The Wayward Cataphiles

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Stephen followed her through the side streets of Paris as they hurried down a back alley between an already-closed hat shop and a brasserie entertaining its last few straggling guests of the night. Hand in hand, they raced through quiet streets, their laughter and footfalls echoing off the darkened buildings and old cobblestone streets of the 18th arrondissement. They had only met a few hours earlier at a concert in Montmartre, but he was already smitten and would follow her anywhere; including to an underground party somewhere in the Catacombs of Paris.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" Stephen asked as they turned yet another corner.

"Of course," Astrid said in that melodic French lilt that made him want to do anything for her. "Don't you trust me?"

"Sure," he replied, hoping his voice conveyed more confidence than he felt. He hadn't needed a lot of persuading when they were pressed up against one another at the concert, so close that he could feel her hot breath in his ear as they talked; but now that they were out in the cool, crisp night air, far away from the lights and sounds of other Parisian nightlife, doubts started to form.

Stephen didn't know much about the Catacombs of Paris, except a little snippet he remembered from an earlier audio tour he had taken on his first day in the city. As he sat on an overcrowded tour bus, the tinny voice in his disposable headphones told him that an entire subterranean network of mines and galleries existed beneath the streets of Paris. While the ossuary and other select areas were popular tourist attractions, the majority of these tunnels and underground rooms were off limits. One could still stumble across a hidden entrance via the sewers, metro, or certain manhole covers, but exploring the Catacombs outside of the established tourist areas was illegal. This, Stephen supposed, is probably why the Catacombs had long been a popular site for urban explorers, secret societies, and assorted revelers in search of a unique and clandestine meeting place.

Astrid finally stopped outside a quiet boulangerie with a lone baker spending these very early morning hours preparing the dough for the next day's baked goods. She knocked on the door and he looked up from his work, smiling once he recognized her. He approached and unlocked the door, opening it wide enough for Stephen and Astrid to slip inside.

"Bonsoir," he said, closing the door. "Comment vas-tu?"

"Bien, Marcel."

No further words were said as Marcel turned his attention back to his dough and Astrid again took Stephen by the hand, leading him behind the counter and through the tiny kitchen area. There was an old door on the far side of the shop; Astrid opened it to reveal a stone staircase leading into the basement. The small subterranean room had another door at the far end, this one revealing another stone staircase leading farther underground.

And then they were in the Catacombs. It was quiet and dark except for Astrid's cell phone, which she held out in front of her like a flashlight to illuminate their way. After moving down the passageway a few dozen meters, they could hear the faint rhythmic thumping of techno music, which became gradually louder as they traversed a series of passages and side passages. Just as Stephen became convinced that they were lost and just walking around in circles, they rounded one last corner and the faint glow of multicolored lights materialized in the distance.

"Come," she said, excitement building in that melodious voice of hers. "I want to show you something."



As they turned the corner, the narrow tunnel suddenly widened into a large gallery that had been converted into a makeshift nightclub. Dazzling lights projected prismatic blues and reds and greens off the walls while an infectious beat coursed through the crowd.

It seemed like any other rave or warehouse party, until Stephen saw the first set of wings. At first he thought the iridescent gossamer on their backs was some article of clothing, but as the energy of the music increased, the delicate material rose off their backs and shoulders, fluttering as it expanded into a full set of wings protruding from their shoulder blades.

"What the hell?" Stephen asked, turning to Astrid.

His mouth gaped as her own wings expanded from her shoulders. At this distance he could clearly make out their every detail; a translucent membrane covered thin veins that coursed with variegated colors. They reminded him of the dragonflies he used to chase as a kid back home in Montana, only more detailed and infinitely more beautiful.

"Amazing, aren't they?" she asked.

"Y-Yes," Stephen replied. "What... are you?"

"We have many names," Astrid said, taking him by the hand and leading him through the crowd. "Elfs, nymphs, pixies, sprites. But people mostly just call us faeries."

"I always thought faeries were just a myth."

"Most people do," Astrid replied. "But we're real, and we need your help, Stephen."

"Mine? With what?"

"There are good and bad faeries, just like there are good and bad humans. Except our world is split between the light and the dark; the good ones are very good and the bad ones are very, very bad. The dark faeries are tired of their shadowy plane of existence and want to come into yours... not to coexist but to conquer."

They stopped near the raised stage where the sound system had been set up. Stephen and his lack of faerie wings were drawing stares from more and more of the revelers.

"But what does all this have to do with me?"

"There are certain places where the boundary between our worlds is weaker, allowing people from both sides to cross over. That's how we're able to party down here, but it's also how the dark ones are able to cross over and further their plans. They need blood – human blood – to strengthen their foothold on your world and allow more of their kind to enter."

Stephen's mind was reeling from all of this. Just a few minutes ago he hadn't believed in faeries or magic or anything outside of his routine, mundane life as a business management consultant. And now he was in the Catacombs of Paris, attending an underground faerie rave, staring at quite possibly the most beautiful woman/faerie he had ever met. And she needed him.

"What do you want me to do?"

"You'll help? Really?" Her dazzling smile was hopeful and eager.

"Of course. Anything for you."

He was about to move in and embrace her when he felt a sharp prick on his shoulder.

"Ow!" he yelped, craning his neck to see what had stuck him. There was a thin laceration on his shoulder which, upon closer inspection, was actually four smaller ones in perfect alignment. Small rivulets of blood began to ooze from the tiny perforations.

"What the hell was that?" Stephen asked, turning around and finding that, to his surprise, the crowd of faeries had closed in around him. His eyes locked on one of them just as she licked a tiny smear of blood off her perfect lips. And then he felt another bite come from behind him, this one on his calf.

"Jesus!" he cried, looking down to find one of the male faeries just pulling away from his leg with ruby-coated lips.

The blood from these first two bites was enough to send the entire room into a tittering frenzy. There was an electric energy in the air as everyone crowded around him.

"I thought only the bad faeries wanted human blood," Stephen said, confused and looking to Astrid for explanation.

"That's true," Astrid replied, her face twisting into a malevolent glare. "But then again, we never claimed to be the good faeries."

Panic swelled in the pit of Stephen's stomach as he realized the gravity of the situation and the perilous mistake he made in his assumption about Astrid and her friends. But before he could do anything about it – before he could even scream – the crowd surged forward and the faeries were upon him. They tore at his clothes and pushed him to the ground, biting him anywhere and everywhere they could find a patch of exposed skin. The undulating, hypnotic music blared louder, drowning Stephen's cries as they bled him out, one tiny faerie bite at a time.



Later that evening, there was another knock on the door to the little boulangerie and Marcel looked up to see a beautiful young woman not that dissimilar to Astrid standing with a nervous-looking young man that wasn't all so different from Stephen.

"Bonsoir, Sylvie." He said as he opened the door for them.

"Bonsoir, Marcel."

She smiled a knowing smile at him as she led the nervous young man toward the door in the back of the shop; another sacrifice for the cause. Marcel stretched out the gossamer wings that were discreetly resting on his shoulders and allowed them to settle down once again as he finished pressing his dough into a baking pan. As he placed it in the oven, he couldn't help but admire the efficiency with which they were attracting humans to the portal in the Catacombs. He couldn't remember who had originally come up with the idea to forego their old ways of kidnapping unwilling victims, but ever since they started luring willing and unsuspecting innocents through seduction, they had enjoyed exponentially more success. They might even be ahead of schedule at this point.

And then, almost on cue, there was another knock at the door as Laurent arrived with his date.



(1,606 words)