Lockwood (27 page)

And I have to say, my skin
did
crawl a little as I stood there, and the hairs on my neck
did
rise. Maybe Lockwood was right. Maybe the place would be free of actual Visitors. But this was a house where the previous proprietor had engaged in years of sinister occult research, where he’d probably tried to summon the spirits of the dead in a series of unsavoury experiments, and where he’d suffered a mysterious and solitary death. Let’s face it, we were talking trace memories that would need more than a squirt of air freshener to remove.

Still, I’m an agent, etc., etc. You know the deal.

Without (much) hesitation, I stepped inside.

The good news was that nothing dead and wicked came rushing straight towards me down the darkened hallway. In our profession, that’s a result. And when I listened, as I always do right off, I heard no psychic screams or voices. It was very quiet. The only sounds were the scrapes and shuffles of Lockwood and George as they squeezed in behind me and dumped their bags on the floor.

An empty chamber, cavernous and high. A strong smell of damp and must. I kept the torch off, as it’s always wise to do, but it wasn’t as pitchy as I expected, and my eyes began to see things. Shafts of moonlight shone down from holes in the roof somewhere far above, spearing into a staircase at the far end of the hall. It was a curved stair, dark with moisture and ruined by years of rain. In places it was blocked with rubble; in places the wood had fallen away. Great pallid clumps of bracket fungus erupted from the balustrade, and thin knots of grass grew between skirting and wall. White crusts of mould flowered on the ceiling. Old brown leaves, blown in by countless autumn storms, lay in long piles across the hallway; papery and skeletal, they rustled as we moved.

I couldn’t see any of the graffiti you’d expect in a long-deserted house: clear evidence of its dubious reputation. No furniture, no furnishings. A mahogany picture rail ran round the walls up near the ceiling. Flecks of wallpaper shivered in the warm draught we’d brought in from outside. There were no light fittings anywhere: ragged holes showed where they’d once been torn away.

Somewhere in this rotting dereliction Dr Bickerstaff had worked with objects stolen from the local graveyards.

Somewhere here he had died. And then the rats—

No. It wasn’t good to dwell on that story. I could feel my heartbeat quickening. Anxiety and stress are two emotions Visitors like to feed on. I shook my head clear, and turned my attention to procedure, to the job in hand.

‘Lockwood?’ I said. He’d been gazing quietly into the dark.

‘No death-glows here. You?’

‘All very still.’

He nodded. ‘Fine. What about you, George?’

‘Temperature’s sixteen degrees, which is nice and normal. All fine so far.’

‘OK.’ Lockwood walked a little further into the room, shoes scuffling through the dry dead leaves. ‘We work quickly and quietly. We look for Bickerstaff’s study, and we look for his laboratory or workroom, where his experiments took place. The newspaper said that was accessed from a living room – so that’s probably downstairs. We don’t know about the study. If we run across a psychic hotspot, Lucy has the option of taking readings – but that’s up to her. And we don’t bring out the skull unless she says so.’

‘Too right,’ I said.

‘The main hotspot is likely to be upstairs,’ George said. His voice was curiously flat. Perhaps something in the feel of the place had affected him. ‘The room of the rats.’

‘If there
were
any rats,’ Lockwood said. ‘Anyway, we’ll try to avoid that one.’

We moved away along the hall and entered the nearest room. This too was quite empty – just bare boards and plaster, all picked out in silver moonlight. The ceiling was whole, the room dry. I ran my hand along the walls as I wandered past them, feeling for psychic currents. No, didn’t find anything; it was just a dead, clean space.

We tried the room behind it, and that was similarly quiet. No temperature changes, no miasma or creeping fear. We tried a third, opposite the others across the hall. From its position and the ornate mouldings in the ceiling you’d guess it had been a posh reception room, where Bickerstaff and his guests took tea. Here, even the wallpaper had gone; part of the skirting too. There was nothing but moonlight, boards and plaster. An uncomfortable thought occurred to me. As with Bickerstaff, so with the house. The whole place was a skeleton, stripped to the bones.

As we returned to the hall, I caught a faint vibration: muffled, somehow familiar. ‘Lockwood, George,’ I whispered, ‘either of you get that?’

They listened. Lockwood shook his head. George shrugged. ‘
I’m
hardly likely to, am I?’ he said heavily. ‘My senses aren’t nearly as sharp as—’ He gave a sudden gasp of fright. ‘
What’s that?
’

I’d seen it too. A travelling slit of darkness, a long, low, agile shape, moving through the shadows at the furthest margin of the room. It darted just below the wall, close to the window, but keeping out of the hazy pyramid of moonlight. It circled round towards us along the line of skirting.

Iron sang: Lockwood’s rapier was out and ready. With his other hand he plucked his pen-torch from his belt. He stabbed it on, transfixing a tiny, black-brown huddling body in the circle of piercing light.

‘Only a mouse,’ I breathed. ‘A tiny one. I thought . . .’

George exhaled loudly. ‘Me too. Thought it was bigger. Thought it was a rat.’

Lockwood clicked off his torch. The mouse – released as if from a spell – was gone; we sensed rather than saw its swift departure.

‘Mustn’t get rats on the brain,’ Lockwood said drily. ‘Everyone OK? Shall we go upstairs?’

But I was frowning at the far side of the room. ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘When you switched your torch on just now, I thought I saw . . .’ I took out mine, angled the beam at the far wall. Yes, caught there in the clean, bright circle, a thin black line cutting upwards through the plaster. The telltale outlines of a door.

