by Pro Se Press
“Paulette, how did you hear about these Chiffonniers?”
“Many years ago, a gypsy told me the story of the bone men and their queen. That was before these strange men were appearing so frequently. The woman told me about a young girl from ages ago who sold her soul so that she might bring back her murdered tribe. The devil granted her wish, but she could only summon the dead from their bones, so she wanders the earth seeking the bones of her tribesmen. The gypsy woman told me that the bone queen would be here soon and that the city of lights would burn.”
“You think these bone men and their queen are behind Amaury disappearing?” I tried to wrap my head around this; I hadn’t guessed that I would be dealing with something out of a horror movie when I had received that call for help.
“I feel it in my heart.”
“We should go back to Amaury's apartment and see if we can find any clues about who was there, where they went. They had to have left something behind. There were two men there last night trying to kill me; they must have left something behind.”
“Pascal suggested the same thing,” Paulette nodded as her brother appeared, fighting through the crowds and returning to the car.
“Breakfast.” He announced as he opened the car door. The scent of sugar, and fresh baked bread followed him as he passed out pastries.
We ate in silence in the car, and for that moment, I let myself focus on nothing but the taste of the warm bread melting on my tongue. This bread was one of my favorites, pain au chocolat, a fresh baked pastry wrapped around thin strips of dark chocolate. A sweet and savory bliss exploded across my tongue.
“We will go to Amaury's home now.” Pascal announced as he started the car back up, “We will find where he has been taken and we will return him here.”
I used the back of my hand to wipe the chocolate from my mouth, “Sounds like a plan Pascal.”
“You have weapons?” Pascal asked.
“Amaury said to not bring any, that he had everything I’d need.” I shrugged my shoulders. I had a few small blades on me, but nothing substantial.
“Well, this is all I can offer.” he passed a wrapped package back to me. Inside was a small pistol. “There is no extra ammo for it. Is very hard to get here.”
“Thank you,” I tucked the gun against my hip.
“Consider it a welcome to Paris gift.” he smiled, “She is one hell of a city!”
We made it to Amaury’s apartment in no time. “There should be a guy on the kitchen floor. I knifed him when he started shooting at me.” I warned the two as I unlocked the door and shoved it open. Amaury’s apartment was just like I had left it the night before. It didn’t seem the police had come by at all, I wondered if anyone had even heard the chaos during the night. There were bullet holes in the walls, and knives scattered on the floor, but there was no body on the floor.
“There's no way that guy got up after that,” I mumbled, kneeling onto the floor.
I found the knives that I had thrown at him on the floor, no blood on them, and found a single vertebra sitting on the kitchen floor. It was an old bone, chipped and rough around the edges. I picked it up and ran it over my fingers before pulling the bone I'd found the night before out to compare them. They both looked around the same age ,and both of them were roughed up like they'd been thrown in a tumbler and beaten. The planes of the bones were uneven and disfigured in a way that didn’t seem natural.
“The Chiffonniers. I told you they have him.” Paulette crossed herself.
“This is the second bone I’ve found here. Last night I found this one in the bedroom. I swear this wasn’t in the kitchen last night.”
Pascal took the bones from me and looked them over, holding them up to the lights and squinting at them.
“When a bone man is killed all that he leaves behind is the bone that was used to summon him. Amaury must have killed one before he was taken. And then the man that you killed last night must have left the other bone. Pascal you have to see now it is not crazy talk.”
“What? That skeletons are being summoned to kill, rob and kidnap people by an ancient girl looking for her tribe? That's not crazy talk?” Pascal snorted, “More than likely someone is using that old fool's tale as a cover. You said two men were here, oui?” he looked at me, “More than likely his companion took the body of the man you knifed, cleaned up then dropped off the bone.”
“Je n'y crois pas a ces conneries!” Paulette fumed, storming past me to go check out the bedroom. “Fils de pute!”
“She's your mother too Paulette!” Pascal shook his head and passed the bones back to me, “Sorry, she just gets these crazy ideas in her head and won’t let them go.”
“I've had stranger things happen to me. You really think that this bone man story is bogus?”
“Not you too!” he groaned, “Yes, I think the story is an old legend that gypsies tell to get a piece of coin. I know that Amaury has his share of enemies. Paris has been getting dangerous and Amaury was well known among the criminals in the city.”
I nodded and put the bones in my pocket, I hoped it was only my imagination that made them feel hot against the fabric of my suit.
Paulette paced the room, still ranting in French when I made my way into the bedroom. She looked up at me, “I am sorry for yelling. He just makes me crazy.”
“It's alright, I didn’t understand what you were saying anyway,” I smiled, “Amaury didn’t teach me any good swear words in French.”
Paulette laughed, “Oh, we French are good with the insults. I think my mother was a master of all the curse words.”
“Any hints on where Amaury was taken?”
She sighed, “I have found nothing but broken furniture.”
I nodded and went to look out the window at the street below, even during the day it was quiet, only a few people making their way around.
I almost missed it, but for some reason my eyes were drawn to the old black car as it circled the block. After a few seconds I realized that was the car that had picked me up from the airport, the one I had abandoned to escape from the apartment the night before. And now someone, in a grey patchwork suit was driving around the area. The car pulled over and parked and I saw a group of four men step outside and begin heading for the stairs.
