Trigger Point

Chapter 3

1

1Paris, France, 29 June 2014

Lutetian stone, which bestows a unique visual appeal upon Paris, was mined from quarries south of the historic limits of the city. As Paris grew, its arrondissements sprawled over the maze of abandoned mines and the interconnecting tunnels. In 1777, a 300-ft cave-in prompted King Louis XVI to commission the office of the Inspection Générale des Carrières. Its mandate: map and inspect the mines to strengthen the foundations, as it were, of Paris.

Simultaneously, 18 th century Paris faced a public health issue: its cemeteries were overflowing and the largest, Saints Innocents, rose above street level, casting an unhygienic shadow over Les Halles, the adjacent marketplace. Several edicts by the king to restrict the use of the cemetery were thwarted by the church which profited from burial fees. After the basement of an abutting house collapsed, a law prohibiting burials within the city was enforced.

aboveThe problem of what to do with millions of bodies interred in the city’s cemeteries coincided with the inspection of the mines. The police prefect decided to exhume and transfer the remains to a designated section of the mines, called Tombe Issoire. The plan was secretly executed and took two years to empty the city’s cemeteries of six million bones.

two yearsIn 1810, the director of Inspection Générale des Carrières transformed the haphazard dumping of bones into a macabre work of art — a mausoleum made popular as the Paris Catacombs. Today, the catacombs is a museum and a venue for public events, including parties and concerts.

Also, most of it is off-limits and unmapped.

The Respect for the Dead party is held every other month in the Paris Catacombs. The DJ console is a hair-raising bas relief of dancing, dismembered skeletons. Music is beamed wirelessly to the guests’ headphones. Pulsing strobe lights illuminate a surreal, flickering scene beneath a vaulted ceiling: hundreds of revellers gyrating before the lifeless gaze of thousands of human skulls, a long-dead audience from a generation that could not imagine electronic music, let alone wireless technology.

Respect for the DeadAruna Roy had recently made partner with a consultancy firm in Mumbai, India. She and a colleague were in Europe to celebrate. And what better way to celebrate than to attend one of Paris’s semi-secret theme parties. Tonight’s theme was Venice in Paris. Everybody was in period attire — gowns, corsets, feathered masks, pointy-beak Black Death masks, wigs.

Venice in ParisHer friend nudged her. Aruna looked to find they were being checked out by a pair of guys. No, she told herself with an inward smile of satisfaction… to be period-accurate, Doges of Venice. Reading the unspoken invitation, the Doges sauntered over.

Their senses intoxicated, their inhibitions lulled by a mix of freely flowing alcohol and drugs, the strangers were ready to explore their baser instincts as the night wore on.

The slick music assumed an urging beat, Aruna and her Doge were grinding against each other. She lost sight of her friend and didn’t care. She was only aware of a spreading warmth within her body. She felt the Doge’s breath on her cheek, felt him nudge her earphone off her left ear.

He whispered, “I know a place. It is private.”

Aruna pressed herself against him. “Show me.”

He led her away, out of range of the music. She held his hand, followed him through dark passages, illuminated by his probing torchlight. Empty eye sockets followed their passage, heightening the eroticism of their intentions.

They stooped to pass through a tunnel which spilt into another gallery of bones. Rings of skulls adorned stout columns, splayed skeletal hands grasped eternally at the walls. Down steps, a turn here and there, and finally through an arch, to arrive in a brick-walled chamber.

Aruna looked around.

Three niches on either side of a central aisle. Each held a massive sarcophagus. Skeletons clung to the walls of the niches, scrambling from the sarcophagi.

