(29) Two vampires, a ghoul and a shifter.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Linden gulped when he heard Helmut, turning to face the shifter. "Out."

"Without me?" Helmut pushed off the wall opposite the door to Linden's room. "You were expressly told that you go no where unless I'm with you."

"Damn it I'm very capable of taking care of myself. This is Paris, not—not—"

Helmut cocked an eyebrow inquiringly.

"The slums of outer Mongolia," Linden finished lamely.

"I don't think those exist. Now, where exactly are we going?"

Linden gave it one more shot. "I don't know where you're going. Me? I'm heading out to the Cimetière de Montmartre."

"Morbid boy, aren't you. What after that, the Catacombs?"

"Catacombs?" Linden's eyes lit up.

Helmut laughed, slinging an arm around Linden's shoulders. "Come on boy, you want morbid, I'll show you morbid."

A short while later they were standing in front of the simple black door of a small undistinguished, building. Linden was sure it was Helmut's idea of a joke until the shifter asked the woman at the entrance for 'deux billets'. Once inside they went down a long spiral staircase into a small gallery; and from there into long, dark, damp tunnels. Linden still wasn't all that certain Helmut wasn't pulling his leg despite the presence of a group of tourists snapping photos of the signs telling when the various tunnels had been build.

Finally they came to a large chamber. There was a sign over the entrance to a dark hallway that said, "Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la mort."

"The empire of death?" Linden murmured.

"Indeed," Helmut replied just as quietly. "Afraid to face it?"

"You're kidding; I live with it every day."

Linden almost regretted his bravado words a moment later when they walked into the hallway. What at first glance he took for walls made of small stones, he realized almost immediately were in fact huge piles of human bones. Tibias and femurs by the thousands were neatly stacked, interspersed with rows of skulls, some arranged in patterns. Most of the stacks of bones rose to a height of about five feet, and to a depth, he could see as he peered over the top, of anywhere from a couple of yards to at least twenty yards. The bones behind the ones creating the walls, he presumed, were spines, ribs and all the other sorts belonging to what had once been complete skeletons. The tunnels of bones stretched on and on, with the side passages blocked by locked gates.

"How long have they been here?" he wondered aloud.

"They began accumulating in 1786 from what I understand," Helmut replied. "They came from the cemeteries during the beginning of the Revolution, when they were becoming overcrowded. The relocation ended in 1860, and it's estimated that five to six million skeletons were moved here."

It was eerily quiet, except for the sound of water dripping from the ceiling and the muted voices of the tourists ahead of them. And dark, with only dim floodlights for illumination.