“May I have some of your blood?” The Dark Artist stepped closer. “Just a few drops.”
She tugged lightly on the skull, a subtle shift rippling through the stack.
“Don’t worry. It’s not what you think. I promise not to kill you.” He sidled up to the candle he’d placed in the sconce and blew it out. “If you promise not to use that impressive power to turn me in.”
She jerked the skull out of the wall and swung it into the chasm of darkness between them. The skull smashed onto his head with a satisfying crack.
“Witch!”
The blade came at her quick as a viper. She felt it catch her bag as she stumbled past the Dark Artist onto the alley floor.
Blackness, shocking in its purity, swallowed her as she regained her footing. Not one candle, not one glimmer in sight.
“I snuffed them all out,” he hissed.
She charged into the darkness, dragging her fingertips along the left wall, feeling for an opening to a path, any path.
At last she found one and turned into it. She wasn’t two steps in when she fell headlong onto a pile of sharp rocks.
No.
Not rocks.
Bones.
“Wrong turn.” His whisper drifted over her like a spirit.
Her hands scuttled over a long, solid bone. She grabbed it, flailing in every direction as she stood up.
“Shall I show you the way out?” The whisper seemed to be everywhere at once.
The Dark Artist was in front of her.
Or to the left.
Behind her?
Utter silence. She couldn’t hear anything but her own labored breath.
Then the tip of the blade kissed her cheek.
Maybe the Dark Artist thought Nathalie would give up. Maybe he thought she’d be too scared to move.
He was mistaken.
Lightning possessed her. She thrashed her weapon and heard the knife bounce off some bones. She darted right; he lunged after her. He gripped her elbow for a second before slipping and falling onto the bone pile.
Nathalie put her arms out, feeling along the wall until she found the opening again. She turned left, back on the path she’d been on in the first place. She ran and ran, finally spotting a speck of muted light at the end of another tunnel on the left.
His footsteps rumbled behind her, louder and closer with every step.
She sped down the dim path, eyes on the tiny flame, arms pumping, legs moving faster than they ever had.
The Dark Artist was so close she could hear his shallow, wheezy puffs of breath.
Nathalie reached the flame and wheeled around the corner to the right.
The main tunnel.
She kept running but heard nothing behind her. No footsteps, no wheezing. Not a sound.
Why? She allowed herself a quick glance.
He wasn’t there.
She ran toward the entrance with as much speed as her lanky legs could manage and saw some tourists descend the stairs with a guide. Screams erupted when they discovered the policeman’s body.
The Dark Artist heard them coming. He’s hiding.
“Go!” she yelled in between gulps of air. “Get out of the Catacombs!”
Five or six people ran back up the spiral staircase; the guide and several others hovered around the body, as if they were afraid to leave it unattended.
“The killer is behind me! Run!”
They scrambled up the stairs with the guide at the rear. He kept his eyes on Nathalie until he disappeared from sight.
She charged down the tunnel, halting a couple of meters from the body.
The burly policeman lay there, eyes open, limp hand resting on his chest. His throat was slit with the blade from his own walking stick. There it rested beside him, in the aftermath of its treachery, surrounded by a pool of blood.
Nathalie turned away. A heavy blanket of sadness draped around her heart. He died because he had to protect me. It’s my fault he’s dead.
First Agnès.
Now him.
I don’t even know his name.
She surveyed the tunnel. Empty. Deceptively still.
Nathalie knelt down and closed the policeman’s eyes, then made her way up those endless stairs as quickly as possible. Once she emerged into daylight, she saw the tourists in a group to the side and two policemen approaching with the tour guide. She ran up to them. “The Dark Artist followed me into the Catacombs and chased me. He’s still there!”
They looked at her askance.
She pointed to the Catacombs entrance. “Your colleague was killed keeping watch over me! I’m Nathalie Baudin, from the morgue. Christophe Gagnon assigned a patrol to me.”
Recognition hit them, thunder after a lightning strike. Her words came out in a torrent, explaining what happened before they had a chance to ask. One of the policemen assured her that she was safe now.
Nathalie didn’t believe him. As long as there was a Dark Artist, Paris would be smothered in danger.
She refused to let it choke her.
34
The next two hours were a flurry of policemen, questions, and answers.
But no Dark Artist.
Christophe was with her for all of it, even holding her hand, which made it both easier and more difficult to handle.
The Catacombs were full of hidden escapes, Christophe later explained, that led to churches and taverns and apartments. By the time she left the police station, investigators were canvassing the city for known secret entrances to the tunnels.
“It doesn’t appear promising,” Christophe informed her at one point. “Unless someone comes forward and admits to seeing something, he likely emerged unnoticed in an abandoned place.”
So close to the Dark Artist. And for nothing.
He outsmarted me. He was going to win. Hurt me. Kill me. Watch me escape. He was going to be able to get away no matter what.
She hated Dr. Henard for endowing the Dark Artist with superhuman hearing.
When she went home that night, she told her mother about the Dark Artist, from the first time she was followed home to the blood jar to the letters to the Catacombs. Maman became frantic, swearing Nathalie would never leave the house alone again until the Dark Artist was caught.
