by Naomi Clark
“How about the catacombs?” she suggested, prying my hand off her arm to clasp it. “Feel like spending the day underground looking at bones?”
“Sounds like a werewolf’s dream.”
***
It was a bit morbid, but I’d been looking forward to visiting the catacombs for ages. There were rumors that as far back as the twelfth century, wolves had buried their dead there in secrecy, hiding the lupine skulls and bones from humans down in the mass graves of Saints Innocents cemetery. Regular church burials were avoided, historians reckoned, because of the risk of exposure. At a time when all of Europe was rife with stories of witches, vampires and devils, the danger of a dead werewolf being found and used as proof of witchcraft meant Packs were forced to ignore the usual rituals for burying their dead and to sneak corpses into mass graves.
By the eighteenth century, those corpses were nothing but bones and the Parisian government was looking for new ways to handle their dead. The catacombs were built and the bones were moved to the underground caverns that were all that remained of Paris’s stone mines. At the time, nobody had questioned the animal skeletons mixed in with the human ones, but after wolves were forced into the open during the First World War, archeologists went down into the catacombs to investigate. Wolves were separated from humans, as much as possible, and now all werewolf remains were housed in their own sepulture.
It was a piece of werewolf history from before humans knew we truly existed, beyond all their myths and fairy tales. I grinned to myself, imagining row upon row of long, narrow skulls, each one a soldier, a farmer, a wolf in hiding.
It was late morning when we reached the Barrière d’Enfer city gate. There was a long queue to get down underground, people pouring out of the bottle green art-nouveau building that served as the entrance to the catacombs. The building was filled with school kids and adults alike. The kids were all carrying sketchpads and chatting excitedly, whilst the adults wielded cameras and were far more somber. Shannon pulled her own camera out and began snapping pictures of the entrance.
“It’s such a striking contrast to the stonework around it,” she told me, gesturing at the creamy stone of the next building. “It just looks macabre.”
I thought it looked kind of dull, given what was underneath, but I don’t appreciate art the way Shannon does, so I didn’t argue. We queued with the students and teachers. If I inhaled deeply enough, I could catch the scent of damp stone and dry earth, almost buried under the smells of the crêpe stand across the street and the mixed perfumes and shampoo tangs of the crowd. It was a strangely exciting smell, age and death and history. My wolf twitched inside me, wanting out to explore those new smells properly. Two days without even a quick shift was two days too long for my animal half.
Eventually we were heading down a narrow spiral staircase into the catacombs. The chattering kids were silenced as if by magic as darkness crept over us, the only sound the soft gurgling of an aqueduct hidden somewhere nearby. The smells of stone and earth were richer now, filling my head with images of vast caverns and underground streams, like something out of a fantasy novel. I wondered if wolves had hidden down here when the witch hunts swept across Europe in the Middle Ages and anyone who looked or acted differently was fed to the fires.
“Creepy, isn’t it?” Shannon whispered to me as we reached the bottom of the staircase and found ourselves in a long, twisting hallway. The crowd began to break up as small tour groups drifted down the hall towards the caverns of bones.
I nodded, soaking up the silence. My wolf wasn’t keen on enclosed spaces, but something about this place put her at ease rather than on edge. The greyish stone and eerie half-light of the hallway didn’t seem creepy to me, but exciting. We reached the ossuary entrance, a stone portal inscribed with the words ‘Arrête, c’est ici l’empire de la Mort’, where Shannon had to stop and take more pictures.
“Any idea what that translates as?” I asked her. The only word I recognized was mort, a word I’d already seen too much of yesterday.
“Stop, this is the empire of Death,” Shannon intoned in her best scary voice, which wasn’t very scary at all. The portal was pretty intimidating though, huge and pale, with those forbidding words hanging over your head as you walked through. I had a pleasant little shiver of fear, the kind you get watching a horror film or waiting for a roller coaster to start.
