Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy (32 page)

At Kensal Green Cemetery, six months earlier, Lockwood, George, and I had discovered a curious object, a mirror or “bone glass,” that had certain odd capabilities. Most startlingly,
we guessed it gave its owner the ability to look across to the Other Side. Since anyone who looked into it invariably died—and since the glass was smashed at the end of the case—it was
hard to be certain about this. But just being close to the thing had made me feel ill; and I now realized that my sensations here were very similar indeed.

“It’s
not
the bone glass, of course,”
the skull went on.
“It’s different—bigger and farther away. But it’s the same sort of
feeling. A disruption in the fabric of things. Take it from me, Lucy. Strange stuff’s going on around here….”

With that the skull’s presence suddenly receded. Holly Munro was at my side. I hadn’t noticed her come close.

“Why are you talking to yourself, Lucy?”

“I wasn’t. Er, I was just thinking aloud.”

It was an excuse that wouldn’t have convinced a three-year old, and it was touch-and-go with Holly. She frowned and opened her mouth to speak—but at that moment a familiar voice
called both our names. And there was Lockwood, coat swishing, lantern swinging from one long pale hand, advancing swiftly through the dark.

I hadn’t realized until I saw him how tense and strung out I was; also how desperately I missed him at my side. I felt both worse and better as he drew near.

“Lucy, Holly—are you all right?” He was smiling, but I could see anxiety in his eyes. “People are getting jumpy. I’m checking up on everyone.”

“We’re okay,” I said. “There’s just an awful lot of ghosts around.”

“Yes, though they’re holding off for now.” He flashed his grin at us. “The worst thing that’s happened so far is George knocking a leaf off that stupid tree in the
foyer. We’ll stick it back on later. Hopefully Aickmere won’t notice.”

“Lucy’s been hearing voices again,” Holly Munro said.

I glared at her. I’d been
about
to tell him—probably—and I didn’t like it slipping out like it was some kind of guilty secret, or the way Lockwood looked at me
so sharply.

“Lucy?” he said. “Is this true?”

“Yes,” I said huffily. “Something’s called my name twice. It’s fine, though—I’m not going to do anything stupid. And besides, I’ve got Holly here
to look after me.”

He was silent for a long moment; I could see him wrestling with his doubts. At last he said quietly, “We’re meeting up in half an hour. Think you’ll be okay till
then?”

“Yes, of course.” The way I said it probably sounded abrupt, like I was cross with him for asking. I wasn’t at all—just like I wasn’t
entirely
sure
I’d be okay. The skull’s words had spooked me. My spirits felt oppressed. I kept wanting to turn around, just in case something was sneaking up behind…but I certainly wasn’t
going to admit any of that in front of Holly.

“Well…see you both soon, then,” Lockwood said.

Soundless as ever, he faded into the shadows.

Holly Munro and I stood in the hall for a moment, watching him go, darkness swirling around us. Then we resumed our psychic survey. Never overly talkative when we were alone, we now fell
entirely silent, other than whispering new readings to each other. We were unsettled. I looked over my shoulder more often than was necessary.

At last the silence between us became oppressive. I cleared my throat.

“So,” I said—I wasn’t particularly interested; I just wanted to relieve the tension—“this Cotton Street killing you mentioned earlier. What
was
it?
Big deal for you?”

Holly nodded briefly. “You could say that. I was the sole survivor of a four-strong team that got attacked by a Poltergeist in a Cotton Street studio. I got out of the window, rolled down
the tiles, and fell against the chimney. Lay there all night, more dead than alive. My supervisor and two other colleagues weren’t so lucky.”

It was a rough story, but even as she spoke I was distracted. I had that sudden unpleasant feeling of something close and creeping near. I looked behind me—and saw nothing….When I looked
back, I found Holly still watching me, waiting for my reaction.

I took a moment, tried to focus on what she’d said. “Yeah. Sounds bad.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

What, did she want me to hold her hand? The precise same thing had happened to me, too. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But if you were an agent…stuff happens.”

