This one got quite longer than I had anticipated. Borrowed a bit from Mr. Stroud too. You'll see what I mean.

Quill:

'Look at Cubbins," I thought to myself, 'Don't look at the beautifully well-rounded bottom sticking up to your left. Cubbins. Not that lacy pattern of Lucy's leggings. Cubbins. Not how wide Lucy's hips are, compared to her waist. Cubbins. Cubbins, Cubbins, Cubbins," I chanted in my mind, but it didn't work.

I swallowed, but my mouth was completely dry.

They had been on their knees, studying the stone floor for that trapdoor for ages and even if Kate had assured me that Ericsson and Lancaster who were on duty tonight were both blind and deaf and I knew personally they were dumb as doorknobs, there still was a risk of getting caught, drawn, and quartered.

I was the lookout, but rather than looking out for ghosts or guards, my eyes were somehow drawn to that bit on the back of Lucy's thighs that had been revealed where her skirt had ridden up when she had gotten on her hands and knees.

I couldn't help but think about how my hands could easily slide her skirt – 'No. No, no, no, no, no. Don't go there," I told my mind. 'Do. Not. Go. There.' 'Pfft. You went there a long time ago. You've been swimming in those waters for months," my treacherous mind replied.

I shook my head. Holly had already slapped the back of my neck twice. I had no doubt she would do something more drastic if she caught me distracted a third time.

Besides, it wasn't nice of me to stare or think about her like that, especially when I knew that it was unwelcome.

Tony turned around and gave me a sadistic smile as if he knew precisely what I had been thinking about. Which I figured might not be incorrect. I was absolutely certain that he would have been thinking exactly the same if he were in my position.

"See anything, Quill?" he called out cheekily. The white locks in his hair stood out like shining silver in the light of the lantern I was lighting.

I looked at him incredulously. "With you in that position, I'm seeing plenty,"

Lucy looked at me over her shoulder and I might have been grasping at straws or hallucinating, but it looked like she sent me a mischievous smile before going back to moving around dust and small pieces of rubble.

I threw out an insult about Cubbins for good measure.

"I meant ghosts," Tony grinned.

I rolled my eyes even if he couldn't see it because of the Orpheus glasses. "Sure, you did. Nothing so far other than our tame little friend here," I replied and tapped the jar. I was still a bit sore that it had lied to me about the stucco. I had done some more research and found out that it was completely wrong for the time period.

Immediately, the jar lit up, blinking furiously. I could see the face behind the glass making impossible and increasingly disgusting faces. Lucy sat up with a wince and put a hand to her head. "Best not call the skull tame, Quill. It doesn't like it,"

"Oh, I apologise. I didn't know you were so sensitive," I told the jar with a grin.

The face obviously upped its rant, and I felt a little pity for Lucy as I saw her wincing again. I put my hands up in a disarming gesture when she scowled at me.

I tried to busy myself by finding the things we needed for opening the tomb. We had spent almost an entire month practicing what we would need to do but this point was especially tricky. We didn't know much about the entrance so we had needed to practice a dozen different scenarios. I just hoped all the practice wasn't in vain.

I checked the time. "Guys, we really need to get a move on. There isn't much time until the guards' next round." I pointed out.

Cubbins let out a small growl of frustration. "Well, we're all looking for the door, except for you! You're just looking at –"

"I'm the lookout, Cubbins," I cut him off. "I'm doing my job. What about yours? You're the one who even insisted on there being a trapdoor in the first place," I argued.

He scowled at me. "It's in all the texts. It should be here. There's supposed to be a door in the floor which they lowered the coffin into. A silver coffin."

I sighed. "Was it lowered as a part of a ceremony or was it afterwards?"

"What? – Why does that matter?" Cubbins shook his head at me.

"Well, this is a circular room. Aesthetically speaking, if it were part of a ceremony, it would be better to do it exactly in the middle of the floor or the opposite side of the entrance. If not, it could be anywhere, probably to the side where it's more practical, of course depending on what sort of tools or machinery they used for lowering the lady,"

Cubbins looked like he was about to hit me with his crowbar. "Aesthetically speaking?!"

"Yes! It's only logical. It was probably a big event." I stood and turned around, taking in the circular room. "Look, all the important people would be standing along the walls, crying politely in their lacy hankies and they would lower the coffin in the middle. Try to look over there and you'll see.

Cubbins seemed to have taken offence and aggressively lumped over there and got on his knees to prove me wrong.

"There's nothing here!" he complained.

"Look harder!" I grinned.

Lucy came to help me sort out our things. "I feel as if she's looking at me."

She gestured at the large bust of Marissa Fittes which was indeed turned our way.

I chuckled a bit. "Be happy you never actually worked for the company."

She grimaced.

"Can you believe we're actually about to do this?" I questioned.

She smiled to herself. "It's like everything suddenly went very, very fast, isn't it?"

It wasn't more than a week ago that Tony and Holly had stumbled through my door at 3 in the morning, tipsy, holding each other up and laughing on the high that usually follows a successful mission or narrowly escaping death. Knowing Tony, it was probably both.