Beyond the portal, the skeletons began. The arrangement of bones was neat and orderly, with occasional bursts of arty patterns, like the heart shape made of skulls and shinbones. The bones were all yellowed with age, some of them cracked and chipped. Wolf skulls with empty eye sockets stared down at me from shadowy recesses, some heartbreakingly small—cubs, nestled in stone alongside their elder Pack mates. I ran my fingers over the smooth, dry bones, awed by the sheer number of them.
Every now and then we ran into rusted gates that blocked off access to parts of the catacombs tour groups couldn’t visit. It was at one of those gates that I noticed a smell that shattered my wolf’s happy calm.
Sweet. Rotting. I gagged.
“What’s wrong?” Shannon asked, slowing down to join me at the gate. “Ayla? Something wrong?” She peered through the bars of the gate with me, down the passage into blackness. You couldn’t see more than a foot ahead, but that horrible smell was coming from down there somewhere. It was faint, nothing like as strong as it had been round Mike’s body last night, but it was unmistakable. How could Shannon not smell it? I glanced at her, saw no sign of revulsion or even awareness on her face. She couldn’t, I realized. She couldn’t smell it at all.
“Le Monstre,” I said softly, letting my wolf move forward in my head, sharpening my senses without actually letting her out. She was nervous now, on edge and ready for flight. It was such an unnatural response for her—for me—that I didn’t know what to make of it. But with my senses switched on high, I was sure of one thing.
Whatever Le Monstre was, I didn’t think it was here. The smell was stale, maybe a few days old, which might explain why Shannon didn’t notice it. It was still strong enough for a wolf’s senses, but too faint for a human’s. Maybe the creature had a lair deeper within the catacombs, or had made a kill here recently. I couldn’t smell flesh or blood, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the gate either. I needed to know what Le Monstre was, where it was. I curled my fingers round the bars, rust flaking off against my skin, and inhaled that scent, desperate to identify it.
“Ayla.” Shannon tugged at my sleeve. “Are you okay?”
“Is there a tour guide around?” I asked, barely hearing her question. “They need to get someone down there.”
She looked around. We’d started out tagging along behind a small group, but split off to visit the wolf caves and now we were alone, surrounded by shadow and bone. It was too easy to picture some lurking horror down in the darkness, feeding on human flesh. Panic burst through my wolf and suddenly I did feel claustrophobic and trapped; trapped down here with a monster that might be just on the other side of that gate.
“I think they’re just up ahead,” she said, nodding to a curve in the corridor. I heard hushed voices from around the corner. “Why? Ayla, will you please tell me what you’re doing?”
“Le Monstre,” I said again. “It’s been here, Shannon.”
“You think the thing that killed Mike...” She trailed off, pulling me back from the gate. “Let’s go find someone.”
I was happy to let her drag me off. My wolf was whining and clawing inside me, wanting to run. The strange calm of the catacombs was gone and all my wolf wanted now was fresh air and clean, safe smells.
Shannon found us a tour guide a few minutes later, in one of the wolf caves. He was explaining something to a group of the school kids, waving his arms around to gesture at the wall of skulls while they sketched furiously. We waited until he came to a pause in his speech and then Shannon grabbed him.
“Excuse moi... Parlez-vous Anglais?” she asked. He shook his head. Not the best start.
I was practically hopping in my desperation to tell someone about Le Monstre. That rotting-fruit smell clogged up my nostrils, making my stomach churn and I almost felt like if I could just tell someone about it, it would go away. The poor tour guide, confronted with one near-hysterical werewolf and one human with limited French skills, dragged one of the students from his group to help translate.
In fits and bursts we got our message across. I waited for the guide to launch into action, call the police and solve the mystery. Instead he stared blankly at us, then began raging in French, his tone leaving me in no doubt that what he was saying was very, very crude.
The schoolboy wedged between us, his eyes wide with glee, was happy to translate. “You tourists with your ghost stories and fucking idiot rumors, you think we have time for this shit?”
