I stared at George’s body. I too seemed to have stopped breathing.
‘I mean, what use is “beautiful things”?’ Joplin complained. ‘That’s not scientific, is it? And now that dawn’s here, I’m not sure it’s even worth trying another test!’ He stamped a foot in irritation. ‘Honestly – what a nuisance.’
He continued muttering to himself, but I scarcely heard him. His voice was far away. All sounds were hushed to me. I was alone in the numbness of my mind.
‘George!’ I said softly. ‘Wake up!’
‘It’s no good, Carlyle . . .’ This was Kipps. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Oh no, he always looks like that . . .’ I said. ‘You should see him in the mornings. He’s just a bit sleepy, aren’t you, George? George, come on . . .’
George didn’t answer. He was slumped like an old coat tossed across the chair. His mouth was open. His hands hung limp. I thought of Jack Carver lying on our rug, of the stupid emptiness of death. I gave a little moan.
Joplin’s gaze flicked up at me. He had been studying his watch; now he looked across at me with narrowed eyes. Where had the amiability gone, the foolish fluttering of the timorous archivist? The appraisal he gave me was hard and cold.
Something else was watching too. At the moment George looked into the mirror, the ghost of Edmund Bickerstaff had swelled to fill its circle. I’d felt the cold satisfaction of its triumph, its glee at seeing George succumb. Now it switched its attention to a new victim. The draped form twisted; the hooded head loomed over me. I glimpsed the shrouded face – the grinning mouth with sharp bared teeth, the bone-white skin, eyes like black coins.
When I looked back at Joplin, his eyes looked just the same.
Kipps, being adult, could not truly see the ghost – but he felt its presence all right. I sensed him shrink back in his chair. Me? I drew myself up. I clenched my fists. Something slammed shut inside me, closing off my grief behind stony walls. My mind grew calm. My hatred was a winter lake – icy, clear and stretching out for ever . . . I stood and gazed at Joplin.
‘Perhaps,’ he was saying to himself, ‘perhaps we could have another try. Yes. All we need to do is put her in the chair. Where’s the harm, where’s the difficulty? Maybe she’ll survive, where the boy has failed.’
With bird-like steps, he moved towards me, knife in hand.
‘Keep away from her,’ Kipps said.
‘Your turn,’ Joplin said, ‘will come presently. Meanwhile be silent, or I’ll loose the master on you.’
He did not approach head-on, despite my bound hands. Instead he walked behind me, knife outstretched. With a single slice, he cut the cords: once again the knife was at my neck. I stood silent, massaging my chafed wrists.
‘Walk to the other chair,’ Joplin said.
I did so, forcing myself to breathe slowly, deliberately calming down. ‘You’ll be making a mistake if you make me look into the mirror,’ I said. ‘I talk with ghosts. They talk to me. I can tell you many secrets. There’s no use in me dying.’
‘Walk forwards. I don’t believe you, I’m afraid. Who has that Talent?’
‘I do. I have a Type Three with me. Its Source is in my bag close by. Bickerstaff is nothing compared to it. Let me show you.’
Away in the darkness, I could sense the ghost in the jar give a start. ‘Hey, why bring me into this? He’ll be as bad as Cubbins. Weird experiments, odd habits . . . Next thing you know he’ll have me with him in the bath.’
Joplin had paused; now the knife’s pressure resumed. ‘I still don’t believe you.’
‘Good!’
‘But if you have a relic with you, I shall examine it closely later.’
‘Oh, great. Thanks for nothing.’
It took only a few steps to cross to George’s chair, under the gaze of Bickerstaff’s ghost. In the central circle, the seven spirits of the mirror clustered above the ebony stand. As before, they were quite motionless; their plaintive voices echoed faintly on the air. The skull had been right – they didn’t do much. They seemed quite passive, obsessed only with the fate of their lost bones.
But the mirror was another matter. I kept my eyes away from it, but could still see it out of the corner of my eyes. The bone rim gleamed dully, but the glass was a jet-black hole. The buzzing noise was fearfully loud. I sensed movement in the glass, a coiling adjustment in its blackness. And with that came a sudden powerful urge to look properly upon it. The desire rose up within me like a scream. I shook the sensation away, but neither could I bear to look at George. I stared fixedly at the ground, fingers digging into my palms.
