Lockwood (42 page)

Because Visitors
were
there.

Once, at an unknown distance down a passage to the left, I saw a faintly glowing form. It was a young man, wearing a suit with a high stiff collar. He stood motionless, with his back to me, one of his shoulders much higher than the other. For some reason I was very glad that he did not turn round.

From down another aisle came an urgent tapping. When I looked, I saw one of the lowest shelves aglow with other-light, the tapping coming most distinctly from its very small lead coffin.

‘
This is jolly
,’ the skull said. ‘
But these wisps are nothing. My master is here too
.’

‘Up ahead?’

‘
Oh, yes, I think you’re getting closer.
’ It chuckled softly. ‘
Remember that shout just now? What’s the betting that was Cubbins looking in the bone glass?
’

With difficulty, I swallowed my rage. If the ghost was talkative, perhaps it could give me information. ‘Tell me about the mirror,’ I said. ‘How many bones did Bickerstaff use to make it? How many ghosts did it take?’

‘
Seven bones and seven spirits, if I recall
.’

‘What do you see if you look in the glass?’

‘
Oh, I took care never to do that.
’

‘What about Bickerstaff? Did he ever look himself?’

‘
He may have been mad
,’ the ghost said simply, ‘
but he wasn’t stupid. Of course he didn’t. The risks were too great. Tell me, don’t you think Cubbins may be busy dying? Aren’t you wasting time?
’

Hurrying on, I came at last to what seemed to be an outer most aisle of the catacomb, onto which all the side-passages opened. And now another burst of noise sounded up ahead: angry voices, cries of pain. I speeded up, stumbling on the uneven ground. My boot caught on a loose brick. I tripped, reached out to correct myself, and my hand knocked a piece of stone or mortar from the shelf alongside. It fell, clinked and clattered briefly in the darkness. I stood motionless, listening.

‘
It’s all right. No one heard
,’ the ghost said. It left a dramatic pause. ‘
Or DID they . . .?
’

All seemed still, except for the painful thudding of my pulse. I continued, going slowly. Soon the passage began to bend round to the right, and here I saw flickering lantern-light stretching across the bricks, picking out the blackened pockmarks of the empty shelves. The noise of the mirror was louder now, and it was very cold – the temperature dropped lower with each step.

‘
Careful
,’ the skull whispered. ‘
Careful . . . Bickerstaff is near
.’

Crouching low, pressing close to the wall, I slipped near the edge of the light and peeped round the corner of the passage. After the darkness, the faint glow blinded me. It took my eyes a few moments to adjust. Then they did, and I saw what was in the room.

My legs felt weak. I supported myself against the wall.

‘Oh,
George
,’ I breathed. ‘Oh,
no
.’

I’d been wrong about the light. It wasn’t a lantern at all. A flickering gas-lamp
did
sit on a table, but its fragile beams scarcely reached the cobwebbed ceiling high above, let alone filled the rest of the room. But other things were there. Other things that glimmered with a very different kind of radiance.

Bad things.

A narrow circle of iron chains had been laid in the centre of the chamber, and inside this space rose a tall, thin three-legged stand – a tripod of black wood. At its top, slotted neatly into a narrow groove, was something small and roughly circular, covered by a gentleman’s silk handkerchief. From it came the familiar dark buzzing, and a wave of vicious cold that made me shiver even where I crouched across the room. Occasionally the handkerchief shifted slightly, as if blown by invisible currents in the air.

The bone mirror – in position on its original stand. Ready to be used.

The mirror wasn’t alone inside the circle. A group of faint shapes hung there, surrounded by a pulsing cloud of other-light. It was very hard to see them; they were clearest when you looked away. They were human forms, clothed in drapes and shapeless garments, and pressed so close together they actually overlapped. Their faces were blurry and indistinct – smeared grey blotches replaced the eyes and mouths. Without counting, I knew there were seven of them, for they were the spirits trapped in the making of the mirror. Their anger and their sorrow beat upon me; and from far off I heard their ceaseless calling:

‘
Our bones . . .
’ they pleaded. ‘
Give us back our bones . . .
’

On another occasion, the spirits and the bone glass would have been enough to transfix me with horror. I would have been unable to tear my gaze away.

But not today. For in front of the circle was George.

He sat on a wooden chair, directly facing the shrouded mirror. His hands had been tightly lashed to the chair back. His head was lowered, slumped against his breast, his glasses at an angle. His eyes were shut. To my extreme relief, he was still alive; his chest heaved up and down.

Across the room stood another chair, turned towards George. Here, to my brief surprise – I’d almost forgotten my encounter with the Fittes team – sat Quill Kipps. Like George, his hands were tied behind him. But he was awake, his hair streaked with cobwebs, his thin face grey with grave-dust. His jacket was askew, and his shirt torn at the collar. He looked as if he’d had a rough time, suffered a few indignities. Mostly, though, he just looked deeply annoyed. His eyes glittered as he gazed around.

There was no sign of Albert Joplin anywhere.

But there
was
something else in the little chamber, and of all the bad things there, this was surely the worst. I didn’t notice it at first, for it was beyond Kipps, and fainter than the ghosts beside the mirror. But then my eyes were drawn to the dark mass lying on the floor, and to the shadow rising high above it. My hands shook, my mouth went dry.

‘
The master!
’ the skull whispered at my back, and I could feel the thrill and terror quivering in its voice. ‘
The master is here!
’

The ghost of Edmund Bickerstaff stood at the far end of the room.

