The Darkness Dwellers

by Kirsten Miller

  “You forgot three pairs of Prada shoes,” Oona added with her hands still hiding her face.

  “Basically anything she could fit into Oona’s suitcase,” Luz said.

  “My limited edition Louis Vuitton suitcase.”

  “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, Oona, but people get robbed all the time. How do we know it was Lili?” I asked.

  Luz picked a seemingly random piece of paper from the mess on the floor and handed it to me. “Lili left a note.”

  I peered down at the page. It had been ripped out of a Chinese book. Scrawled on one side was a message: YOU’RE NOT SO TOUGH.

  “Should we call the police?” I asked.

  “Why? So they can arrest me for making false reports?” Oona moaned. “One of the neighbors let Lili in the front door last night. Another watched her break into the apartment while Mrs. Fei was asleep. They both swear it was me that they saw.”

  “Oh, Oona!” DeeDee and Iris had just arrived. As DeeDee gaped at the destruction, Iris marched toward the girl in the chair and wrapped her little arms around her. I expected Oona to push Iris away. Instead she instantly broke into tears.

  “Please don’t cry,” I pleaded. It still scared me to see that someone like Oona could be crushed just like anyone else. “I know how hard you worked to buy all of this stuff, but it’s only stuff. We have plenty of money. We’ll all chip in and replace everything in a couple of days.”

  Oona only sobbed harder.

  “She doesn’t care about the things that were stolen,” said Iris.

  “Then what’s the problem?” DeeDee asked.

  “Geez.” Iris huffed. “Sometimes I think you guys must be robots. Oona just lost her sister.”

  “How could she lose Lili?” I asked. “She never even knew her.”

  “I thought I did,” Oona managed to say. We had to wait another minute for her to be able to continue. “When I saw that shed, I thought I’d finally found someone who knew exactly what it’s like to go through life as Lester Liu’s daughter. I thought she understood how it felt to be used and abandoned. I wanted to help her—the way Mrs. Fei and the Irregulars have helped me. But Lili doesn’t want my help. She’s just out to get me. This”—Oona gestured to the room around her—“this is what I get for trying to be nice. From now on, it’s war.”

  “No, Oona,” I groaned. There were too many wars being waged in New York City. I couldn’t handle more than one at a time.

  “I’m serious, Ananka. Get your coat back on. We’re going out to find Lili and haul her little butt to jail.”

  “I hate to tell you this, Oona, but we’re not going anywhere right now,” DeeDee said. “Have you looked outside?”

  Five heads swiveled toward the window. The sky was dark and a pile of ice pebbles was growing against the pane.

  “They sent us home from school two hours early,” DeeDee explained. “We’re in the middle of an ice storm.”

  “Great,” Oona growled. “I hope my evil twin freezes to death in that shed.”

  “You don’t really mean that,” Iris said.

  “You wanna bet?” That’s when I knew Oona was on the road to recovery.

  “Lili won’t be going back to that shed anyway,” Luz noted. “I’m sure she made enough money off your stuff to keep herself nice and toasty for a while.”

  While the other girls gave Luz the evil eye, I silently gave thanks to Mother Nature. The weather hadn’t turned against me. Instead, it had given me the one thing I needed the most. Time. The Irregulars all appeared harried and haggard. And if I looked half as bad as I felt, then I was the sorriest one of the bunch. My friends deserved a few hours to recuperate. And I needed those hours to restore some of their faith in me. Now, thanks to an unforeseen ice storm, Molly Donovan would be stuck at home with her fliers. Lili Liu would be hiding out from the weather. For a single night, the Irregulars’ wars had been put on hold.

  “Everyone call your parents,” I ordered. “We’re all sleeping at Oona’s tonight. We’ll spend the evening getting this place back in order. Tomorrow is Saturday, and we’ll have the whole day. Weather permitting, we can hunt down Lili Liu.”

  “I don’t know if it’s safe for me to stay here,” Iris told me. “You’ve probably been plotting my murder for days.”

