“What?” I say. “You don’t think it will work?”
But when he answers, his voice is low, strangely sober.
“Actually,” he says, “I think it might.”
He shrugs on the coat, grimacing a little.
“I feel so gross right now,” he mumbles. The coat is big on him, big enough to cover the T-shirt, probably too big to look natural, but it’s all we have to work with. He rolls up the sleeves.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Well?” he says, adjusting the cap on his head. “How do I look?”
I look him up and down, surprised by the difference a few small changes make. In the coat and hat, Jacob could almost pass for an old-fashioned boy.
I glance from the photo of Richard to Jacob.
“One more thing,” I say. Then I drag my hand along the top of a low stack of bones and wipe the dirt along his cheeks.
Jacob grits his teeth. “Did you seriously just wipe dead-people dirt on me?”
The resemblance isn’t perfect, of course.
But it might just be enough.
It better be, because I’m running out of options.
And out of time.
My vision is beginning to swim a little, and I know I’ve been down here too long.
“You owe me so many comics,” Jacob says, but the joke is thin, and I can tell he’s unsettled. Even scared. I forget, sometimes, that so much of Jacob’s fear is an act, made to make me feel braver.
Seeing him genuinely afraid is, well, terrifying.
I tell Jacob the rest of my plan, then point to the nearest tower of bones.
The skulls form a wavy band every two feet, grinning out at us with empty eyes. I use them as a handhold, and Jacob laces his fingers and gives me a leg up, helping me hoist myself onto the top of the wall. That’s how I think of it. A wall. Not a stack of femurs and skulls, the bones shifting dangerously under my weight. Nope. Just a wall. A place to crouch, to hide, to wait. The ceiling overhead is low and damp, and I cringe as it brushes the top of my head, try not to think too hard about any of it.
From this angle, Jacob’s face is hidden by his borrowed cap, and it’s not hard to imagine he’s someone else. A boy looking for his little brother.
“Thomas!” he calls out, voice ringing through the tunnels.
Thomas … Thomas …
For a long moment, nothing happens.
“Thomas?”
… Thomas … Thomas …
And then.
The little boy comes out of nowhere. He doesn’t peer around a corner, doesn’t come running. One second, Jacob is alone in the tunnel. The next, he’s not.
Jacob doesn’t see him, not at first.
He’s got his back to the boy as he calls into the dark.
“Thomas!”
… Thomas … Thomas …
The boy tilts his head, confused, and the red light in his eyes flickers once, like a shorting bulb, but then comes back. He takes a step forward, then stops when his foot comes down on the slip of paper. One of the photographs I’ve scattered through this stretch of tunnel like bread crumbs, meant to lead a lost boy home.
I watch as Thomas crouches and picks up the photo. He stares at the shot of Richard with his hand on his little brother’s shoulder. His eyes narrow. The red light flickers again.
It’s working.
Jacob keeps walking, just like we agreed, and Thomas follows.
The bones beneath me dig into my palms as I creep forward.
Thomas kneels, picking up another photograph. And another. And another. The red light around him weakens with each slip of paper. Each memory.
I keep crawling, trying to keep pace as he makes his way toward Jacob.
The front layer of the wall is rigid beneath me, the bones locked to form a rough but stable structure. But the piles behind that facade are nothing but stacks of rotting old bones, so I’m careful to stay on the narrow strip of solid ground.
Up ahead, the tunnel ends.
Jacob stops, lifts one hand to the bones that bar his way, and then turns back.
I can’t see his face, but his whole body stiffens in surprise at the sight of the boy clutching those old photos. Either he’s a better actor than I thought, or he genuinely didn’t hear Thomas coming up behind him.
“Thomas,” he says, and I can hear him fighting to keep his voice steady.
Hold on, I think as the air coils nervously around Thomas.
“Richard?”
Thomas’s voice is quiet, uncertain.
