The Missing Sister Read online

  “I could see that.”

  “How did you learn so much about the tunnels? Trial and error?”

  Chang laughs again. “A lot of error. At first it was a group of us that became interested, back in the eighties. We would get out of a gig—late nights led to many adventures—back then, taxis weren’t so pervasive. The police weren’t fans of the substances we were all smoking—it was the eighties, mind you—so we would take the tunnels under the city to get home and avoid the cops. Lots of people used to travel these tunnels, and I’ve met nearly all of them.”

  A set of stairs leads to another domed hub, bearing three different routes. Chang shines a light on the walls to reveal words, graffiti art, numbers, and dates, all written in various colors; a discarded spray can lies at the foot of the wall. A visual diary of everyone who has passed through here into this secret society. For a second, the sight is beautiful, and my muscles relax. Then I see it. Sharp angles and even planes across inverse Greek letters. Symbols foreign to most eyes in these parts, but I can read them with barely a light to see:

  I am here.

  “This was before most of the tunnel entrances were closed. There aren’t any on the Right Bank now. Only a handful of us use them—some urban explorers, researchers, and those pesky smugglers I mentioned. The other remaining portals are on the south side of Paris, leading in from Spain—they’re used pretty exclusively by the traffickers, and you don’t want to run into them.” Chang chatters on, passing through the route to the left, but I don’t move. Researchers, like Angela. She knew of this entrance into the main network. She left me a signpost. I’m on the right path. I am here.

  We approach a slight incline, and my fists clench tighter with each step forward. A narrow path stretches ahead, decorated in bone until it ends in a hub of skulls. Hollow cheekbones and empty sockets line up in neat formation, at least thirty in a circular space. Multiple paths converge there, but most are boarded shut, leaving only one open tunnel to the left. The stone tablet erected above the stooped entrance bears a message:

  ARRÊTÉ

  C’EST ICI L’EMPIRE DE LA MORT

  Stop. For here is the empire of death.

  “Chang?” I hardly recognize the shrill sound of my voice. We’ve paused in front of the door against my better judgment, inviting Death to come out and take what’s his. I shift my weight, my bicep locked against my chest. My bones poke through the cloth more than I remember.

  “Pretty morbid, I know.” Chang stands by the doorway, just grazing the top. “The miners who first built the quarries—these tunnels—were fans of romantic language and poetry. You’ll see more on the walls.”

  I follow her beneath the arch, muttering to myself.

  With each step away from the hub, the angst in my body lessens. But we haven’t climbed any more out of this pit, and the tunnel ceilings are still uncomfortably low. The light is nonexistent outside our flashlight halos and the temperature is cold, yet my muscles relax bit by bit until I let my arm fall to my side. Am I actually getting used to this?

  A glow burns from around the corner. Someone is down here with us, after hours, and illegally. Traffickers? I cry out to warn Chang, but she turns past the bend. Peering around another corner, the words lodge behind my teeth. White bulbs illuminate the confined space, electrical cords spooling along the edges. Paths extend to the left and right. A plaque directs visitors toward a recommended route; the official tour is located ten feet ahead. This must be part of the longer path Seb wanted to take on Monday.

  Chang stands past the corner, totally unfazed by my moment of absence. She checks a compass app on her phone. “This is about where I know forty-eight degrees latitude would be. You did great, Shayna. Not many people—”

  “This isn’t it.” I motion for her to hand me her phone, and I consult her compass. “This isn’t forty-eight degrees, fifty-three minutes, five-point-seven-five seconds north latitude, two degrees, twenty minutes, one second east longitude.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re not here.” Angela would not have chosen a well-lit hub of the authorized catacombs tour. A wall of skulls glares at me while I contradict my patient friend.

  Chang looks at me with surprise. “It’s as good as we’re going to get. I don’t know of any ways farther east from here.”

  The compass spins all the way around, then settles to point southwest. I show it to Chang. “Is this correct? Are we facing this direction right now?”

  She shakes her head. “No, we’re too far down; the mineral rock around us throws off the compass’s magnet. What were you expecting to be here? The buried treasure?” she adds, showing her chin dimple.

