Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(18)

I’m plunged from something into nothing and back again, all in the time it takes to blink.

My feet land back on the cobblestone path, and Père Lachaise stretches out again, a ghost of its former self. Tendrils of fog curl around my legs, and the cemetery is vast and gray and eerily still. I draw the mirror from my pocket, wrapping the cord around my wrist as Jacob appears beside me. He looks around, nose crinkling a little.

“What is it with graveyards and mist?” he asks, kicking at the cloudy air around our feet.

“A-plus for atmosphere,” I say.

Nearby, a crypt door swings on a broken hinge. Across the path, a crow caws and takes flight.

“I’ll take creepy Halloween soundtracks for two hundred,” mutters Jacob.

But for all the moodiness of this place, it’s quiet.

The thing about cemeteries is that they’re not as haunted as you’d think. Sure, there are a few ghosts here and there, but most restless spirits are bound to the place where they died, not the place where they’re buried.

So it shouldn’t be that hard to find our restless spirit.

As long as it wants to be found.

“And if it doesn’t?” asks Jacob.

Which is a good question.

How do you lure out a poltergeist?

“Maybe if we ignore it, it’ll just lose interest in us and go away.”

“It’s not a bee, Jacob. And you heard Lara. The longer the poltergeist is out, the more chaos it will cause. Which is bad on its own, and worse since this particular spirit seems intent on bothering us.”

I scan the tombs.

“Hello?” I call out, gripping the mirror pendant.

“What do you think a poltergeist looks like?” whispers Jacob. “Is it human? A monster? An octopus?”

“An octopus?”

He shrugs. “More arms, more misch—”

I lurch toward him, pressing my hand over his mouth. His eyebrows shoot up in confusion.

I heard something.

We stand, perfectly silent, perfectly still. And then it comes again.

A child’s voice.

“Un … deux … trois …” it says in a singsong way.

The graveyard begins to fill with a soft red light, and a cold wind blows over my skin.

I can hear the shuffle of steps, small shoes skittering across a path. I turn just in time to see a shadow dart between the crypts.

“… quatre … cinq …” the voice continues, and I really wish I spoke French.

“Come out!” I call. “I just want to talk.”

“… sept …” continues the voice, now behind me.

I spin, but there’s no one there, only tombstones.

“… huit …” Its voice is softer now, drifting away, taking the strange red light with it.

“Pretty shy for a spirit,” says Jacob.

I chew my lip. He’s right. For all the tricks the poltergeist has pulled, I haven’t caught more than a glimpse of it. And if I want to catch this ghost, I’m going to have to get it to come to me.

“How do you plan on doing that?” asks Jacob. “Do you have any poltergeist bait lying around?”

I rub my temples. What did Lara say?

They thrive on creating trouble. Making mischief.

Okay. So I just need to give the ghost a chance to make some. I look up at the crypts, some of them as tall as houses.

Jacob reads my mind, and then says, “No.”



“This is a terrible idea,” says Jacob as I hoist myself up on top of the grave.

“You always say that.”

I look down. I’m only two or three feet off the ground. Not high enough. I grab the carved corner of the nearest crypt and begin to climb higher.

“Yeah, and I’m usually right,” he calls up. “What does that say about your ideas?”

My shoes slip on the side of the crypt, but finally I haul myself up and straighten, balancing on the gabled roof. I scan the graveyard.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I call.

Nothing happens.

I will myself to walk along the pointing roof, moving closer to the edge. I hold my breath and wait.

“Oh well,” says Jacob, shifting from foot to foot, “you tried your best. Guess you better come on down and …” He trails off as the voice returns, suddenly much closer.

“… dix.”

A flush of cold brushes my skin and a tile slips somewhere behind me, shattering on a tombstone below. The sound sends spectral crows into flight, and I turn toward the crash and see him, standing on the top of a tombstone ten feet away.

The poltergeist.

I don’t know what I expected.

A monster, perhaps. A shadow creature seven feet tall, all claws and teeth.

But it’s just a boy.

A little kid, maybe six or seven, with curly brown hair and a round face smudged with dirt. He’s dressed in old-fashioned clothes, a button-down shirt and trousers that bunch around his bony knees. His edges flicker a little, as if he’s not entirely here, but it’s his eyes that stop me.

They aren’t brown, or blue, but red.

The red of a burning ember, or a flashlight against a palm. The kind of red that glows, casting a crimson light on the graves, and the crypts, and the fog.