There was a pause. Holly gazed at me. After a while she said, “They took me off the front line. It was meant to be temporary, but I was good at desk work and found I didn’t want to
go back. But don’t think I haven’t got the ability to do this, Lucy. I’m rusty at it, but I’m still capable.”

I shrugged. I scarcely heard her. I was concentrating on the atmosphere of the hall. A faint, dusky radiance from the streetlights below filtered through the windows and gave everything grainy
definition. It wasn’t so strong that our Talents would be impaired, but neither did we need to switch on our flashlights to find our way. Holly drifted away from me. She crossed to the
nearest racks and walked between them, brushing her fingers along the soft lines of shirts.

I stood looking down the room.

My feelings of anxiety had deepened all the time we’d been on this floor; now, all at once, without warning, they intensified into dread. I found my gaze was fixed on the dark space at the
end of the hall, beyond Checkout and the final racks of clothes, where a tall, squared archway opened on to the cross-passage that led to the elevators and stairs. The details of the passage could
not be seen: it had no windows, and the streetlights did not penetrate there. It was a blank emptiness, small, but of infinite depth.

“Lucy
…
”

Sweat ran down the side of my face; I couldn’t look away.

I could hear the rustlings of Holly’s fingers as they ran along the shirts. Down in the street, a dog barked, perhaps a stray. But that was the last thing I heard, for now cold silence
engulfed me—suddenly, violently, as if it had come rushing up the hall from the passage at the end. It hit me like a fist. Something pressed hard on my temples; I grimaced, opened my mouth,
but I could not call out. My limbs were marble; my hands locked at my side. I was as fixed and frozen as one of the mannequins.

And I watched that notch of darkness.

I watched as something moved into it.

It came from the right-hand side beyond the arch, a human figure crawling on all fours. Scarcely blacker than the blackness all around, it dragged itself along on knees and elbows with a series
of slow, slow, jerking movements. Now and again it advanced in swift scuttles, as a hunting spider might, but the overall impression was of obnoxious weakness and of pain. Thin legs dragged behind
it; the head hung low between the rolling shoulder blades and could not be clearly seen.

Across the space at the end of the hall the crawling figure went; it reached the other side of the arch and disappeared along the passage in the direction of the elevators. A moment passed, and
then a flowing thread of darkness streamed across the gap after it. It looked like a thick black rope, shimmering, quivering at its edges. At first I couldn’t make out what it was; then
pieces of it broke away, and I recognized them. It was a great host of spiders, silent, intent, moving like a single living thing. They too passed out of view in the direction the awful jerking
figure had taken, and with that the dread that held me in its grip relaxed, and I could move again.

The pall of silence lifted about me; once more I heard Holly’s fingers as they brushed through cloth and, outside in the street, another bark from the poor stray dog.

There was pain in my mouth, and my lips were wet. When I touched them, my fingers ran with blood. In my numbness and terror, I’d driven my teeth into my tongue.

I
shook my head to clear the icy dullness from my brain.
“Holly!”
I hissed.

Give the girl her due; she was at my side at once, fancy sneakers soundless on the polished floor. Her voice seemed oddly loud. “What?”

“Did you see
that
?”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t see anything.”

“Or even feel it? It was down beyond the arch there—something moved across it.”

“I didn’t sense anything….Are you all right, Lucy? You’re shaking.”

“I’m not shaking. I’m fine. You don’t need to put your hands on me.”

“There’s a chair here. Why don’t you sit down?”

“I don’t
want
to sit down. What are you, my nursemaid?”

“Well, let’s go find the others. It’s time we met them anyway.”

Lockwood and Kipps were already waiting near the first-floor stairs. We stumbled down the steps to them. “Poor Lucy’s seen something,” Holly Munro said as we drew close.
“She’s terrified.”