The Doge wasted no time. He kissed Aruna’s long neck. She turned, melted into his arms, their lips found each other hungrily. Thus entwined, they staggered until Aruna sat upon the rim of the sarcophagus. The Doge set his torch upright on the sarcophagus, its light reflected off the roof, spilt upon their unsuccessful attempts to undress each other. Eventually, they had to separate to strip out of their unfamiliar Venetian clothing. That done, they threw themselves at each other, a thrashing of limbs, an arching of backs, mouths and tongues flicking in and out, fingers probing and rubbing, fists stroking. Moans and groans filled the chamber. Aruna clambered upon the sarcophagus lid but its height put her out of reach of the Doge, even on tiptoes. Panting, they looked around. The Doge grabbed the torch, played it around. In the far wall was a shallow recess. The broad ledge at its base was at a height suitable for their need.

“Come on,” he breathed huskily.

Her back slammed against the wall of the recess, her legs clasped his waist, they found their rhythm. His cheek rested against hers, her fingernails raked his back. She was uncaring of the stone grazing her skin. Her back arched as she neared…

There was an audible click!

click!She would have ignored it if the stone behind her back hadn’t moved.

The wall of the recess vanished. With the Doge thrusting at her, Aruna had no balance. She yelped as she toppled backwards into a pitch-black void. A most primal instinct of self- preservation took over, she held on to him… inadvertently pulling him with her. It took him a moment to surface from the waves of pleasure… and be caught in the undertow of her struggle. Before he knew what was happening, he was pitching forth…

Aruna tumbled into the void, followed a bare second later by the Doge. Their n***d bodies slid uncontrollably down a short, sloping shaft…

To be ejected at the other end, into space.

Screaming, arms and legs flailing, they crashed ten feet to the ground.

Aruna groaned. She blinked. Her back hurt. Her shoulder hurt. Everything hurt. She rolled slowly onto her side.

Her eyes widened in horror.

She had fallen out of the chute, landed on a stone platform, tumbled off…

The Doge’s body was lying at the base of the platform. He was staring at her, his mouth open and slack, drooling blood; his neck an unnatural angle. He had struck his head against… the bone- encrusted base of the platform. The impact had knocked a few bones free.

She cringed, wriggling away on her butt, gasping, looking around.

She had fallen into… a detached part of her brain made impressions: a circular chamber, a domed roof, arched niches, each containing a life-size solemn statue, surrounding the raised platform in the centre.

Movement in her periphery.

Aruna spun… to behold a figure, dressed in white robes with a hood casting a shadow over its face, reaching for her. And behind, another figure. The figure’s gesture might have intended concern but Aruna was too shocked to be thinking clearly. The hand took on a claw-like appearance to her.

Aruna’s right hand closed around something solid. And before she knew it, she was swinging. With a thwack! a femur smacked against the side of the figure’s head. It was a solid blow, born out of pure, unadulterated fright. And it knocked the figure aside. The figure bellowed in pain. A man’s voice. The other robed figure was moving.

thwack!So was Aruna. She was on her feet, then slipping as dislodged bones scattered underfoot. That misstep was providence.

The sound of a gunshot was deafening in the chamber and shook centuries-old grime and mud from the roof in a rain. The bullet found the altar instead of her head. Chips of stone and bone fragments exploded out of the corner of the platform, striking her in her face. She held her balance by clutching to the top of the platform.

Later, she would recall, the surface of the platform bore the likeness of a man clasping a longsword. Another sarcophagus. And she would say the statues in the niches resembled knights, and that she might have fallen into a chapel. But right then, all she knew was she had to make it to the door which she had spotted. Escape.

Aruna ran, calling on an athletic prowess she had possessed in school but had forfeited to long work hours in the corporate world. But like an ever-loyal friend, ready to snatch her out of harm’s way, that prowess returned, coordinating muscles in her feet, legs, thighs, chest and heart. She sprinted, she ducked, she weaved… and burst out the door… crashed into the opposite wall, rebounded, gained traction and took off. Her feet pattered on the earth. Dull electric lights provided dim yellow illumination.

She had no idea where in the catacombs she was. She was lost. Shouts behind her, resounding in the confines of the passage.

Aruna screamed, “Help! Help!” and was rewarded by a renewed chorus from her pursuers. She was drawing them to her. She shut up, and bolted, taking turns randomly with only one objective in mind: get away from the danger.