The feeling I got as I stepped through the door, likened back to that of Combe-Carey Hall, and Mrs. Barret's tomb, crawling spiders of fear and doubt. The quick breathe of stale unease. I shivered.
"Oh, the devil has come to earth on this one," The skull whispered.
Lockwood placed his hand on my arm and I met his eyes. I realized that I had stopped in the middle of the hall, blocking everyone behind me.
I shook myself. I was an agent, I had done this a hundred times. Why was I getting twitchy now?
Quietly we parted ways, all going off to our specific assignments. Holly and Kipps to the communal sitting room and our research duo to the kitchen where the resident chemist brewed busily. Lockwood and I lingered in the hall, taking in the sights and sounds of the house.
There are always two levels to any building, the physical and the psychic. The physical in Chadwick homes was peeling yellow walls, and artwork that would have been ancient in the 17th century. It was graying and all around worn, the very meaning of old. The psychic side was far more interesting. At first inspection, the only thing that could be heard was soft whispers, barely audible really. I closed my eyes shutting out the distractions of the living world and zoning in on the barest echoes. Thankfully, they replayed, louder this time so I could hear every sound with such clarity it was as if I was in the room with the past residents. Shattering glass, drunken shouts and wet footsteps squishing up several flights of stairs. They replayed over and over, the sounds swirling around me. Their pitch grew in volume until it was just one high scream of pain. I yanked myself back into the living world with such force that I took a step back, ears still ringing with the after effect of the psychic scream.
Lockwood turned, looking at me with mild concern. "What? Did you hear something?"
As per the usual, he hadn't heard a thing.
I shook my head, trying to clear my ears. "Just a really high psychic scream. But I did get a little bit of an echo." I told him what I had heard.
He frowned, tapping his long languid fingers against the ornate handle of his Italian style rapier. "Its strong and its only 6 o'clock. Things have definitely started to escalate." He furrowed his brow, thinking deeply for a few moments than his smile ignited its full power once more. "What do you think, Luce? Start at the top and work our way down?"
I nodded. "What an excellent idea. Lead the way, Mr. Lockwood!"
The third and second floors were normal with virtually no psychic residue. Lockwood poked his head in a few closets, and stumbled around trying to rid his hair of a spider that had claimed his head as its own before our brave leader declared the floors safe.
It wasn't until we moved to the first floor that things became curious. The widow's room was the only bedroom on this floor, the others being a Lilliputian-sized washroom and a dusty linen cupboard that smelled of mothballs and damp cloth.
The bedroom itself was virtually untouched since the night of the death. It was very granny like with ruffles and lace and a distinct aroma of cats and a thick perfume of something I couldn't quite make out.
"Heavy, isn't it, the smell?" Lockwood whispered. It was a mark of how uncomfortable this room made us feel that we lowered our voices like we did. I took a deep whiff of the smell and recoiled; it was thick with fragrance and death.
A tapping started in my inner ear. Nothing loud or quite distinctive but it was there, nonetheless. I listened harder, my hearing filled with the sounds of frightened breathing and a shaky "hello?" from somewhere by the bed. I shivered. "It's repeating the minutes before her death." There was footsteps and the creak of the door opening, a sharp intake of breath like someone preparing to scream then a sickening crack of bones. I took a step back.
"Luce, you all right?"
"Yeah, it was just very real. Got any death glows yet?"
He nodded. "Yeah, it's pretty bright, right by the door. Check out these pictures."
I peered up at the photos that held birthday parties, Christmases and family vacations frozen in time. Pearl would have been jealous at the amount of time Mrs. Stewart spent with her own grandchildren and I told Lockwood so. "You could be right," he said. "A jealousy-driven visitor, haven't had one of those in a while"
"What's the temp?" I asked.
"10 degrees Celsius." Lockwood said.
I could see ice crystals forming on the window panes. I heard a sharp crash in my inner ear and shivered. There had been no such noise in the living world.
"Let's go down stairs." Lockwood said. I agreed already halfway to the door.