“Pascal! Paulette, we've got company!” I yelled.
I heard Pascal shut and lock the main entryway, pulling the dining room table in front of the door to block it. Paulette and I made our way out of the bedroom and back to the living room.
“Let's hide,” Paulette suggested, “See what they do, where they go. It’s our best chance to find out where they are coming from.”
I glanced at Pascal; he seemed to be struggling with the idea of not trying to rip these goons limb from limb. “Let's give hiding a shot, but be ready for a fight if they spot us.” I proposed.
Pascal grumbled but agreed, and we split up, Paulette hid in a pantry in the kitchen, Pascal hid in the hall bathroom and I ducked inside the busted entertainment center. The wood was so busted that I could see out into the apartment with no problems.
The door was soon being kicked in and the four men hurried inside. Three of them spoke in the strange French that I couldn’t understand, the words and accents familiar but different from what I had studied, maybe a different dialect from a different part of the country?
The fourth man seemed to have just as hard a time understanding the others as I did. “Will you all speak properly? I cannot understand a word,” he grumbled, and I was surprised to hear the British accent flavoring his words.
The other three men tutted at him before the group separated and moved through the apartment. The British man headed my way and I held my breath as he paused in front of the entertainment center. For a moment I was sure our eyes had met and that he knew I was in there, but then he just sat on top of the busted piece of furniture. It groaned under his weight and I pressed my back against the bottom piece of support wood, trying to bolster it and keep the battered th
ing from caving in on me.
“Stupid gits don’t even speak proper French,” His legs swung idly, crashing into the side of the entertainment center echoing a dull thudding heartbeat all around me.
“Hurry it up, we need to be back to base!” he yelled down the hallway, and there was a jumbled yelling response in the same strange French.
Then I heard Pascal's voice, and a struggle before he was being dragged down the hall, thrown down on the floor in front of the entertainment center. I stopped breathing for a moment and let my hands wrap around the small gun that he had given me.
“Well hello there guv, what are you doing hiding out here?” the entertainment center creaked as the British man stood.
“The place was open, though it'd be a good place to rest for a bit. I'm in between homes for the moment.” Pascal was good at making things up, but there was a difference between good for a stage and good for lying to crooks.
A foot stepped down on Pascal's face, blood streamed from his nose as two of the French goons picked him up. “I don’t like liars.” The Brit spoke pleasantly enough, “So, how about a real reason?”
Pascal just shook his head, mumbling in French, “Mes affaires font mal au cul.”
There was another thud of Pascal's head being slammed forward, reverberating against my hiding spot. Dribbles of blood thumped against my forehead. My eyes met his and I saw him very slightly shake his head, and hiss a soft, “Shh...”
“Let's take him with us,” the British man said, pulling Pascal to his feet, “I'm sure she'll enjoy some fresh meat to chew on.”
“Oh boy, taking me to a femme?” Pascal spat some blood out, “Where might this lady live? The sewers?”
The British man laughed, “Nothing nearly so crass. The catacombs are where you will meet the bone queen.” He restrained Pascal, pulling a dark bag over the other's head, “You three, finish this place off and return to base.” He shoved Pascal from the apartment.
The smell of gasoline made my heart start racing again and I saw one of the men beginning to pour it over the floors. I put my hand over my mouth as gasoline was sloshed onto the entertainment center, dripping down around me. They systematically hit the main rooms of the apartment before heading back to the door; the last one to leave threw a lighter into the living room before shutting the door.
In the time it took me to burst out of the entertainment center the apartment was fully engulfed in flames. I moved for the door, “Paulette!” The heat seared my words.
Paulette pushed out of the kitchen pantry, and motioned to the window behind me before hurrying past me. I followed after her, flames licking at my back. The smoke was draining and I finally fell to my knees, blindly crawling the few feet to the window. Paulette was struggling to pull it open. I managed to get back to my feet and between the two of us we busted glass and it shattered, raining glinting shards onto the fire escape stairway.
Words were forgotten in favor of coughing and gasping. I couldn’t stop coughing; my body seemed to think that if I coughed long enough I would be able to get all of the smoke out of my lungs.
“You are alright?” Paulette finally asked, her voice was breathless and her face was smudged with ashes.
She waited for me to nod before ushering us both towards the car. I limped after her, my body was exhausted and every part of me felt heavy. Thirty seconds in a fire had kicked my ass worse than any fight I'd ever been in. I was not up for thinking about repeating that process ever again.
Paulette started the car in silence and we drove away as the fire fighters were arriving. By now the entire building was up in flames, the small copy shop that had existed downstairs was just a ball of fire. I didn’t even realize that my eyes were shutting as the inferno disappeared behind the car.
I woke on a small sofa. The ash had been washed from my face, but I could still smell the rancid scent of burnt hair and gasoline clinging to me like a thick perfume.
I sat up, feeling the familiar weight of the gun at my hip, “Hello?” I finally called out. It looked like a hotel room. There was a small bed in the center of the room; the sheets disheveled like someone had just gotten out of it.
