Lockwood & Co: The Whispering Skull

19

An unseen force struck the door, which was thrown violently back to hit George in the face. A fizz, a crack – a dark shape sprang into the room. Lockwood danced forward, swung his rapier. There was a strangled squawk of alarm.

For an instant nothing moved; Lockwood seemed frozen. My rapier too hung halfway through its arc; my muscles had locked as soon as I heard the breaking canister, and smelled the salt and iron scattered around me on the floor.

I plucked out my torch, switched it full on, illuminating Lockwood in mid attack position, the point of his rapier inches from Quill Kipps’s throat. Kipps had one leg slightly raised; he was leaning backwards with a goggling expression on his face, his chest going rapidly up and down. His own rapier-tip was wobbling in mid-air a short distance from Lockwood’s stomach.

Crowded in the doorway behind stood Kat Godwin, holding a night lantern, and Ned Shaw, clasping another salt bomb. Little Bobby Vernon’s startled eyes peered from the darkness somewhere south of Shaw’s left armpit. Each unlovely visage displayed mingled bafflement and terror.

Silence reigned, except for George’s muffled swearing behind the door.

All at once Lockwood and Kipps jumped away from one another with exclamations of disgust.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Kipps croaked.

‘I might ask you the same thing.’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘It’s precisely my business,’ Lockwood said. He ran his hand irritably through his hair. ‘It’s my business that you’re on. You’re living dangerously, Kipps. You almost got a rapier in the neck there.’

‘Me? We thought you were a Visitor. If it wasn’t for my bullet-speed reactions I’d have completely disembowelled you.’

Lockwood raised an eyebrow. ‘Hardly. It was only because I could already see that you saw who I was that I stopped myself driving the pommel of your own sword sharply back into your abdomen using the Baedecker-Flynn reverse-strike manoeuvre. Lucky for you that I did, and so didn’t.’

There was a pause. ‘Well,’ Kipps said, ‘if I understood what you were talking about I’d no doubt have a neat retort.’ He returned his rapier to his belt. Lockwood stowed his too. Ned Shaw, Bobby Vernon and Kat Godwin loped scowlingly into the room. George emerged from behind the door, rubbing a nose that seemed even smaller and stubbier than before. For a while no one said much, but there was a great deal of assertive clinking as rapiers and other weapons were grudgingly put away.

‘So,’ Lockwood said, ‘you’ve resorted to simply following us about, have you? That’s pretty low.’

‘Following you?’ Kipps gave a derisory laugh. ‘We, my friend, are following the leads young Bobby Vernon here uncovered in the Archives. It wouldn’t surprise me if you were following us.’

‘No need for that. George’s research is doing us just fine.’

Bobby Vernon tittered. ‘Really? After that display on Wimbledon Common I’m surprised Cubbins still has a job.’

Lockwood frowned. ‘It’s going to be a pleasure to win this contest, Quill. By the way, your advert in The Times doesn’t have to be too large. A plainly written half-page admission of defeat will do absolutely fine.’

‘That’s assuming Kipps can actually read and write,’ George said.

Ned Shaw stirred. ‘Careful what you say, Cubbins.’

‘I’m sorry. Let me rephrase it. I’ll bet there are apes in the Borneo rainforests with a better grasp of literacy than him.’

Shaw’s eyes bulged; he fumbled at his belt. ‘Right, that’s it—’

Lockwood flicked his coat aside, put his hand to his sword. At once Kipps, George and Godwin did the same.

‘Stop this!’ I cried. ‘Stop this nonsense, all of you!’

Six faces turned to me.

I’d raised my voice. I’d clenched my fists. I may even have stamped a foot. I did what was necessary to snap them out of it. Their rage was escalating out of control, and with it the danger hanging over us grew dark and palpable. Negative emotions in haunted places are never a good idea – and anger’s probably the worst of all.

‘Can’t you feel it?’ I hissed. ‘The atmosphere’s changing. You’re stirring up the energies in the house. You’ve got to shut up, right now.’

