“Lucy,” Lockwood said, “next time we’re at home and George wants the last biscuit, remind me to let him have it.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” I said, “he can have the whole barrel.”
We sat on the slope, the five of us, watching the destruction. Beyond the far hills, the first signs of dawn stained the eastern sky. Pretty soon, ash began glittering in the fields like frost.
For more than a thousand years, probably ever since the last raven had finished picking at the skeletons left by the Vikings and the Saxons on their ancient battleground, Aldbury Castle had been a backwater, forgotten and ignored. Centuries of action and incident had passed it by. Even its recent epidemic of ghosts had earned it no attention. Yet the “Rotwell Incident” (which was how the newspapers subsequently named the disaster at the institute facility) changed all that overnight. At a stroke it became the most famous location in England.
The response started early. At eight thirty a.m., roughly three hours after explosions had lit up the sky behind the hills, and with the column of black smoke still funneling up above the trees, the first vehicles began rolling through the village. And they didn’t stop coming. All that day a convoy of cars, trucks, and windowless vans, filled to the brim with DEPRAC personnel, Rotwell agents, and armed police, went racing grimly eastward through the woods. Before long, with word spreading and the first journalists arriving on the scene, DEPRAC cordoned off the village altogether. A barrier was erected at the bridge west of the green, and another on the lane, just inside the entrance to the eastern woods. Guards were posted, and no one was allowed in or out.
That suited us fine. We weren’t in shape to go anywhere. We rose late and spent the day in the taproom of the Old Sun Inn, keeping out of sight.
From time to time, word came of activities out on the fields. Members of DEPRAC teams called in for sandwiches and refreshments, and from the tidbits of information they let slip to Danny Skinner and his father, we got a fair idea of what was going on.
Clean-up squads were wading through the wreckage of the Rotwell Institute site. Most of the facility had been destroyed, and what areas remained had been quickly sealed off from all but the most specialized operatives. The ruins of the central building in particular were out of bounds, but it was common knowledge that certain “unauthorized” weapons had been found in neighboring hangars, and that this was the probable cause of the explosion and the fire. Even more sensational was the news that Steve Rotwell himself was missing. He had been at the facility the previous day and had not been located. So far, he was the only presumed casualty. Several surviving scientists, found wandering in the surrounding countryside, had been taken in for questioning.
“And it won’t be long before we’re rounded up, too, I suppose.” This was Kipps, speaking from his seat near the fire. His turtleneck was pulled high, and his face had a bruised and swollen look. All our faces did. We were like a selection of old fruit, dropped too often and left in the bowl to go soft.
Lockwood was playing cards with Holly. He shook his head, an action that made him wince and rub the back of his neck. “I think we’ll be fine,” he said. “What Rotwell was doing in that site counts as major criminal activity—all those secret weapons, for a start, not to mention the ghost-bombs that were used in the carnival assassination attempt last year. And then there’s the iron circle. I’d be very surprised if Johnson and the others talk openly about what happened last night—at least at first. A lot depends on what the fires have actually left behind.”
“I was wondering,” Holly said. “Shouldn’t we tell DEPRAC ourselves?” She had spent even longer than usual in our shared bathroom that morning, and by some magic was almost restored to her pristine self, despite flare burns on her brow and chin. But the gun-toting, wild-haired madwoman of the night before was in there somewhere, I knew. It made me look upon her with fond affection.
“Tell DEPRAC what?” George said. “They clearly have plenty of evidence about what’s been going on.”
“Well, no, I mean about the circle—about the man in armor going through. It’s very important. We’ve got to, haven’t we?”
Lockwood grunted. “Tell old Barnes? I don’t know….We have never been the flavor of the month with him at the best of times. Think he’ll believe us?”
“Probably just clap us in prison,” George said. “Arson, burglary, general assault…Let’s face it, he’d have some tasty options.”
“I think we have to tell him anyhow,” I said. “Holly’s right. It’s just too big a thing to keep quiet about. When we stood in the graveyard that first night, we saw the way the Creeping Sha—that armored guy—stirred up the ghosts just by passing by. And then, last night…” My voice trailed off; I shivered, despite the fire. “We did exactly the same ourselves. There are so many implications….”
“Implications that DEPRAC aren’t likely to believe, I fear.” Lockwood put down his hand of cards. “But maybe you’re right. I guess we better had tell Barnes, if we get the opportunity.”
Part of the problem about telling Inspector Barnes, or even talking about events among ourselves, was that what had happened to us was so overwhelming. Lockwood and I in particular found it difficult to talk about our time on the other side of the circle with any clarity. We knew what we thought had happened. We knew that we had crossed over to a place that seemed very like the world we understood, except that it was inhabited not by the living, but by the dead. In that place we were the interlopers, and our presence had roused the inhabitants to action, just like the Creeping Shadow’s had. That much we sort of knew. But coming to terms with even that knowledge was like standing on the edge of a terrible precipice, and trying to take a step forward into space. The step could not easily be taken. The mind simply rebelled.
When, on our return to the inn, Lockwood and I described our experiences to the others, everyone had gone very quiet. Even George had not said much, though his glasses gleamed as he stared long into the fire. “Fascinating,” he said, over and over. “That’s fascinating….This is going to need a lot of thought….”
Holly’s immediate focus had been quite different. “If this is true,” she’d said, sitting alongside us and looking intently at our faces, “what I want to know is how you’re feeling. Do you feel well? Are you both okay?”
“We’re fine,” Lockwood said, laughing. “Don’t worry yourself. The capes did a great job of protecting us, didn’t they, Luce?” And I’d smilingly agreed with him.
Glancing in the mirror later, however, I’d thought I looked more pale than usual. It was hard to be sure, just as I couldn’t really tell if the weakness I felt was the normal end-of-case exhaustion. Probably it was. I didn’t have the energy to care either way.
The one individual who certainly did have plenty of energy that first morning was the skull in the jar. Much to its chagrin, it had been locked up with our equipment in the inn’s storage closet. Holly had refused to let it into our bedroom when we got back, and to be honest, I couldn’t blame her.
“What’s the point of rescuing me,” it grumbled when I popped my head around the door, “if you lock me away in a damp cubbyhole like this? I haven’t got a nose, but I can tell just by looking that it smells of onions and pee.”
“It so doesn’t.” I stepped in, and took a hearty sniff. “Well, there’s certainly no trace of onions. And it’s a lot better than being incinerated like all those other Sources back at the facility, so you’d better be thankful.”