Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  I drew my coat around me. What he said made sense, as usual. It was good to be out in the night again, with my sword and my colleagues at my side. The distress of my brief encounter at Scotland Yard was slowly fading. I felt a little better. ‘I suppose you’re right . . .’ I said. ‘You really think Blake’s staying in custody?’

  ‘Of course he is.’

  ‘By the way, Lucy,’ George said, ‘here’s something that might cheer you up. We saw Quill Kipps while we were waiting for you. He’s part of a Fittes group working for DEPRAC tonight. Has to do it regularly – it’s part of the deal between the organizations. Well, let’s just say he’s been patrolling the sewers this evening. His team’s clearly had a close encounter with something nasty down there, and I don’t mean a Visitor. Yeuch, you should have seen them. Soaked.’

  I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘At least Kipps still has a job. Our casebook’s empty now.’

  ‘Better to be poor than sticky,’ George said.

  Lockwood squeezed my arm. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow. Something will turn up. Let’s get home. I fancy a peanut-butter sandwich.’

  I nodded. ‘Cocoa and crisps for me.’

  The mist grew thicker as we went; it coiled about the iron railings, and wound around the ghost-lamps, muffling and twisting their intermittent beams. Our boots rang on the empty pavements, echoing strangely on the other side of the road, so that it sometimes seemed as if another trio walked invisibly alongside.

  In Portland Row there had been a malfunction with the ghost-lamp; blue sparks flickered at the base of the headpiece and, instead of their usual fierce brightness, the lenses glowed a frail, resentful red. Most of our neighbours’ windows were dark, and all were shut and curtained. The mist clung close about us as we drew level with our door.

  Lockwood was in the lead; he reached out his hand to open the gate and suddenly stopped dead. George and I both bumped into him.

  ‘George,’ Lockwood said quietly. ‘You had Annie Ward’s necklace last. What did you do with it?’

  ‘I put it on the shelves with all the other trophies. Why?’

  ‘Its silver-glass case was sealed? It wasn’t loose or anything?’

  ‘Of course not. What—’

  ‘I just saw a light in our office window.’

  He pointed down over the railings. The basement yard was a pool of blackness, diagonally sliced by the faint orange glow from the street-lamp outside number 37. Half in and half out of that glow sat the window in question. By day it gave a glimpse of my work-chair, and the vase of flowers on the centre of my desk. Right now it was entirely flat, as if a black rectangle had been painted on the brickwork.

  ‘I don’t see anything,’ George breathed.

  ‘It was just for a second,’ Lockwood said. ‘I thought it might be a trace of other-light, but maybe— No, there it is again!’

  This time we’d all seen the shimmer, faint and fleeting, glinting off the interior of the glass. Shock held us in its grip; none of us moved.

  ‘That was a torch,’ George said softly.

  I nodded; my skin crawled. ‘Someone’s in our house.’

  ‘Someone,’ Lockwood said, ‘who’s not afraid of being out at night. Which means they’ll be armed. They’ll have rapiers or flares at the very least. All right, let’s think. How did they get in?’

  I squinted up the path. ‘Front door looks OK.’

  ‘You want me to check out the back?’ George said. ‘They may have busted in through the garden door.’

  ‘But if they haven’t you’ll be stuck outside . . . No, we need to work together on this. We’ll go in the front as usual – only quietly. Come on.’

  He flitted up the path, moving soundlessly on the tiles. At the porch he halted, pointing in silence to a little patch of splintered wood halfway up the door jamb. When he pushed the door, it swung slowly open. ‘They jemmied the lock,’ George hissed.

  ‘If this was their way in,’ Lockwood said, ‘we can trap them down below.’ He beckoned us close, whispered in our ears. ‘OK. We check the ground floor, then go down the spiral stairs. I don’t want to hear a sound.’

  ‘What about the upper floors?’

  ‘Can’t risk it. The landing squeaks. Besides, it’s clearly the office they’re raiding. So: rapiers ready? We find them, corner them, ask them to disarm.’

  ‘And if they don’t?’ I said.