The tour group fell silent for a few seconds, then the kids started giggling helplessly. The tour guide gestured violently towards the cavern entrance, telling us without any need for translation to get out.
Shocked, I backed off before my wolf recovered her nerve and went for the guide’s throat. Shannon followed me hurriedly and we quickly found ourselves at the exit to the catacombs, both of us a little breathless and confused. My hands were shaking, my wolf furious and frightened.
“He didn’t believe me!” I growled, indignation rising in me. “How could he not believe me?”
“Well, be fair,” Shannon said. “All you’ve got is a funny smell and a gut feeling. And I didn’t smell anything.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Ayla, stop.” Shannon took my hands. “We can’t do anything here, okay? Let’s just go.”
I wanted to argue, but she was right. This wasn’t my city, it wasn’t a Pack problem and I couldn’t do anything with weird smells and instinct. I wasn’t happy about it by a long shot, but this wasn’t about me, was it? This holiday was about us.
We left the catacombs subdued and edgy. So far this week wasn’t working too well. I glanced at Shannon as we threaded our way through the busy street for the Metro station. She looked tired and drawn, eyes dark. My heart twinged and I took her hand, determined to put Le Monstre and Sun aside and focus on my mate.
“What do you want to do now?” I asked her, forcing a bright note into my voice.
She glanced around as if seeking inspiration. “To be honest, I could go for a drink.”
“Right,” I said. “So we need a fancy little Parisian wine bar. Something near the Eiffel Tower, or down the Champs-Élysées?”
“Sounds perfect.” There was an equally false brightness in her voice. The episode in the catacombs had left me off-balance and frustrated. I wanted to push it aside and I had no doubt Shannon did too. To be sworn at by a tour guide was embarrassing, being laughed at by a bunch of children was just salt in the wound. A nice glass of wine would do a lot to make us both feel better.
We found a seafood restaurant on Avenue de Suffren, where we had an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower. I sat gaping at the massive iron tower soaring up over the rooftops. Even from a few streets away it looked huge and despite my fear of heights, I couldn’t wait to see what Paris looked like from so high up.
Over a stupidly expensive bottle of white wine and a plate of sea salt roasted sardines, we both relaxed. I wasn’t always a huge fan of seafood—it wasn’t a natural part of a wolf’s diet, and my wolf tended to turn her nose up at anything too fishy—but the food was delicious and the wine was crisp. The scent of apples and grass in the alcohol banished the rotting fruit smell from the catacombs.
Shannon stretched out in her chair, tangling her feet with mine under the table. “So,” she said, popping a cherry tomato into her mouth. “Tell me exactly what it was about that weird smell that got you so upset.”
I dropped my fork, surprised. “I thought we couldn’t do anything about that?” At least she believed I’d smelled something. With the tour guide’s vicious reaction, it wouldn’t have surprised me if Shannon had thought I was imagining it.
“We can’t,” Shannon agreed. “But I’ve never seen you get like that over a smell alone.”
She hadn’t seen me when I’d caught Hesketh’s scent all those months ago, I thought grimly. Of course, that hadn’t been her fault. She’d been in hospital with broken ribs while I hunted down the copper who’d skinned my dead cousin. “It’s just...not right,” I said finally, after chewing my answer over for a while. “Unnatural.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Unnatural? You don’t mean man-made, I take it?”
I shook my head. “It’s not like a chemical or anything. It’s... I don’t know.” I speared a sardine, angry at my own inability to describe the scent. Not many people realized that a wolf’s—a real wolf’s—sense of smell wasn’t as good as say, a gun dog’s, but werewolves relied more on scent than any other sense in hunting. A weird quirk of evolution, but true anyway. I hated not knowing why this scent upset my wolf side so much. The immediate, gut-wrenching fear it caused in me—and Sun, too, I thought—didn’t really seem to be anything to do with the type of smell it was.