There was a silence. They were variously concerned, disgruntled and embarrassed, but they did as I told them.

Lockwood took a deep breath. ‘Thanks, Luce,’ he said. ‘You’re right.’

The others nodded. ‘I know anger’s out,’ George said. ‘But what about sarcasm? Is that a no-no too?’

‘Hush.’

We waited. Tension hung heavy in the air.

‘Think we stopped it?’ Quill Kipps said at last. ‘Think we were just in time?’

Even as he spoke, the element in Kat Godwin’s night lantern flickered, dwindled, flared again. George unclipped his thermometer and switched on the dial. ‘Temp’s dropping. Ten degrees now. It was fourteen here when we came in.’

‘The air’s getting thick,’ Bobby Vernon muttered. ‘There’s a miasma building.’

I nodded. ‘I’m getting aural phenomena. A rustling.’

Kat Godwin could hear it too; her face was grey and drawn. ‘It sounds like . . . like . . .’

Like lots of little rushing things with scaly tails and scaly claws, hurrying through the house towards us. Brushing against walls, squeezing under doors, pattering through pipes and under floorboards, converging ever closer on that hateful airless room. That, to be frank, is what it sounded like. Kat Godwin didn’t say this, and she didn’t say the fateful word. She didn’t need to. Everybody guessed.

‘Chains out,’ Lockwood said. ‘Let’s all think happy thoughts.’

‘Do it,’ Kipps said.

They may have had the social graces of hungry jackals, but give them their due: Fittes agents are well trained. They had their kitbags opened faster than us, and a decent double circle of chains laid out in twenty seconds flat. Ned Shaw was still scowling at us, but the others were calm and matter-of-fact now. The priority was survival. We all squeezed in.

‘This is cosy,’ George said. ‘Nice cologne, Kipps. I’m being genuine there.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Shut up now,’ I said. ‘We need to listen.’

So we stood there silently, seven agents squashed inside the circle. The lantern-light continued to flicker wildly. I could see nothing, but the rustling, scraping, scampering sound grew nearer, nearer . . . Now it was all around us, as if a terrible, pell-mell chase was going on, just out of eyeshot in the dark. From Kat Godwin’s constricted breathing I knew she heard it; whether the others did, I couldn’t tell. The tumult rose around me. It was as if the frantic chase continued up the walls. It kept on rising till it reached the ceiling. Claws skittered and slid on plaster just above our heads. Still it rose. The sound merged into the ceiling; the terrible rustling vanished away into the fabric of the house.

‘It’s gone,’ Kat Godwin said. ‘It’s backed off. You think so too, Lucy?’

‘Yeah, the air’s clearing . . . Wait, so you know my name as well.’

‘Temperature’s back up to twelve,’ George said.

A general lessening of tension followed. Everyone suddenly realized how close we were all pressing. We scattered from the circle; the chains were put away.

The two groups stood looking at each other once again.

‘Look, Quill,’ Lockwood said. ‘I’ve got a suggestion. This clearly isn’t a place for an argument. Let’s continue it later, somewhere else. Also, since none of us can stand the sight of each other, why don’t we go our separate ways around the house? We’ll all search where we like, and won’t disturb the others. Sound fair enough?’

Kipps was pulling at his cuffs and brushing at his jacket, as if our recent forced proximity had made him worried about fleas. ‘Agreed, but don’t make any sudden reappearances. I might take your head off next time.’

Without further words, we steered past them and back down the passage. Once through the outer door, we retraced our steps to the main hall. Here Lockwood paused.

‘Kipps showing up complicates things,’ he whispered. ‘They might spend a while in the workroom, taking readings, but they’ll be creeping after us again very soon. And if those papers are here, I want to find them without any interference. Lucy, I know you don’t want to use it, but this might be a good time to consult our friend, the skull.’

