Lockwood & Co.: The Whispering Skull

The good news was that nothing dead and wicked came rushing straight towards me down the darkened hallway. In our profession, that’s a result. And when I listened, as I always do right off, I heard no psychic screams or voices. It was very quiet. The only sounds were the scrapes and shuffles of Lockwood and George as they squeezed in behind me and dumped their bags on the floor.

An empty chamber, cavernous and high. A strong smell of damp and must. I kept the torch off, as it’s always wise to do, but it wasn’t as pitchy as I expected, and my eyes began to see things. Shafts of moonlight shone down from holes in the roof somewhere far above, spearing into a staircase at the far end of the hall. It was a curved stair, dark with moisture and ruined by years of rain. In places it was blocked with rubble; in places the wood had fallen away. Great pallid clumps of bracket fungus erupted from the balustrade, and thin knots of grass grew between skirting and wall. White crusts of mould flowered on the ceiling. Old brown leaves, blown in by countless autumn storms, lay in long piles across the hallway; papery and skeletal, they rustled as we moved.

I couldn’t see any of the graffiti you’d expect in a long-deserted house: clear evidence of its dubious reputation. No furniture, no furnishings. A mahogany picture rail ran round the walls up near the ceiling. Flecks of wallpaper shivered in the warm draught we’d brought in from outside. There were no light fittings anywhere: ragged holes showed where they’d once been torn away.

Somewhere in this rotting dereliction Dr Bickerstaff had worked with objects stolen from the local graveyards.

Somewhere here he had died. And then the rats—

No. It wasn’t good to dwell on that story. I could feel my heartbeat quickening. Anxiety and stress are two emotions Visitors like to feed on. I shook my head clear, and turned my attention to procedure, to the job in hand.

‘Lockwood?’ I said. He’d been gazing quietly into the dark.

‘No death-glows here. You?’

‘All very still.’

He nodded. ‘Fine. What about you, George?’

‘Temperature’s sixteen degrees, which is nice and normal. All fine so far.’

‘OK.’ Lockwood walked a little further into the room, shoes scuffling through the dry dead leaves. ‘We work quickly and quietly. We look for Bickerstaff’s study, and we look for his laboratory or workroom, where his experiments took place. The newspaper said that was accessed from a living room – so that’s probably downstairs. We don’t know about the study. If we run across a psychic hotspot, Lucy has the option of taking readings – but that’s up to her. And we don’t bring out the skull unless she says so.’

‘Too right,’ I said.

‘The main hotspot is likely to be upstairs,’ George said. His voice was curiously flat. Perhaps something in the feel of the place had affected him. ‘The room of the rats.’

‘If there were any rats,’ Lockwood said. ‘Anyway, we’ll try to avoid that one.’

We moved away along the hall and entered the nearest room. This too was quite empty – just bare boards and plaster, all picked out in silver moonlight. The ceiling was whole, the room dry. I ran my hand along the walls as I wandered past them, feeling for psychic currents. No, didn’t find anything; it was just a dead, clean space.

We tried the room behind it, and that was similarly quiet. No temperature changes, no miasma or creeping fear. We tried a third, opposite the others across the hall. From its position and the ornate mouldings in the ceiling you’d guess it had been a posh reception room, where Bickerstaff and his guests took tea. Here, even the wallpaper had gone; part of the skirting too. There was nothing but moonlight, boards and plaster. An uncomfortable thought occurred to me. As with Bickerstaff, so with the house. The whole place was a skeleton, stripped to the bones.

As we returned to the hall, I caught a faint vibration: muffled, somehow familiar. ‘Lockwood, George,’ I whispered, ‘either of you get that?’

They listened. Lockwood shook his head. George shrugged. ‘I’m hardly likely to, am I?’ he said heavily. ‘My senses aren’t nearly as sharp as—’ He gave a sudden gasp of fright. ‘What’s that?’

I’d seen it too. A travelling slit of darkness, a long, low, agile shape, moving through the shadows at the furthest margin of the room. It darted just below the wall, close to the window, but keeping out of the hazy pyramid of moonlight. It circled round towards us along the line of skirting.

