The Night Has Teeth (14 page)

“Look,” Josh interjects, “if Amara’s right about
how dangerous it is but you know how to get there safely, wouldn’t
you want to help us out?”

I have to refrain from making any commentary. He
doesn’t know Arden the way I do. He remains tight-lipped, watching
the faces filled with anticipation from his end of the lacquered
black tabletop. I think I catch the hint of a smile on the edges of
his eyes and mouth as he enjoys this game of cat-and-mouse. Or
maybe it’s more like wolf-and-rabbit. All we can do is play
along.

“Bah, it’s your hides,” he says dismissively. He
casts a glare that’s specially produced for me. “It’s very
exclusive
. By
invitation only.”

Josh leans forward further, catching his attention
from across the table. “It sounds like you have one.”

“Yes, of course,” Arden admits, all
aloof.

“Then you can take us!” Madison exclaims. She can
hardly contain her excitement and tucks her hands under her thighs
in order to keep still.

Letting out a little sigh of regret, Arden says, “It
isn’t up to me. But if you come, you come as my guests and you
follow my rules.”

We all nod solemnly. The fact that we’re able to get
this information out of him makes me a little uneasy. But Josh is
right, they would have tried going one way or another, and I would
have tagged along out of some sense of loyalty. Still, I wonder
about Amara’s warning and whether attending this party will rank
among the dumbest things I’ve ever done.

11.
Fate

T
hat Friday we meet up at McDo’s for our habitual game, but,
for whatever reason, none of us is in the right mindset for Truth
or Dare. As we head down to the Métro, with Madison leading the
charge, the conversation turns back to the party and what we expect
to find even further underground. It’s hard to know what to
predict. When I think of what lurks beneath the surface of Paris,
my pulse quickens with anxiety.

It’s just a few minutes before eleven p.m., our
predetermined meeting time, when we arrive at one of the remote
corners of the Val-de-Grâce Hospital parking lot. Arden emerges
from the shadow of a tree dressed in his usual black attire. He
told us it’s an hour-long hike to the party site. Otherwise, his
instructions have been pretty vague: dress accordingly (whatever
that means), bring flashlights, follow closely and don’t get lost
(as if that would be in our control). Most alarming to me is that
he hasn’t provided any of us with a map and appears not to have one
of his own. We’re pretty much at the mercy of his memory.

After a cursory glance at our outfits, particularly
our footwear, Arden lets out a noise that can only be translated as
disgust. I imagine it’s directed at Madison, but she’s too busy
texting to notice, and he’s too contemptuous to say anything more
on the matter. It’s our hides, after all. Her hair is down tonight,
flowing just past her shoulders. She wears a wooly vest — like it
was taken right off a sheep — over a camouflage dress. As we stand
side-by-side, I notice she changed her eyebrow ring again to one
with a tiny wolf’s head, and I wonder if she’s being subtly ironic:
the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Bending down, Arden pulls open a
manhole cover with his bare hands ― a feat we don’t have time to
remark on, because he gestures for us to be quick. When I turn on
my flashlight to see what I’m about to get myself into, all I can
make out is a rusted ladder that descends into darkness.

Madison jabs me in the ribs with her phone. “Do it
already.”

With an unsteady inhalation, I take the lead down
the ladder into some kind of anteroom with passages that branch out
in all directions. The sound of the manhole sliding closed above us
has a finality that gives me goosebumps. All ambient light from
above is sealed out, leaving us standing in a huddled mass pointing
our flashlights toward various points of darkness. All I smell is
mold and damp earth. Madison, who seems bent on not following any
of Arden’s instructions, takes the opportunity to pull a pink
glowstick out of a vest pocket and loops it around her neck in lieu
of a flashlight. Like that’s going to do her any good if she gets
separated from the rest of us. Arden leaps down, skipping the last
few feet of ladder rungs, and promptly heads down one of the
passages. Although he moves at a casual pace, he somehow manages to
maintain a steady gap as we try to catch up. Meanwhile, not knowing
any better, Josh tries to make small talk with him ― without any
success. As it turns out, he’s a nervous talker. He hasn’t stopped
since we started down the ladder. Now he echoes in the cavernous
depths of the catacombs. I can’t even focus on what he’s saying. I
have no idea what to expect down here. None of us do. But I follow
along because a) I don’t want Arden to think he’s freaked me out
and b) because I’m too freaked out to head back on my own.