I regarded George’s bulging rucksack without pleasure. ‘This still feels like a bad idea to me,’ I said. ‘But since we’re running out of time . . .’ I opened the pack, reached in and turned the lever on the stopper. ‘Spirit,’ I said, bending near, ‘do you recognize this place? Where was your master’s study? Can you tell us?’

The glass stayed cold and dark.

‘Maybe you need to go in close,’ Lockwood suggested.

‘Any closer than this and I’ll be tickling George’s neck. Spirit, do you hear me? Do you hear me? Oh, I feel such an idiot doing this. It’s an utter waste of—’

‘Upstairs . . .’

I jerked back; there’d been the briefest flash of green from the heart of the jar. Now it, and the breathless voice, were gone.

‘It said upstairs,’ I said slowly. ‘It definitely said upstairs. But do we really—’

Lockwood was already halfway across the hall. ‘Then what are we waiting for? Quick! We haven’t got much time!’

Negotiating those stairs, however, wasn’t something we could do too quickly. Many of the treads were rotten, and wouldn’t support our weight. We had to step over slicks of tiles and splinters of fallen wood. High above, ragged patches of stars shone where the roof had been. Also we had to keep taking precautionary readings (much hastier than usual; we kept expecting our rivals to reappear below), which held us up still more. We picked up a slight decrease in temperature, and low-level noises (a faint crackling and whistling). Lockwood also saw some plasmic traces flitting through the dark. Then there was one final thing as we got to the top of the stairs.

‘Look at the skirting,’ I said. ‘What are these dark stains running along it?’

George bent close and fixed them with his pen-torch. ‘Smudges and smears of grease,’ he said, ‘made by thousands of bristle marks. It’s just the kind of stain that . . .’ He hesitated.

‘That rats make.’ Lockwood brushed past us impatiently, took the last couple of steps in a single vigorous stride. ‘Forget it. Come on.’

It was a big square landing, ruined and half open to the sky. Brown leaves and little twigs lay among the dirt and debris on the wooden floorboards, and the moonlight shone with cold assertion through gaping rents in the roof above. Behind us, a passage ran away deeper into the house, but this was half blocked by fallen rubble. The stairs had curved round on themselves during the ascent, so we were facing back towards the front of the house. Ahead of us were the open doorways to three rooms.

‘Yes . . .’ the ghost’s voice whispered in my ear. ‘There . . .’

‘We’re close,’ I said. ‘Bickerstaff’s study is one of those rooms.’

The moment I said the name, there was a spike in the psychic sounds I heard; the distant crackling flared loud enough to make me flinch. A slight breeze blew through the empty house, moving leaves and curls of paper across the floor. A few fragments fell between the banisters and drifted away into the darkness of the void below.

‘Might be worth going easy on that name up here,’ Lockwood said. ‘Temperature, George?’

‘Eight degrees. Holding constant.’

‘Stay there and watch the stairs for Kipps. Lucy, come with me.’

Soundlessly, we crossed the landing. I looked back at George, who had taken up position by the banister, where he had a good view down over the curve of the staircase to a portion of the hall below. His mood seemed steady, his body-language seemed OK. As far as I could tell, the malaise wasn’t getting any worse.

His rucksack hung open. I could see the top of the ghost-jar, faintly glowing green.

‘Yessss . . .’ the voice said. ‘Good girl . . . You’re getting closer . . .’

How eager the whisper sounded now.

‘The middle room . . . Under the floor . . .’

‘The middle one. It says that’s it.’

Lockwood approached the central doorway, started to pass through, and at once jumped back.

‘Cold spot,’ he said. ‘Cuts straight through you.’

I unclipped my thermometer and held it out beyond the door. At once I could feel the air’s bitterness on my hand. ‘Five degrees in, eight degrees out,’ I said. ‘That’s serious chill.’

‘And not only that.’ Lockwood had taken his sunglasses from his coat and was hastily putting them on. ‘We’ve got spiders. And a death-glow – a real whopper. Over there, beneath the window.’