A small push. Joplin thrust me forwards, slightly away from him. I glanced back, saw him bending behind the chair, cutting the ropes that bound George’s limp hands. I turned, but the knife was up again, warding me off.
‘Don’t try it,’ Joplin said. He was staring up at me, head lowered, yellowed teeth bared. ‘Pull the body out and sit in the chair.’
‘I’m not going to do that.’
‘You haven’t any choice.’
‘Wrong. I’m going to collect my rapier from where I dropped it. Then, Mr Joplin, I’m going to kill you.’
The Bickerstaff ghost, in the circle behind Joplin, made a sudden urgent movement. As if he had been shoved between the shoulder blades, Joplin stumbled forwards. His eyes were voids; with a snarl, he raised the knife and started for me.
I readied myself to move.
And at that moment George got up from the chair.
I screamed. Somewhere behind me I heard Kipps gasp in fear. Joplin made a weird noise somewhere between a wail and a growl; the knife fell from his hand.
From the ghost-jar in the passage came an indignant oath. ‘Alive? Oh, that’s typical. It was all going so well.’
Face blank, glasses askew, George jumped forwards and grabbed Joplin around the waist. He swung him sideways and, with a mighty heave, sent him tumbling back over the iron chains. Joplin fell, colliding with the tripod legs; the stand swayed and toppled. The mirror broke loose and went crashing to the ground.
George stood upright, brushed the hair away from his eyes, and winked at me.
I still stared at him, dumbfounded. ‘George . . .’ I stammered. ‘How—?’
‘Bit busy,’ he said. ‘Ask me later.’ He flung himself at Joplin.
Squealing, thrashing in his panic, the archivist had been fighting clear of the fallen tripod. Above his head the seven spirits hovered; to my surprise – though he was inside their circle – they made no attempt to touch him. As George drew close, Joplin caught hold of the fallen tripod and swung it frantically. It missed George by miles, slipped out of Joplin’s grasp and clattered away across the floor to strike against the other loop of iron chains, the ones surrounding the Bickerstaff ghost. They were dislodged – a small gap opened where the ends had met.
At once there was a thump of air, a sudden roaring. A cold breeze burst out across the room, sending clouds of grave-dust ballooning away into the catacombs. The chains jerked and rattled as if they were alive – the gap was blown apart. The hooded figure turned its shrouded head to me.
It bent and flexed, squeezing thin, like smoke, as it passed out through the hole. Behind it coiled a growing trail of wispy ectoplasm, looping back to the body on the floor. The shape stretched up, high as the ceiling. It drifted forwards. Its robes split apart; two arms emerged, white and skinny, with knobbly, grasping hands.
The Bickerstaff ghost was free.
Quill Kipps could sense it. Eyes popping, sinews straining, he jerked and rattled in his chair. ‘Lucy!’ he croaked. ‘Help me!’
There wasn’t time to find my rapier. That was over at the table, beyond where George and Joplin were rolling on the floor in a frenzy of slaps and curses. If I went to get it, Kipps would die.
But I had no other weapon. Except . . .
I ran towards Kipps, towards the ghost. As I did so, I bent down and grabbed one of the lengths of iron chain that had been scattered by Joplin’s fall. I picked it up, went on without breaking stride. Even as I reached the chair, I was already swinging it in front of me.
I met the ghost of Dr Bickerstaff head on.
It was looming over Kipps, arms outstretched as if to swaddle him. Two see-through hands reached down. With a war-cry that was half screech, half gurgle, I spun the chain in a wild circle, slicing through the tips of the bone-white fingers, turning them to fizzing curls of mist. The ghost reared back. I thrust myself between it and the chair, whirling the iron high and low.
‘Careful!’ Kipps ducked frantically as the chain whistled past him.
‘Not efficient enough for you?’ I gasped. ‘Want me to leave?’
‘No, no. It’s very good— Ahh!’ That was the chain passing through his hair.
Back across the floor, great quantities of plasm were oozing from the centre of the corpse. The ghost grew longer and more serpent-like. Its head and torso were far above me, swinging from side to side, making little darts and feints in an effort to get beyond the chain. The arms jabbed inwards, to be cut in two; instantly they re-formed. Showers of plasm fell around us, peppering our clothes.