  A dank smell beckons from deeper in the tunnel to our left—decay and something else. Sweat breaks out on my forehead despite the goose bumps covering my skin as I wrestle with the impulse to believe her. If she says we can’t go any farther, it must be true. She pioneered this place.

  This is ridiculous.

  This is all I’ve got.

  Polished tour arrows direct me along a new, declining dirt path, and Chang follows behind. She doesn’t even protest; instead she wordlessly allows me to take point. Skulls, skulls, bones, skull shelves, bone shelf, skull wall, skull wall. I become numb to the sight, no longer retching from fear at each new mosaic.

  A tapering entrance, shoulder width at its widest, interrupts the macabre decor—one of several pitch-black passages veering to the right or left into avenues not recommended by the plaques. I slow down to focus on my sister—the way she charmed everyone in the room, her aura, her energy—and indulge her lifelong desire that we be mentally connected.

  “Shayna?” Chang touches my arm. “There’s nothing down there.” She nods to the gap in the solid rock beside me. I ignore her and lean closer. Angela’s presence always seemed warm to me, until it was cold. I try to recall what that felt like. I concentrate on any sense of my sister calling back to me, a gut feeling that returns my plea with Here I am. I am waiting. Adrenaline kicks ever-present claustrophobia from my back, while herculean strength drives me forward, deeper into my pit of hell. I slide into the black, tapered crack.

  “Angela?” I whisper. My stomach tenses in sharp cramps, but I creep forward, hands out. The ground slopes downward as the three feet of light from the main walkway slivers to black. Seb said the catacombs were more than two hundred miles long. Chill, undisturbed air engulfs me, and I stumble to my knees, hands balled by instinct. I scramble upright, anticipating a sneak attack from a monster while my eyes adjust. One click of my pocket flashlight reveals the cavernous space and its secrets. Someone has been here before. Many people.

  A projection screen stands before dozens of empty chairs. A full bar is set up against the far end of the makeshift movie theater, fashioned out of a tall table and three bar stools. The dome I’m standing in reaches at least fifty feet across and another thirty high. A carton contains old-fashioned film reels in the corner, next to a sleek, portable projector, something you might see on your favorite electronics website, and a vintage cinema projector, the kind with two rotating wheels balancing a wide base. Nothing about the space looks official. How many secrets do the catacombs hold? How much activity has gone unseen by the authorities?

  A shiver traces my spine as I tiptoe back to Chang. She remains in the hall, her arms folded. “I think we should go,” she says.

  “Look, Chang. I really appreciate you getting me here, but you can leave now that we’re on the official tour path. I should be able to find my way out.” I adopt a confident expression and ignore the patterns in the bones behind her.

  “No, you won’t. The catacombs won’t open for hours today. It’s Saturday. You need another exit from here; the main one is back under the river and locked until ten.”

  Angela, Angela, Angela. My mantra plays on loop while I search for some sign of my sister and try to employ the twin powers, the psychic GPS or whatever, she swore by. Chang steps backward, watching me. “Are you feeling ok
ay?”

  A motif of femurs in a bowl shape, sunk into the tunnel’s dirt floor, lies at the bend in the path. Something about it seems familiar; I’ve seen it before, in her research photos. Angela. I visualize a thousand tiny cables extending from my frame, reaching with a million follicles, alert and ready to transmit silent messages, less of words than of yearning. I orient the directions of the compass in my mind. East-facing pathways are nonexistent—until I spy an opening in one wall at knee level, just large enough for an adult body to squeeze through.

  A dull snare drum kick-starts in my chest as I trip over my feet to jog-walk. Chang trails behind me, satisfied to observe and make sure I don’t bash my head against a wall, until I slide to the ground and shimmy through the rock cleft. Her protests stop dead as I rise to stand inside a long tunnel shaft, pitch-black. Chang doesn’t follow; she barks into another opening in the wall above, keeping me in sight and pleading for me to come back. I’m fumbling for my flashlight as the sound of movement stops me cold.