It was becoming clearer and clearer to me that Tony had a severe problem. It wasn't just that he had a death-wish – he was an adrenaline-junkie which was an incredibly dangerous addiction to have in his profession both to himself and his co-workers.

It had to be handled. We couldn't wean him off with temptation within reach constantly but maybe we could give him a healthier outlet. Maybe he could be one of those idiots who voluntarily jumped from bridges while tied to an elastic chord or maybe he could start parachuting.

I had let the two have my sofa and the chaise lounge in my new office/armoury. The next morning, he and Holly were all forced politeness and even though they seemed almost as usual, their interactions still had a stilted sort of quality.

I quite wondered what had happened on their little excursion, but I didn't want to dig into it. Regardless, it had been the last piece of the puzzle to this crazy mission of ours.

"I was more talking about the incredulity that I feel about breaking into a national monument on the hunch of a skull in a jar. No offence," I added for the sake of the skull.

Lucy looked down at the jar, where the skull was clearly mouthing off.

"Oh, he's completely fine with it, don't worry," she told me with a teasing smile before wincing.

"I can see that" I chuckled. "Don't about it worry mate, I believe you. But as the Russians say: Trust but verify," I winked at it.

"Lucy, can't the skull give us some insight?" Holly asked as she jogged over to us.

I snorted. "It probably can't," I goaded it a bit.

Again, poor Lucy winced, and I was starting to get a bad conscience.

"It's there!" Cubbins called out and came over for supplies.

I spread my arms "See? In the middle,"

Cubbins rolled his eyes. "Sure, next time I need someone to plan a large event in an aesthetically pleasing way, I'll call you."

"You want me to arrange your funeral? That could be done for a fee." I shrugged. "I wonder if we could get away with using ricinius for flowers," I mused aloud.

"The first book Quill's parent's company published was a book on flowers," Tony butted in with an eyeroll.

"Not just that. It was one of those old etiquette books," I grinned. "Back in Victorian times you apparently had to be bloody careful. If you farted slightly to the left, it ended up being a marriage proposal. Everything had a hidden meaning."

Tony snorted. "I just remember Jess gloating that thistles had a double meaning when she hid them in my bed."

I laughed. "I gave her the original. I knew she would put it to good use."

He threw a pebble at me and I threw one back at him.

"Boys," Holly interrupted. "We need to focus here, yeah?"

We both apologised, but it didn't stop me from pushing him when Holly turned around and we were walking to where Cubbins had found the trapdoor with the ropes.

It didn't take us long to ready the ropes and I was impressed with the fluidity of our teamwork. We managed to move the giant stone with relative ease and almost silently.

There was something unnerving about staring down at that rectangular black hole though.

"Are we sure we want to do this?" I asked rhetorically and my voice echoed in the hole.

"Of course, we do," Tony replied. Of course, he did because he bloody thrived on near-death experiences.

"We can't bottle out now," Lucy agreed.

"Ah yes. I'm probably just being overly cautious. It's not like our tip came from an evil, unreliable skull in a jar."

Lucy sighed.

"It lied about the stucco!" I pointed out, perhaps with a bit of a pout.

Tony rolled his eyes. "It'll be fine. Right George? Tell us again."

Cubbins nodded. "All the stories said that Marissa Fittes ordered a special casket of both iron and silver. If she's even there, which we don't believe, she ought to be contained by that."

"And when we open the casket?"

"Then we'll have all defences in place. The point is that there's nothing jumping out at us on our way down." Tony grinned and strapped on his rapier.

He made a show out of stepping over to the edge and taking the first step in as our fearless leader.

I had a hard time containing my disdain.

"Well, unless there are any traps." Cubbins told us as a matter of fact.

Tony froze. "Traps? What traps?"

Cubbins shrugged. "It just said in a couple of the texts that there might be some traps down there."

"What sort of traps?" Tony stepped out of the hole again.

"I didn't say there were, just that there might be,"

"Why is this the first time I'm hearing about this?" Tony demanded.

Cubbins shrugged. "Didn't think it was too important. Just rumours really. Some say that old Fittes didn't want graverobbers or others to desecrate her tomb," he gestured at all of us and our equipment, "and that there were some precautions installed. Supernatural ones."

"And you're telling us this now?" Lucy complained at the same time as Holly asked "why didn't you tell us before?"

"I didn't think too much of it. It was just rumours. It's my job to differentiate between fact and fiction."

"No. That's my job," Tony fumed. "Your job is to tell me everything so I can make the judgement and I can decide what to do."

"Pot – kettle," I mumbled, causing Tony to turn his scowl at me.

He took a moment to gather his wits, running his hand through his hair a few times.

"It's fine. It'll be fine, we'll just be extra careful. Lucy, can the skull help us in any way?"

Lucy shrugged and looked at her open bag with the skull in it. It was dormant at the moment, so it was hard to tell.