  I’d almost forgotten I’d ever been angry with the little brat. “Against my better judgment, I’ve decided to let you live,” I informed Iris. “In fact, now that we’re all together, I have something to confess to all of you. I’m sorry. I let a silly little crush interfere with my duties. I swear it won’t happen again.”

  “Does this mean you’re not in love with Kaspar anymore?” DeeDee teased me.

  “Iris told you, too?” I moaned.

  “No one needed to tell us,” Oona said. “You’re not exactly subtle.”

  “Yeah, well I’m not stupid, either,” I said. “I’ve realized that no boy is worth losing six friends.”

  “Are you sure?” Luz asked with a grin. “Kaspar is pretty awesome.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “And that’s why he belongs with Betty. So, I’ll keep my distance from him and start kidnapping delivery boys the way Iris does.”

  “I told you before, it isn’t kidnapping!” Iris protested.

  The laughter in the room trailed off as my phone started to ring. I grimaced at the sound. No one ever called unless there was a problem to report.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “Hello, Miss Fishbein, this is Amelia Beauregard.”

  I felt my spine stiffen. “Hello, Madame Beauregard,” I said, and the Irregulars snapped to attention. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

  “I’m calling to ask if you have spoken with Miss Bent today.”

  “She texted me around five a.m. New York time,” I said. “I haven’t heard from her since.”

  “I see. Well, I’m afraid I sent Miss Bent on a little errand this morning. It’s now seven p.m. in Paris and my assistant has yet to return.”

  “A little errand? To the catacombs to search for your boyfriend’s body? Listen to me, Madame Beauregard. I suggest you do everything in your power to find Betty. Because if anything has happened to her, my friends and I will make it our mission in life to destroy you. We know there’s something fishy going on over there. A friend of mine cracked the last code Gordon Grant wrote. We know about Thyrza.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying, Madame?” I demanded.

  Amelia Beauregard cleared her throat. “I understand,” she assured me. “And I will do everything in my power to find Miss Bent.”

  The line went dead.

  THE FISHBEIN GUIDE TO … BULLIES

  Bullies are the lowest form of life, and at some point, you may have to deal with one. If you end up a target, don’t take it too personally. Write it off as bad luck, and make good use of the following tips …

  Refuse to Give Bullies What They Want

  Bullies want to see you sweat, cry, and beg for mercy. It may take a great deal of self-control, but try not to give them the satisfaction. (This is one of the many ways a good poker face can come in handy.) Stand your ground. Practice a blank stare. Think like a jujitsu master, and use your opponent’s energy against her.

  Fight the Forces of Evil

  Don’t stand on the sidelines. If a classmate is being bullied, give him your support. And if you ever see a younger, smaller, or less fortunate kid being tormented, it is YOUR DUTY as a twenty-first-century lady/gentleman to do whatever you can to help. Do it because it’s the right thing to do, but feel free to accept an ambassadorship to France when the kid you helped grows up to be the President of the United States.

  Don’t Look Like an Idiot

  Bullies make fun of things their victims are helpless to change. The size of a kid’s bank account. The size of a kid’s brain. The size of a kid’s pants. Why do they choose to focus on such things? Because bullies are not very clever. So
do your best to never look equally dumb. Want to give someone a hard time for being a jerk? Be my guest. But don’t crack jokes about a person’s weight, hair color, acne, or background. Unless you want to look like an idiot.

  Be Prepared to Defend Yourself

  When dealing with bullies, you may need more than a good poker face. If you are blessed with a rapier wit, feel free to turn it on your opponents. But very few of us are able to cut a bully down to size with well-chosen words. So I suggest some classes in the martial art of your choosing. The confidence you build may ensure that you never need to use your new skills.

  Do a Little Detective Work

  Some bullies are injured souls who lash out at the world because their own lives are difficult. But a lot of people are just mean. Fortunately, if you’ve read my other books, you should have the skills to figure out which kind of bully is on your case. (These skills include—but aren’t limited to—tailing, eavesdropping, and trash-can archaeology.) If you should uncover a painful secret, keep it to yourself. If you discover a not-so-painful secret, discreetly use it to your advantage.