  My fingers grapple for wall, rock—something to give me a sense of my inky surroundings—when a strong, bony hand clamps down on mine. I suck in a breath to scream, but another hand grips my face and yanks me farther into the shaft. It covers my mouth, seizing my jaw with such force tears pierce my eyes. I fumble with the flashlight button, then shine it in the eyes of my attacker, who doesn’t flinch.

  Dirt covers porcelain skin. Dust mars the apples of cheeks that haven’t seen the sun in days. Disheveled dark hair forms a skewed halo around a head otherwise my height. Brown eyes contract like angry, light-averse rats. Frenzy and fear leap out from wide sockets, while my sister’s vise grip on my hand remains white-knuckle strong.

  Despite my muzzle, I manage, “Angela . . . ?” before she grabs the flashlight and puts it in her pocket. The tunnel returns to darkness.

  “Twin for the win.” Her whisper cracks.

  “Shayna? Are you okay? Who’s there?” Chang calls. Her flashlight shines on our two pairs of feet, and Angela recoils from me.

  “You brought someone?”

  “I had to. I didn’t know anything about the catacombs. You’re . . . you’re alive!”

  Chang sputters from the hall. “What?”

  Angela grips my hand again. “We have to get out of here.” She turns to the main path and begins speaking beautiful French to Chang, too fast for me to comprehend. The aria of her words is matched only by her perfect accent after three years here. Her shoulders straighten, and she waves a hand from her right hip, a stance I’ve seen her use in restaurants to get a dish taken off our check. My sister, the charming twin, even a building’s length underground and weeks since her last bath. Angela chuckles, but Chang only nods. Angela makes another fluid gesture with her hand, then turns back to me in the dark.

  “I told her this is a hide-and-seek game we play in different countries, and I was never missing. The police were confused. Get rid of her,” she hisses. Dirt covers her blue hoodie and jeans. Only the tongues of her sneakers are still white.

  “Gel, what exactly is going on? What happened?” I throw my arms around her, but she stiffens.

  “Well, hello. Ça va? Que fais-tu ici?” Chang leans away from us, disappearing from the gap in the wall toward approaching footsteps. Shit. Jean-Luc? Mathieu? The police?

  Angela pulls on my hand, scrambling to retreat farther into the darkness, but Chang hears her. Her face reappears through the uneven outline of the rock’s opening. “Hey, Shayna, I don’t think—” Someone extends a hand from around the corner to grab Chang’s glasses. “Hey!” The person’s fist closes around her neck, then tosses her backward with a loud thump.

  “Chang!” I scream.

  Silence. A figure steps into view. But it’s not who I expect.

  Seb stands there, wearing a sickening grin. Blood smears across his cheek. “Shayna, I must thank you. Without you, I never would have found Angela. Your bond truly is remarkable.”

  The feral urge to Run! Run! Run! rises somewhere within me. It reverberates in my heart, but terror plants my feet to the ground. He kicks through the wall, punches, and steps into the tunnel with us.

  Seb. He played me all along. From the moment I landed, I’ve been doing the work for him.

  Angela grabs my hand and turns to run, but Seb yanks me back, throwing me against a wall studded with stone. Pain explodes from my elbow in one sharp crack, and white flashes across my eyes. I slump to the ground, clutching my arm, and glimpse Angela tearing down the path with Seb on her heels. I could run, run now.

  She gains distance in inches, thin and quick from her time in hiding, but then she trips and falls hard, swinging down like an ax. He’s on her in two seconds. Howls rip from her throat as he drags her back, limping on her right leg.

  Fever reignites across my skin, a terrible heat just like before. Seb’s smile grows hazy. The gun he wields is a dull object rising with each sweeping movement as he gloats. Words I can’t hear spill from his mouth as a loud ringing overwhelms my eardrums. I can’t move. Numbness subdues both fight and flight instincts as he steps forward and drags us into the light.

  Chapter 31

  Hold still

  Putain merde mais vas-y tu sais bien ce qui t’attend

  Hold still you stupid bitch

  A musty smell fills my nostrils, as though I’m in a library or a walk-in closet. Maybe back in high school. I breathe deep, eyes closed, listening for my surroundings. The absence of the familiar sound of running water is deafening.

