The Darkness Dwellers Page 19

  “You expected me to go to the catacombs dressed like Nancy Drew?” Betty asked. “Listen up, lady. I’ve spent time underground, and I learned a thing or three while I was down there. It’s dark, it’s dangerous, and boys who hang out in tunnels aren’t interested in girls who wear pearls and pretend to be princesses.”

  “I’m afraid this new attitude of yours is completely unacceptable,” Madame Beauregard announced. “I chose you because I believed—”

  “Because you believed I’d do as I was told. Right? You thought a sweet, polite little girl like me would never have the guts to question your authority. Well, you should have picked one of those spineless freaks you create at your institute. I’m not who you thought I was. I’m an Irregular. Let’s go, Monsieur Fitzroy,” she ordered the detective. “We’ve got a body to find.”

  “But, Miss Bent …,” the detective started to say.

  “No buts,” Betty snapped. “From this point forward, I’m in charge.”

  Despite the frigid weather, Paris’s outdoor cafes were doing a roaring trade. But not a single coffee sipper seemed to notice the unusual pair heading into an abandoned Metro station near the Place de la Republique. The sunken entrance below the sidewalk was barred by a graffiti-covered door. Louis Fitzroy reached into his pocket and withdrew a ring with hundreds of keys.

  “I copied a few important keys before I left the force,” the man whispered as though he were sharing a delectable secret. He’d tried to start a dozen conversations on their ride across town, and Betty had refused to participate in any of them. Being polite hadn’t gotten her anywhere but in trouble.

  “Would that be a misdemeanor or a felony in France?” she asked, and the man’s smile slid off his face.

  The rusty door opened to reveal a set of wide, dusty stairs. The arched ceiling above their heads was low and alive with several species of mold. The soot-smeared subway tiles and rainbow-colored graffiti that lined both sides of the stairwell were the only evidence that they hadn’t stumbled upon a passage to Hades. Betty followed Fitzroy down to a platform that hadn’t seen a passenger in at least half a century. Somewhere in the distance, subway trains sped through the tunnels that now bypassed the station. Old-fashioned ads shouted out from the walls. The first one that grabbed Betty’s eye featured a buxom female silhouette bound by a ribbon inscribed with the names of three perfumes: Indiscret, Passionnement, and Scandale. The next ad sold an insecticide called Flit.

  “These ads are all from the 1940s,” Betty noted.

  “Yes, the city closed this station shortly after the war.” Fitzroy seemed thrilled to finally hear Betty speak civilly. “It is off-limits to the public.”

  “Looks like a lot of other people must have copies of your keys, then.” The renegade interior decorators who’d brightened the stairwell had left the platform walls paint-free. But Betty still located a simple logo to prove her point—a pair of interlocking Ds drawn with black chalk on a patch of bare concrete.

  “You have a sharp eye. That is the sign of the Darkness Dwellers,” Fitzroy said. “This is one of the entrances they employ. We are in their territory now.”

  The detective walked to the edge of the subway platform and dropped down onto the tracks. He held out both arms to Betty, as if to assist her.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Betty snorted, spurning his offer and leaping down on her own. “What now?”

  “Now we walk,” Fitzroy said.

  “Are there rats down here?” Betty asked, her eyes scanning the shadows.

  “Many,” Fitzroy informed her. “But you needn’t worry. I’ve never known rats to attack human beings.”

  “Then I’d say you don’t know much about rats,” Betty replied.

  They strolled along the tracks in silence. Betty tried to amuse herself by sending the resident rodents scurrying with frequent blasts from her Reverse Pied Piper. But she could see that her companion had something on his mind that he wanted to share. Several times, his lips parted, and Betty thought he might speak. Then his mouth shut without releasing anything more than a sigh.

  “What?” Betty finally demanded.

  “I’m very sorry, Miss Bent,” the detective said. “I wasn’t aware that Madame Beauregard brought you to Paris under false pretenses.”

  “Yeah, who would have guessed an etiquette expert could be so rude?” Betty replied.

  “I don’t know if I would call her behavior rude. Sometimes people act rashly when they feel the pressure of time,” the detective said pensively. “I have reason to believe that Madame may not be long for this world. She wants to find Monsieur Grant’s body before she dies. Perhaps she intends to be buried beside him.”

