Rebecca Lim - Fury

His words are electrifying.

I sit straighter within the circle of Ryan’s arms and say eagerly, ‘Can you show me another way into this … underworld?’

He gives me a quick glance. ‘I could, mad’moiselle . But it is not worth my neck, you understand. The catacombs, they are dangerous. They say some do not return from playing there …’

Ryan leans forward. ‘We’ll take care of ourselves. You just get us down there, then tell your bosses you left us on a street somewhere: we wanted to explore, we didn’t come back.’

Our driver shakes his head. ‘Still not worth it to me, monsieur . If rich young foreigners go missing, there are many unpleasant consequences for men like me.’

‘Give me your cell-phone number,’ Ryan says, turning on his own phone. ‘I’ll send you a message from my phone saying where and when we’ll meet you, and if we fail to show, you’re to assume your services are no longer required with no repercussions.’

‘Nice,’ I say with admiration.

Ryan gives me a dark look. ‘It’s called forward planning, and I learnt it from the best in the business. How else do you think Justine Hennessy now has a home to call her own?’

‘Lela wasn’t supposed to die,’ I remind him quietly.

‘Yeah, well, I have no intention of doing that today either,’ Ryan retorts. ‘So I’ll take care of the cover- his -butt part of the adventure, then it’s over to you to get Selaphiel and the two of us out of there, because I sure as hell can’t see in the dark.’

‘You have a torch,’ I point out evenly, trying hard not to smile.

Both of us start laughing, maybe out of sheer terror.

The driver watches us narrowly as if we are mad. Finally, he reaches across the seat back with his right hand extended. Ryan grips it and shakes it.

‘Henri Séverin,’ he says, returning his hand to the steering wheel. ‘And I must apologise — I misjudged you, I think. You are not —’

‘Rich and dumb?’ I interject acidly, remembering his conversation with his handler over the in-car radio.

Henri gives a self-deprecating shrug, unembarrassed. ‘I have been with this company for seven years. There is a type, you know? You look very much of that type. How was I to know?’

He starts the car and pulls away from the official entrance to the catacombs, rapidly leaving the snaking line of brightly dressed tourists behind.

‘Those tourists are the stupid ones,’ he snorts. ‘Underground it is always fifty-five, maybe fifty-seven degrees Fahrenheit. In summer, in winter, always the same. The living always overdress to meet with the dead. They fill themselves with food, with drink, only to discover that when they are deep underground, there are no toilets, no exits, no escape. It is not far to la Petite Ceinture,’ he goes on, looking over his shoulder as he overtakes a small lorry. ‘Nearby, there is a grand entrance the cataphiles use — one of Paris’s worst-kept secrets.’

I lean forward, my fingers twitching as if reaching for the grip of a weapon. ‘Hurry,’ I say. ‘We’ve lost enough time already.’

Ryan says sardonically, ‘With her, Henri, you made a bad mistake. She fits no “type”.’

Henri glances at him shrewdly in the driver’s mirror. ‘She may be more machine than human, I think, but you, monsieur , must be —’

‘Badly in need of a coffee, some breakfast and a toilet,’ Ryan interrupts ruefully, ‘like the tourist I am.’

Henri parks on a quiet street on the outskirts of the fourteenth arrondissement and we walk to a bridge that overlooks a set of overgrown train tracks. It’s just past noon, and traffic on the bridge is jarringly loud, incredibly fast. Hard to imagine such a place giving onto a gateway to Hell, but Luc was always imaginative.

Before we go over the bridge wall, Henri and Ryan bust out their mobiles. Ryan types up his butt-covering text message and hits send .

Henri types into his phone: I understand, M. Daley. If you and your girlfriend do not return by 3.30 pm, I am to leave. I will inform my company. But please let me know if your situation changes. I am here to help. And please enjoy your explorations of this beautiful and historic region .

He shows Ryan the message and Ryan nods. Henri presses send , and, like that, he has his alibi and Ryan and I are free to vanish underneath Paris.

Ryan, being Ryan, automatically offers to give me a boost over the wall. I can’t keep the look of offence from my face, and he throws his head back and laughs before pulling himself up and over.

Henri moves forward to assist me, but I say to him quickly and quietly so that Ryan will not overhear, ‘If we don’t make it back, Henri, try and ring the number he gave you. Keep trying, even if you’re far from here. He needs to get back to the plane that’s waiting for him at Le Bourget. I’m not important — I truly can take care of myself. But he’s the dearest thing to me in this world, and he has a whole other life without me that he can easily return to. Keep trying. Try until your shift is over, because he needs to get home. Would you do that for me?’

Mystified, Henri nods. ‘Sure, I will call. There is nothing to lose. It will show that I am a good guy, that I am concerned.’

‘Hel- lo ?’ Ryan yells impatiently from the other side of the wall.

I feel Henri’s eyes on me as I pull myself up and over easily, landing silently on my feet in the tall grass on the other side. Ryan looks at me enquiringly, but before he can say a word, Henri’s flushed face appears above the wall, and he drops down, landing badly.

‘A moment,’ he puffs, embarrassed, from where he’s fallen amongst the weeds. He rises, brushes himself off, the corners of his mouth turned down in distaste, then gestures for us to follow him down the slope towards the railway line.

When we reach the tracks, Ryan looks both ways with a worried frown.

Henri laughs. ‘It is abandoned. Only ghost trains use it now.’

We walk, and walk. And the further we go, the more my fear and tension climb, like vines grappling towards a distant sun.

Finally, a vast train tunnel appears up ahead and we slip from a wan kind of daylight into a darkness that must feel absolute to Ryan and to Henri. They slip and stumble gracelessly behind me, until one runs into the other with an ouf , and they stop.

‘ Merde ,’ Henri says gloomily, fumbling for his mobile phone.

He lights it up and holds it forward, but it’s almost useless in here. The air ahead of us is inexplicably foggy. It has an acid-sweet smell, like exploded sugar.

‘Smoke bombs,’ Henri says. ‘Cataphiles use them to conceal their way. It is illegal to be underground, you understand.’

‘Great,’ Ryan sighs.

I hear him rummaging around in the pack and, moments later, the bright white beam of his silver torch plays across the railway sleepers, the stones beneath and around them. The light barely makes headway into the surrounding darkness, the foggy air.

‘To the right,’ Henri directs gruffly, uncertainly.

We move forward slowly, Ryan playing his light ahead of us and across the right wall. There are still only weeds and stones all around us, that strange and foggy darkness. Then the edge of the flashlight picks up a flattened juice carton, a candy wrapper, a scattering of stomped-down beer cans, a broken plastic torch. I see it first — a gap in the rock, a breach between the tunnel wall and the earth beneath it. Two, maybe three feet across at most. For a moment, we three ring the opening, quietly appalled.

‘You’re kidding,’ Ryan says incredulously. ‘This is the “grand entrance”?’

Henri’s voice seems muffled. ‘There are many other ways in and out, they say. But this is the only one I know of. I came here once, for a party. We ate crêpes , danced, listened to music. It was like a dream. Hundreds of people underground. I’ve never forgotten it.’