The others were waiting in the foyer, talking in very low voices, it seemed the feeling in the air had affected them too. Holly looked up as Lockwood and I came out onto the landing. "You won't like this, Lockwood,"
Holly had been the bane of my existence, a relentless thorn in my side but after the Rotwell incident, six months ago, we had bonded. Not that she didn't annoy me to hell and back with her constant cleanliness but we had accepted each other and even took assignment together. Yes, we had finally achieved what had seemed impossible a year ago and I was glad that I had ignored the Skull's goading during those trying times. After all, if I had killed Holly in a fit of anger and clean jumpers, who would stock up on those salted caramels I adored so much?
"Why?" I asked. "What's happened?"
"Quill and I's interview shows just how strong the visitor is. Ms. Wylltson says she hears a rough scrapping sound every night outside her door even after her room had been armed with salt and iron precautions. Mr. Wing repots a series of bloody footprints pacing the hall and tapping at his window as well as a figure out of the corner of his eye."
Quill adjusted the lapel of his grandfatherly sweater. Since Kipps had joined the ranks of Lockwood and co. he had, it had to be said, been a decent addition to the team. He was a quick thinker and not bad with his rapier. His fashion sense, even I knew, left a lot to be desired. "Both seemed quite ticked that they had to stay in the parlor for the investigation. They are concerned about any damage that be befall their possessions but - "
"We told them that staying in their room was out of the question." Holly finished for him. "But that proves how powerful this ghost is. Resisting salt and iron, Lockwood? I've never seen anything like it."
Lockwood frowned, a crease stretching across his forehead, making him seem forty not nearly seventeen. "And you George? What horrors did you bring from the good old doctor?"
"Not much by way of phenomena but he was quite useful telling us about dear old nana, since he was one of the original tenants." George adjusted his spectacles with a twitch of his fingers. "She came home one day, about twenty years ago, coated in blood. The doctor said it was like a one woman blood bath. For a nearly eighty year old, he was quite gleeful about gore and demise. Anyway, she tracked these bloody footprints up and down the stairs. He walked out on the landing and watched as she tried to clean up the foot prints while still covered in blood. He called the police but was never convicted of anything."
We all stared at the steps in question, the very stairs we stood on. I could practically hear the sounds of a stiff bristled brush rasping against the wood. I shuddered as I imagined the sight. "Why does he stay there? He saw all this death here and he stayed?"
"It's cheap." George shrugged.
"No matter how cheap, to live in a place like this…"
"Well, Lucy and I have something to report too." Lockwood said. I described the replay of the moments before Mrs. Stewart's death, the footsteps, whispers and final scream.
No one spoke for a few seconds. Even George was uncharacteristically quiet. It was Quill who broke the silence. "So, what do we do now?"
"We protect the boarders. They are our top priority right now. Luce, you and Flo will set up the safe room. The rest of us will set up protective circles." Lockwood instructed, swishing his coat clear of his rapier.
"Really?" George said. "Four of us for the circle?"
"Wrong." Lockwood corrected. "Circles. Plural. I want one on every level and three in the bedroom. Who knows how many ghosts lurk in this house."
"Lockwood is right." I interjected. "I don't want to be caught unawares. A pair of type twos in one house." I stressed the latter as unease spread across the back of my neck and down my spine with its clammy fingers.
Flo shrugged. "Let's just get this over with, Locky."
Confidence or disconcert, which ever Flo was channeling at the moment, I had to agree, we were wasting precious time that could have been used to track down the source.
We departed, splitting ways once more. Flo and I lugging heavy bags with enough silver and iron to equip an army of agents, while Lockwood, holly, George and Kipps left with considerably lighter loads.
The room we had sectioned off as the safe room, was the downstairs lounge that was used dually as a common area and breakfast nook with four camp cots hidden away in the crevices in the room.
It reminded me of my old studio flat in Tooting, equal parts work, sleep, and tea-making, and just as messy. Books, magazines, and newspapers dating back three decades were strewn across the room. Flo and I had our work cut out for us securing the room amongst the clutter.
We made due with iron rings around each bed and silver threaded gauze hung like mosquito netting draped over them. I took down painting and in their place put iron charms and lavender sachets.
Flo was setting up sophisticated prototypes nicked by George per our spectacled friend's instructions in every corner of the room and salt washed every doorway, entrance and cupboard. It was hot, sweaty and exhausting work. At last we finished.