I couldn’t see it, but I wouldn’t have expected to. To my eyes it was a fair-sized, squarish chamber, dominated by a large and empty window-space. As with the rest of the ruined house, it was barren of furniture or decoration. I tried to imagine how it had looked in Bickerstaff’s day: the study desk and chair, the portraits on the wall, maybe a bookcase or two, a carriage clock upon the mantelpiece . . . No. I couldn’t manage it. Too much time had passed, and the sense of menacing emptiness was just too strong.

A flood of moonlight shone through it, making everything glow a sleepy, hazy silver. The noise of static in my head buzzed loudly once or twice, then faded sharply, as if being squeezed out by the heavy silence emanating from that room.

Thick dusty layers of cobwebs hung in the corners of the ceiling.

This was it, the centre of the haunting in that house. My heart beat painfully against my chest, and I could feel my teeth chattering. I forced the panic down. What had Joplin told us? The men had stood outside and seen movement in the window. ‘Lockwood,’ I whispered. ‘It’s the room of the rats. It’s where Bickerstaff died. We mustn’t go in there.’

‘Oh, don’t be scared,’ the whispering voice said in my mind. ‘You want the papers? Under a board in the middle of the floor. Just walk right in.’

‘A quick look only,’ Lockwood said, ‘and then we’ll go.’ I couldn’t see his eyes behind the glasses, but I could feel his wariness; he stood at the door and didn’t step inside.

‘That’s what the skull wants us to do,’ I pleaded. ‘But we can’t trust it; you know we can’t. Let’s just leave it, Lockwood. Let’s get out of here.’

‘After all this? Not likely. Besides, Kipps will be up here in a minute.’ He pulled his gloves higher on his wrists, and stepped through the door. Gritting my teeth, I followed.

The drop in temperature was brutal; even in my coat it made me shudder. There was an immediate hike in the static too, as if someone had turned a dial the moment I went inside. The air was heavy with a peculiar sweet smell, not unlike the climbing shrub outside the window. It was thick, cloying, and somehow rotten. It had no obvious source.

It was not a room to remain in very long.

We walked slowly through drifting spears of moonlight, hands at our belts, surveying the floor. Most of the boards seemed held fast, stone-stiff and strong.

‘It’s in the middle somewhere,’ I said. ‘According to the skull.’

‘What a very helpful skull he is . . . Ah, this one gave a little. Keep watch, Lucy.’

In a moment he was on his knees, squatting by the floorboard, exploring its edges with his long fingers. I took my rapier from my belt and paced slowly around the room. I did not want to remain still there; somehow I needed to move.

I passed the door; across the landing, George was looking at me from his position by the banisters. He waved. The back of his rucksack glowed a faintish green. I passed the window; from it I could see the slates of the entrance porch, the path leading down the hill, the tops of ragged trees. I passed an empty fireplace; on impulse I let my fingers touch the blackened tiles—

Sound looped out of the past; the room was warm, fire crackled in the grate.

‘Here, my dear fellow. The boy’s set it all up for you. We’ve chosen you for this great purpose. You are to be the pioneer!’

Another voice: ‘Just stand before it and take the cloth away. Tell us what you see.’

‘Have you not looked yet, Bickerstaff?’ The speaker was querulous, prickly with fear. ‘Surely it should fall to you . . .’

‘It is to be your honour, my good Wilberforce. This is your heart’s desire, is it not? Come, man! Take a drop of wine for courage . . . That’s it! I stand ready to record your words. Now, there . . . We remove the veil . . . So, look into it, Wilberforce! Look, and tell us—’

Appalling cold, a cry of terror – and with it, the buzzing of the flies. ‘No! I cannot!’

‘I swear you shall! Hold him fast! Get him by the arms! Look, curse you – look! And talk to us! Tell us the marvels that you see!’

