The Skeleton Key Read online

  Fifteen minutes later, Seichan was gunning the engine of her motorcycle and speeding over the twelve stone arches of the Pont Neuf, the medieval bridge that spanned the River Seine. She wove wildly around slower traffic, crossing toward the Left Bank of Paris and aiming for the city’s Latin Quarter.

  Seated behind her, Renny clung to her with both arms. He squeezed tightly as she exited the bridge and made a sharp turn into the maze of streets on the far side. She did not slow down. They were quickly running out of time.

  “Take the next right!” Renny yelled in her ear. “Go four blocks. Then we’ll have to continue on foot.”

  Seichan obeyed. She had no other guide.

  Moments later, they were both running down the Rue Mouffetard, an ancient pedestrian avenue that cut a narrow, winding swath through the Latin Quarter. Buildings to either side dated back centuries. The lower levels had been converted into cafés, bakeries, cheese shops, crêperies, and a fresh market that spilled out into the street. All around, merchants hawked their goods while patrons noisily bartered.

  Seichan shoved through the bustle, noting the chalkboard menus being filled out, the huge loaves of bread being stacked behind windows. Breathless, winded, she drew in the musky headiness wafting from a tiny fromagerie and the fragrant displays of an open-air flower stand.

  Still, she remained all too conscious of what lay beneath this lively tumult: a moldering necropolis holding the bones of six million Parisians, three times the population above.

  Renny led the way with his long legs. His thin form skirted through the crowds with ease. He kept glancing back, making sure he hadn’t lost her.

  Back at the hotel, he had found his clothes in the hotel closet: ripped jeans, Army boots, and a red shirt bearing the likeness of the rebel Che Guevara. Additionally, they’d both put on scarves to hide their steel collars. While they got dressed, Seichan had explained their situation, how their lives depended on searching the catacombs to retrieve the historian’s lost son. Renny had listened, asking only a few questions. In his eyes, she noted the gleam of hope behind the glaze of terror. She suspected that the determined pace he set now had little to do with saving his own life and more to do with finding his lost love, Jolie.

  Before donning his shirt, he had awkwardly pointed to his lower right shoulder blade. That corner of the tattooed map was freshly inked, the flesh still red and inflamed. “This is what Jolie had discovered, where she had been headed when she disappeared.”

  And it was where they were going now, chasing their only lead, preparing to follow in his girlfriend’s footsteps.

  Claude Beaupré also believed Jolienne’s whereabouts were important. Her disappearance had coincided with the last day he’d seen his son. Before vanishing, Gabriel had hinted to his father about where Vennard and the other members of his cult were scheduled to gather for the purge. It was this same neighborhood. So when Claude heard about Renny searching for his lost girlfriend in this area, he began moving his chess pieces together: lowly guide and deadly hunter.

  The two were now inextricably bound together, headed toward a secret entrance into the catacombs. Renny had shared all he knew about the subterranean network of crypts and tunnels. How the dark worlds beneath the bright City of Lights were once ancient quarries called les carrières de Paris. The ancient excavation burrowed ten stories underground, carving out massive chambers and expanding outward into two hundred miles of tangled tunnels. The quarries had once been at the outskirts of the city, but over time, Paris grew and spread over the top of the old labyrinth, until now half of the metropolis sat atop the mines.

  Then in the eighteenth century, city authorities had ordered that the overflowing cemeteries in the center of Paris be dug up. Millions of skeletons—some going back a thousand years—were unceremoniously dumped into the quarries’ tunnels, where they were broken down and stacked like cordwood. According to Renny, some of France’s most famous historical figures were likely interred below: from Merovingian kings to characters from the French Revolution, from Clovis to the likes of Robespierre and Marie Antoinette.

  Seichan’s search, though, was not for the dead.

  Renny finally turned off the main thoroughfare and ducked down a narrow alley between a coffeehouse and a pastry shop. “This way. The entrance I told ye about is up ahead. Friends—fellow cataphiles—should have left us some gear. We always help each other out.”

