The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues #1)(40)

He wanted to yank it off and throw it away. His eyes started to burn.

"We don't have inside information," he mumbled.

"Come now, my boy," Alistair said. "You are in danger. I could protect you. We could search the Catacombs together."

"We'll search by ourselves," Dan said.

"As you wish, my boy. But be aware: The Catacombs are huge. There are miles of tunnels. Most aren't even mapped. You can easily get lost down there. Special police patrol it to keep out trespassers. Some of the tunnels are flooded. Others collapse from time to time. Searching for Franklin's clue in the Catacombs will be dangerous and futile unless" -- he leaned forward and raised his eyebrows -- "unless you do know something you haven't told me. The almanac had a note in the margin. It mentioned coordinates in a box. You wouldn't happen to know what this box might be?"

"Even if we knew," Dan said, "we wouldn't tell you."

Amy touched the jade necklace at her collar. "Sorry, Uncle Alistair."

"I see." Alistair sat back. "I admire your spirit. But what if I were to ... trade information? I'm sure you are wondering about those notes your mother made. I knew your parents. I could explain a few things."

Dan felt as if the air had turned to glass. He was afraid to move or he might get cut.

"What few things?"

Alistair smiled, like he knew he'd hooked them. "Your mother's interest in the clues, perhaps. Or what your father really did for a living."

"He was a math professor," Amy said.

"Mmm." Alistair's smile was so irritating Dan was tempted to tell Nellie to whack him with the backpack again. "Maybe you'd like to know about the night they died?"

The turkey-and-cheese sandwich churned in Dan's stomach. "What do you know about that?"

"Many years ago, your mother -- " Alistair stopped abruptly. His eyes fixed on something across the street. "Children, we must continue this later. I believe you should look in the Catacombs by yourselves. I'll stay behind, as a show of good faith."

"What do you mean?" Dan demanded.

Alistair pointed with his cane. A hundred yards down the street, Ian and Natalie Kabra were pushing through the crowd, hurrying toward the Catacombs entrance.

"I'll hold them off as long as I can," Alistair promised. "Now get underground quickly!"

CHAPTER 16

Amy hated crowds, but the idea of plunging into the middle of seven million dead people didn't bother her.

Nellie, Dan, and she hurried down a metal staircase. They found themselves in a limestone corridor with metal pipes running overhead and dim electric lights. The warm air smelled of mildew and wet rock.

"Only one exit, guys," Nellie said nervously. "If we get caught down here -- "

"The tunnel should branch out soon," Amy said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

The stone walls were etched with graffiti. Some looked recent, some ancient. One inscription was engraved on a marble slab right above their heads.

"Stop, mortals," Nellie translated.

"This is the empire of death."

"Cheerful," Dan muttered.

They kept walking. The floor under Amy's feet was slushy gravel. Amy was still thinking about Uncle Alistair. Had he really known something about their parents, or was he just manipulating them? She tried to put it out of her mind.

"Where are the bones?" Dan asked. Then they turned a corner into a large room and Dan said, "Oh."

It was the creepiest place Amy had ever seen. Against the walls, human bones were stacked like firewood from the floor to above Amy's head. The remains were yellow and brown -- mostly leg bones, but skulls stared out here and there like patches on a quilt. A line of skulls topped each stack.

Amy walked in awed silence. The next room was the same as the first -- wall after wall of moldering remains. Dim electric lights cast eerie shadows over the dead, making their empty eye sockets look even scarier.

"Gross," Nellie managed. "There's, like, thousands."

"Millions," Amy said. "This is only one small part."

"They dug all these people up?" Dan asked. "Who would want that job?"

Amy didn't know, but she was amazed how the workers had made patterns with skulls in the stacks of femurs -- diagonals, stripes, connect-the-dot shapes. In a weird, horrible way, it was almost beautiful.

In the third room, they found a stone altar with unlit candles.

"We need to find the oldest section," Amy said. "These bones are too recent. Look at the plaque. It's from 1804."

She led the way. Eyeless sockets of the dead seemed to stare at them as they passed.

"These are cool," Dan decided. "Maybe I could -- "

"No, Dan," Amy said. "You can't collect human bones."

"Awww."

Nellie mumbled something that sounded like a prayer in Spanish. "Why would Benjamin Franklin want to come down here?"

"He was a scientist." Amy kept walking, reading the dates on the brass plaques. "He liked public works projects. This would've fascinated him."

"Millions of dead people," Nellie said. "Real fascinating."

They turned down a narrow corridor and found themselves facing a metal gate. Amy shook the bars. The gate creaked open like it hadn't been used in hundreds of years.