When we drew close we could see the hinges embedded in the wall, and a small, rough hole where a key or handle must have sat. ‘Well done, Luce,’ Lockwood breathed. ‘Once this must have been covered with wallpaper, or with a fake bookcase maybe. It would have been very hard to find.’

‘You think this is the way to Bickerstaff’s workroom?’

‘Must be. You can see where they forced it, years ago. It’s hanging loose now. I think we can get in.’

When he pulled at the door, it swung forward at an angle, for its upper part had rotted off the hinge. Beyond was a narrow passageway running deeper into the house. No light penetrated it. Lockwood switched on his pen-torch and took a brief survey. The corridor was narrow, empty, ending in another door. The smell of damp and mould was very strong.

All due caution had to be observed now. Before entering, we took systematic measurements, and jotted them down. Then, ducking low (the top of the door was below Lockwood’s head), we started off along the little passage. Progress was slow and careful; every few yards we halted to use our Talents and take fresh readings. Nothing alarming happened. The temperature dropped, but only marginally. Lockwood saw no death-glows. Faint ripples of sound pulsed at the edge of my hearing, but I could make nothing of them. There were spiders here and there, on the ceiling and in the dust of the floor, but too few to be significant. Touch yielded no sensations.

George had become subdued. He moved slowly, and spoke little, passing up several cast-iron opportunities for sarcastic or insulting remarks – which, frankly, was unlike him. At last, with him lagging behind us in the passage, I mentioned this to Lockwood. He’d noticed it too.

‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘Malaise?’

‘Could be. But this is the first time he’s entered a psychically charged location since he saw that bone glass. We’d better watch him carefully.’

Of the four common signs of an imminent manifestation (the others being chill, miasma and creeping fear), malaise is the most insidious. It’s a feeling of soul-sapping heaviness and melancholy that can steal up on you so slowly you never notice it – until you have a ghost creeping towards you and you realize you haven’t the willpower to run or raise your sword. At this extreme it’s become ghost-lock, and ghost-lock – being the opposite of life and happiness and laughter – is often fatal. This is why good agents always look out for each other, why we work in teams. Subtly, without drawing attention to ourselves, Lockwood and I moved so that George was between us. We protected him on either side.

We arrived at the door at the end of the passage. I put my fingers on the handle. A thrill of extreme cold speared up my hand and arm; I caught the on-off sound of voices – male ones, talking heatedly. I smelled cigar smoke and something sharper, an acrid chemical tang. Almost at once, the echo was gone.

‘I’m getting traces,’ I said.

Lockwood’s voice came from the back. ‘Everyone stand very still. Keep looking and listening. Don’t open the door.’

We waited in silence for a minute, maybe more.

At last Lockwood gave the all-clear. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Ready when you are, Luce.’

That was my cue. I took a deep breath, gripped the handle again and stepped into the room.

Utter blackness enfolded me. I instantly sensed I was in a larger space. As always, it was tempting to switch on my torch, but I resisted the impulse and stood still, letting my mind open. Close behind me I could hear the door easing shut. Neither of the others spoke, but I could hear the quiet movement of their feet, feel their presence as they pressed beside me in the dark. They stood very close, closer than normal – but I didn’t really blame them. In fact I was grateful for it. It was so very, very dark in there.

I looked, but saw nothing. I listened, heard only the scantest ripples of sound, which swiftly faded. I waited for Lockwood to give the ‘lights on’ signal.

And waited. He was really taking his time.

‘You both ready?’ I asked finally. ‘I don’t get anything. Do you?’

I became suddenly aware that I could no longer sense anyone on either side.

‘You
ready
, Lockwood?’ I said, my voice a little louder.

Nothing.

From somewhere across the room came a man’s deep cough.

A surge of fear – strong, knife-thin – rose through me. I scrabbled at my belt, switched on my torch, swung it rapidly to and fro.

Just a room, another barren space: bare walls, dusty floorboards. A single window cavity, blocked with bricks. In the centre of the room, a massive table with a metal top.

None of that interested me, because I was alone. Lockwood and George weren’t there.

I spun round, wrenched open the door. My trembling torchlight picked out the pair of them a few steps away. They had their backs to me, their rapiers out; they were staring up the passage.

‘What the hell are you doing out here?’ I said.

‘Didn’t you hear it, Luce?’ Lockwood hissed. ‘The scurrying?’

‘Like rats,’ George whispered. ‘I thought it was coming towards us, but . . .’ He seemed to notice me for the first time, standing in the door. ‘Oh, you’ve been inside.’

‘Of course I have.’ A finger of cold moved down my spine. ‘You came in too, right? You were in the room with me.’

‘No we weren’t. Watch where you’re pointing that torch. The light’s in my eyes.’

‘We thought you were with us here, Luce,’ Lockwood said.

‘No, I went through the door, just like— Are you
sure
you didn’t follow?’ I remembered the soft shuffling sounds, the invisible presences pressing close. My voice grew tight and forced. ‘I felt you standing next to me . . .’

‘We didn’t notice you go in, Luce. We got distracted by the scurrying.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t hear it,’ George said.

‘Of
course
I didn’t hear it!’ I burst out. ‘If I’d heard it, do you think I’d have left you behind and gone in there?!’

Lockwood touched my hand. ‘It’s all right. Calm down. You need to calm down and tell us what’s happened.’

I took a long deep breath to stop myself from shaking. ‘Come in through here and I’ll tell you. From now on, we need to stay very close together. And please, let’s none of us get distracted any more.’