  The alley was so tight they had to pass through it single file. It ended at a small courtyard, surrounded by centuries-old buildings. Some of the windows were boarded up; others showed some signs of life: a small dog piping a complaint, a few strings of drying laundry, a small face peering at them through a curtain.

  Renny led her to a manhole cover hidden in a shadowed corner of the courtyard. He fished out a crowbar from behind a trash bin, along with two mining helmets with lamps affixed to their front.

  He pointed back to the bin. “They left us a couple o’ flashlights, too.”

  “Your cataphiles?”

  “Aye. My fellow explorers of Paris’s underworld,” he said, letting a little pride shine forth, his brogue thickening. “We come from every corner of the world, from every walk o’ life. Some search the old subways or sewer lines; others go boggin’ and diving into water-filled pits that open into flooded rooms far below. But most—like Jolie and me—are drawn to the unmapped corners of the catacombs.”

  He went silent, worry settling heavily to his shoulders, clearly wondering about the fate of his girlfriend.

  “Let’s get this open,” Seichan said, needing to keep him moving.

  She helped pry open the manhole cover and rolled it aside. A metal ladder, bolted to the wall of the shaft, led down into the darkness. Renny strapped on his helmet. Seichan opted for a flashlight.

  She cast a bright beam into the depths.

  “This leads down to a long-abandoned section of the sewer system, goin’ back to the mid–1800s,” Renny said, mounting the ladder.

  “A sewer? I thought we were going into the catacombs.”

  “Aye, we are. Sewers, basements, old wells often have secret entrances into the ancient catacombs. C’mon, then, I’ll show ye.”

  He climbed down, and she followed. She expected it to smell foul, ripe with the slough of the city above. But she found it only dank and moldy. They descended at least two stories, until at last she was able to step back onto solid footing. She cast her light around. Mortared blocks lined the old sewer’s walls and low ceiling. Her boots sloshed in a thin stream of water along the bottom.

  “Over here.” Renny led the way along the sewer with the assurance of a well-schooled rat. After thirty yards, a grated gateway opened to the right. He crossed to it and tugged the gate open. Hinges squealed. “Now through here.”

  Crude steps led deeper into the darkness and down to a room that made her gasp. The walls had been painted in a riotous garden of flowers and trees set among trickling waterways and azure pools. It was like stepping into a Monet painting.

  “Welcome to the true entrance of the catacombs,” Renny said.

  “Who did all of this?” she asked, sweeping her light, noting a few sections marred by graffiti.

  He shrugged. “All sorts of dobbers make their way down. Artists, partiers, mushroom farmers. A couple years ago, the cataflics—that’s our name for the police who patrol down there—discovered a large chamber set up as a movie theater, with a big screen, popcorn maker, and carved-out seats. When police investigators returned a day later, they found it all gone. Only a note remained in the middle of the floor, warning ‘Do not try to find us.’ That’s the underworld of Paris. Large sections still remain unexplored, cut off by cave-ins or simply lost in time. Cataphiles, like me and my mates, do our best to fill in those blank spots on the old maps, tracking our discoveries, recording every intricacy.”

  “Like you’ve done with your tattoo.”<
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  “It was Jolie’s idea,” he said with a sad smile. “She’s a tattoo artist. A dead good one, she is. She wanted to immortalize our journey together underground.”

  He went silent again, but only for a moment.

  “I met her down below, not far from here, both of us all muddy. We exchanged phone numbers by flashlight.”

  “Tell me about that day she disappeared.”

  “I had classes to go to. She had the afternoon off and left with another girl, Liesl from Germany. I dinna know her last name. They went down after hearing rumors of some secret group moving through the area.”

  “The Order of the Solar Temple.”

  “Aye.” He worked the back of his shirt up. “At the base of my neck, you’ll see a room marked with a little flower.”

  She peered closer at his tattoo, shining her flashlight. She found the tiny Celtic rose and touched it with a finger.

