Lockwood & Co.: The Creeping Shadow (36 page)

“Lots,” I said, “but not all. Maybe that’s how it works, when souls are gathered….Lockwood won’t like me saying that,” I added. We hadn’t just been sitting by the dying fire. We’d been arguing.

“Because it’s
not
gathering souls,” Lockwood said irritably. “I don’t know what the Shadow is, but it’s not some demon or angel visiting on the Day of Judgment. It comes back every night of the week, for heaven’s sake! I wish you’d get that stupid cross thing out of your mind.”

“It draws the dead out of their graves, Lockwood!”

“Oh, give it a rest.”

“Hot chocolate, anyone?” Holly said brightly. “Nice and soothing? Mr. Skinner’s got a stash of packets behind the bar. Tell you what, I’ll just go and put the kettle on.”

“Must have been
something
seriously weird about it,” Kipps said. He’d taken off his goggles and now tossed them stylishly across the room to hang from a coat peg. His swashbuckling finesse was only slightly undermined by the red rings they’d left around his eyes. “Must have been weird to have freaked
you
out, Lockwood. I never thought I’d see the day.”

“I’m not freaked out!” Lockwood crossed his arms. “Do I look freaked out to you, George?”

“A triple helping of yes. I’m with Kipps on this one.” George blinked and shook his head in unfeigned wonder. “This is a night of firsts.”

“Well, maybe Lucy and I are right to be a little unsettled,” Lockwood said after a grouchy pause. “Because its raising of the dead is only one of several strange things about this ghost. The kid was correct in everything he said. The Shadow
does
trail some kind of smoke, and there
do
seem to be weird flames licking around its form. It moves oddly, too.” He sighed. “You ever read about anything like this, Kipps?”

“Never. It’s not in any of the histories. Could be something about it in the Black Library at Fittes House. There’s all sorts of stuff there….” Kipps stretched back in his chair. “I must say I’m surprised that the Rotwell Institute hasn’t caught on to this Shadow. They’re missing a trick here.”

Lockwood nodded. There was a grim light in his eyes. “They certainly are.”

The kettle boiled. Holly made the hot chocolate. Kipps went to help her. George raided the cupboards behind the bar, locating potato chips and chocolate. A midnight snack was soon in progress at our operations desk in the corner of the room.

The distraction helped lift Lockwood’s spirits; not just lift them, but switch them around entirely. He had the ability to flip moods like no one else; from being shocked and listless, he was suddenly galvanized, crackling with energy. Me? I ate and drank and felt a little better. I wasn’t entirely calm, though. Nor, after my experience in the churchyard, was the Creeping Shadow the only thing on my mind.

Lockwood waited till all were seated, huddled around our mugs, and then sat forward in his chair. “Okay,” he said, “I’ve got a proposal for you. It may sound crazy, but hear me out. Seeing that Shadow has changed things for me. It was
so
odd. It was
so
different. It’s definitely a kind of ghost we’ve never seen before. And I think we need to respond by upping our game.”

“How?” Kipps asked. “By laying a trap for it? By shepherding it into a ghost-pen? I’ve seen that done: you lay out a pen with iron chains, then drive it in with flares.”

“Not quite.” Lockwood glanced at his watch. “Actually, we’re going to raid the Rotwell Institute in, let’s say, an hour’s time.”

“What?” Kipps was less used to Lockwood than the rest of us were. We just sipped our hot chocolate in knowing silence. “
What?
Run that past me again.”

“I’ve been planning to do it ever since we arrived,” Lockwood said, “and that little visit by Steve Rotwell himself only reinforced my intention. But I was
going
to do it after we’d dealt with everything here at Aldbury Castle. But since seeing that Shadow? No. For a start, there’s too much to deal with here. By the time we finish all the hauntings on our map, it’ll be the middle of next week, and whatever’s going on at the institute will long be over. Consider: Rotwell himself is part of it. He’s not going to shack up in those sheds for long.”

Kipps had taken a shrimp cocktail chip and was staring at it like it held the mysteries of time and space. “So what
is
going on in there?” he said. “At the institute?”