  My eyes snap open.

  Thick wooden beams above reinforce the dirt ceiling—the only barriers between us and six stories of earth, waiting to bury us. Damp dust motes swirl around me.

  “Shayna?” Angela whispers. “You okay?”

  I moan in response from where I lie flat on the ground. All over my body throbs with ache, though the pain is mostly confined to my arm. Seb splinted my elbow, but it’s now swollen to the size of a baseball.

  “Mmm.”

  “Shayna,” she tries again. “Seb left for more antiseptic from the hospital. We’re alone.” Angela speaks slowly, like the effort taxes her. The crushing verity of her words brings on new panic that constricts my chest and fat tears that sting. Angela was limping earlier, too; we’re alone and both injured.

  I roll to my side and struggle to an upright position. Zip ties bind my feet and hands in front of my body, and I note the plastic’s sharp sensation, like it might slice through my skin at the right angle. “How long ago?” I ask, rubbing my wrists with opposite fingers.

  “About five minutes,” Angela says.

  I lift my head and stifle a cry. Bones form a crisscrossing pattern from floor to ceiling on the wall opposite Angela and surround two complete skeletons side by side. The skeletons stand the exact same height, mirror images of each other.

  “Did you forget where we were?” she asks.

  I shake my head, recalling Angela’s research. A room filled with fibulae, a room devoted to soldiers, and a room full of twin bones. The twin room. “Just disoriented.”

  Books, chemicals in industrial-size jugs, cords and cables looped in precise rings, and an illuminated construction lamp are piled in a corner, throwing shadows around the room. Only one wall contains a bone mosaic, while the other wall, behind Angela, appears to be constructed from bones stacked on top of one another. Behind me, overhead, hangs a rectangular board of felt nailed into the compacted dirt wall, covered in graph paper, newspaper articles, handwritten notes, and maps with places circled in red pen. A large, knee-high generator occupies a corner, beside a refrigerator, displaying dozens of vials and thin tubes visible from its glass door. When we first entered, I tried to reverse, scratched back into the corridor, but Seb caught me. He said he would always catch me.

  “We have to get out of here.” Angela struggles with her ties five feet away from me, her back against the wall of stacked bones. The bones clink together behind her jerking movements. “He’ll be back soon—the hospital is
in the next arrondissement.”

  My limbs are heavy. Exhausted from the adrenaline rush of terror bursting from every pore.

  Six million unknowns is about to become six million and two.

  “Shayna,” Angela hisses. “Snap out of it!”

  I can’t see straight. My vision keeps making patterns in the bone mosaic, blurring the images together, then separating them. I know around a day and a half has passed since I came down here, because Seb mentioned he was waiting to go for supplies until the hospital staff switched over again. He plans to steal more, to steal equipment to test his theories and add to the inventory he already carted down here.

  My plane home will depart in a few hours, without me. I’ll be dropped from medical school and my life; my dreams of beginning again will be over. And Angela will still be classified as dead, so everything I’ve gone through in the last week was for nothing.

  “Angela.” My voice is like sandpaper working a block—despite Seb giving us water through a straw every few hours. “What happened to you?”

  She inhales a ragged breath. “I tried to warn you. I even wrote it in our language. Typical, you wouldn’t listen to me.” Bitterness coats every word, like we time-traveled back to three years ago, right after our parents died. I’m so confused, seeing her for the first time under these insane circumstances, steps from life and literal death with Chang somewhere in the dark.

  Chang. My heart tightens at the thought of my friend, no doubt dead by now, judging by the thump I heard when Seb threw her.

  “I got your note,” I say. “But it wasn’t much to go on. Seb was . . . I needed a guide, and—Look, he fooled me. I thought he was your boyfriend, and I fell for it. I’m sorry.” My words are staccato, sharp, not because I’m angry, but because I feel foolish. I trusted someone when your note said not to. I failed us. The thought makes my vision blur. The memory of Seb’s lips on my skin that day in the park arouses new self-loathing.