  Renny shivered. “That’s where we are now. We’ll follow Jolie’s map to the newest piece of my tattoo; that was where she’d been headed. She found an entrance into a forgotten section of the labyrinth, but she’d only just begun to explore it when she heard that rumor about the Solar Temple.” He lowered his shirt and pointed to a tunnel leading out. “I know most of the way by heart, but I’ll need help once we’re closer.”

  He set off through the dark labyrinth, winding through tunnels and across small rooms and past flooded pits. The walls were raw limestone, sweating and dripping with water. Fossils dotted the surfaces, some polished by previous cataphiles to make them stand out, as if the prehistoric past were trying to crawl out of the rock.

  The way grew rapidly cooler. Soon Seichan could see her breath. The echoes of their footsteps made it sound as if they were constantly being followed. She stopped frequently, checking warily behind her.

  She could see that Renny was growing impatient. “We’re not likely to find anyone down here. Even the cataflics rarely come to this remote section. Plus there was a gas leak reported near the tourist area of the catacombs. They’ve been closed for three days.”

  She nodded and checked his tattoo again. They were not far from the freshly inked section of his map. “If I’m reading this right, your girlfriend’s new discovery opens along that passage.” She pointed to a narrow tunnel and checked her wristwatch.

  Seventy-two minutes left.

  Anxious, Seichan led the way. She hurried along, looking for the branching side passage marked on the tattoo.

  “Stop!” Renny called behind her.

  She turned and found him kneeling beside a tumble of stones. She had walked past the rockfall without giving it a second thought.

  Renny pointed his helmet lamp to a rosy arrow chalked above the rock pile. “This is the entrance. Jolie always uses pink chalk.”

  She joined him and spotted a low tunnel shadowed by the rocks.

  Renny crawled on his hands and knees through the opening first. Seichan followed. Within a few yards and a couple of short drops, the way dumped into another tunnel.

  As Seichan stood, she saw more shafts and smaller side passages heading off in several directions.

  Renny touched a palm against the sweating dampness of the limestone wall. “This is definitely a very old section of the catacombs. And it looks to be a fousty maze from here.” He twisted around and fought to raise his shirt. “Check the map.”

  She did, but the ink of the tattoo stopped at the exact point where they were standing. A cursory exam of the tunnels offered no other chalked clues as to where Jolie might have gone.

  From here, it looked like they were on their own.

  “What do we do?” Renny asked, fear for his girlfriend frosting his words. “Where do we go?”

  Seichan picked a tunnel and headed out.

  “Why are we going this way?” he asked, hurrying after her.

  “Why not?”

  Actually she had a reason for the decision. She had picked the passage because it was the only one that headed down. By now, it was clear to her that these tunnel crawlers were drawn to nether regions of the world, driven by curiosity about what lay below. Such snooping always kept them digging deeper. Only after reaching the bottom would they begin exploring outward.

  She hoped that this was true of Jolienne.

  Within a few steps, though, Seichan began to regret her choice. To either side, deep niches had been packed solidly with old human bones, darkened and yellowed to the color of ancient parchment. The skeletons had been disarticulated and separated into their component parts, as if inventoried by some macabre accountant. One niche held only a stack of arms, delicately draped one atop the other; another was full of rib cages. It was the last two niches—one on either side of the passage—that disturbed her the most. Two walls of skulls stared out at the tunnel, seeming to dare them to trespass between their vacant gazes.

  Seichan hurried past with a shiver of dread.

  The tunnel finally ended at a cavernous chamber. While the roof was no higher than the passageway, it stretched outward into a vast room the length of a football field. Rows and rows of pillars held up the ceiling, like some stone orchard. Each support was composed of stone blocks, one piled on another. Several looked crooked and ready to fall.