But the only answer was a scream – loud, loud, louder; and suddenly cut off—

My hand fell away from the wall. I stood rigid, eyes staring, frozen in shock at what I’d heard. The room was very still, as if the whole building held its breath. I could not move. I was engulfed by the echo of a dead man’s fear. The terror subsided; blinking, gasping, I remembered where I was. In the centre of the room, Lockwood crouched beside an uprooted floorboard. He was grinning at me broadly. He had several yellowed, crumpled papers in his hand.

‘How’s that, then?’ He smiled. ‘The skull spoke truth!’

‘No—’ I lurched towards him, caught his arm. ‘Not about everything. Listen to me! It wasn’t Bickerstaff who died here. It was Wilberforce. Bickerstaff forced him to look in the bone glass, right here in this room! The bone glass killed him, Lockwood – it was Wilberforce who died in this house, and I think his spirit’s still here now. We need to get out. Don’t talk, just leave.’

Lockwood’s face was pale. He rose; and at that moment George appeared beside us. His eyes shone. ‘Have you found them? You got the papers? What do they say?’

‘Later,’ Lockwood said. ‘I thought I told you to watch the stairs.’

‘Oh, it’ll be all right. It’s quiet down there. Ooh, it’s handwritten, and there are little pictures too. This is fascinating—’

‘Get out!’ I cried. A growing pressure beat against my ear. It seemed to me that the moonlight in the window was a little thicker than before.

‘Yes,’ Lockwood said. ‘Let’s go.’ We turned – and saw the hulking form of Ned Shaw standing in the doorway. He blocked the space. If you’d put a hinge on his backside and another on his elbow, he’d have made an ugly but effective swing-door.

‘George,’ I said. ‘How long has it been since you actually watched the stairs?’

‘Well, I might have nipped over a moment or two ago to see what you were doing.’

Shaw’s little eyes gleamed with triumph and suspicion. ‘What have you got there, Lockwood?’ he said. ‘What’s that you’re holding?’

‘I don’t yet know,’ Lockwood said truthfully. He bent, put the papers in his bag.

‘Give them here,’ Shaw said.

‘No. Let us pass, please.’

Ned Shaw gave a chuckle; he leaned casually against the door-jamb. ‘Not until I see what you’ve got.’

‘This really isn’t a place for an argument,’ I said. The temperature was dropping; the moonlight swirled and shifted in the room, as if slowly being stirred into life.

‘Perhaps you’re unaware,’ Lockwood began, ‘that this room—’

Shaw chuckled again. ‘Oh, I can see it all. The death-glow, the miasma forming. There’s even a little ghost-fog . . . Yeah, it’s not a place to linger.’

Lockwood’s eyes narrowed. ‘In that case’ – he drew his rapier – ‘you’ll agree we can leave right now.’ He stepped towards him. Shaw hesitated, and then – it was almost as if those hinges I mentioned were in position and nicely oiled – swung back and let us through.

‘Thanks,’ Lockwood said.

Whether it was the way he said it – lightly, but with amused disdain; whether it was my look of utter contempt, or the grin on George’s face, or simply a pressure inside that could not be borne, but Ned Shaw suddenly cracked. He ripped his rapier clear and, in the same movement, jabbed at Lockwood’s back. I knew the move; it was a Komiyama Twist, used on Spectres, Wraiths and Fetches. Not on people.

My gasp as the sword was drawn half warned Lockwood. He began to turn; the rapier point scratched at an angle along the fabric of his coat, caught against the threads and penetrated the cloth. It caught him just beneath his left arm; he cried out and sprang away.

Red-faced, panting, Shaw plunged after him like a maddened bull. Reaching the centre of the landing, Lockwood spun round, struck aside his enemy’s outstretched rapier and cut two parallel lines across the fabric of Shaw’s sword-arm, so that the jacket sleeve hung loose and limp. Shaw gave a bellow of fury.

Footsteps on the stairs. Kipps was taking them two at a time. Kat Godwin and little Bobby Vernon followed on behind. All had their rapiers in their hands.

‘Lockwood!’ Kipps cried. ‘What’s going on?’

