The Empty Grave (Lockwood & Co. #5)(98)

She had a deep, melodious voice, calm and utterly self-assured. I walked forward slowly, my blackened boots scuffing the carpet. On either side the mirrors reflected my ragged form, my drawn sword, my feral, vagrant air.

‘Come over,’ Ms Fittes said again. ‘There are seats for visitors.’ With a flick of the fingertips she indicated a canvas armchair near the desk. ‘Join me. I want to talk to you.’

‘That’s good,’ I said. ‘Because I want to talk to you.’

I didn’t take the chair, but came to a halt a few feet away from the woman and the silent floating spirit. The cold that radiated from it was even stronger than its light. I didn’t want to get too close.

Marissa Fittes watched me with her big black eyes. Her dark hair was as lush and loose and impeccably aligned as ever. I had a sudden insight into how important her beauty was to her. The mirrors told their story. The windows opened out on London, but the whole penthouse reflected in on her.

‘A sword?’ she said suddenly. ‘I’m surprised at you, Lucy.’ Her eye lit on the jar under my arm. ‘And – what’s this bottled abomination? Some pet Lurker? A Pale Stench in a jar?’

The ghost-jar vibrated furiously under my arm. ‘Hey!’ the skull cried. ‘Don’t give me that! You know who I am!’

If the woman heard the skull’s voice, she gave no sign of it. ‘You look so tired, my dear,’ she went on, smiling. ‘But as ever your initiative astounds me. How did you get here? The lift? What about security on the front doors?’

‘Yes, I took the lift,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure you’ve got any security any more, to be honest. It’s getting a little busy downstairs. But actually I didn’t come in through the front. I came up from the basement, you see.’

Ms Fittes hesitated for a moment. Her eyes studied me. ‘Ah, I do see. Then you’ve made quite a journey. Sir Rupert assured me you’d never get across the Other Side. What a fool he is sometimes. I have to applaud you.’

I smiled slightly. ‘You won’t have to worry about Sir Rupert letting you down again. It’s all over, Marissa. We know who and what you are.’

I looked for a reaction to the name. Perhaps her eyes widened just a little. ‘Marissa?’ She gave a lazy smile. ‘Why do you call me that?’

‘Because we know you’re not Penelope,’ I said. ‘We read your book – Occult Theories. Well, George read it, to be fair. Wading through the ravings of a lunatic isn’t something the rest of us do too often. George isn’t fussy. He’d read the memoir of a lavatory attendant if it was propped against his cornflakes. He told us about your theories of immortality, how the body might be rejuvenated by ectoplasm taken from spirits on the Other Side.’

‘Oh, he read that, did he?’ the woman said. She tapped her fingers on her knee.

I nodded. ‘Your “elixir of youth”, Marissa. We know you’ve made your body young again. We know you faked the life of Penelope Fittes to explain your reappearance. And we’ve seen the nets you use on the Other Side to get the plasm, the cylinders you store it in … The only thing we haven’t figured out is what you do with the plasm once you’ve got it. Do you drink it, breathe it in, rub it on your backside like an ointment? What?’

‘Drink it,’ the woman said. ‘Or that’s the theory.’

‘How unutterably foul.’ I raised my sword in the direction of the floating spirit. It was perfectly still, except for the golden rays that flickered gently at Marissa’s back. Two dark gold eyes watched me from the centre of its radiance. ‘George told us about your adviser too,’ I said. ‘He told us about Ezekiel.’

At this, the spirit stirred; the rays flexed and brightened. A strong breeze rippled out across the room. It lifted the edges of the papers on the desk and riffled the corners of magazines on the far tables. A soft and velvet voice, somehow golden like the light, came from the shape. It said: ‘Is this the girl?’

The woman looked up at her companion; there was adoration in her face, but also wariness, even fear. ‘It is, Ezekiel.’

‘She is stubborn. Intractable.’

‘She has the gift.’

‘Maybe so. But how does she use it? See the kind of spirits she consorts with.’ A ray of light stabbed out and prodded the ghost-jar under my arm. ‘This monstrosity, this coarse and loathsome thing …’

The skull gave a cry. ‘What? Come in here and say that! I’ll wipe my feet on your ectoplasm! I’ll tear you up and use you for toilet paper! Coarse? How dare you!’

The woman was sitting upright in her chair. She looked pensive; she toyed with a bracelet of green stones hanging from one wrist. ‘She has the gift,’ she said again.

‘Then make her the offer, but be quick. We have work to do downstairs.’

I stepped forward. ‘I want no offer from you.’

‘Even so,’ Marissa Fittes said, ‘I’m going to make you one.’ She stood suddenly; she was taller than me, and very beautiful. In the luminous golden other-light, she looked like a fairy-tale queen. She was smiling now, and the aurora playing on her hair shone as bright as diamonds. ‘Lucy,’ she said, ‘we are very much alike, you and I.’

‘I don’t think so.’