“Cramped little hovel,” the voice whispered. “Won’t fit many ghosts in here.”
My fingers floated over the lever in the jar’s lid that would cut off communication. “If you’ve nothing useful to say…”
“Oh, I’m not knocking it. Hell of a lot tidier than your place, that’s for sure.”
“They say this is where it happens.”
“And they’re right. Someone died in here. The air’s stained with it.”
“You sense anything else, you let me know.” I set the jar down on a side table.
Then I turned to face the high-backed chair opposite.
I already knew it was the one. You could guess from its domineering position, the way it sat closest to the TV in the corner, closest to the fireplace; all the other seats were less conveniently situated. Then there was the walking stick propped against the wall in the shadows beyond; the little side table marked with mug rings. The chair itself was decorated with some god-awful flowery pattern. The fabric had been worn white on the armrests, and repaired with leather patches near the ends. There was a dirty bald mark halfway up the back, too. The sponge of the seat cushion had been compressed thin with long usage; it was almost as if someone sat there still.
I knew what I should do. Agency practice was clear. I should get out the chains, or, failing that, a sensible amount of filings, and carefully encircle the chair. I should set up lavender crosses as a secondary barrier, and place myself at a safe distance from the likely manifesting point. George would certainly have done all that. Even Lockwood, always more cavalier, would have whipped up a chain circle in double-quick time.
I did none of those things. I went as far as loosening the strap of my rapier and opening my bag, so that my tools were near at hand. Then I sat back on the sofa in the orange-pink darkness, crossed my ankles, and waited.
I wanted to test my Talent.
“Naughty,” the skull said in my mind. “Does Lockwood know you’re doing this?”
I didn’t reply; after a few more gibes, the ghost fell silent. Beyond the door came muffled noises—kids being told to shush, clinks of crockery; sounds of an evening meal being made. A smell of toast permeated the air. The family was so close by. In theory I was endangering them by not putting out defenses. The Fittes Manual was very clear on this. DEPRAC rules expressly forbade contact without adequate protection. In their eyes, I was committing a crime.
Outside the window the night grew black. The clients ate their meal; the children were ushered into one of the bedrooms. Toilets flushed. At the sink, someone was doing the washing up. I sat quietly in the dark, waiting for the show.
And it began.
Slowly, insensibly, a malign atmosphere began to invade the room. I heard the change in the quality of my breathing; I was taking quicker, shorter gulps of air. The hairs on my arms prickled with disquiet. Doubt rose in me; also anxiety and a strong feeling of self-loathing. I took some gum, chewed steadily, made the usual adjustments to counteract the malaise and creeping fear. The temperature dropped; the reading on my belt thermometer showed fifty degrees, then forty-eight. The quality of the light altered; the neon glow became fuzzier, as if struggling through molasses.
“Something’s coming,” the skull said.
I chewed and waited. I watched the empty armchair.
At nine forty-six precisely (I checked my watch), it was empty no longer. A faint outline became visible in the center of the chair. It was very weak, and scuffed and smudged in the middle, like a pencil drawing poorly erased. You could see what it was, though: the shrunken figure of an old man, sitting there. He exactly fitted the contours of the worn sponge seat; the outline of the head rested precisely over the grubby bald spot on the back. The apparition remained transparent, and I could still see every detail of the appalling flowery pattern of the cushions behind, but steadily its features grew more certain. It was a very small, shriveled man, bald except for a few long white hairs straggling behind his ears. I guessed he had once been fat, round-faced even; now the flesh on his cheeks had fallen in, leaving the skin hanging empty. His limbs, too, had wasted away; the fabric of his sleeves and trousers hung horribly flat. One bony hand lay cupped amid the folds and looseness of his old man’s lap. The other curled at the end of the armrest like a spider.
He’d been a wicked thing, that was for sure. Everything about him projected a discomforting malice. The eyes glittered like black marbles; they were staring fixedly at me, and there was the faintest of smiles on the thin lips. My every instinct told me to defend myself: bring out the rapier, lob a salt-bomb or a canister of iron—do something to get the presence away from me. But it didn’t move, and neither did I. We sat in our seats and stared at each other across the thick fur rug and the gulf that separates the living from the dead.
I had my hands folded in my lap. I cleared my throat. “Well,” I said finally, “what is it that you want?”
No sound, no reply. The shape sat there, eyes shining in the dark.
Over on the side table, the skull in the jar remained silent and shrouded too; only the faintest green haze behind the glass showed that it was present, watching.
Without the protection of iron chains, the full chill of the apparition tore into me. The temperature at my belt was down to forty-four degrees; it would be colder still near the chair. But the degree of cold isn’t really the point; it’s where it comes from. Ghost chill is a fierce, dry cold; you can feel it sucking the life and energy from your bones. I bore it. I didn’t move at all, but just stared at the old man.
“If you have a purpose,” I said, “you might as well tell it to me.”
Just the silence and the glittering of the eyes, like starlight in the dark.
No real surprise. It wasn’t a Type Three, scarcely even a Type Two; it couldn’t speak, couldn’t communicate in any obvious way.
Even so…
“No one else is going to listen,” I said. “Better take this chance while you can.”
I opened my mind, tried to empty it of sensation, see if I detected anything new. Even an echoing mess of emotion, like I’d gotten from the Changer at Lavender Lodge, might be enough to set me on the right track….
From the chair came a scratchy rustling of fabric, a pick-pick-picking sound, like cloth being teased and pulled by the tip of someone’s nail. I heard shallow breathing, a person muttering under their breath. My skin crawled. I couldn’t take my eyes off the smiling apparition in the chair. The sounds came again—muffled, but very close.
“Is that it?” I asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
A crash in the corner—I sprang up in fright, scrabbling for my rapier. The ghost was gone. The chair was empty; the squashed seat, the worn patch, everything exactly as before. Except for the walking stick, which had toppled over, cracking against the fireplace.
I checked the time—then rechecked it with something like alarm. Ten twenty? That was weird: according to the watch, the apparition had been present for more than half an hour, yet it had felt like scarcely a minute to me….
“Did you get it?” The skull’s voice jerked me back into action. The face in the jar had re-emerged, nostrils flaring smugly. “Bet you didn’t. I did. I know, and I’m not telling.”
“What is it with you?” I said. “You’re like a toddler. Yes, of course I got it.”
I rose, crossed to the door, and switched on the light, ignoring shrill protests from the jar. The evil atmosphere had vanished from the room. Under the ceiling light, the outdated shabbiness of the furniture was revealed in all its muted oranges and browns. I looked at the stack of kids’ games: Scrabble, Monopoly, and the Rotwell Agency’s Ghost Hunter—that one where you have to remove the plastic bones and bits of ectoplasm without setting off the buzzer. Battered boxes, secondhand games. The house of an ordinary family without much cash.