  Make a Documentary

  Have a trusted colleague film your bully in action. (Or find a way to secretly film a confrontation yourself.) Post the video online, where it will remain forever. And it won’t go unnoticed. Future employers, teachers, boyfriends, and college admissions committees will all be able to watch your bully in action. Now, that’s what I call justice.

  Chapter 31

  Les Frères Corbeaux

  PARIS: FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 20

  The walls of the ossuary were lined with brown bones. Millions of femurs, tibias, and skulls had been neatly stacked from floor to ceiling. In some of the passages, they formed strangely artistic patterns. But Betty and Marcel also passed rooms filled with haphazard heaps of discarded remains. It was as though a gluttonous giant had enjoyed a meal nearby, picked the bones clean, and tossed them over his shoulder.

  The atmosphere felt ominous to Betty. The dead had not intended to spend eternity trapped in an ancient quarry. Many had lain undisturbed for centuries only to have their remains brutally ripped from the ground. The bones of princes and paupers now mingled together. Even the most brilliant doctor couldn’t have distinguished the mistresses from their maids. Betty understood why the ossuary might beckon to the morbid, the disturbed, and the deranged, who all came to spend time with the dead. This was a place of incredible power.

  “I don’t know this part of the tunnels very well,” Marcel whispered. “I came here a few times when they were still open to the public, but I haven’t been back in months.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Betty replied, keeping her voice low. Marcel had warned her that flesh-and-blood beings might be lurking among the old bones. He’d told her about the Darkness Dweller who’d been attacked by an unseen assailant—and the signs that bizarre rites were being performed in the darkest corners of the ossuary. Freshly painted symbols had appeared on the walls, and strange marks had been found on the floor.

  “Look,” Marcel said. He bent down beside a tower of skulls and traced a faint image with his finger. It would have been almost invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking carefully—a hat with three floppy points and a ball dangling from each. “They use ultraviolet paint.”

  “Is that a jester’s hat?” Betty asked.

  “That’s what it looks like. Phlegyas said the Darkness Dwellers have found other icons as well. Test tubes. Strange religious symbols. Even little houses.”

  “What do you think the signs mean?” Betty asked.

  “No one knows,” Marcel replied. “Not even the Darkness Dwellers.”

  A pair of beetles scurried up Betty’s right boot. She flicked them off with a finger. “What’s up with the bugs?” she asked.

  “There’s an infestation,” the boy told her. “Look around you. They’re everywhere.”

  Betty shivered when she saw them. Thousands upon thousands of small black and brown beetles had made their homes in the spaces between the bones. Well camouflaged, they could have remained out of sight. Instead, they peeked out at their guests, waving their antennae to get a good whiff of them.

  They must have liked what they smelled. As Betty and Marcel continued, more beetles appeared. Most stayed on the sidelines, like spectators at a parade. A few bold individuals rushed out from the piles and tried to keep pace with the humans. By the time Marcel and Betty turned a blind corner and found themselves at a dead end, a long line of beetles was trailing behind them.

  “Shhh,” Marcel whispered, brushing a bug from his pants leg. He pointed to a spot next to a mound of dirt and human remains. There, a large hole in the floor offered access to a lower level of the catacombs. The boy turned off his flashlight and dropped to his knees at the edge of the opening. Betty quickly followed his lead, and she caught the sound of voices in the distance. There were three of them, all male, and they slowly grew closer and closer until the men couldn’t have been more than a few feet from the hole. Yet Betty could see nothing in the murky darkness below. Suddenly, there was the sound of someone falling and a muffled howl of pain.

  “Oh dear,” said a man in French. “I do wish she would be more careful. We simply cannot allow her to break any of those lovely bones.”

  “Perhaps we should use our flashlights, Guillaume,” a second man replied. “Just this once, so she can see where she’s going.”

  “I’ll need light for my work tonight, anyway,” the third added.

  “It is a risk,” the one named Guillaume said. “But I suppose our reward justifies it.”