Paulette stepped out of the bathroom in a burst of steam. Her skin was a raw pink and I wondered if that was from the fire or from a too hot shower.
“Morning,” Paulette said as she wrapped her hair in a towel, “Go shower, food is on the way.”
I wanted to stop and ask what had happened, where we were, and what we were going to do, but the lure of washing the stench of fire from me won out. I kicked off the blankets and stumbled to the bathroom.
Peeling off my suit, I was glad to see that there was no major damage to it. Some of the fabric on my arms and legs had been ripped, but at least the main body area was still in tact and I wouldn’t have to run around half-naked.
My body actually seemed to be in worse shape than the suit. Every muscle ached and protested any movement. I had a nice red welt forming on the side of my head and cuts along my arms and legs. A green-purple bruise blossomed under my left breast and it was already tender to the touch.
The shower was a welcome relief and it calmed my angry muscles and relaxed the tension from my body. Washing my long dark hair I realized that a good chunk of the end of my hair had been singed as it crunched into ash under my touch.
I groped out of the shower to my boots and found the thin knife I kept hidden there. I carefully worked to even my hair back out, cutting off the uneven and brunt off ends until I was satisfied.
Turning off the water, I wrapped myself in a thick plush robe and pulled my hair up into a ponytail; I didn’t want anything else catching on the ends of it. I left my suit hanging up in the bathroom to try to air the smoke out of it.
Paulette was dressed and sitting on the bed when I left the bathroom. She motioned to the food on the bedside table, “Eat. We have a plan to make.”
I barely tasted anything as I ate, the process to chew and swallow seemed mechanical this morning, “We need to get into the catacombs.”
Paulette nodded, “Oui, that is clear.”
“What’s the best way?”
“The main entrance. Where tourists go. Other areas blocked off.”
“There are too many people there; we won’t be able to get in. You know that these people are not operating out of the places where people sightsee!”
“The catacombs are very big, they extend all over Paris. The main area has some paths blocked with just thin ropes. We slip under them and are away from tourists quickly.”
“Someone is going to see us do that Paulette.” I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
Paulette smiled at me, “You have not been to the catacombs. You see very little.”
“What?”
Paulette sighed and stood up, “It is very dark, and there are many hallways to duck down. Few people, especially now in the morning. Come, get dressed and I will show you.”
I was surprised that there wasn’t a line to get into the Catacombs of Paris. Paulette and I were able to walk inside to a bored looking woman sitting behind a small window. Paulette paid 19 Euros for the two of us.
“That way please. Watch your step,” the woman said in carefully practiced English.
Paulette smiled at her and headed down a dark hallway that grew more and more narrow until we finally hit a set of spiral stairs. I felt like my shoulders were going to graze against the stone as I spiraled down and down. I couldn’t see Paulette even though I knew she was only a few steps ahead of me. Dizziness began to hit as we continued round and round and down and down. The air was getting drastically colder and I could feel the weight of the world pulsing from above. When the stairs finally ended I had to put my hand to the wall to steady myself, I still felt like I was running in circles. I’d never been claustrophobic before, but that staircase was something else entirely.
“Come,” Paulette said, and motioned forward where a few lanterns were glowing. The room was made of stone shap
ed into arched shapes with pillars carefully designed for support. There was a final archway that led into an area of almost pitch-blackness. Carved overhead was a simple message:
Arrete! C' est ici L'Empire de la Mort
“Dramatic, aren’t they?” I muttered.
Paulette glanced at me, “They simply give warning. This is the Empire of the Dead, not of your world.”
Just pass that sign and all I could see were bones. They were stacked on top of one another in carefully arranged patterns, a block of skulls here, leg bones here, and assorted other bones here. Thin limestone pillars separated little hollows of various human parts stacked all the way to the wall. The degrading of the limestone made the stones rough with small pores, like large bones wrapping around the entire chamber.
“How many—?” I started to ask.
“Six million. There are around six million dead here.” Paulette answered. She moved without hesitation through the chambers of bones.
“Do you know where we need to go?” I asked, keeping my eyes on Paulette’s back; she was simply a shadowy figure in this low light.
We passed a wall of femurs carefully stacked with a heart made of skulls in the center; the monks that stacked these bones must have had some issues.
“Oui, look up.”
I glanced up, the low ceiling wasn’t very high over my head, and was a chipped and worn old stone with a thick black line painted on it, running in both directions.
“Long ago the ceilings were marked because too many would get lost and perish here. We will follow it for some time before we go a different way. Remember it and it will help get you back too.”
“You’ve done this before haven’t you?”
A ghost of a smile crossed her lips, “Pascal and I use to play here. Our mother was a tour guide for many years.”
That explained how she was so calm as we delved deeper into the catacombs. I, on the other hand, felt like my heart was going to freeze in my chest. I’d been around death, hell I knew how to fight to the death. It wasn’t something that I was afraid of, but this, these bones stacked with almost library-like precision and care unnerved me. Sheer number overwhelmed my ability to rationalize. How could I possibly hope to even understand that there were six million skulls, femurs, spines, and countless other bones scattered all over here. I was hoping that Amaury wasn’t going to be among these bones.