I tried explaining that to Shannon without much luck. “It’s like...you know the smell of the sewerage plant near where we used to live?” I asked. Before moving back to my home town, we’d lived up north in a town near Newcastle, with a massive recycling and sewerage plant just on the outskirts. Shannon grimaced and nodded. “Well, I knew that was an unpleasant smell and my wolf didn’t like it, but the smell didn’t bother us, you know? I know the smell of Le Monstre isn’t really that awful, but it does upset me. Us.” Upset, I snorted mentally. I wasn’t ready to admit aloud how the scent terrified my wolf; terrified me.
Shannon sighed. “Well, I don’t really get it, but I’ll take your word for it.” She finished her wine and saluted me with her empty glass. “Let’s go collect our mother-to-be, shall we?”
Five
The Loup Garou was full when we got back; wolves in human form playing pool and using the computers I saw one or two furred shapes lounging near the TV, muzzles tucked under their tails as they napped. One of them was bright blue—Clémence, I guessed. Euro-pop music played just a little too loudly, shimmery, synthetic beats drowning out the TV and the click of pool balls. The bitter smell of cigarette smoke filled the air and I thought I could smell Silver Kiss too, which gave me a nasty jolt. Not the kind cut with aconite that drove wolves wild, but the regular herbal kind. Still, the scent was tied together with violence and death in my mind and my wolf curled her nose in disgust at it.
I couldn’t see Sun anywhere, but her scent was still fresh. Holding Shannon’s hand, I wove us through the crowd of wolves. Mostly teenagers, I noticed absently and wondered how many of them were runaways and outcasts. I wondered too if I should warn Clémence about Silver Kiss. If it, or some variant, had made its way across the channel, the aconite cut cigarette might have too.
“There she is,” Shannon said, distracting me. She nodded towards the bar and I saw Sun’s thick black hair glowing with bluish highlights. She had her back to us, shoulders slumped. A tall, dark-skinned wolf sat next to her, one hand stroking her back with long, soothing sweeps.
“Sun?” Shannon ventured as we joined them.
Sun glanced round at us. She was crying, tears shining on her cheeks. Her carefully applied rainbow makeup was ruined and she looked ready to collapse, but she forced a smile when she saw us. “Hey guys. Did you have a good morning?”
Shannon and I exchanged looks. “Yes,” I said decisively. No point telling Sun about the catacombs; it just wasn’t what she needed. “How are you doing?”
Her smile faltered and instead of answering, she gestured to the werewolf next to her. “This is Thérèse, you know, the counselor Clémence mentioned. Thérèse, this is Ayla and Shannon. They’re looking after me.”
Shannon squeezed my hand a bit too hard at that, but when I looked at her, I knew she was melting. You couldn’t look at Sun right now, vulnerable and lost, without wanting to help her. You’d hav
e to have a heart of stone and Shannon just didn’t. “Nice to meet you,” Shannon said to Thérèse.
“And you. Sun has told me how kind you’ve both been.” Thérèse stood to shake our hands. She was even taller than I’d thought, surely pushing six feet. Slim and elegant, she looked like a catwalk model, with cheekbones to die for. Her lime green dress fairly glowed against her skin and her long hair was woven into hundreds of beaded braids. I wondered what happened to them when she shifted. “Sun says you are her neighbors?”
“For this week, anyway,” I replied. “After that...” I shrugged. “I suppose we don’t know what happens after this week.” I looked to Sun for an answer.
She wiped her face, resolute all of a sudden. “I can’t go home. They’ll make me outcast.” I opened my mouth to protest that, but she shook her head, cutting me off. “They will, Ayla. You don’t know my Pack.”
“But the cub—”
“They might take it away from me.” Panic flashed through her eyes. “Maybe your Pack is different, but mine won’t give me a choice. What I’ve done, what me and Mikey did, is unforgiveable.”