Tunnel of Bones (City of Ghosts #2)(30)

Somehow, I don’t find that very comforting.

I thumb the camera absently, and Pauline nods toward it. “That’s quite an interesting model.”

You have no idea, I think, running my fingers over the battered metal casing. “It’s old and quirky, but I like it.”

“My father is a photographer,” she says. “He restores old cameras. He says they see better than new ones.”

I smile. “Yeah, they really do.”

“If you like,” she offers, “my father could develop your film.”

I look up and smile. “Really? That would be great.” I consider the canister of film. “I miss my darkroom,” I confess. That closet of space back home that was mine, and mine alone.

Jacob clears his throat.

Well, ours.

“Perhaps,” says Pauline, “you could even—”

But I don’t hear the rest.

A cold wind rushes over my skin, and Pauline’s words are drowned out by the grinding of metal on rails.

The train screeches, as if someone’s tapped the brakes a little too hard, and I nearly lose my balance. I shift my grip on the metal bar just in time. The train brakes again, and grinds to a stop on the darkened rail.

Oh great, I think, right before all the lights go out.





It’s not pitch-black.

Thin light leaks through the windows from somewhere far down the tunnel, painting all the passengers in a weak glow. Everyone begins to grumble and look around, more annoyed than afraid. But Pauline’s hand goes straight to the charm at her throat, and even in the almost-dark I can see her lips moving.

Jacob moves closer to me, his gaze flicking my way.

In the dark, he looks almost solid, just another body in the crowded car.

“Thomas?” he asks, and I nod. I lift the camera’s viewfinder to one eye, slide the darkened train in and out of focus, searching the crowd for a little boy who isn’t there.

“Maybe this isn’t him,” says Jacob, sounding a little unconvinced. “I mean, trains stop running sometimes, don’t they? Technical malfunctions, power to the third rail … I don’t know what the third rail is, exactly, but I’ve heard people say that …”

Sure, I think, lowering the camera. And sometimes massive mirrors fall off trucks …

I take a step forward, then stop. I should stay put, stay here, firmly on the real side of life.

“I completely agree,” says Jacob. “Do not engage the poltergeist.”

After all, there’s nothing I can do until I know his story, know enough to remind him.

“Do not engage,” repeats Jacob.

But then I see it through the camera lens—a curl of red light against the far window.

“Do not engage,” warns Jacob as I feel myself reaching for the Veil.

I have his name now. His full name. It was enough to call him to the street last night. Maybe it will be enough to catch him here. Enough to make him remember.

Pauline has her back to us, scanning the car, and I step sideways, into the dark.

The crush of water in my lungs and then—

I’m back in the Veil.

I expected to find a stretch of bare gray space: an absence, a gap between places, the spaces where no ghosts have met their ends.

So I’m unnerved when my foot comes down on solid steel.

The car is empty, the crowd erased, but the train car is here, drawn in crisp, clear lines, the kind that only come with someone else’s memory. A ghost’s memory.

Jacob appears beside me.

“What part of do not engage …” he says, trailing off as the lights flicker in and out around us, illuminating empty benches. Bare floor. No sign of a little boy in old-fashioned clothes. No crop of dark curls or glowing red eyes. But I know he’s here.

“Thomas?” I call out, but the word only echoes. Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. “Thomas Alain Laurent?”

I go to the end of the train car and slide the latch. The door springs open, and I cross into the next car, expecting to find it empty.

It’s not.

No Thomas, but a tall man stands in the center of the car, his back to us, swaying on his feet. Something dark and red stains the floor beneath his boots. He mumbles softly to himself, not in French, but in English.

“Who did it?” he growls, twisting toward us. “Who did it?”

And as he turns, I see the knife buried in his stomach. His own hand curled around the blade as if to keep it from falling out. The sheen of blood running down his front. “Who did it?” he growls again, taking a staggering step toward us. “Was it you?”

Jacob pulls me backward and slams the door between us.

“Well, that’s going to haunt my dreams,” he says as we straddle the space between the cars. “As fun as this was—”

“Un, deux, trois …” calls a playful voice behind me. A familiar voice. Thomas.

The voice is coming from the front of the train. Along with an eerie red glow.

I step down from the train onto the tracks, squinting down the line of cars.

“Thomas Alain Laurent!” I shout. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”

The red light dances along the tunnel wall, and I can hear the shuffle of small feet. A soft giggle. I clutch the pendant as I creep down the side of the train car.