Her mother wasn’t wrong.
Nathalie didn’t fault her for being furious terrified hysterical overwhelmed and every emotion that bridged any of those feelings.
She would have been, too.
In a way she envied Maman for being able to feel anything at all, since she herself did not. Nathalie was numb, in a stupor, practically, by the time it was over.
And it was a good thing she’d told Christophe and Maman everything, because as she got ready for bed that night, she sat down to write in her journal.
The details eluded her.
Something was missing. Many things. She remembered the Dark Artist tipping his hat and saying C’est moi. The next thing she recalled was running down the main tunnel toward the people standing over the policeman’s body.
She hadn’t been spared memory loss after all, and it had been delayed by a few days. But this time she didn’t mind nearly as much. There was something to be said about forgetting.
* * *
Nathalie’s eyes fluttered open. She was inside a room, reclined on something cold and damp.
A concrete slab with water to keep the bodies cool, like they used to do.
She was in the corpse display room.
With a controlled, careful movement, she turned to the right. Odette Roux stared at her through dead eyes. She faced left and saw the nameless second victim doing the very same.
Sisters in death.
She sat up. A cluster of people gaped at her through the viewing pane. Face after face after face. Dozens of Parisians gawked. Pointed. Whispered. They shook their heads in pity and disgust and the secret gladness they got from knowing that they weren’t there, in a chilled room, a prop in the unwitting performance of the dead.
&n
bsp; Nathalie’s eyes shifted to the other slabs in the front row. Mirabelle Gregoire and Charlotte Benoit on the left. Agnès to the right, on the other side of Odette. Each one faced her.
Then they blinked.
All of them.
Odette, the anonymous girl, Mirabelle, Charlotte, and Agnès. One by one.
The nameless victim tried to talk. Her tongue, black as pitch, struggled to create a word. Nothing came out.
Nathalie felt more water flow over the slab. It was warmer now. Almost comfortable, like bath water. She looked down at her hands and shrieked as loud as she could, but not a sound escaped.
She was wearing white gloves.
And the water wasn’t water. It was blood.
She jumped off the slab and turned to the back row.
Another soundless cry.
There, on the five slabs in the back row, were five different versions of her own bloated, bloodied, carved-up corpse. Out of the corner of her eye, Nathalie saw movement. She watched as Agnès got up from her slab, walked slowly to the back row, and pulled a sheet over each body, one by one.
Nathalie ran to the door the way dreams forced you to run—hardly moving, never quick enough, too sluggish to escape whatever it was you were fleeing.
Finally she reached the door. With great effort she pushed it open and ran through the door only to find herself holding a lamp and standing in the maze of the Catacombs. It was silent, so silent that she heard only her heartbeat and nothing more. She took lefts and rights and went straight but couldn’t get anywhere; everything looked the same.
Footsteps behind her.
Nathalie started to run but it didn’t matter, couldn’t matter. She didn’t know how to leave. When she turned around, all she saw was darkness. The footsteps got closer.
She couldn’t see anything but blackness.
Then she stopped.
She extended her right arm to the side. Through the dim light she saw an orderly stack of bones—skulls, leg bones, arm bones—several meters back. She extinguished the lamp and curled up next to the dismembered skeletons, resting her head on the dirt.
The footsteps got closer and closer. She shut her eyes tightly but soon a glow shone through her eyelids.
She opened her eyes but was no longer in the Catacombs. Again she was on her back, this time staring at the sky. Maman and Papa came into view. Maman held a withered yellow bouquet and Papa clasped her vial of catacomb dirt in his hand. She sat up.
“I’m not dead!” she yelled. This time it wasn’t mute.
She woke up screaming.
35
The scent of cooked cherries drifted into Nathalie’s bedroom the next morning, an airy counterpoint to the horrors of the previous day.
Nathalie took her time getting ready, then opted for one more task before joining Maman in the kitchen.
The catacomb dirt. The stupid, meaningless soil that had cost a man his life and nearly cost her own.
Nathalie didn’t care to carry it around anymore, yet she didn’t want to get rid of it, either. She took the small box from her satchel and put it on her bookshelf, next to the bird skeleton. It could stay there.
She took the little jar with the sand and the shells from Agnès and put it on her nightstand. Her most treasured possession deserved its own place.
Maman had a baguette and a bowl of fresh fruit waiting for her. “I have some good news,” she said with a tentative smile. “We received a telegram. Papa is coming home much sooner than expected! Sometime this week.”
“He is?” Nathalie grinned on a day when she didn’t expect to smile or laugh. “This is the happiest news all summer. I need happy news. So do you.” She gave Maman a kiss on the cheek and sat down to eat.
As much as her mother tried to be cheerful, she couldn’t hide her weariness. And Nathalie didn’t blame her. Maman was calmer than Nathalie expected, both last night and as they talked about it again now, but it was obvious she hadn’t slept. Nathalie hadn’t, either.
“I haven’t read the newspaper in days,” Nathalie said as she cleaned the table after breakfast. “Do we still have the old ones?”
