“Holly,” I whispered, “you’re tired. Swap with me. Let me go in front now.”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Side by side, then.” The aisle was wide enough for us to go abreast. It wasn’t too far. Through Kitchenware, then Ladies’ Fashions, then down the main stairs to the ground floor—that’s all we had to do.
Far off I heard voices calling us. Living voices—Lockwood, George…
“Don’t answer them,” I said. “Keep silent.”
We went as fast as we could. I kept expecting the door behind us to crash open, as if the ghost were chasing us. But Poltergeists don’t work that way.
When we were beside a stack of colanders, something slapped me in the face.
I cried out, dropping my flashlight, letting go of Vernon’s legs. He moaned, thrashed in Holly’s grip.
Another slap, stinging across my cheek. Cursing, I drew my sword, swung it around me in a wild sweep. Nothing.
In the next aisle, something smashed against saucepans.
Holly gave a yelp; a red mark bloomed like a flower on her cheekbone.
There’s only one good thing about Poltergeists: no ectoplasm, so you can’t get ghost-touch, even when you’re slapped around by them. It almost makes up for the higher than average chance of being brained by a sofa or skewered by a banister rail. We snatched Vernon up, staggered on.
Somewhere behind, a clattering; dozens of utensils cascading to the floor. And now came a horrendous din, a tumbling of tortured metal, peppered with grunts and snarls, as if a great beast was thrashing and writhing in their midst.
But the beast was ahead of us too. Farther along our aisle: a rack of knives of every size and shape. They quivered and trembled on their hooks.
Uh-oh.
I pulled us out of the aisle and down along a parallel one, just as the weapons burst free. Down behind a rack of chinaware we fell, rolling over in a heap as dozens of carving knives screamed through the air, embedding themselves in the floor around us, splintering plates, bouncing off copper pots.
Bobby Vernon opened an eye. “Ow! Careful. I’m in pain here, you realize.”
“You’ll be a darn sight worse off shortly,” I snarled, “if you don’t shut up. Come on, Holly! Get up! We’re doing so well.”
“What would doing badly look like?”
Feedback welled up through the sound system, vibrating jaggedly through the nerves of our teeth. We heard bangs and screams from elsewhere in the building. Somewhere ahead, at the entrance to Ladies’ Fashions, came an almighty tearing, a wrenching sound that told of something heavy and substantial being uprooted from the floor.
For a moment I hung back, unsure whether to go on.
“Skull,” I said. “I don’t know…”
“You have to, else you’ll die.”
“All right.” Practically using Vernon as a rope to pull Holly upright, I got us going again. We stumbled forward. In the next aisle, two display cases swung sideways and slammed into another.
“Mr. Aickmere’s going to be pleased,” the skull said.
“Yeah. He’ll be delighted.”
Holly was staring at me. “Who were you talking to just then?”
“No one! You!”
“I don’t believe you.”
Five Pyrex bowls flashed past my head and shattered against the wall. The wind whipped at my boots, threatening to snatch my legs out from under me. “Look, does it really matter right now?”
“If we’re going to be working together, Lucy….”
“Oh, hell! All right! I’ll tell you! It’s an evil haunted skull that lives in my backpack! Happy, now?”
“Well, yes. It explains a lot.” Several aprons, flapping like bats through the air, thrashed at Holly’s face. She batted them away. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it? You only had to say it.”
We ducked through the archway into Ladies’ Fashions, just before an entire solid display case, whistling behind us, cracked against the arch and lodged there.
“What’s going on?” the skull growled. “You’re telling everyone about us now? I thought we had something special going.”
“We do! Shut up! We’ll discuss this later.”
“You know, Lucy”—Holly Munro gasped—“I used to think you were just plain weird. Now I see how thoroughly wrong I was.”
Ladies’ Fashions was quiet, at least compared to Kitchenware. Cold air cut against our ankles, keeping pace with us. At the far end I could see the elevator lobbies and the marble that enclosed the grand stairs and escalators down to the ground floor.
“Nothing sharp in here,” I said. “That’s one blessing.”
