The Uninvited
Prologue
Six Weeks Ago
I was twenty-some meters under Paris in a room hacked out of limestone, huddled against the farthest wall, shivering.
I didn’t know what to do next. A frantic voice in the back of my head kept shrieking, Run!
Like that was a solution. Where would I go?
I didn’t have any money with me. I didn’t have my passport.
I didn’t have a plan. What I did have: My phone.
A pack of cigarettes. Some matches. A set of lockpicks.
Also shame. And guilt. And blood soaking my shirt and stiffening my hair.
Besides, running was what had gotten me here, to the farthest dark corner of this sour-smelling room in the cellar of a forgotten church.
I’d been running, and I didn’t see its steps rising out of the sidewalk until I went sprawling.
As I got to my feet, I noticed the church’s weather-beaten door with its clumsy medieval lock that I could have picked with a damp twist of paper. It looked like a good place to hide.
Inside, soot-crusted stained glass held the dark in.
Dust coated the floor so thickly that my steps threw up little puffs.
Automatically, I looked for the votive stand, but it held no candles, just a few blackened wicks trapped in grimy pools of wax.
The tiny nave contained several disorderly rows of chairs and a thirdhand table, bearded with dust, that must have been the altar.
The place was as dead as last year’s leaves.
Near the altar in a grubby little grotto stood the only saint in the place, leaning casually on his club.
His specialty was lost causes, but the dour look on his face said my troubles were beyond his powers.
In the space before the ambulatory, the floor opened, and a wide stair descended into the dark.
I followed it down and found myself in the crypt.
Another set of steps took me down again, to a room that harbored a sad little regiment of rush-bottomed chairs—amputees all, too damaged to repair and return to the nave.
I needed to make a plan, but I was too weary to think or even to cry.
I sank to the floor, pulled my knees close to my chest, and rested my head on them.