  “How sweet,” Betty sneered. “Did she tell you that?”

  “Certainly not,” the detective replied. “Madame Beauregard would never share such information with me. She is a very private person—and she has insisted on secrecy since the day I was hired. Until you came along, I was not permitted to discuss the case with anyone. I must admit, it has made the investigation extremely difficult. The people who know the catacombs best are not the sort who appreciate lies. They might have been more cooperative had I been given permission to tell them the full truth about my quest.”

  “Maybe you haven’t found anything because there’s nothing to be found, Monsieur Fitzroy. I have a friend in New York who has been doing a little investigating as well,” Betty said. “She told me there was a very good chance that Gordon Grant didn’t die in the catacombs. Most people believe he fell in love with a German spy and murdered four of his colleagues.”

  “Yes, I am familiar with those rumors,” Fitzroy said.

  “So, what are you going to do if they’re true? What if Gordon Grant isn’t down here?”

  “I’ll keep looking,” Fitzroy replied.

  Betty shook her head. “Either you’re crazy or wild-goose chases pay really well these days.”

  The detective found the notion amusing. “I could make better money. I took this job because I choose to believe in beautiful stories. I would like nothing more than to see Madame and Monsieur reunited at last.”

  Betty could see the sincerity in the detective’s sad smile, and it bothered her to know that such a gentle soul had found himself working for someone so awful. “You seem like a very nice man, Detective Fitzroy, but Amelia Beauregard doesn’t deserve your kindness,” Betty argued. “She’s a horrible old lady who treats people like dirt. You should see what she does to the kids who go to her schools. Why are you so determined to help her?”

  The detective paused by an old metal sign that was fixed to the side of the train tunnel. DANGER DE MORT, it read.

  “Perhaps when you’re older you’ll understand. Sometimes life turns us into people we were never meant to be. I’m not doing this to help a horrible old lady. I’m doing it for the girl she once was.” He waited for Betty to speak, but she was still struggling to imagine Amelia Beauregard as anything but a stuffy old crone.

  “So today you and I will search for the Darkness Dwellers,” he continued. “It is almost certain we will not find them. But maybe when we return to the surface you can do me one favor? I will tell Madame Beauregard that we made contact with the two boys today, and I will tell her that we have new and promising leads to follow. All I ask is that you don’t contradict me.”

  “Why do we have to lie?” Betty asked.

  “Watch Madame’s face when I tell her, and you’ll know,” Fitzroy said. “You’ll see the girl we are trying to help.”

  Betty kicked at one of the tracks with her boot.

  “You’re hesitant,” Fitzroy noted. “May I ask why?”

  “Because I’ve always been too nice,” Betty said. “I’ve let people walk all over me my entire life, and I’m sick of it. Even if Madame is dying, why should I go out of my way to help her? Why should I let her think I’m weak?”

  Detective Fitzroy stroked his whiskers and nodded like a physician presented with a familiar set of symptoms.
“After I left the police force, I felt as bitter as you do now. I’d been humiliated by my superiors. My colleagues had called me a fool to my face. For months, I searched for a way to prove to the world that I wasn’t an imbecile. Every night, I dreamed of exposing the Darkness Dwellers. Even after I came to see all the good that they do—protecting the tunnels the police won’t patrol, preserving Paris’s neglected treasures—I still blamed them all for my misfortune.

  “And then one day I woke from a terrible dream, and I experienced a revelation of sorts. Finding the Darkness Dwellers wasn’t the answer. My colleagues would always call me a fool. But it didn’t matter in the slightest—as long as I knew I wasn’t an idiot. After that, I no longer felt bitter. For the first time in months, I felt free. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  “I’m not sure,” Betty admitted.

  “My point is: What difference does it make what Madame thinks? What difference does it make what anyone thinks? Have you ever considered the possibility that your kindness may not be a weakness?” asked the detective. “Perhaps it’s a sign of incredible strength. Believe in yourself, Miss Bent. And don’t try to be anything but the person you are.”

  Betty barely knew the man. A single day had passed since they were first introduced. And yet somehow he had found the very words she needed to hear.

  “So, can you consider my request, mademoiselle? Will you help me do what I can to make an old woman happy?”