  The hole became a pool of light. Betty and Marcel inched backward when a man stepped into sight. He removed a pair of night-vision goggles and opened a leather-bound notebook. His wool pants and waistcoat seemed to have been salvaged from another era, and the copper-colored tweed had been professionally pressed. The collar of the man’s white shirt remained spotless, and his sleeves had been neatly folded above the elbow. Even the part in his sandy blond hair appeared to have been created with laser-like precision.

  “We still need a leprous femur, the pelvis of a woman who died childless, one skull fit for a production of Hamlet in Moscow, and a second skull with a set of cavity-free white teeth,” Guillaume announced, reading aloud from a list in his notebook. His voice was crisp, serious, and trustworthy. He could have been a surgeon—or an actor who played one on television.

  “Who ordered the teeth?” the second man asked.

  “A dentist in Belleville,” Guillaume replied.

  “Ah, well I hope you charged handsomely,” the third man said. “It may take quite a while to fill that order. The toothbrush wasn’t invented until 1780.”

  “Thankfully we’re not in a rush now, are we, François? We have plenty of time to search for a suitable skull. I was worried it might take weeks to procure the first item on our list. A complete female skeleton is always a tricky order, but fortune deigned to send a beauty our way.”

  “She is magnificent, isn’t she?” François replied. The statement was followed by a rather inhuman grunt. “Monsieur Segal should be most pleased. When do you imagine we’ll be able to deliver? He sounded quite impatient when I took the order over the phone.”

  “Tell him two weeks, Pierre. We will deflesh the bones this evening. The Dermestidae should have them cleaned by this time tomorrow. But then the skeleton will need to be bleached and dried. If Monsieur Segal complains, be sure to let him know that we have acquired bones of exceptional quality and provenance.”

  “Should I tell him they belonged to a European princess?”

  “No, no. That’s far too specific. Aristocracy, perhaps … or maybe an actress?”

  One of the men yelped with pain. “Our donor does not appear to be very fond of that idea. She just kicked me in the shin.”

  “Fine, then,” Guillaume said, making a diligent note in his journal. “Tell Monsieur Segal that he’ll soon have a princess to decorate his powder room. Now let’s tend
to our other customers. I can see a test tube painted on the floor ahead. I believe there were some fine-looking lepers in that section the last time we visited.”

  The man standing below the hole disappeared down the passage. A second gentleman appeared briefly in the opening, wearing an almost identical tweed suit in a darker shade of brown. The third man was the largest of the trio. His pants and waistcoat were a burnt orange, and he held a rope in one hand. It led to the wrists of a girl trailing behind him like an obstinate mule. A strip of fabric torn from the hem of her coat functioned as a gag. It was Sidonia Galatzina.

  “Oh my God,” Betty whispered to Marcel. “They’re body snatchers! Bone thieves! They’re going to kill Sidonia and sell her skeleton!”

  “I knew it!” Marcel jumped to his feet. “I knew people were dying down here! But I never imagined anything as horrible as this! Those poor tourists … we need to get help!”

  “There’s not enough time,” Betty told him. “We’ll have to rescue Sidonia on our own.” She tightened the straps of her backpack and positioned her fingers on the edge of the hole. She dangled for a moment, then dropped. Marcel cursed softly before he landed beside her.

  The pair crept along in the darkness, searching for the light shed by the men’s flashlights. Finally, they spotted a dim glow. The man in the dark brown suit was sorting through a pile of pelvises, holding each up to the light, looking for evidence of childbirth.

  “They must have split up,” Marcel said a little too loudly. The man froze and listened for a moment before he returned to his work.

  “Stay here,” Betty whispered, carefully plucking a femur from a nearby pile. She kept to the shadows, slinking softly around the man. Her black jumpsuit rendered her almost invisible. Her boots had been specially chosen for stealth. She may not have had Oona’s roundhouse kick or Luz’s right hook, but the skills she possessed were all Betty needed to get close enough to deliver a blow to the base of the man’s neck. He never suspected a thing.