It’s hard to imagine the City of Light having such a
dark city below ground. But that’s exactly what it feels like.
After traversing the edges of regular urban waterways, he leads us
through a secret entrance that I have to shimmy through sideways.
On the other side the walls are built from large stone blocks worn
down with age, and the long, arched passages sometimes open up to
rooms beyond pillars and wrought iron gates. These underground
places were clearly commissioned by some wealthy aristocrat. To
what end, I’m not sure — maybe as part of the French Revolution. We
wind around corridors that are only lit by our flashlights. There’s
graffiti everywhere and garbage strewn about in different places,
evidence of other people crazy enough to venture down here. Some
corridors look impassible due to flooding.

As we turn down one of many passages, I notice an
engraved stone plaque on one of the walls:

Intensé que vous êtes pourquoi

Vous promettez vous de vivre

Longtemps, vous qui ne pouvez

Compter sur un seul jour

Roughly translated, it means, “Keen as you are why
/ Do you promise yourself to live / A long time, you who cannot /
Count on a single day.” I have no idea what it means, but I’m
certain that it’s some kind of ominous warning. Eventually we reach
what looks very much like a dead end. Great, the one guy who
supposedly knows where we’re going just got us lost. It’s close to
midnight now, and I can only guess how many turns we’ve made to get
here. Amara was wrong about the catacombs. They’re not like a
labyrinth. They
are
a
labyrinth.

Arden ushers us toward a stone step that’s flush
against a wall. But it leads nowhere. I look him in the eye. “Is
this a joke?”

His own amber eyes travel up the wall and I follow
with my flashlight. About twelve feet above the stone floor is a
narrow crevice, maybe just big enough for a person to squeeze
through. Even with the steps and what appears to be foot- and
handholds in the wall, it’ll take a hell of a lot of upper body
strength to pull myself up. I can’t even imagine how Madison will
get up there. As if reading my mind and accepting the challenge,
she totters up the steps.

“Someone help me up already,” she
demands.

Josh boosts her up on his shoulders. My biggest fear
at this point is that she’ll tumble backward and break her neck on
the stones below. But once she gets a grip on the edge, she pulls
herself through and disappears down the tunnel. Josh and I are
next, with Arden bringing up the rear. Claustrophobia doesn’t even
begin to describe the feeling of crawling down the narrow tunnel.
On my belly, I pull myself forward with my elbows. After about a
hundred feet we emerge in yet another anteroom, this one showing
only one way ahead. Arden emerges, dusting off the sleeves of his
leather jacket, and leads the way again. In front of us is a steel
door ― a modern addition, clearly. It’s marked with a big “O”
filled with bright white light. By the door stands a beefy bouncer.
She sports a reverse Mohawk. Her black hair is shaved down the
middle with two broad patches cropped on each side. As her golden
eyes stare us down, I get a picture in my mind of a badger: mean.
Real mean. She appraises us with shrewd eyes. Her bare arms are
crossed, covered in tattoos I’m too afraid to stare at.

“They’re with me,” Arden admits with a hint of ―
is that embarrassment?

The bouncer simply nods the four of us in. And
that’s it. No negotiating our age, ID or anything. Just like that,
we’re inside. Signs of civilization come to us: music, voices,
glimpses of colored light. We walk into a room lit by a violet hue
and I’m instantly struck by a sense of being in the nocturnal
animal exhibit of a zoo. Everything is cast in a glow like
moonlight. Once my eyes adjust to the light, I see that the floor
is packed earth. We’re in a large room with ancient stone walls. In
the centre is a bar made of heavily scarred wood. In fact,
everything that can be picked up is made of wood. Smaller rooms
branch off, where I catch glimpses of people making out or having
private conversations. One area is closed off by a heavy black
velvet drape. Above the doorway, carved in ancient and timeworn
lettering, are the words “
Para Bellum
.”

