The Maze of Bones (The 39 Clues #1)(45)

Nellie pulled her raincoat tighter. "My mom told me another story -- why it's called Montmartre, the Hill of the Martyr. She said Saint Denis was beheaded at the summit, right where we're going."

That didn't sound like a very good omen. Dan wondered if they still kept the head in the church, and whether saints' heads really had haloes.

A few minutes later they stood in a muddy graveyard, looking up at the dark silhouette of St-Pierre de Montmartre. The church was probably taller than it seemed, but with the white basilica towering on the hill behind it, St-Pierre looked short. It was made of gray stone slabs. A single square bell tower rose from the left-hand side, topped with a lightning rod and cross. Dan thought the building looked angry and resentful. If churches could frown, this one would.

"How do we know where to look?" he asked.

"Inside the sanctuary?" Nellie asked hopefully. "At least we'd be out of the rain."

BOOM!

Thunder rolled across the rooftops. Lightning flashed, and in that second, Dan saw something.

"There," he said. "That tombstone."

"Dan," Amy complained, "this is no time for your collection!"

But he ran to a marble marker. If he hadn't been a tombstone admirer, he never would've noticed it. There were no dates. No name. At first, Dan thought the figure carved at the top was an angel, but the shape was wrong. It was weathered and worn, but he could still tell-

"Entwined serpents," Amy gasped. "The Lucian crest. And there -- "

She knelt and traced an arrow carved at the base of the marker -- an arrow pointing down into the earth.

Amy and Dan looked at each other and nodded.

"Oh, you're kidding," Nellie said. "You're not really going to -- "

"Dig up a grave," Dan said.

They found a toolshed around the side of the church. They borrowed a shovel, a couple of gardening spades, and a flashlight that actually worked. Soon they were back at the graveside, digging in the mud. The rain made it hard going. In no time, they were completely filthy. It reminded Dan of the good old days when Amy and he were young. They used to have mud battles and their au pair would shriek in horror and make them spend the evening in a bubble bath, getting cleaned up.

Dan didn't think Nellie was going to make them a bubble bath tonight.

Slowly, the hole got deeper. It kept filling with water, but finally Dan's shovel struck stone. He scraped away the mud and found a marble slab about four feet long by three feet wide.

"Too small for a coffin," Amy said.

"Unless it's for a kid," Dan said. "I could fit in there."

"Don't say that!"

Dan wiped the mud off his face, which just made it muddier. "Only one way to find out." He worked the spade under the edge of the slab until he found a crack and then started to pry. "I need help."

Amy joined him. Nellie got the shovel into the crack and together they heaved the slab aside. Beneath was a square hole, but it wasn't a grave. Stairs led down, into the darkness of the Catacombs.

As soon as they reached the bottom, Dan swept the flashlight around the room. It was a square chamber hewn from limestone, with a tunnel exiting to the left and the right.

There were no stacks of bones, but the walls were painted with faded murals. In the center was an ornately carved stone pedestal about three feet high. On the top sat a porcelain vase.

"Don't touch it!" Amy said. "It might be booby-trapped."

Dan edged closer to the vase. "It's decorated with little Franklins."

He could make out Ben holding a kite in a storm, Ben in a fur cap, Ben waving a cane over the ocean like he was doing some kind of magic trick.

"It's a souvenir vase," Amy said. "The kind they made in the 1700s to celebrate Franklin's arrival in Paris."

"Twenty bucks says something's inside," Dan offered.

"No bet," Amy said.

"Guys," Nellie said. "Look at this."

She was standing at the back wall. Dan came over and shone the light on the mural.

The colors were faded, but Dan could make out four figures: two men and two women, dressed in old-fashioned clothes -- even older than from Franklin's time, like from the Middle Ages or the Renaissance or something.

Each was painted larger than life. On the far left was a thin, cruel-looking man with dark hair. He held a dagger that was almost hidden in his sleeve. Faded black letters at his feet read L. CAHILL. Next to him stood a young lady with short blond hair and intelligent eyes. She held an old-fashioned mechanism with bronze gears -- like a navigation instrument or a clock. The inscription under the hem of her brown dress read K. CAHILL. To her right was a huge dude with a thick neck and bushy eyebrows.

He had a sword at his side. His jaw and his fists were clenched, like he was getting ready to slam his head into a brick wall. The inscription read T. CAHILL. Finally, on the far right, was a woman in a gold dress. Her red hair was gathered in a braid over one shoulder. She held a small harp -- like one of those Irish harps Dan had seen in the Saint Patrick's Day parade back home in Boston. Her inscription read J. CAHILL.

Dan got the strangest feeling all four were watching him. They seemed angry, like he'd just interrupted them in the middle of a fight... but that was stupid. How could he tell that just from a wall painting?