  “This is the ancient handiwork of Charles Guillaumot,” Renny said, speaking in a rushed, nervous tone. “Back in 1774, a major section of the catacombs collapsed, swallowing up several streets and killing lots o’ people. After that, King Louis hired himself an architect, Guillaumot, to shore up the catacombs. He became the first true cataphile. He mapped and explored most of the tunnels and had these room pillars put in place. Not that collapses don’t still happen. In 1961, the ground opened up and swallowed an entire Parisian neighborhood, killing a bunch of people. Even today, cave-ins occur every year. It’s a big danger down here.”

  Seichan only half listened to Renny’s story. A glint off one of the pillars had drawn her attention. The reflection was too bright for this dank and dreary place. She approached the pillar and discovered a ring of wires wrapped around the middle of the stack of stones, linking transmitters and blasting caps to fistfuls of yellowish-gray clay.

  C4 explosive.

  This was not the handiwork of that eighteenth-century French architect.

  She examined the bomb, careful not to disturb it. A small red LED light glowed from the transmitter, awaiting a signal. She cupped a hand over her flashlight and motioned for Renny to do the same with his helmet lamp.

  The room plunged into darkness. As her eyes adjusted, she picked out the telltale pinpoints glowing across the room, hundreds of them, coming from pillars throughout the chamber. The entire room had been mined to explode.

  “What is all of this?” Renny whispered beside her.

  “Vennard’s purge,” Seichan surmised, picturing the bustling city above.

  She wondered how many other chambers across this necropolis were similarly set with explosives. She remembered Renny mentioning a reported gas leak. Such a ruse would be a good way to evacuate the catacombs, leaving the cult free to plant charges throughout this subterranean world.

  Renny must have feared the same. His voice grew somber with the implication. “They could bring half of Paris crashing down.”

  Claude Beaupré had said Vennard wanted human sacrifice, to herald the birth of a new sun-king in fire and blood. Here was that plan about to come to fruition.

  As she kept her hand cupped over her flashlight, her eyes acclimated themselves enough to note a wan glow from across the room, marking the entrance to a tunnel on the far side.

  She continued across the chamber, heading for that light. She slipped out her pistol and pointed it forward. Keeping her flashlight muffled in her other hand, she allowed just enough illumination to avoid obstacles. Renny kept behind her with his helmet’s lamp switched off.

  The far tunn
el was a mirror to the first one. Bones filled niches; the skeletons again broken down and separated into body parts. Only these bones were bright white. There was no patina of age. With growing horror, she realized that what she was looking at were not ancient remains—they were the remains of fresh kills.

  One niche, a yard deep, was half full of skulls.

  A work in progress.

  From their tiny sizes, she could tell that some of the skulls had belonged to children, even infants.

  Before Claude had finished his instructions over the phone, he had spoken of a heinous act committed by the former head of the Ordre du Temple Solaire in Quebec. The man had sacrificed his own son, stabbing him with wooden stakes, believing the child was the Antichrist. Apparently the order’s taste for infanticide was not limited to that single instance.

  The tunnel ended after another bend. Voices echoed from there, sounding like they were coming from another cavernous space. Seichan motioned for Renny to hang back. She edged forward, hugging a wall, and peered around the corner.

  Another room—smaller, but similarly dotted with pillars—opened ahead. Only the pillars in this room were natural limestone columns, left behind as the miners dug out this chamber, making the space feel more ancient. But like the others, these pillars were similarly decorated with explosive charges.

  In the center of the room, Seichan could make out twenty people gathered in a circle, all on their knees—but they were not adorned in ceremonial robes. They wore ordinary street clothes. One couple, arm in arm, had come in formal attire for the momentous occasion. A handful looked drugged, weaving dully where they knelt or with their foreheads lowered to the floor. Three bodies lay sprawled closer to the tunnel where Seichan was hiding: facedown, in pools of blood, as dark as oil against the rock. It looked as if they’d been shot in the back as they tried to flee the coming destruction, likely having had second thoughts about giving up their lives in a suicidal orgy.

  A pair of guards, with assault rifles and wearing Kevlar body armor, stood to either side of the gathering, shadowed by pillars, watching the group, ready to discourage any other deserters.