To the left of us—I could see it, but Holly, with her back to it, could not—the head of a mannequin turned slowly around, fixing us with its blind, bland smile.
And now the room erupted. An entire clothes rack reared up, slowly at first; then, with a kick like a bucking horse, it flung itself in a somersault through the air. Holly screamed; we launched ourselves back as it smashed into the pillar opposite and toppled down to block the aisle like a fallen tree.
Other racks were caught up, tossed high, sent smashing through windows and crumpling against walls. All around us coats were torn free of their pegs. They swirled up above us, hoods empty, sleeves billowing as if filled with invisible limbs. They hung in the air like witches on their sticks; the howling wind blew them around and around. Down they came now, thumping against our heads, whipping us with their trailing belts, slashing our skin with their zippers and buttons.
Bending low, pulling Bobby Vernon between us, we raced toward the escalators, dodging falling debris, dancing aside as floor tiles popped loose between our feet and went spinning off to crack in shards against pillars and walls. Clothing battered against us; a pair of pastel nylon trousers wrapped itself around my face, pressing close, clinging so tight, I felt my breath being stifled. I tore it away, looked over my shoulder at the whirling chaos at our back.
Far off, beyond the racing clothes and tumbling furniture, in a dark, still space, I saw a shadow crawling after me on hands and knees. It raised a stick-thin arm.
“Lucy…”
Then Holly and I had vaulted the marble wall and jumped down onto the smooth metal strip that sloped between the escalators. Vernon landed awkwardly; he shouted out in pain. Holly slipped, skidded on her backside down the slope. Vernon tumbled after her. I kept my footing, slid after them; and so, because I remained upright, saw what was happening in the grand foyer of Aickmere’s department store.
Light greeted us from below: oddly swirling light. It came from four agency lanterns, spinning in midair.
It had occurred to me more than once to wonder where the others were. Where, in particular, Lockwood and George might be. I’d heard their voices far away, but they hadn’t come for us—and I couldn’t fathom why.
Now I understood.
The Poltergeist, and its energies, had not been confined to the halls through which Holly and I had been running. Far from it. It had been active in the foyer, too. Display cases lay scattered, racks embedded in the plaster pillars of the room. The murals on the walls were ruined, embedded with shards of glass torn from the entrance doors. The great artificial tree, Autumn Ramble, of which Mr. Aickmere was so proud, was at that moment spinning upward from its mount at the bottom of the escalators, its thousand lovingly handcrafted tissue leaves being torn off by whirling centrifugal force. And in the center of the room, the very floorboards were being ripped asunder too, wrenched up and outward, nails snapping, before being whipped out to break against the ruined walls. Loose earth from below floated upward into space and joined the lanterns spiraling around and around.
In all that room a single area remained untouched—a roughly semicircular space just in front of the revolving doors. It was surrounded by a set of iron chains, of triple thickness, wound around each other for extra security. Within this boundary, the floor was thick with strewn defenses—salt and iron filings, lavender spr
igs, other pieces of random chain, tossed down for desperate protection. The spectral hurricane that blew around us beat against the edges of this sanctuary, making the border quiver; inside, however, everything was still.
And here stood my companions, swords out, shouting, beckoning to us.
There at the back, jamming the revolving door open with a plank of wood: Kate Godwin and Flo Bones. In the center of the space, Quill Kipps, slicing through lavender cushions with his rapier so that the stuffing spilled out onto the floor. And at the front, right on the lip of the chains, gesticulating, calling, urging us on: Lockwood and George.
My heart swelled to see them. I skidded down the bottom of the slope, jumped over Holly and Bobby Vernon, who were sprawled on the ground, and helped them to their feet. It was all I could do to stand upright, the wind blew so hard. A bent clothes rack, twisted as easily as a paper clip, crashed onto the escalators from above, twitched once, then lay there like a dead thing.
“Lucy!” That was George. “Please, come on! The place is tearing itself apart!”
George always was a master at telling you things you already knew. We started forward. Vernon looked green; Holly’s face was bloodied, either from her fall or from the buffeting we’d had upstairs.
