Lockwood leaped over the protective chains and plunged into the smoke, trailing a scent of lavender; he had the hempen bag open in one hand.
When the silver-glass case had broken, the buzzing in my head had instantly grown louder. I looked into the fog and saw Lockwood’s silhouette bending over the table, and – above him – shadowy rising forms. Many hollow voices spoke together: ‘Give us back our bones.’
Then Lockwood opened the lavender bag, and with gloved hand swept the bone glass into it. The buzzing was stilled; the rising forms winked out. The voices were gone.
Lockwood turned, burst out of the smoke, came running back towards me.
Some yards away, the young man with the blond moustache got up. He reached for his polished cane, lying on the floor beside his chair. He twisted the handle sharply, tugged, drew forth a long and slender blade. He tossed the cane behind him, and started in our direction. I unclipped another flare, drew back my arm . . .
‘Stop! Or I fire!’
Winkman had risen up behind the table, his face blackened, his hair blown back, pince-nez askew. Burned salt encrusted his face, his mouth hung open, and his jacket was peppered with smouldering holes. He had a black snub-nosed revolver in his hand.
I froze with my arm still back. Lockwood halted, facing me, almost alongside.
‘You think you can run?’ Winkman said. ‘You think you can rob me? I will kill you both.’
Lockwood slowly raised his hands. He said something quietly at my side. His balaclava muffled it; I couldn’t hear a word.
‘First we will discover who you are,’ Winkman said, ‘and who sent you. We will do this at my leisure. Put down the canister, girl. You are surrounded now.’
Sure enough, the guards had re-emerged from the shadows; each also carried a gun. The young man, still immaculate in his soft brown coat, stood by, sword-stick glittering in the light.
Lockwood spoke again, urgently; once again I couldn’t hear it.
‘Put down the flare!’ Winkman cried.
‘What was that?’ I muttered. ‘I can’t hear you.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Lockwood ripped up the bottom of his mask. ‘The other case! The one with the ghost! Do it!’
It was lucky I already had my arm in position; even so, it wasn’t an easy shot. The glowing case with the rusted sword was several yards away, and half blocked by Winkman’s head. Probably, if I’d thought about it, I’d have missed hitting it, five times out of six. But I didn’t have time to think. I swivelled slightly, lobbed the canister high; then I ducked down low. At my side, Lockwood was already ducking too, so Winkman’s bullets passed somewhere directly over us. Neither of us saw my canister hit the case, but the sound of breaking glass told us at once that my throw had been successful. That, and the screams of warning in the room.
I jerked my head up, saw a sudden alteration in the behaviour of our enemies. None of them were any longer focused on us. From the ruins of the broken cabinet, where the sword now lolled at a drunken angle, a faint blue shape had issued, steaming and fizzing in the last flecks of tumbling salt and iron. It was slightly larger than man-sized, and blurry, as if a strong, firm silhouette had been partially dissolved. In places, it was utterly translucent; in the centre of its torso it had no colour or definition at all. Around its edges, scraps of detail could be seen, little twists and bumps that suggested clothes, and smoother places resembling dead skin. And up near the top – two shining pinpoints of light glittering like frost? These were the eyes.
Cold air leaked from the Phantasm. It had no visible legs, but flowed forward towards the men as if on a rolling strip of cloud. The guards panicked; one fired a bullet straight through its body, the other turned and fled across the hall.
Winkman picked up a shard of silver-glass and sent it whizzing into the ghost. It cut through one outstretched arm with a fizz of plasm. I heard a spectral sigh of disapproval.
The young man held his sword-stick out, adopted an en garde posture. Slowly he moved towards the advancing shape.
Lockwood and I didn’t stop to see more. We were running for the stairs. I reached them first, went clattering up.
A scream of rage. Out of the smoke behind Lockwood’s shoulder the Winkman boy came charging, a shattered chair arm in his hand. Lockwood swiped backwards with his rapier. The boy howled, clutched at his wrist; his club fell to the floor.
Up the stairs, three at a time. Behind came shouts, curses and the soft sighing of the ghost. I looked back down as we raced along the walkway. The warehouse floor was almost invisible through the layers of silver smoke. A faint blue shape flexed and darted, seeking to get past the silvered flashing of the sword.
Somewhat nearer, a great barrel-chested figure was limping swiftly up the steps.
Through the glass doors; Lockwood slammed them shut. He shot two bolts into position and joined me, careering up the stairwell.
We’d climbed several flights when the hammering on the doors began.
‘We need those bolts to hold a little longer,’ Lockwood gasped. ‘We need to be a long way down that drainpipe before they see us, or we’ll be sitting ducks.’
A bang, followed by a vast and tinkling crash, sounded from below.
‘He’s shot his way through,’ I said. ‘On the upside, that’s one bullet less for us.’
‘How I love your optimism, Luce. What floor are we on now?’
‘Oh, no . . . I forgot to count the flights. We needed to go up six.’
‘Well, how many have we done?’
‘I think we need to go up a couple more . . . Yes, this is our floor, I think – it’s down along here.’
As we left the stairwell, Lockwood checked the doors, but there were no more bolts to draw. We pelted down the corridor.
‘Which office room was it?’
‘This one . . . No, that’s not right. They all look the same.’
‘It must be the one in the corner of the building. Here – look, there’s the window.’
‘But it’s not the right room. Lockwood – where are the notice boards?’
Lockwood had thrust open the window and was looking out into the night. His hair hung down as he craned his neck out. ‘We’ve come too far – we’re even higher than before. The pipe’s here, but there’s a nasty kink in it just beneath us, which I don’t think we can climb past.’
‘Can we go back down?’
‘We’ll have to.’
But when we ran back to the stairwell, we heard the thump of feet a flight or two below, and saw the first faint torch-beam on the wall.
‘Back again,’ Lockwood said. ‘And quickly.’
We returned to the little office. Lockwood motioned me to guard the door. I positioned myself flat against the wall, took my last canister of Greek Fire from my belt and waited.
Lockwood crossed to the window and leaned out. ‘George!’ he called. ‘George!’
He listened to the night. I listened to the passage; it was very quiet, but it seemed to me that it was an attentive silence.
‘George!’ Lockwood called again.
Far below us, in the dark of the river, the hoped-for voice. ‘Here!’
Lockwood held the hempen sack up high. ‘Package coming down! Are you ready?’
‘Yes!’
‘Take it and then go!’
‘What about you?’
‘No time. We’ll join you later. Plan H! It’s Plan H now, don’t forget!’
Lockwood threw the bag out into the night. He didn’t wait for George’s answering shout, but jumped back into the room and called to me.
‘We’re climbing up, Luce. That’s the only option. We get to the roof and then see.’
Stealthy, cautious footsteps sounded in the passage. I peered round the door. Winkman and two other men – one of the guards, and another I didn’t recognize – were advancing along the corridor. As I moved my head back, something whined past and bit into the far wall. I tossed the flare round the corner and ran across to Lockwood. Behind me the floor shook; there was a silvery explosion and assorted cries of woe.