On the dirt of the floor the doctor’s body lay: the foul, part-mummified corpse from the iron coffin, with its ragged black suit and spray of glassy hair. It was stiff as a twisted branch, as shiny and dark as bog-wood. Its shrivelled, teeth-baring monkey’s face stared sightlessly up at nothing.

But from the centre of its chest rose the same terrible, wispy apparition I’d seen at the gravesite five days earlier. Eight feet tall, it was: eight feet tall and taller; a thin robed shape with a drooping hood that kept the face in shadow. It towered so high it seemed it might break through the brickwork vaults and disappear into the ground above. It hung there, almost motionless, minutely waving from side to side, in the manner of a rearing snake. The eyes were hidden; but I could see the bone-white chin, the heavy, brutish mouth.

For a moment I could not understand why the Visitor did not plunge down upon Kipps, who was seated just in front of it. Then I saw that another iron chain had been slung across the floor, cordoning off Bickerstaff’s body. The ghost was trapped inside.

Even so, its wickedness filled the room. I could sense the dark intensity of its desire. Right now, its attention was concentrated on the mirror – and on George. It wasn’t aware of me. But that would change the instant I stepped into the chamber. The thought made me feel ill.

Yet I had to act, and do it fast. Joplin was nowhere to be seen. Now was the time to rescue George, and for that I needed to be light of foot. Crouching in the darkness, as soundlessly as possible, I began to pull the rucksack off my back.

‘
You can see he’s trying to recreate the original experiments
,’ the skull was saying. ‘
Got the mirror set up nicely on its stand. There are the seven spirits, still as feeble as ever. Always moaning, never actually doing anything. And he’s even got the master standing by. It’s almost like the old days back again. Hold on – why are you putting me down?
’

I shoved the rucksack into a vacant shelf. ‘You’re too heavy,’ I whispered. ‘You stay here.’

‘
No!
’ The skull spoke urgently. ‘
I must be part of this. I wish to see the master! Take me to him!
’

‘Sorry, you’re staying put.’ I loosened the top of the rucksack, and pulled the fabric down a little, revealing the top few inches of the jar. The plasm had flared bright green; I glimpsed the distorted face, whirling round and round. ‘If I need you,’ I said, ‘I’ll come and get you – and you’d better help when asked, or you’ll stay here permanently.’

‘
Curse you, Lucy!
’ the skull hissed. ‘
Why don’t you obey me?
’ It gave a sudden shout. ‘
Master! It’s me! Welcome back!
’

Over in the corner, the cowled figure stood silent. It did not respond.

‘
Master . . .
’ The plaintive whisper was filled with fear and yearning. ‘
Over here! It’s me!
’

The figure didn’t stir. All its intentness was on the bone glass, and on George.

‘
Yes
,’ the skull said irritably. ‘
Well, he’s not what he was
.’

Of course he wasn’t. Like most Type One and Type Two Visitors, the ghost of Edmund Bickerstaff was locked into a fixed pattern of behaviour, obsessively repeating what had gone before. Its consciousness was paper-thin, a fragment of what it had been. But I didn’t have time to point this out to the skull. Stealing forward on noiseless feet, I emerged into the chamber, scanning all around. Shadowy aisles of brick and concrete stretched away on every side. Everything was silent; I could not see Joplin.

As soon as I broke cover, Quill Kipps noticed me. He gave a start of surprise, then began frantically beckoning me with little jerks of his head. The grimaces he made were quite ridiculous; on another occasion I could have watched for hours. Instead I ignored him altogether, and tiptoed over to George.

Close up, his face looked puffy; one cheek was bruised. He didn’t move when I touched him.

‘George!’ I whispered. ‘
George!
’

‘Don’t bother! He’s out cold!’ Kipps’s whisper was desperate. His head was waggling overtime. ‘Come here and set me free!’

I crossed over in a couple of strides, trying not to look at the phantom looming just beyond the strip of chains. Stubby tentacles of plasm flexed and probed against the margins of the circle. The cowled head twisted, and I felt a sudden heaviness, a cold weight on my spirits. It saw me. It knew I was there.

I shrugged the feeling off. ‘Kipps, are you all right?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘What, me? Tied up by a madman and left in a haunted catacomb in the company of Cubbins? Oh, I’m just peachy. Can’t you tell?’

‘Oh, that’s good,’ I said beaming.

‘I was being sarcastic.’

My beam turned to a scowl. ‘Yeah, so was I.’ I ducked behind him, readying my sword. To my dismay, his hands were tied with chains, and secured with a padlock. I couldn’t cut him free.

‘You’re chained up,’ I whispered. ‘I need the key.’

Kipps groaned. ‘That glazed-eyed fool will have it.’

‘Joplin? Where is he?’

‘Gone off somewhere. He heard a noise, went to investigate. He’ll be back any moment. What are you going to do to get me out of here?’

‘I don’t know. Shut up.’ I was finding it hard to think. Psychic noises buffeted my head – the mirror’s buzzing, the plaintive calling of the seven spirits, even some distant insults from the irate skull. And – above all – the presence of the hooded figure bore down on me. What would Lockwood do if he was here? My mind was blank. I didn’t know.

‘Can I just say,’ Kipps growled, ‘that when I get out of this, I’m going to kick your idiot friend’s backside from here to Marylebone.’

‘Let’s face it,’ I said, ‘you shouldn’t have been spying on us. But yes, so will I. Wait – would Joplin have put the key on that table?’ I crossed quickly, rounding the edge of the mirror circle, where the pale spirits turned to follow me. The table was piled high with a confusion of objects – dusty pots, ornaments, jewellery, and many, many books and papers. If the key was there, I couldn’t see it. I threw my hands up in despair. What could I do?
Think
.