Stepping off my stool, I looked around the room. it had the appearance of an agent's kit bag that had exploded in the area and I said so.
"Ha!" Flo snorted. "It's a lot more organized than that. Besides, agents wouldn't have this stuff." She motioned at George's little machines.
"Those are Rotwell's, right?"
She shook her head. "Can't you recognize George's handiwork, Carlyle? Made it all himself."
"It's probably a lot more reliable than the junk we got from the research lab." I conceded. I hadn't known George had been invention his own protection equipment. "What does it do?"
"No idea. Probably shouldn't touch it, now that it's set up."
I murmered my agreement. Who knew what kind of horrible schemes George's little mind had thought up after all those experiments on the Skull.
"Oh, he is truly evil." Skull said from the sofa where my knapsack lay open. "I have been with several villains but it's that fat Cubbins is the one you've got to watch out for."
"Oh, shut up!" I hissed at him.
"That skull annoying you again?" Flo asked. How she knew about the skull and my psychic connection with it was beyond me. I had never told Flo about it; in fact this may have been the longest I had ever been in a room alone with Flo before.
"How did you-"
"Cubby told me," Flo said, gathering her empty salt packets and dry water bottle. "He says you're attached to it."
"That's rich considering he took a bubble bath with it."
"A bath with whom?" the door had opened, holly entering with a politely quizzical quirk to her eyebrows. "Oh, there you two are. Are you finished? Lockwood wants to meet on the landing."
The feeling in the air as we gathered on the landing of the fourth floor was that of a funeral procession; somber and an impatience to get it over with.
George shifted from foot to foot as Flo and I ascended the final flight of stairs, gasping. Holly skipped up behind us and chirped. "All here, Lockwood."
"Right, this may be one of the toughest, cases we've faced. Right up there with Combe-Carey and Albury Castle. That's why I need every one to keep their heads."
"When have we ever lost our heads?" George asked, feigning in shock and disbelief.
"I'm sure there was something somewhere." I mused.
"Yeah, Cubbins," Kipps said. "When you survive a case without once falling on your backside in fear, is the day I fly."
"The point is," Lockwood said, cutting George off before he could say something rude and well deserved to Kipps. "We aren't going to lose our heads this time. We aren't going to drop our rapiers over the banister and nearly kill your team leader because you saw a white-faced apparition that turned out to be George."
"That was one time!" Kipps cried defensively while George chuckled wickedly.
"We aren't going to lose our heads. Nod if you understand." Lockwood said. We all nodded slowly so he could see us. "good." He relaxed his shoulder an easy grin spreading across his face. Lockwood was the only person I knew who could smile in a haunted house that once belonged to a serial killer. "All right, team, now that we decided we won't lose our heads in a crisis, I know we can finish this case pronto. You know why?"
"Because we're the best team in London," we chorused. "We know!"
"You tell us that every time."
"Because it's true." The headlines were flashing in his eyes. I believed in us, I really did but our leader had always been overly confident about his team's skills and abilities. I was still learning how to control and harness my newly strengthened talent that was sometimes too much. Lockwood and Co, had gone through some tough spots and some easy cases. We'd been bruised, battered and burnt down several houses. I straightened to my fullest height. I knew we would make it out of this one too. We were Lockwood and co. we were the best.
"Oh, getting cocky again, Luce." The skull whispered cheekily.
"You never say hello, do you? You just start talking." I complained as we started down the hallway.
"Fine then," the skull said. I could practically hear his vaporous eyes rolling. "Hello from the Other Side."
A/N
Thanks so much for reading again! I have roughly the next two chapters planned out but I still have to write and upload them which could take a while as I am also working on NaNoWriMo in addtion to college classes. YIKES! I go this one done a lot later than I would have like to but I will try and get each chapter up in two weeks. I also have some headcanons centered around Christmas and what the kiddos at Lockwood and Co. do during the holidays. If you guys want me to upload those in the month of December, then just let me know in the comments. Also, let me know what you would like to see in the next three to four chapters of The Haunting Of The Chadwick Curator. Procrastination has been a serious problem but who cares when you've got DareDevil on Netflix? am I right?
Thanks, and Love Y'all.