“That’s what we have to find out. I’ve told you briefly, Quill, about Lucy’s problems, and the theft of her rare and valuable haunted skull. I told you about this Mr. Johnson, and the Rotwell connection to the black market trade in artifacts. We know that all the stolen Sources will be at one of the institute centers—but the question was always
which one
. When young Skinner told us about Aldbury Castle’s epidemic, that rang a bell with me. A sudden cluster in an obscure village in the middle of nowhere? With the institute operating nearby? Harold Mailer told Lucy that he’d been supplying Sources to the black marketeers for about three months. That’s roughly how long Aldbury Castle’s been suffering, too. Oh, and then there was this reference to the ‘place of blood,’ and the Rotwell facility set slap-bang in the middle of a battlefield. It’s all too much of a coincidence for me.”

“Another coincidence,” George said, “is that all this started up not long after we put an end to whatever was going on in Chelsea. Are you going to eat that chip, Kipps? If not, I can give it a happy home.”

“Chelsea’s another reason I got you involved, Quill,” Lockwood went on. “You were with us on that. If the Rotwell group stirred up that cluster, they’ve stirred this up, too. And among the things they’ve roused is this Shadow. A ghost that energizes other ghosts simply by strolling by! That’s terrifying. We’ve
got
to get to the bottom of it.”

“It could be part of the answer to the Problem as a whole,” George said. “Remember my map back at Portland Row, showing how the epidemic has spread steadily across the country, like a disease? Diseases need carriers. This Creeping Shadow may be one of them. What if there are
lots
of Creeping Shadows? Maybe that’s why the epidemic is spreading.”

“I’ve got no love for Steve Rotwell,” Kipps said slowly, “but I don’t quite see how he can be blamed for all that.”

“Nor do I—yet,” Lockwood said. “But we’re going to find out—tonight. No use waiting till tomorrow. Rotwell might be finished by then.” He sat back. “What do you say?”

Kipps blew out a slow, heartfelt breath. “Raiding fellow agencies? Is this what you all usually do?”

I nodded. “Sometimes. We broke into the Black Library at Fittes House once.”

“What?”

“Don’t look so shocked,” Lockwood said, grinning. “You’re not with them any longer, are you? You’re free to think for yourself for once. Which is a good point: you don’t
have
to be part of this.”

Kipps shrugged. “Oh, I’m part of it. I have nothing else to do. I might as well spend the next few years in prison….Keep your paws off my chip, Cubbins. Go find your own.”

“Good,” Lockwood said. “Then we’ll go. But before we do—Holly, you worked for Steve Rotwell, you must know him pretty well. What do you think drives him?”

It was a testament to how accepting I was of Holly now that all my attention had been taken up by Kipps’s incredulity and discomfort.
He
was the newbie; she’d been sipping her chocolate just as calmly as George and me while Lockwood spoke of breaking-and-entering into a national institution. Okay, she still managed to be effortlessly, annoyingly elegant while doing so, but it now seemed to be just her personal variation on the Lockwood & Co. way. She’d even taken a couple of chips.

“What drives him?” she said. She tapped her shapely nails against her mug, her mouth drawn down in sharp distaste. “He likes his wealth and money. Beyond that…” She looked into the fire. “Beyond that I’d say it was his desire to keep up with the Fittes organization. He’s always talking about them; always studying what they’re up to, the successes they’ve had. He’s always tallying the number of cases they’ve notched up each month, comparing them to the Rotwell figures. He’s striving to be number one.”

“Oh, Rotwell’s has been like that forever,” Kipps said. “You’ll know this from the history books. Old Tom Rotwell and Marissa Fittes started out as partners in the fight against the Problem. Then they had a falling out, and it was Marissa who started the first official agency. Rotwell got his going a few months later, but it was never as popular—at least in the early days. The firm’s been playing catch-up ever since. All this institute stuff, whatever pathetic commercial devices they may or may not be trying to create—that’s just part of their desperate attempt to match the Fittes Agency.” He sniffed. “It’s all quite sad, really.”

“Well, Penelope Fittes has her own little private thing going on, too, don’t forget,” Lockwood said. “The Orpheus Society seems to be under her influence, and
they
made your goggles, Kipps. But look, if we’re going to do this, we’d better get a move on. There’s only four hours till dawn.”