Jacob holds out his hand, and Thomas is about to reach for it. The red light in his eyes is almost gone, and I’m almost there when my knee comes down on a brittle bone—
And the bone snaps. Not enough for me to slip, but the sound rings out through the dark like a branch breaking in a silent forest.
Thomas twists away from Jacob, the red light surging back into his eyes. I cut sideways, out of his sight, and into the deeper dark.
Too late, I realize my mistake.
Too late, all my weight shifts from the stable wall to the stack of rotting bones.
Too late, and the pile gives way, crumbling like ash beneath me, and I’m falling down, down, down into the dark.
There are many kinds of dark.
There’s the warm, reddish dark you see when you close your eyes.
There’s the rich dark of a movie theater, the audience lit only by the screen.
And then there’s the true dark of lightless spaces underground, places where the black is so thick you can’t see your own hands. Can’t see the lines of your body. Can’t see any of the things you know are there with you in the dark.
This is that kind of dark.
I cough, my lungs filling with ash and soot. Something digs into my side. And for a moment, all I can think is, This is how he died. Thomas, buried by bones.
But I’m still alive.
I’m still alive.
Even if I can’t see.
And then I remember my phone. I scramble to pull it out—there’s no service down here, but I don’t need to make a call. I just need some light. I turn the phone on and activate its built-in flashlight. The world around me bursts into glaring white light. The sight is … unpleasant. I’m on my back at the bottom of the hole, the edges above me flaking with dust. I get to my hands and knees, trying to hold my breath against the plume of death and decay as I swing the phone’s light. The hole isn’t deep, maybe four feet. I can reach up, curl my fingers back over the edge, but the crumbling bones are soft in places, sharp in others. And every time I move, the air fills with things I don’t want to breathe, don’t want to think about.
“Cassidy!” calls Jacob, his voice tight with panic.
“I’m all right!” I call back.
“Well, I’m not!”
I look around, nothing but darkness on three sides, but the wall of femurs and skulls on my left. When I press my eye to the gaps, I can see Jacob, lined with red light as his arms wrap tightly around Thomas, pinning the boy back against him.
Thomas thrashes, trying to twist free. The air around him ripples and glows red, and the whole tunnel begins to shake as the crimson light spreads over everything, splitting across the floor, the ceiling, and the walls of bone.
The poltergeist is angry.
I reach up, trying to haul myself out of the hole, but I can’t get a grip. The sides of the hole slough away, dirt and dust and gritty stuff coming away in my hands. I can hear the sound of footsteps, the shuffle of feet, and I have the unsettling feeling that soon, we won’t be alone in this section of the tunnel.
“Cass!” yelps Jacob.
“Hold on!” I call back, turning in a slow circle, trying to figure out what to do. I try to wedge my shoe in a gap, but it’s no use. Up is out of the question.
The whole ground begins to shake with the force of Thomas’s displeasure. Even the wall of bones to my left begins to tremble and shift.
Dad has a saying: The only way out is through.
I slam my shoulder into the wall, feel it shudder and slip. I hit it again, biting back a jolt of pain as the whole wall bows and leans, and finally tips and tumbles.
And falls.
The tunnel fills with the shattering sound as hundreds of dry bones crash against the dirt and stone. I spill out, coughing ash, tripping as I try to wade through the shallow tide of bones.
Jacob looks at me, eyes wide, the word unspoken but clear.
Hurry.
His hair floats in the air around him, his own eyes bright, as the boy in his arms screams and twists and fights to get free.
But Jacob doesn’t let go.
I start toward them, ash dusting my skin, the mirror clenched in my hand as the walls of bone on either side sway and threaten to fall. But Thomas’s eyes are still red, the photographs whipped up and torn by the whirlwind around him.
And my heart sinks, because I’ve tried everything, and Thomas still hasn’t found his way back. Still hasn’t remembered.
I don’t know what to do.
But in the end, I’m not the one who does it.
Jacob’s arms tighten on Thomas, and he says, “C’est finit.”
