One False Note - 39 Clues 02 (7 page)

Amy scoured the brochure. "Here it is. That's the entrance to the Salzburg Catacombs." "Catacombs?" Dan echoed in trepidation. They had come very close to being lost forever in the Catacombs of Paris. He wasn't anxious for a repeat performance. "Well, not the paved-with-bones kind," Amy explained. "But it says there are tunnels in that hill. If there's a clue at St. Peter's, I'll bet that's where it is." A tour group came into view, working its way to the entrance on the cliff. In the middle of the cluster was the tall figure of Alistair Oh. "And the competition just pulled ahead of us," Dan added.

As soon as Uncle Alistair's tour disappeared inside the rock face, the Cahills rushed up the uneven stone stairs. Amy felt a creepy unease as she stepped inside the mountain -- as if they were being swallowed by something ancient and immutable, an immense, silent creature as old as the earth itself. Amy and Dan exchanged a look of pure dread. The Paris Catacombs had been lined with human bones, grotesque skulls leering from all directions. This may have been lower on the
i
ck
scale. But the sense of leaving the familiar for the freakish and threatening was even greater here.

The tunnel was clammy and easily twenty degrees colder than the outside. Dan reached down and felt the familiar shape of his inhaler. This had to be the worst spot on earth for his asthma to flare up.

Chill out,

he reminded himself. Attacks were brought on by extreme dust and pollen, not extreme creepiness.

To their left was a small cave chapel straight out of The Flintstones.

Uncle Alistair's group was crowded in there when the Cahills hurried by, covering their
faces.

The further they got from the entrance, the darker it became. The passage was lit only by a series of weak electric bulbs strung so far apart that everything faded to utter blackness in between them.

As they forged ahead, another tour group was walking toward them in the tunnel. Pale, top-lit faces vanished into the gloom only to reappear suddenly thirty feet closer. It was otherworldly -- as if the laws of nature no longer applied in this alien place. "Stay to the right," the tour guide ordered, directing his sightseers around the Cahills in the close quarters.

They were jostled by elbows and shoulders as the group shuffled past. Someone
stepped on Amy's toe, and she drew in a sharp breath -- or maybe her gasp was a
reaction to the man she saw in the halo of the naked bulb.

He was old, older than Uncle Alistair, probably in his late sixties, with weathered,
cratered skin. His clothing was all black, so his head appeared to be suspended in
midair.

Amy's heart was thumping so hard that she was afraid it might punch clear through her ribcage. She grasped her brother's hand and began towing him along the passage. "Slow down!" Dan complained.

Amy didn't stop until she was positive the tour group was out of earshot. "Dan -- the m -- the m -- " Even whispering, she could not control her stammer. "Calm down," her brother soothed. "The man in black is here!"

CHAPTER 9

Dan was shocked. "Did he see you?"

"I'm not sure, but we can't take the chance. When Grace's house burned down, there he was. And when the bomb went off at the Franklin Institute. We've got to get out of
here!"

"Not until we find what we came for," Dan said stubbornly. "Uncle Alistair and

the man in black? That's double
proof we're on the right track!"

Amy was surprised by the surge of admiration she felt. Sure, her brother was a dweeb who wouldn't last five minutes without her. But there were times -- like now -- that he found courage where she saw only fear.

She swallowed hard. "Let's keep going."

They forged deeper into the mountainside. The tunnel split and split again, and they made careful note of the twists and turns. Neither could think of anything more terrifying than getting lost back here, halfway between Salzburg and the earth's core. The sting of eyestrain soon set in from scanning the endless walls fo
r markings or coded symbols --
anything that might indicate a secret compartment or hiding place. Only rock greeted them, and the occasional trickle of water.

Dan was on his hands and knees, investigating a "carving" that turned out to be a groove in the stone, when the string of electric lights flickered once and went out. Dark didn't even come close to describing it. They were plunged into suffocating blackness, a total absence of light. It was as if they had suddenly been struck blind. The panic was like nothing Amy had
e
xperienced before. Her breath came out in gasps, faster and faster, as if the air she drew in was instantly sucked out of her. Dan flailed his arms, reaching to reassure her. But when he touched her arm, she let out a shriek that echoed through the passageway in all directions. "Calm down, it's me!" he hissed, although calm was the opposite of what he felt. "It's probably just a power failure!"

"And the man in black just happens
to be here?" Amy squealed.

Dan struggled to think rationally. "If we can't see him, he can't see us, right? Who knows? Maybe he's just as lost as we are." "And maybe he's back there somewhere, waiting for us."

He took a deep breath. "We'll have to chance it. All we can do is retrace our
steps and hope for the best."

"Can we even find our way out?" she quavered.

Dan tried to visualize the tunnels as they might appear on a map -- as intersecting lines. "You run your hand along one wall of the passage. I'll run my hand along the other. We won't miss any turns that way." He gulped. "Simple."

Simple.

Oh, how Amy yearned for her brother's ability to reduce everything to a formula -- a series of instructions to be followed. For her, no formula could ever be separated from the sheer terror of this darkness. She had a flashback to the Paris Catacombs, stacks of skulls grinning grotesquely at her. Yet at the same time she knew this was worse -- the shaft much narrower, the walls pressing in on her, trapping her in the rock belly of this mountain.

"Dan, I don't think I can do this," she whimpered. "I'm just too scared."

"It's the same tunnel," he soothed. "We made it here; we can make it back." They set out through the blackness. Amy felt her way along the left wall, knowing that Dan was doing the same on the right. They locked fingers to avoid losing each other and talked constantly to keep out the terror that would surely overwhelm them if it found a way in.

