The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(38)

‘Forget these troubles,’ the voice said. ‘Forget them, and come with me.’

I stood and gazed at the ghost. As if frightened by my scrutiny, it drifted back a little like a startled deer. I felt a plucking in my heart, the need to follow it wherever it might go. I took a stumbling step towards her.

‘Well, she’s a disappointment, and no mistake.’

I blinked, looked around. George had come into the exhibition room from the foyer, and was standing there beside me. He had cobwebs in his hair and a salt bomb in his hand. He was frowning through his glasses, and a little spear of anger went through me to see him like that – so silly and scruffy and making stupid faces at such an important moment. I didn’t want him there. ‘Meaning what?’ I said. My voice sounded odd and thick. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘After all that build-up,’ he said, ‘I was hoping for the real deal when we met her. Little bit of glitz, bit of high-end razzle … At the very least I was expecting some decent psychic glamour. But not this.’

I looked back down to the far end of the corridor, where the ghost swayed and waited, sad and slender as a winter willow, her head tilted to one side.

‘She’s not good enough for you?’ I said.

‘Not good enough? She’s a sack of pus and bones, Luce. That’s below even my pay grade.’

The woman was gazing at me, her long dark eyelashes beating in time with the rhythm of my heart. Again I felt the tug of longing, again a jarring anger at the vulgarity of George’s words. I laughed harshly. ‘What rubbish are you talking, George? Pus?’

‘Well, OK. Technically, it’s “clear, translucent ichor, manifested into a semi-solidified corporeal state”. But when it’s all melty and icky and dripping off the bones, I think we can go with pus. The effect is much the same.’

‘Shut up, George.’

‘Pus, Luce.’

I could have punched him. ‘Just shut up.’

‘No. Look at her, Lucy. Really look at her.’

And as he said that, he stepped forward and clasped my arm, rather harder than I thought necessary. It hurt, in fact, and made me squeak – and with that brief, sharp discomfort, the glamour that had cloaked my brain was momentarily dislodged, like a curtain blown sideways in the wind.

And behind it – what was the shimmering, shining dress? Ectoplasm swirling in a void.

Those lithe arms? Blackened spikes of bone.

That rounded hip? Dark flesh, shrivelled and pierced with many holes.

That gentle face? A naked skull.

I blinked. The curtain blew back into position. The wise, sweet woman stood there, beckoning.

I stared at her. Outwardly I stared at her just as before. But this time I was willing myself to see reality.

Even so, it was hard. Again the mesmeric swaying of the figure sought to lull my guard; again I felt the pull on my mind and body. But now my focus was on myself, on my own solidity and weight and scepticism, not on the shimmery, undulating thing.

‘Come with me,’ the voice said again. ‘Come up onto the stage …’

I could only croak it out. ‘No.’

It was like snipping a cord with scissors. At once, like a cover falling from a statue, like a cloak being cast aside, the vision fell away, leaving in its place only the grinning, twisted corpse that surged forward. I pulled out my sword and held it before me; the thing at once fell back, mouthing and champing, beckoning me with obscene gestures.

George was at my shoulder. ‘Want me to pinch you again?’

‘No.’

‘Can do. Arm, leg, buttock – anywhere you fancy. Just name the spot.’

‘No. It’s OK. It’s OK now. I see it.’

He nodded. ‘Then perhaps you won’t mind if I do this …’ He tossed the salt bomb across the room. It burst at the apparition’s feet, showering it with bright green sparks and making it hiss and spit with pain. It drew back, retreating to the shadows of the passage beyond, where it hung for a moment, fizzing, steaming. I could see its pinprick eyes glinting in the dark as it watched me; I felt its malevolence pounding in my head. Then it was gone, and the pull of its glamour with it, leaving me suddenly bereft.

‘Wonder where it’s off to now,’ George said. ‘Why don’t you come back into the foyer with me a moment, Luce? We need to regroup, consider what to do.’

The foyer was a good place to go. Its chipped gold plasterwork and distinctive popcorn-and-cigarette odour was about as far from psychic enchainment as it was possible to get. George took a chocolate bar from the kiosk and ate it. I leaned back against the ticket counter, water flask in hand, my rucksack at my feet. The skull inside was staring at me in mute reproach. I could hardly speak. I was light-headed with self-loathing. Finally: ‘Thanks, George.’

‘Sure.’

‘Next time I do anything like that, don’t waste time with words. Just hit me.’

‘OK.’

‘Hit me anywhere. The harder the better.’ I kicked my heel against the wall. ‘God!’

George shrugged. ‘Don’t let it get to you. That’s what spectral glamour does. Anyone could have been taken in.’

‘You weren’t.’

‘No. Not this time. Frilly ectoplasm isn’t my thing.’ He shrugged. ‘I hardly think you’d have been fooled for long, Luce. You’d have thrown it off without my help, you know.’