I remember us back in the hotel room, sitting on the floor as Adele told the story of what happened to the brothers that night.
Richard called out, “Thomas, c’est finit”—“it’s over”—but there was no answer, except for his own voice, echoing in the tunnels.
The red light flickers in Thomas’s eyes.
The tunnel shudders, and I fight to stay on my feet. Bones crash around us, brittle as glass.
“Non,” whispers Thomas, but he no longer sounds angry. Only sad, and lost.
“C’est finit, Thomas,” repeats Jacob, and I swear I can see tears streaming down the dust on his face.
“C’est finit,” Thomas whispers back, and the red light falters and fails.
At last, Thomas stops fighting.
The tunnel stops shaking.
The Empire of the Dead goes quiet and still.
Thomas stares up at me, his eyes wide and brown and scared as I reach him. Jacob bows his head against the boy, his eyes squeezed shut as I bring the mirror up.
“Watch and listen,” I say gently.
His edges ripple in Jacob’s arms.
“See and know.”
He gazes into the mirror, tears staining his cheeks.
“This is what you are.”
Thomas thins from flesh and blood to gossamer and smoke, and I reach into the boy’s chest, fingers closing around the thread. I draw it out, the thin coil of a life that shouldn’t have been so short. It comes free, dissolving in my palm, and as it disappears, so does Thomas Alain Laurent.
There, and then gone.
Poltergeist, and then ghost, and then nothing.
Jacob’s arms fall to his sides, empty. He slumps back against the wall behind him, for once not even seeming to mind that it’s made of skulls.
“Jacob?” I whisper, worried by his silence.
He scrubs at his eyes and swallows. Then he pulls the borrowed cap from his head and tosses it aside. “Ick,” he says, peeling off the coat. “So gross.”
I lean against the wall beside him, and for a long second we just sit there, amid the bones, in the dark. My head is spinning, and my throat is coated with ash, and we both know it’s time to go, but something keeps us there.
“We did it,” says Jacob.
“We did,” I echo, leaning my head against his shoulder.
And then the Catacombs begin to whisper.
Jacob and I exchange a look.
Thomas may be gone, but this place is far from empty.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say, reaching for the Veil.
For an instant, it resists, but then Jacob’s hand joins mine, and together we pass through. A surge of cold hits my lungs, and the world is back, and suddenly bright. A second later, Jacob appears beside me, his usual see-through self, and I look around, worried we’ve wandered too far. But then I hear my parents’ voices, loud and blessedly close, and I round the corner the instant before they turn back and look.
“There you are,” calls Dad. “I thought we warned you not to wander.”
“Sorry,” I say, jogging to catch up. “I was trying to stay out of the shots.”
Mom slings an arm around my shoulder.
She looks back into the Catacombs.
“Here’s hoping that’s the end of that,” she says.
And I couldn’t agree more.
We climb in silence, and it’s only when we reach the street that Mom notices my clothes.
“Cassidy Blake,” she scolds. “How on earth did you get so dirty?”
Back at the Hotel Valeur, I take a really, really hot shower, trying to rinse the Catacombs from my skin. I towel off and slide on a pair of red-and-yellow pajamas, feeling like I’ve earned my Gryffindor colors tonight.
Mom and Dad are on the sofa, sharing a bottle of red wine as they watch the new footage. Annette gave them a copy of the digital file only, and said it would be best if she and Anton looked after the rest.
On the screen, my parents stand before a wall of bones, the lights casting long shadows across each of the patterned skulls.
“Looks good,” I say, padding past them.
“Well,” says Dad, “it wasn’t how we planned on spending our last night—”
“But the upside is,” adds Mom, “this take turned out even better.”
“I’m glad it all worked out,” I say, genuinely relieved.
“Want to watch?” asks Mom, patting the sofa beside her, where Grim twitches an ear.
I shake my head. “No thanks,” I say.
