“Are you all right?” said Charley, coming to greet him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” said Billy honestly, the dizziness passing as quickly as it had come. “This house, this case.” He gave a shrug. “It’s gone now, anyway.”
“Wellington has been going mad for the last half-hour or so,” said Charley.
“We both know that animals can be more in tune with the spirit realm than humans sometimes,” said Billy.
“Back at the railway station, it was Wellington who noticed something lurking before any of us,” said Charley. The Scottish terrier had stopped pacing and was curled up in his basket by the door. “He seems happy enough now though.”
“Like I said,” said Billy, “it was probably nothing. I’m fine.” He slapped his legs to demonstrate their sturdiness.
“How did your investigation go?”
“I’ve got a description of the Sandman. I’ve written it all in my notebook,” said Billy, handing it over. “How about you?”
“I’m close to cracking those hieroglyphs, I think,” said Charley. “Get warmed up and then we can compare notes.”
Charley set off for the crime lab and Billy climbed the stairs to the bathroom. When he’d been growing up the only bath he knew was a tin one that his mother put out in the kitchen and filled with kettles of water from the stove. The bathroom at 44 Morningside Place was not like that.
Billy opened the door and was immediately enfolded in a warm cloud of steam. The air smelled of lavender and soap. Tiny bubbles floated all around. Billy walked over to the bathtub. It was filled almost to the brim and Beth had used bath salts which turned the water cloudy but would ease away all the frost that still clung to his bones.
Billy quickly undressed and then lowered himself into the hot water. A wave of dizziness came over him again, but quickly passed. He dismissed it as a combination of tiredness and the heat of the water – almost too hot, but not quite. Billy let his head fall back and slid in up to his shoulders. He was suddenly so relaxed, he could almost fall asleep right here, wrapped up in this blanket of warmth and bubbles. Heaven.
Something rough bumped against the inside of his calf. Beth must have put in a sponge or a loofah. Very kind of her. Billy smiled. He could get used to this.
His shoulders really did ache and he couldn’t wait to give them a good scrub. The loofah had floated further up the bath now; it was touching his thigh. It really was very rough as sponges went. Still, all the better to rub away every trace of the Last Drop Tavern. Too tired to even look at what he was doing, Billy groped blindly in the water.
And the sponge bit him!
At least that was what it felt like. Billy whipped his hand away and sat up to examine his stinging fingers. Sure enough, there was a trace of blood. What the…?
He peered through the haze of steam, trying to make out what had been sharp enough in the bath to slice through his skin. Billy could see the long, thin shape of the loofah. It was scaly, it was moving, and it had a mouthful of jagged teeth.
Billy froze for a second before he realized what it was – the mummified baby crocodile! Only it wasn’t in Sir Gordon’s Egyptian hall any more. It was in Billy’s bath, and it was very much alive. Between Billy’s legs. And its jaws were opening wide!
Billy shot up in the air just as those horrible jaws snapped shut.
He winced as he thought of what he could have lost. He tried to scramble to his feet, but the bath was so slippery that he slid down, giving the monster a second chance. His head went under the surface, sending water sloshing everywhere, and when he came back up again, gasping, he was face-to-face with the bizarre crocodile mummy. Billy noticed that someone had cut the bandages along its scaly mouth, freeing up those savage jaws. Free to make a meal out of him!
Snap! Snap! Snap! The jaws crunched together again and again and Billy struggled backwards, clinging to the sides of the bathtub for dear life while his feet struggled to get a grip on the soapy enamel. The mummy’s bandages were falling apart now in the hot water, revealing more of the undead reptile inside. The leathery hide had turned from green to brown, and the eye sockets were empty, giving Billy a view of the hollow skull inside. Somehow Billy managed to half fall, half throw himself out and tumbled to the bathroom floor in a naked heap.
His heart pounding wildly, Billy looked around for something – anything – he could use for protection. Billy had hoped that the crocodile mummy would stay in the water and enjoy a little swim. But one look at those scrabbling dead claws told Billy that he wouldn’t be so lucky. The crocodile hadn’t eaten for thousands of years and had woken up hungry! Although it only had short stubby legs, it clearly had an enormously powerful tail of mummified flesh and to Billy’s horror it used all that brute force to hurl itself over the edge of the bath.
Billy backed away into the corner of the bathroom while the crocodile mummy scurried across the floor towards him, tail flicking. In desperation Billy put his fingers behind the bathroom cabinet, a tall and ugly piece of furniture laden with bottles of medicine and lotions. The cabinet was incredibly heavy but the fear of being eaten alive was just the sort of motivation that Billy needed to summon up enough strength to send it toppling over.
It fell like an oak tree, smashing down on the crocodile mummy and showering it with a thousand pieces of broken glass, which covered the bathroom floor like lethal confetti. On top of that, the cabinet had also fallen across the door, blocking his only escape. The window was tiny, and even if he could slip through, the bathroom was on the second floor – the drop could kill him. The crocodile mummy was stunned but not defeated. Its tail continued to twitch and Billy could hear its claws ripping at the floor as it tried to free itself.
Billy looked at his bare feet and the broken glass. He snatched his shirt off the floor where he had dropped it and quickly ripped it in two, then wrapped it round his feet. It wasn’t much protection, but it would have to do. Meanwhile the crocodile was almost free. Running out of options, Billy grabbed the largest towel that he could find. Holding it up like a bullfighter with a red flag, Billy advanced on the crocodile, just as it broke loose with a final swipe of its tail.
The crocodile seemed to be preparing itself for another assault, but Billy knew that he had to act first. Before the animal was able to leap at him, Billy threw himself down on top of it with the towel spread wide. The creature was caught by surprise. Billy could feel its raw strength – a supernatural strength – rippling through its long-dead muscles. It was only now, up this close to the crocodile, that Billy could sense the aura of magick that had been used to animate it.
All this time Billy had thought that 44 Morningside Place was so cluttered with bizarre objects that his sixth sense was clouded out, but now he wondered whether it had been blocked deliberately. He could worry about that later though. He had an undead crocodile to deal with now. Still lying flat on top of the creature while it bucked and thrashed beneath him, Billy did his best to work the towel underneath it. The idea – and it wasn’t one of his best – was to wrap the crocodile in the towel. If he could do it quickly and as tightly as possible then it should be enough to restrain the beast. At the very least he hoped to be able to wrap up those savage jaws.
He knew that working for S.C.R.E.A.M. was a dangerous job, but he’d never imagined that it might end like this: attacked by an undead crocodile; naked and armed only with a towel. What would Charley say?
“Blast!” said Charley. “Damn and blast with shiny knobs on!”
S.C.R.E.A.M. was at the cutting edge of modern policing. The methodical approach which Luther Sparkwell had taught them, the minute examination of crime scenes for traces which might identify a perpetrator or reveal vital clues as to their whereabouts, the groundbreaking use of science as an instrument of detection – not to mention Billy’s special spiritual gift – all these were streets ahead of most local police work.