  “I suppose.” Betty sighed as the last of her anger trickled away. “How much farther do we have to go to get to the catacombs, anyway?”

  “We’re already here,” Fitzroy announced. He turned to the DANGER DE MORT sign and pried one side away from the wall. It opened like a door. Hidden behind it was a hole. “If you’re ready, Miss Bent, I’ll lead the way.”

  “Not so fast,” the girl told him. “I don’t set off on adventures with anyone who won’t call me Betty.”

  “Betty, then,” the detective said with a smile.

  As they crawled on their hands and knees through the wall toward the catacombs, Betty could hear something that sounded like rain. Detective Fitzroy reached an opening and paused.

  “The tunnels here have flooded,” he said. “You were smart to wear boots.” Then he disappeared from view, and Betty heard a splash below. She stuck her head out of the hole. Dirty water dripped from the ceiling and ran down the walls of a rock-lined tunnel. Fitzroy was standing in a murky puddle that looked to be six inches deep. Betty hopped down, and together they waded toward dry ground. Arrows in every imaginable shape, size, and color decorated the walls, but Fitzroy drew Betty’s attention to a bird crudely drawn with charcoal. It held a leafy branch in its beak.

  “Ignore the arrows. People who have no business in the catacombs use them to mark their paths. If you’re in trouble, look for liberty birds instead,” he advised. “Their beaks can point you in the direction of the nearest exit.”

  At last they left the rain behind. The tunnel sloped upward, and the ground was now dry. Betty pulled off her backpack to retrieve her miner’s flashlight. The bag brushed against the wall and came away with a smear of green paint on the front pocket. One of the arrows was fresh.

  “Someone is just ahead of us,” Fitzroy whispered.

  “Could it be a Darkness Dweller?” Betty asked.

  “It is very unlikely,” was the detective’s response. “I’ve never known them to use arrows.”

  Fitzroy pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and covered the end of his flashlight. The beam grew dim, and they could see no more than a few feet in front of them. They crept down the tunnel. As soon as they spotted a soft glow in the distance and heard the sound of muffled voices, the detective switched his flashlight off altogether.

  Ahead, the passage bulged to accommodate a small chamber before branching off in multiple directions. Ghostly white mushrooms sprouted from the floor and scaled the room’s walls, their stalks twisting and intertwining. In the darkness beneath their caps lay either death or oblivion. The scene held Betty spellbound until she realized that the forest of giant fungi was nothing more than a mural.

  In the center of the chamber, an older man was shining a flashlight on one section of the painting while a younger man ran his fingers over the walls.

  “Five minutes, Marcel,” the older man announced gruffly. “I don’t know how you heard about the missing persons report, but I won’t entertain this nonsense a moment longer.”

  “There must be a hidden drop point here somewhere!” the younger of the pair insisted. “If there is, I know Etienne will have left a message for the Darkness Dwellers. He’ll want their help finding the girl.”

  “Five minutes, Marcel,” the older man repeated.

  “No, no, no,” Betty heard Detective Fitzroy mutter under his breath. “This is all wrong! Wait here while I get rid of them. Don’t let the older man spot you, or you might be arrested.”

  “Arrested?” Betty whispered.

  “That’s the head of the Catacomb Patrol,” the detective said as he began moving toward the light.

  “Philip Roche! I thought I heard your voice!” Fitzroy called out in French.

  The boy flinched and the older man trained his flashlight on Fitzroy. Betty slid into a shadow.

  The man named Roche regarded the detective with all the respect he’d have shown a rodent. “Louis Fitzroy? What on earth are you doing? You know better than anyone that trespassing in the tunnels is forbidden.”

  “I’m working on a case,” Detective Fitzroy explained. “Searching for a man who may have perished down here during the war.”

  “You mean searching for a way to repair your reputation,” Marcel muttered.

  “No, I’ve come to see the hopelessness of that endeavor,” Fitzroy told the boy. “What brings you gentlemen to the catacombs this afternoon?”

  The older man sighed wearily. “My son, Marcel, has lost his mind. He’s had me chasing phantoms for two full days. Now, here I am indulging him once more. A young woman was recently reported missing, and Marcel claims he saw her here in the tunnels. I’m afraid I must hold you responsible for Marcel’s flights of fancy, Louis. He believed all those tall tales you told to the press. He’s convinced your Darkness Dwellers exist.”

