The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(74)

In its jar the skull cackled long and loud. ‘This is like feeding time at the world’s worst zoo,’ it said. ‘I feel like throwing you all some sardines.’

‘Just how many dead animals am I wearing here?’ Holly muttered. ‘I look like a fur trapper. This is awful.’

‘And I look like a stuffed parrot,’ Kipps said. ‘Trust you to give me this.’

‘I think you look adorable, Quill,’ George said. ‘Very colourful. Those pink feathers in particular are lovely. And see how long it is. That’ll give you ultimate protection on the Other Side.’

‘You make it sound like a deodorant. If any of my friends see this …’

‘Friends, Kipps?’ George gave him a slow and painful wink.

Kipps snorted. ‘Yeah, well, if I had any before, I certainly won’t now.’ He removed the cloak and went off grimly to hammer a post into the floor.

It was late afternoon. Half of Portland Row was in deep blue shadow. You could taste the onset of evening. Lockwood sent Kipps upstairs to the undefended window of my attic, so he could watch the road.

In Jessica’s room, everything was in place: the iron circle, the guide-chain running between the posts. It was time to put the Sources in the circle and create the gate. Lockwood and I did this, swiftly and alone. Each object had to be opened – wax seals cut, pouches slit, wooden surfaces pierced – to allow the escape of the spirit within. Anything that contained a Source was broken in this way, and placed inside the ring of iron. It was still daylight, so the work was theoretically safe. Even so, we didn’t dawdle. Jars, bottles, masks and dream-catchers – everything was opened and put in.

As we worked, it was possible to feel a slow build-up of psychic pressure in the bedroom. There was already plenty from the death-glow, hanging like a faint oval above the bed, not far from where the guide-chain ran; but now, steadily, an accompanying buzz or hum began to join it, the psychic vibrations from the bones and other haunted fragments littering the floor. The air within the circle began to grow thick and strange; Lockwood and I moved ever faster, watching the window and the dying of the light.

‘Think this’ll be enough?’ With a small hammer I knocked a hole in one of the final clay pots, revealing a couple of knuckle bones. My fingers tingled as I touched them. I threw them quickly into the circle.

Lockwood’s face was set; he snapped the wax seal off the end of a bamboo stick and poured several yellowed teeth beyond the chain. ‘Can’t you feel it? It’s not even dark yet, and the light in the circle’s becoming hazy. It was the same with the Rotwell gate, remember? You couldn’t see the far end of the cross-chain. Give it a couple of hours and there’ll be a way through – if we need to take it.’

‘Lockwood,’ I said, ‘do you think we will?’

He only looked at me.

We finished our work and left the bedroom. We could feel the throb and pulse of the widening gate even as we went downstairs.

For some reason that none of us expressed but all agreed on, we felt the need for a good supper that evening at Portland Row. Ignoring the boarded-up windows, ignoring the piles of weapons lying around; above all, ignoring the psychic thrum from the room upstairs, we went about the business quietly, everyone pitching in. Holly made a salad, Lockwood cooked bacon, eggs and sausages; Kipps and I cut the bread and laid the table. We ate it quickly, taking turns to go to my attic room to watch the street. Then we washed up (again, it was somehow important to do so) and put everything away. The sun was almost down. We wandered about the house, each lost in his or her own thoughts. We’d done all we could do.

I unbolted the kitchen door and, avoiding the tripwire that Lockwood had placed on the steps, went down into the garden. I’d been inside all day; I badly needed to be out. As always, it was a mess. We never had time to mow the lawn, so the grass was nearly knee-high. There were apples on the tree that needed to be picked; windfalls were already littering the soil below. I stood looking at the houses beyond the garden wall, where other people lived their separate lives.

‘Getting some air, Luce?’

I turned, and it was Lockwood. He hopped down the steps and came towards me across the grass, dark and thin and lit to shining by the dying sun. It was like he was going to ignite. Quite unexpectedly, the sight made me want to cry. All my fears for him, and for all of us, suddenly hit me as if from nowhere.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Yes, just getting some air.’

He considered me, his eyes soft and serious. ‘You’re upset.’

‘It’s been a long day …’ I brushed my hair out of my face, looked away from him and cursed softly. ‘Who am I kidding? I’m frightened, Lockwood. It’s like you said the other night. This might be the end.’

‘No. It’ll be all right. It will be all right, Lucy. You have to trust me.’

‘I do. Sort of.’

He grinned. ‘That’s nice to hear.’

‘I trust your Talent and your leadership,’ I said. ‘It’s the way you seem to be enjoying this that I can’t quite understand.’

He came to stand beside me. The sunlight was still on him. Right then, he was close to the idea I’d always had of him; the picture I saw in my mind’s eye when drawing near to sleep. If the skull had been there to see us, he’d no doubt have snorted long and loud. But the skull wasn’t there.