievously. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

 “How boring,” he sighed as he unlocked the door. A faint breeze blew up from the dark passageway on the other side. Our candles flickered dramatically. The air felt damp and warm, completely different that the air-conditioned room of the museum. It smelled raw and natural, like newly dug dirt—or a grave reopened. I knew this last thought was my imagination getting away from me. Walking by candlelight into a centuries-old underground burial site will do that to you.

The staircase was steep and carved out of natural stone. It spiraled around, deeper and deeper. As we walked, Pahvi’s accented voice rose up from below to give us a short history of the place.

“This was first a quarry, all the way to the Roman times. The limestone you see all over Paris was mined here. For hundreds of years, men worked underground, digging out the slabs of rock, carving tunnels and great caverns. When they were done, there were over a hundred miles of tunnels, how do you say, cross-crissing underneath Paris.”

“Crisscrossing,” Eva said.

“Yes, apologies. Crisscrossing,” Pahvi said. “By this time Paris had grown bigger and bigger. The cemeteries that were once far outside of the city were now surrounded by houses and shops. There was much disease and problems. So they came up with a plan. Every night for over two years, they dug up graves, piled bones in carts and rolled them through the streets of Paris.”

“And they just dumped them here?” I asked from several steps above where Pahvi stood. 

“It was a ceremony every night. Priests led the way, chanting and praying. They did a ritual over the bones every night. But, yes, even with all that, they basically brought them here and dumped them. The mines were not used any more so it was perfect. Over a thousand years’ worth of bodies were taken from their final resting places and put here, making this the biggest mass grave in the world.”

“How many bodies are buried here?” Eva asked.

“The scientists, they say there are over six million people here,” Pahvi said. “Maybe more.”

I felt a chill pass through my body, trying to imagine what the bones for six million people might look like. I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

We reached bottom of the staircase just as Pahvi finished his story. I had to give it to him that he had a knack for theater. He swung his arms open and invited us into a room where the first of the bones were on display.

“But, as you can see, they did more than just dump them here.”

We stepped into a low-ceilinged room carved out of solid limestone. It was tall enough to walk in but I could reach up and touch the ceiling. The far wall was segmented into three sections, each a wide archway. Inside each segment, stacked perfectly like cords of firewood, was a wall of bones. Not the bleached white kind you see on Halloween skeletons, but mottled brown, stained with dirt and age. More disconcerting were the skulls. Worked into the stack of bones in regular intervals were lines of skulls arranged in rows, their empty eyes and gaping mouths all staring at us. In the light of day it would have been disturbing. At night in a room lit only by three flickering candles, it was incredibly spooky.

Pahvi waved us forward, knowing better than to speak over the power of the place. He pointed to the gap between the top of the pile of bones and the arched ceiling. He raised his candle and we could see that the pile extended back at least twenty feet. It dawned on me that there were probably the remains of over a thousand people just in that one section.

We moved on to the next room, Pahvi speaking to us in a hushed whisper, adding to the general creepiness of the place. Well, I say us, but really he was staying close to Eva and speaking only to her. “The bones are like art, very different designs in each place. You can feel there is a power here. An energy, yes?”

As much as I wanted to roll my eyes for Pahvi being overly dramatic, I had to admit that I felt it. There was an aura to the place. It seemed the collective history of all the lives represented by the bones created a weight of their own.

After a short tunnel, we entered a spectacular round room with a pillar in the center. The outer walls were again lined with stacks of bones, this time with skulls in a variety of patterns. One formed an X. Another a swirling pattern. The third just a solid wall of skulls with their teeth intact, giving them an unsettling appearance of laughing at some secret joke only they heard. The pillar in the center of the room was also covered with skulls so that the limestone was completely covered. This made it look like the room was supported entirely by a thick column of skulls.

“The King of France, Louis XIV, used to have enormous feasts down here,” Pahvi said, his voice echoing. “Supposedly, this was one of his favorites. There is a painting in the Louvre that shows it. Very sandleness.”

“Do you mean scandalous?” Eva asked, laughing at Pahvi’s charming accent. I was starting to wonder if his small mispronunciations were on purpose. I’d noticed that he sometimes fell into perfect English and then lapsed into all-too cute misuses of words. I was thinking how wary I still was of our gypsy tour guide when I heard a noise coming from the tunnel ahead of us.

“What’s that?” I asked.

Eva heard it too. She was in a fighting stance, staring at the passageway. Only Pahvi didn’t seem concerned. He did, however, check out the way Eva was standing.