Maman spooned jam into one of the jars. “Ma bichette, are you sure that’s a good idea? Monsieur Patenaude said you needn’t worry about doing the morgue report until you’re ready to return. If you’re ready.”
“I will be ready, maybe in a few days.” Nathalie’s tone was muted, resigned. “I can pretend to think of something else, but we both know that won’t work.”
Maman sealed a jar, then sighed. “They’re in the rack beside Papa’s chair.”
Nathalie retrieved the newspapers and settled down at the kitchen table. She unfolded an edition from earlier in the week.
The one about Agnès.
Splashed across the front page was an artist’s depiction of Agnès’s grieving mother with the headline:
Heartrending Scene Inside Morgue
Her own heart shattered before she read another word.
Beside the illustration was a letter from the Dark Artist.
Dear Paris,
My work continues to improve, and the crowds continue to show their support for my exhibits. I couldn’t be more pleased.
I do believe I’m just getting started.
Yours,
The Dark Artist
His written words crawled on her skin like insects.
Agnès, an exhibit.
No. She was her friend.
Why, hello there.
It was both good and not good that she’d forgotten most of what had happened with the Dark Artist in the Catacombs. She remembered the words she’d used to describe it all, but they rang hollow in her memory, as if she’d recited someone else’s story. And what if she’d left something out? Now her imagination would fill in the blanks.
Did he touch me?
She let go of the uninvited question with a shudder. Her fingers climbed to a miniscule cut on her cheek. From the tip of the Dark Artist’s blade, as she recalled telling Christophe. She’d had worse scratches from an overly frisky Stanley when he was a kitten. Yet she’d somehow escaped a murderer who sliced women.
Sliced Agnès.
Was it the same knife?
He’d sliced Agnès from cheek to collarbone. But all Nathalie had was a cut on her cheek and a rip in her satchel.
Despite him wanting her blood.
She exhaled loudly, inviting a concerned glance from Maman. “I’m reading the article about Agnès,” she said, smoothing out the paper. She resumed reading.
This was an especially short-lived mystery, as Mademoiselle Jalbert’s parents identified her body mere hours after it was placed on display.
The article went on to describe the scene, complete with quotes from bystanders, the guard, and Christophe. Her thoughts went to the morgue tableaux at the Musée Grévin that depicted the first two victims. Had they continued to change it, to add corpses?
Would a likeness of Agnès be there?
She didn’t want to know.
Nathalie folded the paper neatly and turned it over so she wouldn’t have to see the illustration of Agnès’s mother. It was too accurate. Too real.
She pulled today’s Le Petit Journal closer. Again the headline attacked her.
POLICEMAN KILLED IN CATACOMBS
Agent de Police Sébastien Ethier was murdered by an unknown assailant yesterday at the entrance to the Catacombs.
His name was Sébastien. And she never knew, never even asked Christophe the names of the men who’d protected her.
Neither the Dark Artist nor Nathalie were mentioned in the article. Christophe had prepared her for this, saying the police wouldn’t want to incite panic. To every other Parisian it would read like an act of violence perpetrated at random.
Sébastien deserved better. He died because of me.
She stood up and went to the parlor window where Stanley was perched. She gazed across the street to where a policeman, her policeman, sat. You will be protected until we c
atch him, Christophe had told her. But she’d never thought to consider their protection and the sort of risk they’d undertaken for her.
“Ask him his name, Maman. When you go out later.”
Maman furrowed her brow. “Him who?”
“The policeman watching the apartment.” She gestured toward the window. “I want to know his name. I’m not to address them, but there’s no reason you can’t.”
“I understand, ma bichette. I will.”
Tonight she would pray for Agnès, Sébastien, and the policeman outside the apartment, by name.
* * *
Later that morning, while Nathalie was folding clothes, Simone knocked at the door. “If you like profiteroles, open up.”
Nathalie went to the door and greeted her. Simone swept into the apartment with two crème-filled pastries on a plate. “I thought I’d bring the two of you some food for a change. Someone was kind enough to bring us some, and I thought I’d share.” Her glance darted between Nathalie and her mother. “Did—did I come at a bad time?”
Maman shook her head, thanked Simone warmly, and took a profiterole. Nathalie closed the door and took the second profiterole off the plate. “Thank you. I’m going to save mine for later.”
“My dearest friend putting aside a profiterole?” Simone eyed her with a frown. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
“I have a lot to share,” Nathalie said, pointing her finger upward. “Maman, we’re going to be at the Rooftop Salon.”
Maman wiped her fingers with a cloth and tightened a jar. “Be careful.”
“We will,” said Nathalie.
“Why did she say that?” Simone asked as they exited the apartment.
“Because of yesterday.”
Several minutes later, as they sat near the inside edge of the roof for shade, Nathalie told Simone all that had happened.
“Do you think he’ll come after you?”
“Maman said Mathieu, the policeman watching from the street, is especially vigilant.” Nathalie hugged her knees. “Who knows? I don’t want to leave this building anytime soon, I can tell you that. And last night I slept with a chair propped under the doorknob.” Even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t a viable long-term plan. But it was a good one for today.
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