  “Ah, but they did exist,” Fitzroy said. “Unfortunately, I discovered they’ve been dead for decades. They were a group of spies who worked in the catacombs during the occupation.”

  “He’s lying!” Marcel insisted. “He knows there are still Darkness Dwellers in the catacombs! He’s been looking for them! Etienne and I have seen him down here a dozen times.”

  “You’re right, Marcel,” Fitzroy conceded. “I am still searching for the Darkness Dwellers. But I’m looking for bones, not breathing bodies.”

  “Did you hear that, you fool?” the boy’s father gloated. “Even the man who started the myth admits now that he was mistaken.”

  “Fine. So you refuse to believe in the Darkness Dwellers. What about the girls I saw in Etienne’s hideout?” Marcel asked, growing increasingly agitated. “Were they figments of my imagination as well?”

  Philip Roche grimaced with embarrassment. “My son claims he overheard two princesses fighting over some sort of hair tonic.”

  Princesses? Betty stopped breathing when she heard the word.

  “It was a cure for female baldness!” Marcel almost shouted, and Betty clapped a hand over her own mouth.

  “I should never have humored this insanity. Come Marcel, it’s time to go home.”

  “I believe there’s an exit just ahead,” Fitzroy noted calmly. “Would you like me to lead the way?”

  “No!” Marcel returned his attention to the mushroom mural and frantically ran his hands over the paint. Then suddenly his fingers dipped inside a camouflaged crevice. When they emerged, there was a piece of paper pinched between them. “Voilà!” he announced, a victorious smile on his face. He unfolded the tract and began to read.

  ATTENTION AL
L DARKNESS DWELLERS. ON THE AFTERNOON OF FEBRUARY 20, A SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD GIRL DISAPPEARED IN THE TUNNELS. SHE IS WITHOUT FOOD, WATER, OR APPROPRIATE ATTIRE. SHE HAS NO KNOWLEDGE OF THE CATACOMBS AND WILL PERISH WITHOUT YOUR ASSISTANCE. AT FIVE P.M., WE WILL GATHER IN THE COLISEUM TO FORM A SEARCH PARTY. PLEASE JOIN US.

  ETIENNE

  Marcel glanced up. “There’s a response scribbled below. It says, ‘We will be there,’ and it’s signed by Phlegyas, the leader of the Darkness Dwellers. This is proof, Papa! Proof of everything I’ve told you!”

  “The entire group will be gathering in the same spot at five?” Philip Roche couldn’t quite hide his excitement. He licked his lips like a lion watching a watering hole.

  “That’s what it says,” Marcel confirmed.

  “And you know where to find this coliseum?”

  “Of course. It’s in a well-traveled part of the tunnels. Even your men would know how to get there.”

  “May I take a look?” Detective Fitzroy inquired. He snatched the sheet from the boy’s fingers, ripped it into tiny squares, and stuffed the pieces into his mouth. For a moment, both Roches simply stared at him, unable to fathom his actions.

  “What did you just do?” Philip Roche demanded.

  The detective swallowed. “I did the city of Paris a favor.”

  Marcel stood stunned. “There is a girl lost in the tunnels, and you just ate the evidence. Don’t you realize she’ll die if the police don’t rescue her soon?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid you’ve asked the wrong man for help, Marcel,” Fitzroy said. “If the girl can be found, the Darkness Dwellers will save her. They are the ones who protect these catacombs and their visitors. Your father knows that, and he’s terrified the public will discover the truth. So he buries all evidence of his incompetence. He won’t risk his reputation by searching for the missing girl if there’s a chance he might not be able to find her.”

  Marcel seemed to brace himself for a brawl to break out, but all Philip Roche did was laugh.

  “Tomorrow morning, no one will care about one missing girl,” he informed the detective. “Every newspaper in France will be trumpeting my latest success. Philip Roche will have single-handedly saved Paris from a gang of subterranean criminals. I’ll be a hero. My career will skyrocket. And when it does, I will ensure that you, Louis Fitzroy, never work in this city again.”