Iron sang: Lockwood’s rapier was out and ready. With his other hand he plucked his pen-torch from his belt. He stabbed it on, transfixing a tiny, black-brown huddling body in the circle of piercing light.

‘Only a mouse,’ I breathed. ‘A tiny one. I thought . . .’

George exhaled loudly. ‘Me too. Thought it was bigger. Thought it was a rat.’

Lockwood clicked off his torch. The mouse – released as if from a spell – was gone; we sensed rather than saw its swift departure.

‘Mustn’t get rats on the brain,’ Lockwood said drily. ‘Everyone OK? Shall we go upstairs?’

But I was frowning at the far side of the room. ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘When you switched your torch on just now, I thought I saw . . .’ I took out mine, angled the beam at the far wall. Yes, caught there in the clean, bright circle, a thin black line cutting upwards through the plaster. The telltale outlines of a door.

When we drew close we could see the hinges embedded in the wall, and a small, rough hole where a key or handle must have sat. ‘Well done, Luce,’ Lockwood breathed. ‘Once this must have been covered with wallpaper, or with a fake bookcase maybe. It would have been very hard to find.’

‘You think this is the way to Bickerstaff’s workroom?’

‘Must be. You can see where they forced it, years ago. It’s hanging loose now. I think we can get in.’

When he pulled at the door, it swung forward at an angle, for its upper part had rotted off the hinge. Beyond was a narrow passageway running deeper into the house. No light penetrated it. Lockwood switched on his pen-torch and took a brief survey. The corridor was narrow, empty, ending in another door. The smell of damp and mould was very strong.

All due caution had to be observed now. Before entering, we took systematic measurements, and jotted them down. Then, ducking low (the top of the door was below Lockwood’s head), we started off along the little passage. Progress was slow and careful; every few yards we halted to use our Talents and take fresh readings. Nothing alarming happened. The temperature dropped, but only marginally. Lockwood saw no death-glows. Faint ripples of sound pulsed at the edge of my hearing, but I could make nothing of them. There were spiders here and there, on the ceiling and in the dust of the floor, but too few to be significant. Touch yielded no sensations.

George had become subdued. He moved slowly, and spoke little, passing up several cast-iron opportunities for sarcastic or insulting remarks – which, frankly, was unlike him. At last, with him lagging behind us in the passage, I mentioned this to Lockwood. He’d noticed it too.

‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘Malaise?’

‘Could be. But this is the first time he’s entered a psychically charged location since he saw that bone glass. We’d better watch him carefully.’

Of the four common signs of an imminent manifestation (the others being chill, miasma and creeping fear), malaise is the most insidious. It’s a feeling of soul-sapping heaviness and melancholy that can steal up on you so slowly you never notice it – until you have a ghost creeping towards you and you realize you haven’t the willpower to run or raise your sword. At this extreme it’s become ghost-lock, and ghost-lock – being the opposite of life and happiness and laughter – is often fatal. This is why good agents always look out for each other, why we work in teams. Subtly, without drawing attention to ourselves, Lockwood and I moved so that George was between us. We protected him on either side.

We arrived at the door at the end of the passage. I put my fingers on the handle. A thrill of extreme cold speared up my hand and arm; I caught the on-off sound of voices – male ones, talking heatedly. I smelled cigar smoke and something sharper, an acrid chemical tang. Almost at once, the echo was gone.

‘I’m getting traces,’ I said.

Lockwood’s voice came from the back. ‘Everyone stand very still. Keep looking and listening. Don’t open the door.’

We waited in silence for a minute, maybe more.

At last Lockwood gave the all-clear. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Ready when you are, Luce.’

That was my cue. I took a deep breath, gripped the handle again and stepped into the room.

Utter blackness enfolded me. I instantly sensed I was in a larger space. As always, it was tempting to switch on my torch, but I resisted the impulse and stood still, letting my mind open. Close behind me I could hear the door easing shut. Neither of the others spoke, but I could hear the quiet movement of their feet, feel their presence as they pressed beside me in the dark. They stood very close, closer than normal – but I didn’t really blame them. In fact I was grateful for it. It was so very, very dark in there.