In front of us the hole in the floor was widening. The floor burst open. Earth spat against our faces; a piece of wood struck my arm.
Lockwood threw his rapier away; he stepped out of the circle. I saw him stagger as the wind caught him; his coat billowed up and outward. With an effort he kept his feet, leaped across the edge of the hole. Then he was beside us, grinning that old grin.
He took Bobby Vernon from us, supporting him under the arms. “Well done,” he shouted. “I’ve got him. Get to the door, quick as you can.”
But this was easier said than done. The floor was being ripped away, and a cavity opening beneath it. It spread wider, like a mouth gaping, extending around the edge of the iron chains. And even under them. Boards fell way—a portion of the chains now hung down into the hole.
Lockwood grabbed Vernon’s arm, spun him bodily across. Beyond the chains, Kipps and George snatched at him, pulled him to safety. Next came Holly; she could barely stand. Again Lockwood swung her across. She fumbled at the other side, almost fell back into the hole. George grasped her; beyond, Kipps bundled Vernon toward the door.
Now Lockwood turned to me. The fury of the air redoubled. Wood, earth, tissue leaves, pieces of fabric—we were lost together in a storm of whirling debris. “Just you, Luce,” he shouted. His eyes sparkled; he held out his hand….
The floor ruptured. Boards burst upward, as if an invisible fist had slammed down. I lost my balance, stepped back, and the floor tipped away beneath me. Air caught me, lifted me up and away—No, not far. I immediately jerked back, caught fast. My backpack had snagged on a broken spar of floorboard. For an instant I hung there, outstretched like a flag tethered to a windblown mast.
Lockwood gave a cry. He reached for me. I saw his pale face. His hand found mine.
Then he was picked up and whipped away from me. I saw him spin off without a sound. I screamed, but my words were gone. Something behind me ripped and tore; then the backpack straps broke, and I was blown free too, whirled out and up across the room like a cast-off doll. I collided with something hard; lights burst before my eyes. Voices called my name; they pulled me away from life, away from all loved things. Then I was plummeting into darkness, and both my mind and body were lost.
You know it’s bad when you can’t tell if your eyes are open or not. When it’s so pitch-black, you might be dead or dreaming. Oh, and when you can’t seem to move any part of your body, so that it feels like you’re floating as a ghost might float. Yeah, that’s bad too.
Utter silence doesn’t help much either.
I lay there. Nothing happened for a time. Inwardly I was playing catch-up, still running through a screaming storm of broken glass and wood and whirling clothes….Then, like a switch had been touched, my sense of smell suddenly flicked on. I got mold and dirt and the bitter tang of blood, all at once, as if someone had shoved it all violently up my nose. It made me sneeze, and with that sneeze came shooting darts of pain that acted like signposts in the dark. All at once I could tell where my body was, twisted out awkwardly, lying on rough ground. I was bent on my side, one of my body arms pressed beneath me, the other flung out like I was one of those discus throwers you get on old Greek pots. It seemed to me that my head was lower than my body, and pressed against soft cold mud. When I breathed, I could feel my hair shifting against my face.
Rather to my surprise, when I tried to move, my limbs responded without too much searing agony. Everything was sore—I was one big bruise—but nothing seemed broken. I half rolled, half slid my body sideways, wincing as it collided with unknown objects. At last it lay on the horizontal. I curled my legs in close, pushed myself up, and sat there in the dark.
I put tentative fingers to my brow; one whole region of my hair was matted and sticky, presumably with blood. I’d suffered a bad blow to the head. How long I’d been unconscious was impossible to say.
Next I felt at my side. Rapier: gone. Backpack: gone. The skull, with all its unnecessary and inappropriate comments: gone. Stupidly, I kind of missed it. There was an empty space in my head where I felt its voice should be.
Part of me wanted to curl up again and just go back to sleep. I felt woozy, uncoordinated, and oddly disconnected from my predicament. But my agent training kicked in. Slowly, carefully, I put my hands to my belt.