“I am
not
terrified.” Where the spectral chill had been, hot rage was now pulsing through my veins; I struggled to keep my voice steady. To be honest, it wasn’t
strictly clear that she’d intended to have a dig at me, but I didn’t care right then. “I’m fine, thank you. It was something very strong, that’s all.”

“Tell us, Luce,” Lockwood said.

I told them as best I could.

“Did it look at you?” he asked. “Were you attacked in any way?”

“It didn’t stop or look at me. It just went past—but I’ve never experienced such ghost-lock….And such chill, too—I still feel cold now….” I shivered; I
sat down on a step. “The
spiders
, Lockwood—have
you
ever seen that before?”

“I’ve not. There’ve been cases, though, haven’t there, Kipps?”

“Red Lodge, famously,” Kipps said. “And at Chislehurst Caverns back in ’88. Others, maybe. One or two. Not many.”

“What the hell was it
doing
? The way it was crawling along the floor…God…”

“I think she should leave,” Holly Munro said abruptly. “She’s in no state to go on.”

“Like
you
could know that!” I cried. “Like
you
could sense anything! You were standing right next to me, and you didn’t pick up any of the chill or the
creeping fear! You weren’t ghost-locked at all!”

“You make it sound as if that’s a bad thing,” Holly said.

“Oh, give me a
break.
”

“What was that?” It was Lockwood who’d spoken, but we’d all spun around. One of the clothes racks on the far side of the room had tumbled over with a crash. A shadow came
lurching toward us: Kate Godwin, rapier out, blond hair disarranged. Her usual cool self-possession was gone.

She halted by us, white-faced, breathing hard. “Have you seen Bobby?”

We stared at her. “How can you have lost him?” Kipps said. “I only looked in on you five minutes ago.”

“Five minutes? More like hours. I’ve been searching all over…I can’t find him.”

“What time
is
it?” Holly said. “I can’t tell how long we’ve been here either.”

I looked at my watch and felt a new stab of fear. “The hands have stopped.”

Kipps cursed. “Mine have gone backward.”

“Everyone calm down,” Lockwood said. “Forget the time. The entities here are playing tricks on us. Kate, tell us what happened.”

Kate Godwin pushed her bangs back. Her blue eyes, bright, angry, and distressed, flickered between us; she couldn’t keep them still. “We got to the top floor, furniture department,
all the sofas and things. We started looking around. I heard a voice again—it distracted me. It sounded like—well, it doesn’t matter
what
it sounded like. I followed it a
short way. Then Bobby shouted that he’d seen something. He sounded…odd. I looked around—he was running off into the dark. I went after him…but he’d gone.
Gone,
Quill.” She looked as if she were about to cry.

“For heaven’s sake,” Kipps said. “I thought we told you to stay together.”

Her face twisted. “We
were
staying together! But then he—”

“It’s all right,” Lockwood said. “We’ll find him. What was this voice you heard?”

She hesitated, glanced over at Kipps. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Not good enough,” I snapped. “You’re part of a bigger team now. You need to tell us everything.”

Kate Godwin swore. “Don’t order me about, Carlyle. If you must know, I thought I heard Ned Shaw.”

Kipps gave a start. “Kate, Ned died miles from here. And we…we followed proper procedures, with iron and everything. He can’t have…he can’t have come back.”

“How clearly did you hear his voice?” Lockwood asked.

Kate Godwin shook her head disgustedly. “Quite obviously I can’t have. I must be going mad. It’s the kind of nonsense Carlyle pulls. But Bobby…”

“Yes, we need to find him fast. But before that we should—George!”

Out of the dark, two
more
hurrying figures: George’s low-slung form followed by the taller, even more shapeless outline of Flo Bones in her whopping coat. They looked like two
melting marshmallows, both flushed and breathing hard.

“There’s weird things going on, Lockwood,” George began. “Flo’s just seen something in the basement—not one of these ordinary Shades, but something with the
semblance of—Who was it, Flo?”