‘He started it!’ Shaw cried, frantically warding off a series of remorseless blows as he retreated across the landing. ‘He attacked me! Help!’

‘That’s a lie!’ I shouted. But Kipps was already hurtling to the attack. He advanced on Lockwood side-on. It was a position from which Lockwood would be unable to see him: sneaky and effective – a typical Fittes ploy. And then my own anger, which had been bubbling up since Shaw’s treacherous assault, perhaps ever since that night on Wimbledon Common – overwhelmed me. I charged forward, rapier raised.

Before I could reach Kipps, Kat Godwin was upon me. Our blades met with a thin, high clash. The force of her first strike almost drove the weapon out of my hand, but I adjusted my wrist, absorbed the impact and held firm. For a moment we were locked together; I could smell the lemony reek of her perfume, see the crisp stitching on her smart grey jacket. We broke apart, circled each other. Dust rose from our shuffling feet and hung sparkling in the silvery air. It was very cold. There was a ringing in my ears.

George had also made a beeline for Lockwood; he was defending him from Kipps and Vernon on the other side. Lockwood had removed a portion of Shaw’s second sleeve. Bits of ragged cloth lay scattered across the moonlit floor.

Godwin brushed a fleck of hair out of her eyes. Her face was so hard and set, she might have been made of marble. Maybe I looked the same. Part of my mind was yelling at me, telling me to stop and calm down. But it’s hard in haunted houses – emotions get tugged and twisted out of true. I was furious, yes; we all were. But I wondered how far the atmosphere of the house was pulling us all towards extremes – George driving Vernon back with a series of ferocious jabs, then retreating as Kipps caught him on the thigh with a well-timed thrust; Lockwood, with cold, systematic precision, reducing Shaw’s jacket ever closer to ribbons. Godwin . . .

Kat Godwin’s next attack was twice as quick as the ones before. White-faced, eyes staring, she swiped at my sword-arm. The tip of the blade caught me neatly on the exposed skin between the wrist-bones, just beyond the guard. It bit through the skin, making me cry out. I grasped my wrist. Flecks of blood showed between my fingers.

I looked up at her in shock – and then I looked beyond her. My mouth opened. I backed away.

‘Giving up?’ Godwin said.

I shook my head, pointing past her back towards the empty study.

In the centre of the moonlight, in the spot-lit patch below the window, a dark shape was rising from the floor.

A violent silence attended it. Moonbeams writhed and thickened; threads of ghost-fog thrashed and bucked close to the floor. Freezing air rolled out from the room, washing over us, plunging down the stairs. That foul miasma, that odious cloying sweetness, rose up to choke our lungs.

Kat Godwin made an incoherent noise; she’d turned and now stood slack-jawed at my side. The others had lowered their weapons and become similarly transfixed.

Up rose the shape.

‘Oh God,’ someone said. ‘Bickerstaff.’

Not Bickerstaff. I knew that now. Not Bickerstaff, but Wilberforce – the man who’d looked into the mirror. But even that was not the full horrible truth of the apparition that we saw.

It was vaguely man-shaped – that much was clear – but it was also somehow wrong. From certain angles, as it turned and twisted, it had the appearance of a tall gentleman, perhaps wearing some kind of frock coat. The line of the head was plain enough, bowed as if under some great weight, but I could not make sense of the rest. The arms were swollen, the chest and stomach undulating weirdly. Everything was held in shadow; I saw no details.

The figure rose into the light, swaying and shaking, as if responding to some frenzied internal music. The movement was foul: a terror radiated from it through the freezing air. Ghost-lock seized my muscles, I felt my bowels go slack; my rapier trembled in my hand.

Swaying like a drunken man, head lolling, body shifting, writhing with a horrid fluid grace, the figure rose, silhouetted against the moon. Little spreading nets of ice grew and fused on the windowpanes behind it. Still the head was bowed. The body’s contortions – minute but somehow frenzied – redoubled, as if it sought to tear itself to pieces. The head jerked up, it turned towards us: it was a black void that sucked in light.

