The Parisian Codex

34 - Under the Hill

The ground sloped gently downwards. The air was warm, the silence filled only with our breaths and the sound of our footsteps. The cave revealed itself in fragments in the beams of our flashlights.

"Is the place popular?" asked Zagan suddenly.

"Much less than the left bank," I said. "The mines here form a ring at the foot of the hill, but the network isn't very extensive."

"Does it connect with the sewers?" asked Romane.

"In one spot. Someone opened a passage, during the Occupation I think. But the mine had been there for a long time when the sewers were built in the neighborhood, and the two carefully avoid each other. We won't run into rats or crocodiles."

"Crocodiles?" repeated Zagan.

"That's an urban legend," I said. "You've got a few centuries of pop culture to catch up on."

"Whose fault is that?" he growled.

"What?" said Romane.

No one answered.

The air smelled of dampness, dust and mushrooms.

Then the service passage opened out into the main gallery.

"Wow..." said Romane. "It's ... immense! Why is it so large?"

"The aim wasn't to dig a tunnel," I said, "but to extract as much stone as possible. The workers removed the entire thickness of the gypsum layer—except for the pillars, of course."

I shone the beam of my lamp upwards. The tunnel ceiling was far away—fifteen, maybe twenty yards above my head. Narrow, vaulted, it was white and seamed with dark beams, like stitches in a bloodless wound. The weight of the Montmartre hill was supported by massive stone pillars, wider at the top than at the base. I lowered the lamp, revealing a flat, uncluttered floor. Thousands of workers had dug the hill like Swiss cheese to extract gypsum, the "plaster stone" that the 19th century was so fond of. The open-cast quarries had been filled in so that construction could proceed above them, but the tunnels remained.

I had explored Montmartre's underground on several occasions, when the marshals made the surface too dangerous for me. On one memorable occasion, a cop even came down to look for me.

The beams of our lamps wandered for a few moments longer over the walls of the arched tunnel. The slightest shift of gravel created echoes worthy of cathedrals.

Zagan cleared his throat. "I don't want to rush you, but I can feel the sheep getting restless..."

Once again, I pointed them in the right direction and led the way.

There's a special silence under the earth, where sunlight never penetrates. Vampires have excellent night vision. But the darkness is so total underground that without our electric lamps, I'd have been as blind as Romane and Zagan. Romane, anyway. As a demon, Zagan undoubtedly had more than one trick up his sleeve. I had to remember to watch out for him.

The immense gallery took on more human dimensions as we progressed. After long minutes of silent walking, the beams of our lamps struck against a retaining wall—the end of the tunnel. The gypsum layer must have lost some of its quality; the workers had filled in the passage to reinforce its structure, then gone to work elsewhere. But between the various rocks, water had been oozing for over a century. It had made its way to the base of the wall—a narrow opening, barely wide enough for an adult to crawl through.

"And now?" said Romane.

I shone my light on the entrance to the gully dug by the water into the retaining wall.