Dan and the Caverns of Bone (10 page)

‘Why didn't you say anything about that before?'

He doesn't reply. But at least he has the sense to hand me the torch.

The first thing I do is bend over and pick up the dropped skull. I break the candle off and place the skull neatly on a pile of stacked bone in the wall, dusting the top with my cuff.

Well, it is someone's head, after all.

Then we're off again, Brian almost clinging to me, and Si only as far ahead as he dares, shining his eerie glow into the shadows as we go.

In no time, we're back into the public part of the catacombs, and something makes me creep forward as quietly as I can, though creeping on gravel is pretty much impossible. And sure enough, after a succession of agonisingly loud
scrunch scrunch
noises, a grown-up male voice comes echoing over to us.

‘
C'est qui? Qui est là?
'

We freeze, and I switch off the torch. There's more
scrunch scrunch
ing now, only this time it's not us. Two torch beams erupt into the cavern ahead of us, and there's more French. The only thing I can understand is that the people who own these voices are pretty rattled.

‘It is the police,' whispers Si. ‘Two who have been left to guard this entrance to the catacombs. They don't seem very keen to advance any further.'

‘But they might,' I whisper back. ‘Go and do something diverting.'

‘Such as what?'

‘Use your loaf, Si.'

‘My loaf? But I have no loaf.'

‘Crumbs, Si, do I have to think of everything? Make some spooky footsteps somewhere behind them.'

‘Oh, very well.'

And he slides off, vanishing into the wall.

‘I think I preferred it with Baz,' whimpers Brian, behind me. ‘At least he doesn't take me to the spookiest place in the world and talk to someone who isn't there!'

‘Just hold on to my coat, Bri, and get ready to run.'

There's a squeak which sounds vaguely affirmative, so I crouch down and prepare to sprint. And that's when Si's diversion kicks in. Literally.

There's a clear and very crisp footfall, somewhere far away, from behind the policemen. In the quiet, as they stop to listen, there's another and another. Then the police start shouting ‘
Arrêtez!
' and moving away. That's our cue. I dart out of the shadows, dare to switch the torch on for just a second, and then rush for the passageway Luci showed me last time we were here.

There's another shout, and at least one of the policemen turns his beam onto us as we run, but I won't slow down for that. I reach the metal grille that
blocks the passage. Two of the bars are still slightly bent, and I manage to squeeze through. Brian is right behind me, and gets through just as the two policemen reach the head of the passage.

‘
Arrêtez! Arrêtez-vous!
'

But I'm not arrêting for anyone, not now. We pelt down the skull-lined corridor like sprinters in the Goth Olympics, and dart down a side passage, and then another and another. From far behind, there's an echoing jangle of keys as the men wrestle with the gate in the grill. They get it open, and even crunch a little down the passage, but they must realise we could be long gone by now. The last we hear of them is their nervous voices as they radio in what they've seen, whatever that is. And with Brian hidden under the tail of my coat, they may be reporting a strange four-legged creature for all I know.

‘That was mad!' pants Brian, emerging from the coat. ‘Can we just find your friend now and get out of here?'

‘You know, Bri,' I say, flicking the torch back on, ‘I like that plan. Let's do that.'

‘Luci!' I whisper-shout at the bottom of my voice. ‘Luci, where are you?'

‘If we weren't so far into this infernal place, I'd suggest turning back,' wails Si. ‘As it is, I cannot even remember the way. We are trapped, Daniel. Lost!'

I wish I could ignore him, but he's right – I can't remember the way either.

‘Luci!'

‘What's that noise?' says Brian

‘It's me, trying to shout without making any noise,' I answer.

‘No, that other noise. Listen.'

We go quiet. And yes, there is something. Tinny and echoey, all at once.

‘Music?' I ask.

I turn the torch on Bri and he's nodding.

‘It appears to be coming from there.' Si points, and lights the way with his index finger.

I know of only one place where we can find music down here.

‘Come on!'

We run a little further and see the opening of another passage. The music is louder now, and there's another sound too, one I've been straining to hear for some time: running water.

We turn into the passage, but immediately I put up my hand for the others to stop. Far ahead, I see the faint ectoplasmic glow of a ghost, hovering in the air. And in that glow, someone is sitting huddled in a small paddle boat beneath the archway of the underground river. The portable CD player is in her lap.

Luci.

With the spirit of her brother watching over her.

‘Wait for me here,' I whisper to Brian.

‘What, on my own?!'

‘Nah, Simon'll keep you company.' And ignoring Bri's squeaks of protest, I walk slowly forward.

‘Luci?' I say as I get nearer.

She looks up.

‘Dan?'

‘Luci, you can't stay here. Let's go, yeah?'

‘I cannot just leave Jojo. He is still here, I can sense him. Why is he still here, Dan, if he… if he really…?'

‘He did,' I say firmly. The sooner she accepts what happened to him, the better.

I look over at the spirit of Jojo la Mouche. He looks back, and I can see he's starting to get it together, to accept what's happened to him too. He gives me a nod and gestures to his sister and I know exactly what he means.

‘He's still here because of you,' I say. I take off my coat and drape it over her shoulders. Well, it's what you do in moments like this, isn't it? When there's a shivering girl?

Then I sit down next to her and tell her properly.