  Lockwood’s teeth glinted briefly. ‘We use what force we need.’

  The hallway was black; no sound came from deeper in the building. We halted a moment, with the door pulled to behind us, letting our eyes adjust. The crystal-skull lantern grinned from its side-table; our coat-rack was a dark mass on the wall. Lockwood pointed with his rapier at the display shelves opposite. At first sight they were the same as ever; then I saw that some of the masks and gourds were slightly out of position, as if someone had sorted through them with a hasty hand. Far ahead of us, I made out the dull white glow of the thinking cloth beyond the kitchen door. I listened again, heard nothing. I realized I was automatically using all my senses, both outer and inner, as if we were away on business, doing the agent thing.

  But this was our house, our home, and we had an intruder here.

  Lockwood motioned with the blade to left and right. George flitted into the living room; I stepped like a shadow into the library. I could sense right away that it was empty: there was no trace of a lingering presence. But it hadn’t escaped our guest’s attention. Below the shelves, books and papers lay strewn upon the floor.

  Back in the hall, Lockwood waited by the stairs. George’s report was similar to mine. ‘Someone’s working the place over,’ he breathed. ‘Hunting for something.’

  Lockwood only nodded. We stole forward to the kitchen.

  Whether or not our enemy had rifled our possessions here was hard to say, since the room was its usual mess. The table was strewn with the remnants of the meal we’d eaten before going out on the garden job, and the work surfaces were clogged with clutter. I noticed the pots of iron filings nestling by the cereal, and a little pile of salt bombs stacked where George had been preparing them. None of that was useful to us now: we went in search of human prey.

  Lockwood advanced to the little basement door. It was very slightly open. With the tip of his blade he caught the handle, pulled it softly outwards. Darkness, silence, the top of the spiral stairs . . . Warm air rose from below, heavy with its smells of paper, ink and magnesium. The lights were out, and we didn’t try to switch them on. From somewhere came a little scuffling noise, like rats nosing through tight spaces in the dark.

  We looked at one another, clenched our sword hilts tight. Lockwood set foot upon the topmost step. He descended, moving swiftly. George and I followed, boots barely making contact with the iron. In moments we were at the bottom.

  The bare-brick room we stood in was an empty portion of the cellar, occupied only by filing cabinets and sacks of iron. Without the lights, it was entirely black, except for a faintly greenish glow shining from the archway on the right. From the opposite arch came the rat-like scuffling. A teasing hint of torchlight darted momentarily and was gone.

  Drifting softly as Visitors ourselves, we double-checked the right-hand arch and found a scene of chaos. Files upended, cupboards opened, a sea of papers on the office floor. On George’s desk the ghost-jar had been uncovered. The skull was silhouetted in its luminous green plasm. Above it, the disembodied face spun dismally round and round.

  The rapier room was empty, our storeroom door still locked. All that remained was the rear of the basement – where the trophy shelves were. We flitted closer. Ahead of us it seemed that someone grew impatient in their search. The rustling noises sounded rather louder than before.

  We reached the final arch and looked in.

  The trophy room was not entirely dark. It rarely is, by night, thanks to the glow of the cases on the shelves beside the door. Some of Lockwood’s prizes – the bones and bloodstained playin
g cards, for instance – are entirely harmless. You could give them to a toddler to play with because they have no supernatural power. But others are active Sources still, with spectral force that manifests during the hours of darkness. Soft lights glint beneath the glass – pale blues and yellows, lilacs, greens, maroons – shifting, ever-changing, always looking for escape. It’s a beautiful sight – but also eerie, and best not studied for too long.

  Someone was studying them now.

  A shape stood beside the shelves, a hulking figure dressed in black. It was a man, broad in the shoulder and half a head taller than Lockwood; he wore a long coat, with the hood drawn up to hide the face. A bright rapier hung at his belt. He was turned away from us, examining one of the smaller cases in a black-gloved hand. He had his torch trained on it closely; spears of light reflected off its facets and extended over the ceiling.

  Whatever he sought he didn’t find. He tossed the case contemptuously on the floor.