A waitress emerges from behind the curtain carrying
a tray of empty glasses and bottles. For a brief moment I catch a
crowd of people beyond the opening. Are they fighting? That’s what
it looks like by the posturing and yelling. But I can’t hear any of
the shouts because the music seems to be at just the perfect level
to drown out the sounds. It’s a sort of Goth metal. A gravelly male
voice and distorted guitars accompany an enchanting, almost choral
female singer and bowed instruments. The drape folds shut, masking
the strange scene.

“Bro, what is this place?” Josh asks with a tremor
of awe.

Arden leans forward against the scarred wooden bar,
playing with a matchbook as he orders a drink from the bartender, a
dark-haired man who looks to be in his mid-thirties. They greet
each other with a familiarity that suggests they’re old friends. I
have to wonder how he even has any friends, considering his
temperamental personality. Then again, he somehow managed to land
himself a stunning girlfriend like Amara and owns his own business.
In every way, he leads a more successful existence than me. Even
this exclusive party he’s a regular at seems to be one of the most
sought-after scenes in all of Paris. Maybe if I had four hundred
years to try, I’d have the same lifestyle, though.

“Yeah, Arden,” I chime in, “what is this
place?”

In answer, he simply slides the matchbook across the
countertop toward me. In that moment, the only thing I’m aware of
is the white lettering on the slick black surface. The club isn’t
called “O.” As the matchbook states quite clearly below the logo,
it’s La Pleine Lune. The Full Moon. I feel the room spin in on
itself as I take in our surroundings again. Even before I see all
the telltale signs that were there all along, I know without a
shred of doubt that Arden has taken us into his den. There are
tattoos pretty much on everyone, everywhere. When the bartender
turns the other way to grab a bottle from behind, he exposes his
right side, which is covered in a tattoo of a snarling wolf’s head
that trails down his neck and disappears below the collar of his
dress shirt. We’re surrounded by werewolves. And we have to get out
of here. While I’m having this epiphany, Josh wanders off to find
out for himself what the party is all about. Meanwhile, a couple of
guys who look somewhere between Goth and emo have zeroed in on
Madison. Next thing I know, Josh disappears behind the curtain. My
heart sinks a little, but he returns equally as quickly, his face
full of surprise.

“There’s, like, Fight Club going on back there,”
he reports.

Arden doesn’t get the reference; it’s clear by his
expression. But I’m not about to explain the significance of pop
culture to the werewolf just now. I’m too busy assessing the
situation, which, as far as I can tell, is completely FUBAR. I can
only register one exit, and that’s the way we came in. Fear rises
in my gorge. It’s like we climbed over the animal exhibit wall and
fell in with the animals.

The steely gray eyes of the bartender are on me as
he sets a drink in front of Arden. In a gruff voice he asks, “Are
your friends going to give me trouble tonight?”

“They’re harmless whelps, Roul.”

“I don’t mean them.”

His eyes shift almost imperceptibly. Arden suddenly
straightens up and lets out a low growl that Josh is too far out of
range to hear but causes me to shiver. The bartender, Roul, puts
his hand on Arden’s forearm as a warning to keep his cool. I follow
their gazes. On the other side of the bar stands Boadicea, staring
directly back at me. She’s dressed to kill again. And this time I
find the idea completely chilling. Standing slightly apart from her
are two fierce-looking guys.

“That redhead is totally checking you out,” Josh
informs me.

“Yeah,” is all I can say in reply.

“You need a wingman?”

I want to say yes again but know that his thought
process is working on a totally different level. Then I feel a
forceful hand land on my shoulder.

“I’ve got it.”

Glancing over at the hand on my shoulder, I see that
it’s attached to my unlikely wingman. An uneasy relief hits me.

“You’re the man, Arden,” Josh says as he gives me
a hearty pat on the back.

Arden’s amber eyes are unreadable. But Roul
understands his body language.

“Est modus in rebus
,” he says in an even but authoritative
voice. It sounds like Latin.