A desperate voice rang in my mind. ‘Bickerstaff! No! Show me not the glass!’

Someone – Godwin, I think – began to scream.

I didn’t blame her. The figure was shaking itself apart.

Like a wet dog, it thrashed from side to side. And as it did so, pieces of its substance broke away. It was as if gobbets of flesh were shaking themselves loose and falling to the floor. As each one landed, the lumps uncoiled, grew elongated, became low black forms that leaped and skittered out across the room, before circling round towards the door.

‘Rats!’ Lockwood cried. ‘Back to the stairs! Get out!’

His voice broke through our ghost-lock; one after another, our training kicked in. Not before time: the first black forms were already upon us. Three, coal-black and shining, with yellow maddened eyes, came springing through the door. One launched itself at George, who met it with a wild swing of his rapier. The rat burst; a shower of bright blue ectoplasm spattered Vernon’s jacket, making him squeal. Lockwood hurled a salt bomb, igniting another rat; it burned with a livid flame. The third scrabbled away and up the wall.

Away by the window, in its nimbus of blue fire, the hellish figure hopped and capered, as if dancing with delight. Ribs shone, arm-bones peeked from the whirling, disintegrating flesh. Fresh chunks and pieces tore themselves free; spectral rats scattered up the walls and across the ceiling. More came through the door.

‘Back!’ Lockwood cried again. He was walking backwards slowly, methodically, slashing at the darting, clawing forms as they drew near. George and I were doing likewise; of the Fittes agents, Shaw and Godwin beat the most orderly retreat. Shaw scattered iron filings in a broad circle so that advancing rats fizzed and leaped and spun. Godwin tossed salt bombs left and right.

Kipps? He’d already scarpered; I heard his boots beating out a cowardly fandango on the stairs. But Bobby Vernon seemed racked with panic, neither attacking nor retreating, his sword hanging limply, eyes locked on the bony, dancing thing.

It sensed his weakness. Visitors always do.

Rats converged upon him along the walls and ceiling. One dropped towards his head; Lockwood sprang close, long coat flapping. He swung his sword and, mid-fall, sliced the rat in two. Plasm fell like molten rain.

Vernon moaned; Lockwood grasped him by the collar, dragged him bodily towards the stairs. From left, from right, the swift black forms came darting. I threw a salt bomb, drove them shrieking back. The landing was awash with salt and iron; burning rats shrank and dwindled on all sides.

We reached the stairs; Lockwood flung Vernon ahead of him, jumped over a writhing rat that collided with the skirting, and clattered down. I was the last. I looked back into the empty room. In its livid fire, the thing by the window was almost reduced to bones. As I watched, I saw it fall back, disintegrate entirely into a dozen darting forms that whirled round and round and round.

‘I beg you,’ roared the despairing, distant voice. ‘Show me not the glass!’

I pelted round the curve of the stairs, down along the hallway, towards the open door.

‘Not the glass . . .’

I fell out of the front door, across the porch and into the long, wet moonlit grass. The summer night enfolded me; for the first time I realized how cold I’d been. Shaw and Godwin had already collapsed on the ground. Vernon was slumped against one of the pillars of the porch. George and Kipps had discarded their rapiers and were bent over almost double, gasping, hands clamped against their knees.

Lockwood was hardly out of breath. I looked up at the window overhead, where, lit by flickering blue other-light, the stick-thin figure and the rats could still be seen, dancing and capering. Rats leaped and bounded, ran up and down the walls and across the ceiling. They merged in and out of the figure, building it up to momentarily resemble a Victorian gentleman with swaying tail-coats, then stripping it back to the bones again.

The light winked out. The house was dark beneath the moon.

I turned away; and as I did so, a brief, malevolent chuckling sounded in my mind. From the back of George’s rucksack a faint green glow flared once, then faded.

Now there was nothing but seven exhausted agents scattered wheezing on the quiet hill.