  ‘Can I offer you some tea while you ransack our place?’ Lockwood said politely.

  The figure wheeled round. Lockwood shone his torch full into the intruder’s face.

  Despite myself, I let out a gasp. The hood hung forward, curving like a raptor’s beak. Beneath this cowl, the face was covered by a white cloth mask. The eye-sockets were black slashed holes. Another slash, jagged and off-centre, formed the mouth. Nothing of the man beneath it could be seen.

  The intruder was clearly blinded by the torch. He raised an arm against the light.

  ‘That’s right. Put up your hands,’ Lockwood said.

  The arm shot down. It reached for the rapier hanging at the belt.

  ‘It’s three against one,’ Lockwood pointed out.

  A swish of metal: the sword was drawn.

  ‘Be like that, then.’ Lockwood raised his blade, stepped slowly forward.

  Plan C seemed the obvious manoeuvre in the circumstances. We normally use it on powerful Type Twos, of course, but it works for mortal enemies as well. I went to the left, George to the right. Lockwood held the centre. Our blades were up and ready. We moved steadily inwards, hemming the intruder in.

  Or so we thought. The white-masked figure seemed unconcerned. He raised his left hand to the shelves and grasped a case that glowed with a dim blue light. Turning, he threw it with appalling force, so that it struck the floor at George’s feet. Hinges cracked, the case broke open; a fragment of finger-bone fell out. At once the light escaped, bled outwards like a little cloud. A faint blue apparition rose from the floorboards. It took the shape of a hopping, deformed creature dressed in rags. It rolled its head, threw back its arms and, with a sinuous sidelong plunge, sprang straight at George.

  I saw no more, for the intruder had seized two other cases and thrown them at Lockwood and at me. Lockwood’s bounced, but didn’t open. Mine shattered completely, emitting a woman’s hairgrip, six streams of yellow plasm and a violent psychic wail. The streams rolled and tumbled on the floor, then rose like striking cobras and swung in my direction. With frantic hacks and swipes I sliced them to ribbons. Some instantly dissipated and were gone; others fused and returned to the attack.

  A clash of blades. Lockwood had leaped past and closed in on the enemy. Their rapiers met and met again. Beyond, George parried the Spectre’s flailing blows. He drove it back, wove iron patterns in the air.

  The Visitor I faced was weak and tentative. It was time to snuff it out. I scrabbled in my belt, located a bag of filings. Ripping it clear, I tossed it down. A burst of sparkling light. The thrashing plasm shrank and dwindled, became a smoking puddle on the floor.

  Beside me, iron smote iron; Lockwood and the intruder moved back and forth in the centre of the room, exchanging rapid strikes. The man in the mask was fast, his attacks accurate and heavy, but Lockwood remained at ease. He moved in a swaying dance-step, a sashaying, drifty sort of motion. His boots hardly touched the ground. His rapier-arm gave delicate twitches, the blade-tip changing position like some nimble dragonfly.

  George grew impatient with his contest; dropping back a little, he took a salt bomb from his belt and blew his shambling Spectre into twinkling motes of sapphire light. The noise distracted Lockwood, who glanced aside. At once the masked enemy swung his rapier at Lockwood’s face. It would have been an awful injury – if it had struck. Lockwood leaned away; the edge swished past his cheek. With his enemy unbalanced, Lockwood stepped to the side, jabbed his sword forward. The figure gave a cry, clutched at his midriff. With desperate strikes he drove Lockwood back and, plunging past him, ran across the room. George reached out to stop him. A gloved fist swung, caught George across the cheek, sent him crashing with a moan against the wall.

  The intruder raced across the room towards the spiral stairs with Lockwood in pursuit. I jumped over the fading ribbons of yellow plasm and closed in, swiping blindly with my rapier. The man fled past the stairs and through the arch into the front office. For a moment his silhouette was illuminated by the faint light seeping through its window, and I understood what he was going to do.

  ‘Quick!’ I cried. ‘He’ll—’

  Lockwood already knew the danger; even as he ran, he reached to his belt, plucked out a canister of Fire.

