“We’re okay,” I said. “There’s just an awful lot of ghosts around.”
“Yes, though they’re holding off for now.” He flashed his grin at us. “The worst thing that’s happened so far is George knocking a leaf off that stupid tree in the foyer. We’ll stick it back on later. Hopefully Aickmere won’t notice.”
“Lucy’s been hearing voices again,” Holly Munro said.
I glared at her. I’d been about to tell him—probably—and I didn’t like it slipping out like it was some kind of guilty secret, or the way Lockwood looked at me so sharply.
“Lucy?” he said. “Is this true?”
“Yes,” I said huffily. “Something’s called my name twice. It’s fine, though—I’m not going to do anything stupid. And besides, I’ve got Holly here to look after me.”
He was silent for a long moment; I could see him wrestling with his doubts. At last he said quietly, “We’re meeting up in half an hour. Think you’ll be okay till then?”
“Yes, of course.” The way I said it probably sounded abrupt, like I was cross with him for asking. I wasn’t at all—just like I wasn’t entirely sure I’d be okay. The skull’s words had spooked me. My spirits felt oppressed. I kept wanting to turn around, just in case something was sneaking up behind…but I certainly wasn’t going to admit any of that in front of Holly.
“Well…see you both soon, then,” Lockwood said.
Soundless as ever, he faded into the shadows.
Holly Munro and I stood in the hall for a moment, watching him go, darkness swirling around us. Then we resumed our psychic survey. Never overly talkative when we were alone, we now fell entirely silent, other than whispering new readings to each other. We were unsettled. I looked over my shoulder more often than was necessary.
At last the silence between us became oppressive. I cleared my throat.
“So,” I said—I wasn’t particularly interested; I just wanted to relieve the tension—“this Cotton Street killing you mentioned earlier. What was it? Big deal for you?”
Holly nodded briefly. “You could say that. I was the sole survivor of a four-strong team that got attacked by a Poltergeist in a Cotton Street studio. I got out of the window, rolled down the tiles, and fell against the chimney. Lay there all night, more dead than alive. My supervisor and two other colleagues weren’t so lucky.”
It was a rough story, but even as she spoke I was distracted. I had that sudden unpleasant feeling of something close and creeping near. I looked behind me—and saw nothing….When I looked back, I found Holly still watching me, waiting for my reaction.
I took a moment, tried to focus on what she’d said. “Yeah. Sounds bad.”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
What, did she want me to hold her hand? The precise same thing had happened to me, too. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But if you were an agent…stuff happens.”
There was a pause. Holly gazed at me. After a while she said, “They took me off the front line. It was meant to be temporary, but I was good at desk work and found I didn’t want to go back. But don’t think I haven’t got the ability to do this, Lucy. I’m rusty at it, but I’m still capable.”
I shrugged. I scarcely heard her. I was concentrating on the atmosphere of the hall. A faint, dusky radiance from the streetlights below filtered through the windows and gave everything grainy definition. It wasn’t so strong that our Talents would be impaired, but neither did we need to switch on our flashlights to find our way. Holly drifted away from me. She crossed to the nearest racks and walked between them, brushing her fingers along the soft lines of shirts.
I stood looking down the room.
My feelings of anxiety had deepened all the time we’d been on this floor; now, all at once, without warning, they intensified into dread. I found my gaze was fixed on the dark space at the end of the hall, beyond Checkout and the final racks of clothes, where a tall, squared archway opened on to the cross-passage that led to the elevators and stairs. The details of the passage could not be seen: it had no windows, and the streetlights did not penetrate there. It was a blank emptiness, small, but of infinite depth.
“Lucy…”
Sweat ran down the side of my face; I couldn’t look away.
I could hear the rustlings of Holly’s fingers as they ran along the shirts. Down in the street, a dog barked, perhaps a stray. But that was the last thing I heard, for now cold silence engulfed me—suddenly, violently, as if it had come rushing up the hall from the passage at the end. It hit me like a fist. Something pressed hard on my temples; I grimaced, opened my mouth, but I could not call out. My limbs were marble; my hands locked at my side. I was as fixed and frozen as one of the mannequins.
And I watched that notch of darkness.
I watched as something moved into it.
It came from the right-hand side beyond the arch, a human figure crawling on all fours. Scarcely blacker than the blackness all around, it dragged itself along on knees and elbows with a series of slow, slow, jerking movements. Now and again it advanced in swift scuttles, as a hunting spider might, but the overall impression was of obnoxious weakness and of pain. Thin legs dragged behind it; the head hung low between the rolling shoulder blades and could not be clearly seen.
Across the space at the end of the hall the crawling figure went; it reached the other side of the arch and disappeared along the passage in the direction of the elevators. A moment passed, and then a flowing thread of darkness streamed across the gap after it. It looked like a thick black rope, shimmering, quivering at its edges. At first I couldn’t make out what it was; then pieces of it broke away, and I recognized them. It was a great host of spiders, silent, intent, moving like a single living thing. They too passed out of view in the direction the awful jerking figure had taken, and with that the dread that held me in its grip relaxed, and I could move again.
The pall of silence lifted about me; once more I heard Holly’s fingers as they brushed through cloth and, outside in the street, another bark from the poor stray dog.
There was pain in my mouth, and my lips were wet. When I touched them, my fingers ran with blood. In my numbness and terror, I’d driven my teeth into my tongue.
I shook my head to clear the icy dullness from my brain. “Holly!” I hissed.
Give the girl her due; she was at my side at once, fancy sneakers soundless on the polished floor. Her voice seemed oddly loud. “What?”
“Did you see that?”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t see anything.”
“Or even feel it? It was down beyond the arch there—something moved across it.”
“I didn’t sense anything….Are you all right, Lucy? You’re shaking.”
“I’m not shaking. I’m fine. You don’t need to put your hands on me.”
“There’s a chair here. Why don’t you sit down?”
“I don’t want to sit down. What are you, my nursemaid?”
“Well, let’s go find the others. It’s time we met them anyway.”
Lockwood and Kipps were already waiting near the first-floor stairs. We stumbled down the steps to them. “Poor Lucy’s seen something,” Holly Munro said as we drew close. “She’s terrified.”
“I am not terrified.” Where the spectral chill had been, hot rage was now pulsing through my veins; I struggled to keep my voice steady. To be honest, it wasn’t strictly clear that she’d intended to have a dig at me, but I didn’t care right then. “I’m fine, thank you. It was something very strong, that’s all.”
“Tell us, Luce,” Lockwood said.
I told them as best I could.