We
did
get a move on. Turns out the equipment for burglary isn’t that different from the equipment needed for ghost-hunting. For speed’s sake, we jettisoned some of the heavier chains and a lot of the spare iron; George found wire cutters; otherwise we left our belts and bags as is. There were too many Visitors around to risk traveling any lighter. We were ready to go in ten.

It still felt funny going through my backpack and not seeing the ghost-jar there. A few bags of salt, an extra flare or two; even the spirit-cape—my new defense, carefully folded—none of them quite made up for its absence. After Vauxhall, I’d more or less given up hope of ever locating the whispering skull. Perhaps, if Lockwood was right, it would be out there now, just a mile away in the compound in the fields. I hoped so.

Before leaving, we made ourselves as dark and unobtrusive as possible. Being agents, we all more or less wore black anyway, and had gloves to cover our hands. But our faces weren’t ideal for commando work; Kipps’s in particular almost seemed to glow like a second, freckled moon. So Holly went to work with her makeup brush and soon we were all nicely dimmed.

Five silent shapes departed the Old Sun Inn. It was just after two a.m.

There were spirits wandering in the woods; we saw their other-light from afar, but none approached us, and we took care to give them a wide berth. We stayed away from the lane, too, hopping over the little stream a few yards down from the wooden bridge, circling around the quarry, and then following the course of the road through the trees. We kept going until the stars shone bright between the trunks ahead and we knew we were reaching the brow of the hill.

As Lockwood and I had done the day before, we covered the last bit in a crawl. There were no alarms. Soon the five of us lay in a row on the hillcrest, looking down on the Rotwell Institute. By night, curiously, it looked more impressive than by day, the floodlights masking its ugliness, giving the buildings a smooth metallic sheen.

It wasn’t the
floodlights
that caught our attention as we lay there. They weren’t the only lights around. Here and there across the black expanse, faint glowing figures stood like posts risen from the ground, like nails hammered into the winter field. Their light was tenuous, palely golden, shimmering and twitching, as if at any moment they might be pulled apart by the wind. What form they’d ever had was lost with countless years.

“
That’s
why they aren’t too worried about posting sentries,” Lockwood breathed. “They’ve got Vikings to do the job for them.”

“Must be some bones still left out there on the battlefield,” George said.

“Not good.” Kipps was scowling through the goggles. “What do we do now?”

“I think it’s all right,” I said. “We can just steer around them. There’s plenty of space, and it doesn’t look as if they’ve moved for centuries. It’s not
them
we should worry about, anyway, if we’re talking psychic threats.”

“Still got that background hum, Luce?” Lockwood asked.

“Yeah. It’s really loud. And it’s coming from down there.”

In fact, the sound had been building up all the way through the woods. It wasn’t quite so heart-stoppingly immediate as when the Shadow was approaching the churchyard, but it was strong now, buzzing like insects in my brain. As with the bone glass months before, as in the hidden tunnels of Chelsea, it almost made me feel nauseous. There could be no doubt: it was coming from the site below.

Lockwood shifted where he lay; his hand touched my shoulder. “We’ll follow your lead, Lucy, when we’re in there. Anything you pick up, just tell us.”

“First,” Kipps said drily, “there’s the small matter of
getting in
.”

A rough, stony escarpment led down to the level of the fields. We took this inch by inch, so as not to send pebbles tumbling, but once on the flat ground we picked up the pace again. The compound floated ahead of us in its island of light. No one was visible, which gave us heart, though in truth there was little chance of anyone under the floodlights seeing us as we drew near. Looking out into the dark, they’d have been almost blind.

I was right about the Visitors, too. We were able to curve between the softly glowing forms, keeping at a distance, and never once did any of them stir. They were scarcely more than pillars of creamy light, except for one, in which traces of a bearded face could still be seen. Then we were past them. Drawing near the darkest portion of the boundary fence, we flung ourselves down.

A minute went by, during which we allowed our heart rates to slow. The grass was cold; I was pressed between its blackness and the blackness of the sky. When I looked up, I could see the loops of wire a few inches from my face and, beyond, the backs of buildings. They were more substantial than they’d appeared from the woods; taller, larger in extent. The sides near us were very dark, but you could see that some of the structures were connected by passages. These were basically metal-ribbed tubes, with canvas sides that shuddered gently in the wind. It was silent; the place might have been abandoned.