  The intruder put on a spurt, drew near my desk. He leaped upon it and, as he did so, threw his arms across his face. He collided with the window in a crouched position, smashing through the pane in a whirl of spinning shards.

  Lockwood cursed; from the far end of the office he hurled the flare. It passed straight through the broken window and out into the yard. We heard the canister crack upon the stones. A silver-white explosion lit up the night, sending the remaining window-glass hurtling back into the room. It spilled across the desk, clattering against the ghost-jar, so the head inside it winced and goggled. Shards like spilled ice fanned out across the floor.

  Lockwood sprang onto the table, sword in hand; I came to a halt behind him. We went no further. We knew we were too late. Out in the basement, little white fires flickered in the broken flowerpots, and danced and dwindled like Christmas lights across the hanging ivy. Smoke rose towards the street; somewhere up above us, a variety of car alarms beeped and yammered. But it had all been for nothing. The intruder was gone. At the top of the steps the front gate swung gently, gently. It came slowly to a halt.

  Lockwood jumped back to the floor. Behind us, a shape emerged: George, shuffling painfully, clutching the side of his jaw. He was bleeding from a cut to his lower lip. I gave him a wan smile of sympathy; Lockwood patted his arm.

  ‘That was exciting,’ George said thickly. ‘We should have guests over more often.’

  All at once I felt light-headed. My legs gave way; I supported myself upon the desk. For the first time since the fight began, I remembered the aches and strains left over from the Sheen Road fall. Lockwood must have experienced a similar come-down. It took him two or three goes to fix his rapier back into his belt.

  ‘George,’ he said. ‘The Annabel Ward necklace. You said you put it with the trophies. Mind going to see if it’s still there?’

  George dabbed at his lip with his shirt-sleeve. ‘Don’t need to. I already thought of that. Just had a look. It’s gone.’

  ‘You’re sure you put it on the shelves?’

  ‘This very morning. It’s definitely not there.’

  There was a silence. ‘You think that’s what he came for?’ I asked.

  Lockwood sighed. ‘It’s possible. Anyway, he’s clearly got it now.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t.’ At which I pulled my collar aside, to reveal the silver-glass case with the pendant in it, hanging safely on its cord around my neck.

  16

  I should point out, I guess, that I’m not in the habit of secreting haunted objects on my person. I certainly don’t have any other sinister artefacts stuffed down my socks, as George suggested. The necklace was a weird one-off for me.

  I’d seen it the previous afternoon, as we got ready for the assignment by the willow tree. G
eorge had put it on the trophy shelf along with all the other curios. It just lay there, in its little protective case, sparkling dully behind the glass. And instead of leaving it, as any ordinary person would have done, I’d picked up the case, hung it round my neck, and simply walked away.

  Explaining why I’d done this wasn’t exactly easy, especially considering the state we were all in after the fight. So it wasn’t until after a very late breakfast the following day that I tried to give my reasons.

  ‘I just wanted to keep the necklace close at hand,’ I said. ‘Not shoved in with all the other trophies. I think it’s because of what happened when I touched it, when I got that psychic connection with Annie Ward. The sensations I experienced then were her sensations. I felt what she felt; I got a glimpse of being her. So—’

  ‘That’s the danger of your Talent,’ Lockwood said abruptly. He was pale and serious that morning; he regarded me with narrowed eyes. ‘You’re almost too sensitive. You get too close to them.’

  ‘No, don’t get me wrong,’ I said. ‘I’m not close to Annie Ward at all. I don’t think she was a particularly nice person when alive, and she’s certainly a cruel and dangerous ghost. But because of my Touch, I do understand something of what she went through. I understand her pain. And that means I want justice for her now. I don’t want her forgotten. You saw her lying in that chimney, Lockwood! You know what Blake did. So when I saw the necklace dumped there with all the other trophies, it just . . . it just seemed wrong to me. Until that man’s been punished, and justice is properly done, I don’t think we should . . . discard her.’ I gave them a rueful smile. ‘Don’t tell me . . . that’s basically a bit mad, isn’t it?’