It was still there, the pockets packed and full. So I wasn’t helpless yet. I crossed my legs stiffly. Then I ran my fingers among the canisters and straps until I came to the little waterproof pouch close beside the rapier loop. The matches pouch. Always carry matches. As rules go, it’s up there with the best. It’s probably somewhere around rule seven. I wouldn’t put it as high as the biscuit rule, but it’s definitely in the top ten.
Rule 7-B, obviously, is to keep your match box well stocked. In the past I’d sometimes let that slide, but Holly, with her attention to detail, had always made sure it was stuffed full. I could feel how crammed it was as I got it out, and felt a flush of gratitude, which immediately morphed into guilt.
Holly…
I thought of our argument, the way I’d laid straight into her, how my fury and stupidity had stirred the Poltergeist to life. It gave me a dull, sick feeling. I thought of her leaping over the gap, and then of Lockwood reaching out for me—and the sick sensation in my belly deepened like an ocean trench.
The Poltergeist had caught him up and flung him away.
Was he all right? Was he even alive?
I gave a sob of self-pity, and at once swallowed it back down. I didn’t like the hollow echo. I also didn’t like the way my skin prickled at the sound. No more displays of emotion! Wherever it was I’d ended up, I could already tell I wasn’t alone.
Presences watched me. The same presences I’d detected up in Aickmere’s—but closer now—closer and stronger. And also—somewhere very near, I thought—that queasy, buzzing sensation, the one that had reminded the skull and me of the hateful bone glass we’d dug up in Kensal Green….
I rubbed my eyes. It was so hard to be sure of anything. My head spun.
I struck the first match. A teardrop of light swelled upward in the dark, illuminating the dirt-stained contours of my hand. Out of the matches pouch I took out two tiny candles, both short white nubs. I put one down carefully on the ground, and lit the other, holding it at an angle till the flame took, and light waxed around me and I could see.
I sat on dark packed earth strewn with pieces of stone. At my side and back, where I’d been lying, lay a mound of rock and earth, and here and there pieces of jutting timber. There were also scattered tissue leaves from the display tree, glinting red like blood, and burst lavender cushions, and forlorn scraps of clothing—shirts, dresses, even twists of underwear—that had been sucked down with me into the hole.
/> Up above was a jagged snag of blackness. Whether it zigzagged up through a continuous tear in the earth and eventually reached the store above, or whether its sides had now fallen in, burying me alive, I couldn’t tell. The light of the candle didn’t extend into it.
What it did illuminate were walls of carved gray stone. I felt rather than saw them stretch out ahead of me and arch brokenly over my head. I was in a man-made chamber, old and of unknown extent. And at once I knew where I must be.
The prison. The notorious King’s Prison. George had been right, as usual: part of it still existed underground, and the Poltergeist, in its fury, had torn a way through to it.
In a way, it had done me a favor. This was where the focus was for the Chelsea outbreak: this was the Source—for Poltergeist, crawling figure, and all.
Speaking of which, not three feet from where I sat, bony arms outstretched, skull scarcely protruding from beneath the pile of earth, lay a skeleton. For an instant I thought that I must have killed it in my landing, then I realized how ridiculous the idea was.
I looked at it. “Hello,” I said. “Sorry.”
The skeleton said nothing.
It couldn’t help its bad manners. I got to my feet, rather shakily, and took a few paces forward, nose twitching in the candle smoke.
Stonework all around me, rough-hewn and dank with glistening white mold. The walls drew inward; I felt as if I were being funneled toward something, drawing closer, step by step, to an inevitable fate. It was not a pleasant sensation, particularly since everything still spun before my eyes. I took a breather, leaning against a wall.
I rested my head against the pitted stone. At once, sensations looped out of the past. Voices calling, crying, shouting for help. The passage was filled with bodies, pushing past me, pushing through me, shoving, cursing. All around me, a stink of desperation and fear—I was buffeted, pinched, sent spinning into the center of the passage—
Where I stood alone in the silence, the candle burning low in my hand. My sensitivity was getting stronger all the time. I couldn’t even take a rest.