"Hey, Amy," said Dan, "when's the last time we held hands like this?" "I can't remember. It had to be when we were little, little kids. You know -- with Mom
and Dad."

"What did Mom look like again?" He already knew the answer. He'd heard it at least a hundred times, yet the familiar conversation was comforting. "She was tall," Amy replied, "with reddish-brown hair -- " "Like yours?" His standard question.

"Mom's was a bit redder. You couldn't miss her in the audience at a school play. Dad was fairer, with -- " A pause. "It gets harder and harder to picture them both. Like an old snapshot where the image is fading."

"It stinks," muttered Dan. "Can't remember my own parents, but rotten Aunt Beatrice --she's a glowing electric billboard in my head." "We've got Grace," Amy reminded him gently.

"Grace." The name came out as a sigh. "I miss her, but sometimes I wonder if I even
should."

"Grace loved us."

"Then how come she didn't tell us about all this?" he demanded. "The Cahills! The contest! A little warning might've come in handy. Like, 'Okay, today you're a kid playing Super Mario,

but in a couple of months you'll be lost in a European tunnel with a mad killer -- '" Bang!

The flash was a supernova in the blackness. Their eyes, wide-open, straining for night sight, were painfully overloaded. Dan could make out a figure running away from them in the passage. But his hands automatically snapped up to shield his face before he could
make an ID. And then the explosion was over, replaced by the rumbling sound that signaled the ceiling was about to collapse.

Amy heard her brother's cry when the boulder struck his shoulder. Their hands were still clenched, so she felt it when he went down, buried by rocks and dirt.

"Dan!" She pulled his arm with all her might, even as she was pelted with falling gravel. Mustering a hidden cache of strength, she gave a mammoth yank, and her brother scrambled up beside her, spitting dust, unable to form words. "Are you hurt?" she rasped.

Without answering, he reached into the blackness and felt along the outline of the rubble. It blocked the shaft completely. He tried to burrow through the pile, only to trigger a mini
-
avalanche that filled in his progress and buried him in gravel up to his ankles. "I don't think we can dig ourselves out!"

The nightmares closed in on Amy like circling sharks. What could be worse than being lost in the dark? Being trapped in the dark... dying
in the dark...

She peered at the shadowy silhouette of her brother's face, trying to bring his green

eyes into focus. That's when it hit her. "Dan -- I can see you!"

"That's impossi -- wait! I see you, too! Just your outline. But-"

"There has to be light coming from somewhere," Amy reasoned. "And where there's

light, there's -- "

"A way out!" Dan crowed.

It was almost imperceptible -- not even enough to illuminate the walls of the passage. But it was definitely there -- a dull gray-orange glow.

It was still too dark to see, so their progress was slow. Dan tripped a couple of times as the rock floor grew rougher, and Amy walked into the wall where the tunnel turned unexpectedly.

She barely noticed the collision. Around the corner, the glow was stronger. She could see her brother's silhouette without squinting.

"Jackpot!" Dan exclaimed. The black expanse of floor gave way to a narrow rectangle of radiance. "A secret passage!" He lowered himself into the tight opening. "I'll bet there's a ladder somewhere...."

A yelp was followed by a muffled crash. "Or maybe not," he groaned from below. "Get down here. I think I found something."

Gingerly, Amy eased herself into the tiny space, feeling for footholds in the rock. Soon

she discovered what her brother had missed -- a series of notches carved into the wall.

Dan helped her down into an open chamber lit with oil lamps. After the total blackness

of the tunnel, the orange flicker seemed like the arc lights of a stadium.

She looked around. At least half the room was piled to the ceiling with large weathered

barrels.

"Could these be a clue?" Dan wondered.

Amy shrugged helplessly. "They won't do us much good if we don't know what's inside

them."

The Cahills ventured closer. The drums seemed very old. There were no markings on the oak casings.

"Maybe we can swipe one and roll it out of here." He pressed his shoulder against a cask and pushed with all his might. It wouldn't budge.

Amy came over to lend a hand, and that was when she saw it. An aged desk stood by the wall, half hidden by the stacked containers. On the sloped surface sat a single piece of paper.

The Cahills rushed to examine it. It was closer to parchment than the kind of paper anyone used today -- yellowed and brittle. The writing was German, in an old-world calligraphy. It seemed to be a list of some kind, with both words and numbers. "A formula!" Amy breathed. Dan frowned. "For what?"

"Our very first clue was an ingredient -- iron solute," Amy reminded him. "Maybe this is the whole recipe."

They were silent as the magnitude of her words sank in. This quest was supposed to be a marathon, not a sprint, with clues hidden in every corner of the globe. Was it possible that they had unearthed some kind of ancient "cheat sheet," with all 39 on a single page? Was the contest already won?

Delicately, she picked up the parchment by its edges. "We've got to take this to Nellie. She'll be able to tell us what it says."

Dan let out a whoop. "Can't wait to see the look on the Cobras' faces when we trot out all thirty-nine
clues and they're still searching for number two! Or Irina; this time I'm going to hire a real black belt to do the kung fu grip on her.

And
the Holts -- hmm, better hire a whole army
of black belts -- "

"We have to get out of here first," his sister reminded him. She surveyed their
surroundings. "These big vats came in through a door somewhere "

"Let's follow the oil lamps," Dan suggested.

The barrel room led to more tunnels. After a few twists and turns, Amy realized they were lost again. She looked down at the flowery German script on the parchment in her hands. The frustration was maddening -- to have found their prize against all odds but be unable to bring it to the person who could read it for them. She consulted her watch. "We're already late for Nellie. Maybe when we don't show up, she'll come looking for us."