“Aaah! But you’re dead!”
“No—would a ghost tap you? Would a ghost talk to you…?” I waited. “Would a ghost punch you in the face? You’ll find out if you don’t stop screaming.”
“But you went in the circle…”
“I’m okay. And Lockwood, too—look, he’s over there, with George. Well, don’t start crying now.” I gave her a swift hug. “See? Would a ghost do that? Come on. We’re doing well. George is driving them from the field.”
This was, in fact, mostly true. At Lockwood & Co., George was famous for not being able to throw or catch with any accuracy. Back in the kitchen at Portland Row, even the casual passing out of fruit or bags of chips became an exercise fraught with danger. Heads would be struck, glasses broken, peaches spattered on the wall above the sink. Curiously, that particular anti-talent boosted his effectiveness here. Whenever he ventured out from the crates and, with a savage cry, lobbed a flare or ghost-bomb toward the enemy, no one had a clue where it would land. Following the movement of his arm was no help; the item would as often as not shoot out implausibly in the opposite direction and send another Rotwell employee spiraling through the air. As a result, every time he popped into view, all the enemy agents ducked for cover. Many of them were already running down the length of the building, making for open air.
Sensing victory, Kipps emerged from his place of concealment, carrying a giant bag of ghost-bombs. Lockwood went to meet him; after brief greetings, he joined Kipps in lobbing missiles down the room.
“How long’s this fighting been going on, Hol?”
Holly lifted her capsule-gun and wiped her face. Her hair and hands were dusted with a coating of gray ash. “Not long. Since we saw you enter the circle.”
“You were here when we…? How—?” Then another thought occurred to me. “But hold on, that’s been…that was ages ago, wasn’t it? Hours…”
“Don’t think so, Lucy. About ten minutes.”
“But—but it takes half an hour to walk to Aldbury Castle. Must be twenty minutes or more to run back….” I spoke as if to myself. Yet it was certainly true that my whole experience on the other side of the circle now felt curiously insubstantial, weightless, almost dreamlike.
It wasn’t the time to worry about it.
“What are you talking about?” Holly fired an exploding capsule down at the man in battered armor, who was fleeing awkwardly across the hangar. His breastplate had slipped off and was swinging like a pendulum. His boots, gloves, and other parts lay like scrap iron on the floor. She patted the side of the gun. “You know, this is a great weapon.”
“It definitely suits you. Let’s go and join the others. It looks like they’re starting to mop things up.”
The enemy ranks were thinning out. Many of the scientists had fled, and the rest seemed inclined to follow them, despite Steve Rotwell’s ferociously shouted orders. Half-crouched behind the upturned cart, he had not retreated or resorted to firing any high-tech weapons. He had his rapier drawn.
George gave me a wave as I approached. Strapped to the back of his belt was one of the enormous flares we’d noticed in the weapons room, large as a coconut. “Hi, Luce.”
“Hey, George. I see you’re having fun. That’s a mighty big one you’ve got there.”
“Yes, that’s my insurance policy. But I reckon these ghost-bombs will do the job for now.”
Lockwood had just tossed one down at Steve Rotwell. It burst beside him. A gnarled female shape, translucent and shimmering pale blue, rose up at his back. Barely bothering to turn, Rotwell swung his rapier backward, snipping it neatly through the midriff. The ectoplasm fizzed and burst asunder.
“Ooh, see that?” George called. “He just sliced an old lady in two. That’s low.”
“Typical Rotwell behavior.” Kipps threw another bomb, which bounced off a wall and came to an anticlimactic stop. “Hey, that one didn’t even work!” He shook his fist at Mr. Rotwell. “What kind of a product d’you call this?”
“You’ve got to admit, Kipps,” George said, “you didn’t get a night like this when you were working for Fittes. Doesn’t it make you feel better?”
“Feel better about what?”
“About being you. Watch out!” With a roar of fury, Steve Rotwell had thrown caution to the wind; he sprang across the cart in a single bound, took two great strides, and leaped up onto the platform, where he swung his sword at Kipps. Another blade swung to meet it; they collided directly above Kipps’s head. Imagine an upside-down skull-and-crossbones flag and you’d have the moment perfectly.
It was Lockwood’s rapier, of course, and for a few heartbeats he and Rotwell remained locked in that position, both straining, neither moving. Kipps had been frozen for an instant; now his neck slowly concertinaed down into his shoulders until his head was clear of the shivering blades. White-faced, he lurched away.
Steve Rotwell was taller than Lockwood, and considerably heavier. He exerted his weight on the sword; Lockwood, by careful twists and adjustments of his slim wrist, offset the force. Otherwise neither moved.
“I made a prediction earlier,” Steve Rotwell said. “Do you recall it?”
“I do,” Lockwood said. “You said I’d cross you.” He gestured around at the burning building, at the screaming employees disappearing into the distance. “Does this count as crossing you? If so, congratulations—you were right.”
“That wasn’t all.” Rotwell jumped back, swinging his sword away. He kicked a spar of burning wood at Lockwood, who jumped clear; it shattered against the crate behind him in a starburst of sparks. “I promised to deal with you when that happened. And so I shall.”
He drove forward, twirling his rapier in a series of grandiose loops. Lockwood parried him once, twice, a third time, but was forced backward off the platform. He jumped lightly onto the earth, with Rotwell thudding down behind him.
“Years of work,” Rotwell said. “Years of careful study, and you’ve ruined it in one evening.”
“You brought it on yourself!” Lockwood was still on the defensive, straining to cope with the older man’s savage attack. “Your experiments unleashed terror on Aldbury Castle! It’s because of you that so many ghosts were raised! Dozens of people were killed! And all because your man in iron armor was out there, walking on the Other Side, stirring up the dead.” He gave a deft shimmy and struck at Rotwell’s wrist, but the blow glanced off the ornate hand-guard of the sword.
Steve Rotwell drew back. “You do know more than I expected…but I don’t think you understand it all. If you did, you’d realize that the unfortunate deaths of the villagers was a small price to pay.” With a twirling double stroke he knocked Lockwood back into the suspended iron chain. “And the same can certainly be said of your death, too.”
He aimed an almighty blow downward; Lockwood ducked aside and the sword sliced straight through the iron chain. The portion of chain attached to the post fell to the floor. The rest was at once sucked inside the circle, like spaghetti being drawn into a giant mouth, and it disappeared.
Lockwood stumbled away, closer to the circle and its column of circling ghosts. He looked weary, and I thought I understood why. My own experience beyond the circle had left me weakened. My limbs were like water, my head still spun. If Lockwood felt anything like me, it was probably all he could do to hold the sword.
“He’s beating him,” Holly gasped.
Kipps nodded. “He’s got Lockwood cold.”
“Or so he thinks.” George had a final standard flare in his shoulder belt. He took it out, winked at us, and hurled it straight at Rotwell’s head. At least, that’s what I assume he was aiming for. In actuality, the flare sailed clean past and landed by the edge of the circle of chains, where it exploded with great ferocity. When the smoke cleared, fires burned on the ground and the chains were blackened and twisted. Some of the links had almost split. At once the shapes inside the circle began to cluster at that spot.