I looked, but saw nothing. I listened, heard only the scantest ripples of sound, which swiftly faded. I waited for Lockwood to give the ‘lights on’ signal.

And waited. He was really taking his time.

‘You both ready?’ I asked finally. ‘I don’t get anything. Do you?’

I became suddenly aware that I could no longer sense anyone on either side.

‘You ready, Lockwood?’ I said, my voice a little louder.

Nothing.

From somewhere across the room came a man’s deep cough.

A surge of fear – strong, knife-thin – rose through me. I scrabbled at my belt, switched on my torch, swung it rapidly to and fro.

Just a room, another barren space: bare walls, dusty floorboards. A single window cavity, blocked with bricks. In the centre of the room, a massive table with a metal top.

None of that interested me, because I was alone. Lockwood and George weren’t there.

I spun round, wrenched open the door. My trembling torchlight picked out the pair of them a few steps away. They had their backs to me, their rapiers out; they were staring up the passage.

‘What the hell are you doing out here?’ I said.

‘Didn’t you hear it, Luce?’ Lockwood hissed. ‘The scurrying?’

‘Like rats,’ George whispered. ‘I thought it was coming towards us, but . . .’ He seemed to notice me for the first time, standing in the door. ‘Oh, you’ve been inside.’

‘Of course I have.’ A finger of cold moved down my spine. ‘You came in too, right? You were in the room with me.’

‘No we weren’t. Watch where you’re pointing that torch. The light’s in my eyes.’

‘We thought you were with us here, Luce,’ Lockwood said.

‘No, I went through the door, just like— Are you sure you didn’t follow?’ I remembered the soft shuffling sounds, the invisible presences pressing close. My voice grew tight and forced. ‘I felt you standing next to me . . .’

‘We didn’t notice you go in, Luce. We got distracted by the scurrying.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t hear it,’ George said.

‘Of course I didn’t hear it!’ I burst out. ‘If I’d heard it, do you think I’d have left you behind and gone in there?!’

Lockwood touched my hand. ‘It’s all right. Calm down. You need to calm down and tell us what’s happened.’

I took a long deep breath to stop myself from shaking. ‘Come in through here and I’ll tell you. From now on, we need to stay very close together. And please, let’s none of us get distracted any more.’

The secret chamber, which we guessed had been Bickerstaff’s workroom, displayed no other immediate psychic traces once we were all inside. Lockwood set a lantern on the sill beneath the bricked-up window; by its light George wandered round the perimeter, inspecting the wall. There was no other exit. Old gas-lamp fixings, rusty and sagging, extended from the bare plaster. The table in the centre was the only furniture, its steel legs bolted to the floor. Its iron top was rough with dust and plaster fragments. Deep grooves ran along the edges, and opened out into spouts projecting over the floor.

Lockwood ran his finger along one groove. ‘Nice little channels,’ he said, ‘for the flow of blood. This is a purpose-built dissection table. Mid nineteenth century. I’ve seen examples at the Royal College of Surgeons. Looks like it was here that good old Dr Bickerstaff experimented with body parts of the deceased. Pity it’s made of iron, Luce, or you might have got some interesting psychic feedback from it.’

I’d been drinking water from my backpack, and was now chewing furiously on a piece of chocolate. I still felt shaken by my experiences at the door, but my fright had hardened into something stronger. If the presences here wanted to warn me off, they’d have to do better than that. I tossed the chocolate wrapper aside. ‘It was in this room that they used to meet,’ I said. ‘A group of men, smoking and talking about their experiments. I know that much already, but I may get more. So hush up. I want to try something.’

I moved to the far wall, well away from the iron surface of the table. There’d been a fireplace here; the grate was choked with birds’ nests, rubble, fragments of wood and plaster. It seemed to me that this was the heart of the room, where Bickerstaff and his companions would have stood and smoked, discussing whatever lay upon the table. Here, if anywhere, the traces might be strong.

I put my fingertips against the plaster of the wall. Cool, damp, even oily to the touch. I closed my eyes, and lost myself. I listened . . .

Sound welled up from the past. I grasped at it; it fell away.

