The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(103)

‘Poor Lucy,’ Marissa said.

And I suppose I did look pretty poor right then. I was lying in my own blood. I had my hair over my eyes. My clothes were torn and dirty … You know the rest. I gazed up at them through narrowed eyes.

‘Aren’t you going to beg?’ the ghost asked.

‘She won’t,’ Marissa said. ‘Let’s get it done.’

The shape drifted forward. I raised the jar, and had the satisfaction of seeing Ezekiel hesitate.

‘You’re not wary of that pathetic spirit?’ Marissa said. ‘It’s little more than a Phantasm.’

‘Something stronger than that. But it doesn’t matter. He’s trapped.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Actually, he’s not.’

With that I raised the hammer and struck it down against the jar with all my strength.

And the stupid thing bounced off. There was a slight chip in the glass, but otherwise all was as before.

The ghost in the jar had been braced as if for a mighty impact. It opened one eye and looked up at me. ‘What are you doing? Don’t tell me you can’t break it!’

‘Hold on.’ I struck the jar again. The hammer bounced away.

‘Ohhh, you are so useless,’ the skull said.

With mounting panic I tried again. This blow was even more ineffectual.

It gaped at me in disbelief. ‘Hopeless! A toddler could tap this open!’

‘Don’t criticize me!’ I roared. ‘You’re the one who suggested I use a stupid hammer!’

‘I didn’t think you’d be too feeble to lift it! Why didn’t you say?’

‘I’ve never broken a silver-glass jar before! How did I know how tough they were?’

‘You might as well give it to that dead cockroach over there! He’d have more chance than you.’

‘Oh, why don’t you just shut up?’

‘This,’ Marissa said, ‘is priceless. But all good things must come to an end. Goodbye, Lucy. After you’re dead I’m going to seek out your companions and watch Ezekiel suck the flesh from their bones. Think of that happening to your darling Anthony as you die.’

‘Or,’ a voice said, ‘we could save us all a lot of trouble and finish this right here.’

Marissa whirled round. The spirit rotated more slowly, its radiance flaring black with anger. I raised my head, but I didn’t need to look to know what I would see. It was everything I’d hoped for, everything I’d feared.

The doors to the vestibule were open. Lockwood was standing there.





26




In so many ways, he didn’t look like Lockwood. Not how he liked to be seen, so smartly dressed and elegant in his long coat and slightly-too-tight suit. The coat was gone, and the rest of his clothes were a wonder to behold, so ripped were they, so torn and peppered about with ectoplasm burns. His shirt in particular had more holes in it than a string bag; some of La Belle Dame’s skimpier outfits probably had more fabric in them. One of his shoulders was gently steaming, and there were great clawed lacerations all the way down the sleeve on the other arm. His hair was grey with salt and magnesium; his fringe sagged over a cut eye. His face looked puffier, more swollen, more discoloured and more generally bashed about than I’d ever seen it. In short, he was a mess. He didn’t look like Lockwood at all.

And yet at the precise same time he was more himself in that instant than you could possibly believe. The way he held his rapier, the casual stance he adopted as he stood between the doors; the slight smile playing at the corners of his mouth; the darkly flashing eyes that scanned the room, that took in its horrors and showed no fear. Above all, his two-fold lightness – the way he radiated energy and brightness (so much stronger, so much purer than that coiling golden fug emanating from the floating spirit), and the way he seemed physically lighter, more buoyant, than everything around him. He’d always been less tied down by the weight of things than the rest of us, less restricted by life’s drag. These qualities were his signature; they ran through him like a watermark in paper. And they did so now more than ever, transcending the outward blemishes, those scrapes and rips and scratches, and the weakness of his body.

Just standing in that doorway, he was a living rebuff to Marissa. Stuff her grotesque attempts at keeping young by body-hopping, by scurrying to the nearest, prettiest shell. This was how you did it. This was how your spirit stayed strong. This was how you looked death in the eye and defied it. Lockwood had fought his way up here to save me, past all the ghosts downstairs, and he had arrived at the perfect moment. I understood all that as I sat against the wall, bloodied and defenceless, and I loved him for it. My heart sang.

And I really didn’t want him there.

‘Hey, Lucy.’ As he met my gaze, his smile became a grin. ‘Having fun?’

‘I’m having a lovely time.’

‘So I see.’ He came towards us across the carpet, walking carefully through the broken glass and scattered magazines. I saw that he was holding one of the snub-nosed electrical guns in his left hand. He had his eyes on Marissa and the floating ghost, and whether it was the gun or Lockwood himself that unnerved them, neither of them moved.

‘Do you need some company?’ Lockwood asked me.

I smiled back at him. ‘Always.’