And all the while we fought, the voice of Edmund Bickerstaff was calling, calling in my mind – urging me to look, promising me my heart’s desire. It was the same old message. He had no other. And though his ghost was very terrible, though its madness and its malice made it strong, I found myself growing ever calmer and more confident. I stood there, dirty, tired and (because of the plasm) gently steaming, protecting my rival from death. And as I stared at the apparition, I saw that the cowl had drawn back, leaving the doctor’s face exposed. Yes, it was hideous and snarling; yes, the teeth were sharp and the eyes were like black coins, but – with the hood off – it was just a man’s face, after all. A stupid, obsessive man who, to make himself feel important, had liked to dress in eerie robes. Who had sought answers to things he shouldn’t know, but had been too scared to look himself. Who had used others – both in life, and now in death. Was his voice hypnotic? Yeah – perhaps to some, but not to me.
I’d had enough of him.
I changed my posture from defence to attack. As the ghost recoiled from a high swing of the iron, I stepped in close, adjusted my arms, and brought the chain up and over my head like a fisherman casting his line. The iron cut straight down through the centre of Bickerstaff, from hood to floor, slicing him neatly in two.
A sigh, a gasp – the apparition vanished. A thread of plasm whipped across the floor and was sucked back into the body; with a snap of air, it was gone.
Steam rose from the tip of the iron chains. I let them drop. Kipps was sitting rigid in the chair, with a slightly harrowed look upon his face.
‘I’ve driven it back,’ I said. ‘Shouldn’t re-form for a while.’
‘Right,’ he said. He moistened his lips. ‘Thanks. Though you didn’t need to give me a buzz-cut too. Now set me free.’
‘Not yet.’ I looked across the room. ‘There’s one more thing to finish.’
While I’d faced the ghost, the fight between George and Joplin had also been resolved. Having rolled and tumbled their way across the chamber, they had ended up in a flailing heap beside a pile of empty coffins. Joplin was on top: with a cry, he tore himself from George’s grasp, and tottered to his feet. George could not respond, but collapsed, exhausted, against the wall.
Joplin’s shirt was ripped, his jacket half off; he seemed entirely dazed. Yet still there was only one thing on his mind. He stared back across the floor to where the bone mirror lay, face down. He started staggering towards it.
No. No way. It was time to end this.
Even in my weary state I was faster than the archivist. I walked across, I reached the mirror. Seven figures still hovered above it, faint and mournful. I bent down, picked it up, and then – ignoring the clustering spirits, ignoring Joplin’s shout – carried it over to the table.
It was icy cold in my hand. The bones felt smooth; they tingled to the touch. The buzzing noise was very loud. I took care to hold the disc with the mirror side down. When I looked up, the group of shapes were all around me – near, but also distant. They were focused on the mirror. I felt no threat from them. Their faces were blank and smudged, like photos left out in the rain.
All around me their faint cries sounded: ‘Give us back our bones . . .’
‘OK, OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
The first thing I did, when I got to the table, was pick my rapier up off the floor. Then I scanned the mess scattered across the table top, noting certain tools belonging to Joplin: crowbar, chisel, mallet. I didn’t like to think what he had used them for.
Joplin had come to a halt on the other side of the table. He had the same look of dull intensity in his eyes. ‘No!’ he croaked. ‘It’s mine! Don’t!’
I ignored him. I looked back towards the catacombs, to the passage I’d entered from. A faint green glow could just be seen there, a grumpy face peering from my backpack.
‘Skull!’ I said. ‘Now’s the time! I have the mirror here. Talk!’
The faint voice was uneasy. ‘Talk about what?’
‘You were there when it was made. Tell me how to destroy it. I want to free these poor trapped spirits here.’
‘Who cares about them? They’re useless. Look at them – they could ghost-touch you in seconds, yet all they do is float about, groaning. They’re rubbish. They deserve to be trapped. Now, as for me—’
‘Speak! Remember what I’ll do to you if you don’t!’
Across the table, Joplin suddenly lurched towards me. I raised my rapier and warded him off. But as I did so, my grip on the mirror loosened. It slipped in my other hand and twisted, so that I caught a flash of the jet-black glass . . .