It’s strange how psychic echoes work. They come and go – first strong, then weak; waxing, then subsiding – like they’re a beating heart or rhythmic pulse, deep in the substance of the house. It makes Touch a tricksy, unreliable Talent. You can try the same spot five times and get nothing; on the sixth, you’re knocked off your feet by the power of the psychic recall. I trailed my hand along the walls, tried the fireplace and the blocked-up window, and the only result was dirt-stained fingertips.

Time went by. I heard Lockwood shuffling his feet, George scratching somewhere unmentionable; otherwise they were silent. I had them both well trained.

I was just about to reach in my bag for my pocket-pack of Agents’ Wipes™ (‘Ideal for removing soot, grave-dirt and ectoplasm stains’) when I chanced to brush against the wall beside the door. A thin, sharp shock crackled out like sheet lightning across the back of my hand. I flinched away, and then – because I knew the sensation for what it was – deliberately placed my fingers back on the cold, rough plaster.

At once, as if I’d switched a radio on, I heard voices beside me in the room. I closed my eyes, turned to face the chamber, let my mind fill in the image that the sounds suggested.

A group of men, several of them, stood around the dissecting table. I picked up a general murmur of conversation, laughter, the smell of strong tobacco. There was something in the middle of the room; something on the table. One voice, louder, more assertive than the others, rose above the rest. The hubbub quietened, to be replaced by a solemn round of chinking glasses. The echoes faded.

And swelled again. This time I heard noise from a single throat – a busy, preoccupied whistling, as of someone deeply engaged in a pleasant task. He was sawing something: I heard the rasping of the blade. Silence fell . . . and now there was something else inside the room. I felt its presence in the horrible sense of spectral cold, in the sudden dread that made my teeth rattle in my gums. Also in a hateful sound I’d heard before: the burring wings of innumerable flies.

A voice sounded in the darkness.

‘Try Wilberforce. He’s eager. He’ll do it.’

Instantly the whistling and the sawing noise were gone. But the buzzing grew stronger, and now the terrible cold rose up to engulf me, just as it had three nights before when I stood beside the Bickerstaff grave. I opened my mouth in pain. And as I did so, there suddenly came a single cry from many throats, screamed directly in my ear.

‘Give us back our bones!’

I jerked my hand from the wall. At once, like water sluicing down a drain, the deathly cold was sucked away, and I felt again the clammy warmth of the empty room.

George and Lockwood stood by the table, watching me.

I took my thermos from my bag and drank hot tea before telling them what I’d heard.

‘The sound of the flies,’ I said at last, ‘the desperate cold . . . it was just the same as in the cemetery. Both are to do with the bone glass, I think. Bickerstaff definitely constructed it here.’

Lockwood tapped the surface of the table. ‘To do what, though? That’s the question. You look in the bone glass, and what do you see?’

‘I don’t know. But that idiot made something very bad.’

‘This voice you heard . . .’ George said. ‘Was it Bickerstaff, do you think?’

‘Maybe. But actually I thought it sounded more like—’

It’s never great when one of us breaks off halfway through a sentence like that. It’s always bad news. Generally speaking it means something’s happened, or is very much about to happen, and we have to stop talking or die.

‘Do you hear it?’ I said.

Beyond the half-closed door: a little subtle scraping noise. A limping, shuffling, creeping something coming up the passage, and getting ever closer all the time.

‘Turn the lantern low,’ Lockwood whispered.

George hit the switch; the room went almost black. Light enough to see by, dark enough for our psychic senses to stay strong. Without words we fanned out in the old Plan D positions: me to the right of the door, pressed close against the wall; George to its left, slightly further out, so that he was clear if spectral forces smashed the door aside. Lockwood stood directly in front, ready to face the main attack. We each drew our rapiers. I wiped my left hand on my leggings, removing sudden perspiration. This is the worst part: when the Visitor’s still concealed. When you know it’s coming, but the full horror has yet to hit you. It’s a time for the mind to play its tricks, for paralysing fear to set in. To distract myself I ran my hand across the pouches in my belt, counting, memorizing, making sure everything was ready.

The soft, soft noises drew close. Through the crack in the door came a palely spreading light. In its heart a shadow swelled and gathered.

Lockwood’s arm moved back; the metal glinted. I raised my sword.