Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(25)

“Yeah,” says Jacob, “pick a fight with the poltergeist. That’s a great idea.”

He pulls me away from the gate, and I let him.

An instant later, the gray film of the Veil disappears, and the world springs back into sudden sharpness, color, light. The sun is warm and the block is packed, throngs of tourists lining up before the green wooden shack, waiting for their turn to descend into the tombs.

Nearby, a clock begins to toll.

“Uh, Cass,” says Jacob, but I’m already pulling out my phone to check the timer.

Oh no.





Trial by fire.

That’s what it’s called when you learn to do something under pressure.

Like navigating the Paris Metro.

I really wish I’d been paying more attention to the routes the last time we were down here. Thankfully, I dropped a pin, marking the movie theater’s location on my phone, and the app tells me which Metro line to take. It’s even a direct route. No need to change trains.

The journey, according to the phone, will take nineteen minutes.

The movie, according to the timer, will end in twenty-four.

Which seems like enough time until a little orange warning pops up on the screen to say the train is delayed two minutes.

Jacob counts on his fingers, frowning, and I rock back and forth on my heels until the train finally pulls into the station, then launch myself aboard.

Nineteen minutes later, I sprint down the block and through the back door of the movie theater, down the hall and to screen number three.

I fall into the seat, knocking over the bucket of popcorn I left on the ground, and look up just in time to see the two leads kiss on a rooftop in New York as the music swells.

“Maybe one day,” says Jacob as the credits begin to roll, “we can just stay and watch the movie.”

Mom and Dad are waiting outside, just as they promised they would be. No sign of the crew or Pauline, who’ve obviously gone home for the day.

“How was the movie?” asks Mom.

“Just what I needed,” I say. “How was the Rue des Chantres?”

“Oh, marvelous!” says Mom. “And marvelously haunted.” She slings her arm around my shoulders. “Let’s head back to the hotel. I’ll tell you all about it on the way …”



I know something’s wrong the moment we step into the hotel.

There’s no icy chill, no sudden cold current, only a feeling in the air. There are too many people in the lobby, and about half of them look as if they’ve been caught in a storm. Which is weird, because it’s been nothing but sunny since we got to Paris.

The desk clerk sees us and frowns, as if we’re responsible for whatever’s happened.

I shift a little. Maybe we are.

“What’s going on?” asks Dad, approaching the counter.

The desk clerk’s frown deepens. “Ah, Monsieur Blake. There has been, as you can see, an incident.” She gestures to the damp patrons scattered across the lobby. Oh dear. “The sprinklers went off on the third floor. Most unusual. It seems the alarm was triggered from your room.”

“Not it!” says Jacob quickly, holding up his hands. “Totally something I would do, but I didn’t.”

I roll my eyes. Obviously.

Dad shakes his head. “But we’ve been gone all day.”

“Be that as it may,” says the clerk, “something in your room triggered the fire alarms, and thus, the sprinklers. Perhaps,” she adds, lifting something from beneath the desk, “it was le chat noir.”

She sets Grim’s cat case on the counter.

A pair of green eyes glares out, looking about as happy as the clerk as she slides the carrier toward us.

“You think our cat somehow triggered a fire alarm?” asks Mom.

“Je ne sais pas,” says the woman curtly. “What I think is that things usually run smoothly here in the Hotel Valeur …”

Dad’s face flushes as the clerk continues. “We got your things out as quickly as possible. I assure you, they will be clean and dry in your new room. Unfortunately, as you can tell, those new rooms are not available just yet.” She nods at a drinks trolley, unsmiling. “Please enjoy some coffee while you wait.”

Dad starts to say something, but Mom takes his elbow in one hand and Grim’s carrier in the other, and leads us to a set of chairs to wait.



“He was thinner than that,” says Jacob, perched on the arm of a lobby sofa.

I’m sitting cross-legged on the marble floor, with a piece of scrap paper and one of Mom’s chewed-up pencils. I’ve already made a list of things we know about the poltergeist, adding Catacombs beneath the words short and young and, on Jacob’s insistence, creepy. Now I’m trying to put together a sketch while Jacob leans over my shoulder, offering suggestions, some helpful, and most maddening.

Dad’s reading a book, while Mom raps her nails absently on the show binder with a soft duh-duh-dum as we wait. The other guests disappear by ones and twos as they’re led to their new rooms, but we appear to be last on the list.

I force myself to focus on the drawing.

“No, his head was more like …” Jacob holds his hands as if gripping a basketball. Or … a football? A lopsided football?

“Not helpful,” I mutter, erasing my first attempt, focusing instead on the boy’s clothes. I wish I could thrust the pencil into Jacob’s hand. Unfortunately, only one of us is real enough to hold it, so I’m left wearing eraser marks into the thin paper.