I’ve officially had enough of the Empire of the Dead.
In my room, I find Jacob sitting on the sill of the open window.
He glances over his shoulder.
“I wish I could take a shower,” he says, rubbing at a smudge of dirt on his arm. “I smell like grave dirt and old bones.”
I cross to the window beside him and sniff the air. “You don’t smell like anything to me.”
“Well, clearly my spectral senses are sharper than yours.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Speaking of smells, now that Thomas is gone, can we please get rid of all the sage and salt? It’s giving me a wicked headache.”
“Sure thing.” I search the hotel room and find the pouches I’ve hidden in Mom and Dad’s bags, on their windowsills, under the sofa, and in the planter by the door.
“What are you doing, Cass?” asks Mom as I put the box of protective charms out in the hall.
“Just packing,” I say, returning to my room.
“Better?” I ask.
Jacob sighs in relief. “Much,” he says, but he doesn’t climb down from the open window. Something’s clearly still bothering him, and I want to ask, but I don’t. I have to trust him, to believe that if he’s ready to tell me what he’s thinking, he will.
So instead I slump back on the bed, wincing as something digs into my side.
My cell phone.
I forgot to turn it back on, and when I do, my screen fills with messages, every one of them from Lara Chowdhury.
Lara:
How did it go?
Lara:
Cassidy?
Lara:
If you die, I will hunt down your ghost.
Lara:
Hello?
Lara:
You’d better be okay.
I text her back, promising that I’m all right, that Thomas Laurent has officially been sent on (making a point that I couldn’t have done it without Jacob’s help), and that I’ll explain everything tomorrow. Tonight I just want to sleep.
I sag back against the pillows and close my eyes, already sinking down into the dark.
I wake up once in the middle of the night.
No nightmare this time, just the feeling that I’m not alone. I roll over in bed and see Jacob still sitting there, in the open window, his h
ead tipped back. He’s got that faraway look, like he’s staring past the city buildings to somewhere I can’t see. Maybe I’m still asleep, maybe this is the dream, because he doesn’t seem to hear me when I think his name. I close my eyes, and the next thing I know, it’s morning.
Sunlight streams through the windows as we pack up our things. We drop off the luggage and Grim’s cat carrier at the front desk, much to the clerk’s displeasure.
It’s our last morning, and there’s still one thing I have to do.
“Couldn’t you just call her?” asks Dad when I tell him my plan.
I shake my head. “I still have her photos,” I say. “Besides, I want to say goodbye.”
Mom rests a hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right,” she says. “We have time.”
Outside, it’s a gorgeous day, and the whole city shines with light, from the pale stone buildings to the metal rooftops rising against the bright blue sky. And Paris seems to be returning to normal. The Metro is running, the streetlights have stopped shorting out, and there are no emergency vehicles whistling past.
It’s like Thomas never happened.
But of course, he did.
And even if this city is already moving on, I’m not likely to forget anytime soon.
When we get to the Laurents’ building, I ask Mom and Dad to wait outside, and take the stairs two at a time up to apartment 3A. Madame Laurent answers, and at the sight of me standing on her front mat, her eyes narrow, instantly suspicious.
“You again?” she asks, her hand tightening on the open door, but Adele appears at her side.
“Maman! She’s a friend.”
They exchange a few words of rapid French. Then Sylvaine sighs and retreats, leaving Adele and me (and Jacob) alone in the doorway. Adele is dressed in the same gold sneakers and jeans, along with a red-and-yellow sweatshirt, the house emblem over her heart.
Of course. She’s a Gryffindor.
“Come,” she says brightly, “let’s go to my room.”
Adele leads me down the hall and into a bright little bedroom.
“Did it work?” she asks as soon as the door is closed. “What was it like?”
I glance at Jacob, but for once, he looks away.
“It was intense,” I say. “But in the end, we got through to him. Thomas remembered who he was, and I was able to send him on.”
Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2) Page 14