‘He can't rest easy, he can't go on to the Hereafter while he thinks you're in danger. But you'll always be in danger down here while some madman is on the loose. The best thing you can do for Jojo is get back up to the squat and stay there till the police catch this nutter.'

‘Nutter? What is “nutter”?'

‘Psycho. Madman. Like a normal person, only insaner in the brainer.'

‘You really think it is just a person dressed up? I almost hoped…'

‘Trust me, Luci – I know it is. And I'm pretty sure I know who it is, too.'

And I tell her my idea that the owners of Hotel Cafards are trying to drive Luci and her friends out of the squat with this whole sick stunt.

‘The
porteur
?' She looks doubtful. ‘Are you sure?'

‘Yup. Well, mostly sure. It sort of looks like it might be him, all things considered. I think. Um…'

‘I do not care who it is.' Luci sets her head defiantly. ‘I just want Jojo to be at peace. I cannot leave him here, Dan, all alone.'

All alone? I remember Brian and beckon him over from the shadows. Luci stands as he approaches, and brushes herself down. She looks good in the coat.

‘Luci, this is the rest of the rescue party: Simon, who you met before but can't see because… well, we've been through all that… and this is Brian, expert in paper aircraft and, er, mathematics. You're in safe hands now.'

Luci says, ‘
Salut
,' to Bri and Bri manages to squeak back. He's goggling at her, and I'm not surprised – despite the circs, she's as stunning as ever. In a sad but Gothically beautiful sort of way, that is. I mean, she's the only person I've ever seen who looks good in run mascara. And as for her slightly upturned nose…

Concentrate, Dan, concentrate.

‘Is it really true that the only way to help Jojo is for me to leave?' She sniffs.

I nod.

‘Then let us go,' she says.

I glance at the ghost of Jojo and see that he's understood. His face seems to brighten and a spectral wind blows through him, drying away some of the wetness his drowning has left.

‘You should say goodbye now.' I point to where Jojo's ghost is. ‘When it happens, it can happen quite quickly.'

Luci sniffs again but keeps her chin up. She turns
to her brother and holds up her hand as she did before. He reaches out.

‘Um, what's that noise?' says Brian, at entirely the wrong moment.

‘You asked that one already,' I say. ‘Music, then running water, then girl, remember? Get with the programme, Bri.'

‘No, that other noise. Listen.'

I listen. And I hear it.

Scrunch POCK, scrunch POCK…

It's the sound of someone walking on gravel and tapping the base of a long pole. It's a sound we've heard before.

‘Zooks, Daniel!' Si projects his ghost light down the corridor, away from the river – down the way we came. The sound gets louder and louder until…

…we see him.

Tall and hooded, he stands at the edge of our sight, robed in black and carrying a staff topped with a cruel steel blade. He stops and there's a moment of terrifying silence before…

POCK!

…he stamps his scythe on the ground and lifts his head. Beneath the shadow of the hood a mouth of
gleaming white teeth grins back at us, above a chin of yellowing bone.

‘Across the river,' I somehow manage to say. ‘Quick!'

‘But we cannot.' Luci clutches my arm. ‘The way through, beyond the party chamber, is blocked. The grilles have been locked by the police.'

‘You mean…?'

‘Yes.
He
is standing in the only way out!'

I look back at the figure of Death. He lifts his scythe.

Then he comes for us.

I give the nearest of the two boats a kick. It hits the water, and the rope in my hand almost cuts my fingers off as I brace myself against the pull of the water.

‘Er, this is the bit where you get in!' I shout, when I see they are all just staring at me in astonishment. Luci recovers first and jumps into the boat, making it rock like crazy.

‘This is insane!' squeaks Brian.

‘No,' I correct him, ‘
that's
insane,' and I nod my head in the direction of the deathly figure sweeping down on us. Death lets out a bellow of echoing, inhuman rage, and strikes the wall of the passage in
his passing, slicing through ancient bone and raising a torrent of sparks.

‘Okay!' says Brian.

He jumps.

Then the ghosts are there too, waiting above the boat to follow as we are whooshed away into the unknown. But there's a problem. If I step forward to jump, the water will just pull the boat away at the same speed. And I don't need Jojo's ghost to remind me what could happen to yours truly if I land in this rushing black water.

‘Daniel! Jump!' Si waves his wig at me, and the others call similar words.

The extra weight is pulling the rope through my hands now, but the sound of another scything cut reminds me that I'll be dead in a second or two anyway, so what have I got to lose? I look up and see that Death is upon me – his weapon is raised, he begins his swing…

With an echoing cry of ‘Crapsticks!', I jump.

There's a sensation of speed and sharpness and a CLANG as metal strikes the arch of the tunnel. I get a face full of brick fragments and I can't see. I reach out and feel the edge of the boat, and grab it, just as my body hits the water. I fall back, shocked by the
icy cold, but arms grab my clothes and somehow I don't slip under.

And so, like this – with me mostly not in the boat at all – we are taken by the current and swallowed whole by the clamouring darkness of the tunnel.

For a while everything is so mad that I don't know what's going on. The cold makes it hard to think straight, so I don't even try, I just hold on as the boat buffets and spins in the current. But eventually, with the world in my head still turning, I risk opening one eye and find that everything else has stopped,
that we're out onto the calmer waters of some vast, subterranean lake.