The Irregulars

Chapter Two

In the six months since he'd been in hiding, Alec had gotten to know the Paris underground very well. Many of the people living in the streets above had no idea that there was another world directly beneath their feet, complete with crosswalks, alleyways and more than 1200 miles of passages that snaked out to all corners of the city. And it wasn't just the sewers. There were limestone tunnels that were thousands of years old and the catacombs that had been built in the 18th century to house the dead when the cemeteries began to overflow. It was into those catacombs where Alec first ran when the Germans first came for him and his kind, hiding out in the dark as the skulls of long-dead Parisians watched him impassively.

However, for all the time he'd spent navigating his way through the city's subterranean world, Alec was only now realizing that he'd barely scratched the surface. As he and Maxwell made their way through the tunnels, their only source of light emanating from the glowing blue orb at the end of the old man's cane, Alec realized they had passed into an area of the underground that, if he had to guess, probably hadn't been seen since before the Romans occupied the city. Certainly it was unlike anything he had ever seen before. The architecture was strange and unnatural, with the walls arching upwards at strange, sharp angles, forming an almost triangular shape. In other spots, the passages were curved and formed out of smooth marble that was cool to the touch. Some of the walls had carvings etched into them, words and images jumbled together in no understandable pattern. What looked to be hieroglyphics sat next to Latin, Hebrew and other languages that Alec did not recognize.

As they walked, they also passed a number of rooms, some of which seemed to have been occupied, at least at one time. Alec knew that many people used the catacombs for shelter, but this was something different. He saw furniture in some of the rooms, tables, chairs, even a piano. In one room, Alec saw a shape that he could not identify. It looked like a chair or perhaps even a large floor lamp covered by what appeared to be a white sheet. To Alec, it conjured the image of a child dressing up as a ghost to scare his parents or siblings. He had a flash of Ethan doing something similar to him years ago, leaping out of a closet during a thunderstorm and scaring him half to death. He had laughed so hard and so loud that, despite how terrified he had been, Alec couldn't help but join in.

Alec peered into the room, trying to make out what the shape inside actually was. Suddenly, the sheeted form turned sharply and looked in Alec's direction. He screamed and, when Rathbone put his hand on his shoulder, he screamed even louder. He looked at Rathbone, wide-eyed in shock.

"Let's keep moving, my boy," Rathbone said. "There are things down here that even we are not meant to see."

When Alec turned to look back into the room, the shape, whatever it had been, was gone.

* * *

As they continued their journey, the walls and ceilings grew uncomfortably close, occasionally forcing Alec to duck rather than strike his head. The tunnels seemed to have no end and had been built with no logic or thought to their design. Alec remembered reading about a house in America that was continually being built and rebuilt by its owner with no plans or designs to draw from. The result was a haphazard and bizarre construction with staircases that went nowhere and windows that looked out onto nothing. Supposedly the designs were being fed to the owner on the orders of ghosts. Down here in the darkness and endless sprawl of the catacombs, Alec found himself wondering what forces directed their construction.

During one particularly disconcerting episode, the two of them had to wade through water that began at their ankles and had gone up to chest height before receding. Thankfully, one wave of Maxwell's hand dried their clothes. To stave off his increasing claustrophobia, Alec tried to make conversation.