Too late, I slammed it face-down on the table and squeezed my eyes tight shut. A sudden appalling pain speared through my gut; I felt as if I was slowly being turned inside out. And with that pain came a burning desire to look in the glass again. It was an overwhelming urge. Suddenly I knew that the mirror would solve everything. It would give me bliss. My body was parched, but the glass would quench my thirst. I was famished, but the glass would give me food. Everything outside the mirror was dull and worthless – nothing was of consequence but the shimmering, gleaming blackness. I could see it, I could join it, if only I turned the mirror over and gave myself up to it. It was laughably easy. I set my rapier down, began to move my hand . . .
‘Poor stupid Lucy . . .’ It was the skull’s voice breaking harshly through my dream. ‘A fool like all the rest. Can’t take her eyes away, when all she has to do is smash the glass.’
Smash it . . .? And then the one tiny piece of me that remained wedded to life and light and living things recoiled in horror.
I snatched up the mallet and drove it down on the back of the mirror.
There was a terrific crack, a burst of released air; and the buzzing noise – which had remained constant in my ears all this time – suddenly cut out. From the seven spirits came a sighing – a sound almost of ecstasy. They blurred, shuddered, and vanished from sight. Beneath my hands, the mirror was a wonky mess of bones and twine; flakes of black glass lay across the table. I felt no more pain or desire.
For a moment, in that silent chamber, no one moved.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘That’s that.’
Joplin had been transfixed; now he gave a hollow groan. ‘How dare you?’ he cried. ‘That was invaluable! That was mine!’ Darting forwards, he rummaged on the table top and drew out an enormous flintlock pistol, rusted, cumbersome, with hammers raised.
He pointed the gun at me.
A polite cough sounded beside us. I looked up; Joplin turned.
Anthony Lockwood stood there. He was covered in grave-dust, and there were cobwebs on his collar and in his hair. His trousers were torn at the knees, his fingers bleeding. He’d looked smarter in his time, but I can’t say he’d ever looked better to me. He held his rapier casually in one hand.
‘Step back!’ Joplin cried. ‘I’m armed!’
‘Hi, Lucy,’ Lockwood said. ‘Hello, George. Sorry I’ve taken a while.’
‘That’s all right.’
‘Have I missed anything?’
‘Step back, I say!’
‘Not much. I rescued George – or, I should say, he rescued me. Kipps is here too. I’ve got the bone mirror – or what’s left of it. Mr Joplin was just threatening me with this antique gun thing.’
‘Looks like a mid-eighteenth-century British army pistol,’ Lockwood said. ‘Two bullets, flintlock action. Quite a rare model, I think. They phased it out after two years.’
I stared at him. ‘How do you know these things?’
‘Just sort of do. The point is, it’s not a very accurate weapon. Also, it needs to be kept somewhere dry, not in a damp old catacomb.’
‘Silence! If you don’t do what I ask—’
‘Shouldn’t think it’ll work. Let’s see, shall we?’ With that, Lockwood moved towards Joplin.
From the direction of the archivist came a hiss of fury and the forlorn clicking of an antique pistol. With a curse, he threw the gun at our feet, turned and stumbled away across the room. Directly towards the Bickerstaff body on the floor.
‘Mr Joplin,’ I shouted. ‘Stop! It’s not yet safe!’
Lockwood started after him, but Joplin paid no heed. Like a thin, bespectacled rat, he skidded and veered from side to side, panic-stricken, helpless, tripping on chains, skidding on debris, unsure where to go.
The answer was decided for him.
As he passed the mummified body, a hooded figure rose from the bricks. The ghost was very faint now, wispy even to my eyes, and Joplin walked right into it. White, translucent arms enfolded him. He slowed and stopped; his head fell back, his body jerked and twitched. He made a sighing sound. And then he toppled gently forwards, through the fading figure, onto the brickwork floor.
It was over in seconds. By the time we got there, the ghost had vanished. Joplin was already turning blue.
Lockwood kicked the chains closed around the Bickerstaff body to seal the Source. I ran over to George. He was still sitting sprawled in a corner. His eyes were closed, but he opened them as I drew near.
‘Joplin?’ he asked.
‘Dead. Bickerstaff got him.’
‘And the mirror?’
‘Afraid I broke it.’
‘Oh. OK.’ He gave a sigh. ‘Probably just as well.’
‘I think so.’
My legs were feeling wobbly. I sat down next to him. Over on the other side, Lockwood was leaning, grey-faced, against the wall. None of us said anything. No one had the energy.
‘Hey . . .’ Kipps’s voice echoed across the room. ‘When you’ve had your little rest, could someone please untie me?’