"Never mind," Tony decided.

"Let's just keep our eyes and ears peeled. We'll go down as we discussed. Me first, then George, Holly, Lucy and Quill at the end. We've come this far. We've worked hard and gone through and… done things to get here," he looked at Holly. "We can do this. It's fine. It'll be good."

I rolled my eyes.

One by one we went down. I scoffed as I put the Orpheus glasses back on. "It's a crypt. Since when has anything good ever happened in a crypt?" I muttered to myself.

"I found you in one, didn't I?" Lucy murmured into my ear and kissed my cheek before stepping into the hole. I had to steady myself first before I could down there. My heart was hammering in my chest and it wasn't out of fear.

I had once seen a documentary from a war zone where soldiers were walking through a minefield. Every step was carefully calculated, each square inch examined and tested.

Our walk down these stairs was a lot like that, only slower.

Tony was in the front and in a rare display of caution, he was checking every step for traps of any sort.

While I approved of his approach and appreciated it, it was almost as if he was going purposely making a show of going slower than necessary. I didn't know for whose benefit it was supposed to be.

I only knew that I was ready to burst as I stood on step number seven in almost as many minutes.

I started making faces at the skull in the jar which was sticking out of Lucy's bag in front of me.

It didn't take long for it to come to life, casting a green glow around us. I could see a lot more than the candle had given me the ability to.

Only problem was that what little I could see, was disappearing.

I heard the other's intake of breath when they too saw the complete black nothingness that opened up to our left. Not long after, the right-side wall disappeared too. and we were walking down the narrow steps with no support on either side.

At least the stairs were completely solid, but I still almost felt like I was part of a tightrope act.

Like the dark was daring me to jump into it.

The skull sent me an eerie smile and a wink. That should have cued me in that something was about to happen, and it should have made me warn the others, but I was too slow.

Out of the blue, Lucy made a loud shriek and made a startled jump. I made to catch her but didn't manage to, so she stumbled into Holly, who took down Cubbins who rammed into Tony who went arse over tit, doing two painful looking rollovers ending up with his legs in the air.

In the end, I was the only one left standing in front of a sore pile of dominoes.

I put a hand over my mouth to stop the laugh that threatened to spill out.

The others were frozen in their awkward positions, listening and looking out for any sort of threat. When nothing happened, Lucy furiously ripped the jar out of her rucksack.

"You endangered all of us!" She snarled at it. "If Lockwood had triggered any traps –"

She was cut off by its response that was silent to the rest of us. "It says we should be grateful that we know that the next twelve steps are safe because Lockwood's bum tested it for us."

Holly looked at it fearfully. "It's gone too far this time. We should take it to the furnaces tomorrow."

"Oh, don't be so harsh," I chuckled. "That was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time."

The others looked up at me with various levels of displeasure as I was standing, safe and unbruised several steps above them.

"Anyway, as much as I will treasure the memory of this moment, I assume you didn't bring him along for his personality. If you need a break from him I'll happily take him home with me. I have that film he wants to watch anyway – but no film unless you're being helpful, understood?" I added to the skull.

The jar gave a single, hesitant and if I were to analyse it, reluctant blink.

"Good. I'm happy we have an understanding." I looked up at the others.

Tony looked outraged but seemed to grudgingly accept the deal. Holly and Cubbins looked at me with disdain.

Lucy scowled at me as she put the jar back in her rucksack. I took a few steps more down to check on it.

"You're enabling it," she complained.

I scoffed. "I'm not. I told it that if it didn't comply there would be consequences and I intend to follow through."

"And why would it care about some stupid film?" she wrinkled her nose.

"Where would its motivation be if not to be entertained? Have you considered that maybe it's acting out because it's bored?"

"It's not bored, it just does it because it can," she argued.

"So, it's a bit evil, that doesn't mean it doesn't have things it wants to do."

"You mean other than killing people?" she asked drily.

I sighed. "Yes, other than killing people. It's probably lonely."

"If you two are done bickering over your adopted child, can we please get a move on?" Tony huffed impatiently.

He stared at us with his jaw tensed and I realised how close Lucy and I had ended up during our discussion.

I raised my hands and got back up. Lucy gave the skull instructions on what to look out for and slowly we all got to our feet. Just before we were about to move on though, Lucy flinched and yelled "Stop!"

A tripwire just a couple of inches away from Tony's shoe.

I had the strange impulse to praise the skull like one would a dog who managed to retrieve a duck.

"Well, at least we owe the skull for that one," Tony said shakily when he realised what the tripwire might have released.

I felt like I was in one of those films with that archaeologist except there wasn't any brilliant lost treasure at the end of the stairs. Just a coffin that may or may not be empty.

We quietly made our way down the rest of the steps with no dramatic input from the skull.

The chamber we ended up in was enormous. The others searched the place with their various psychic talents while I let the Orpheus glasses rest around my neck for a bit. I turned on my torch and went to investigate. Other than a couple of old cobwebs, there really wasn't much to see.

The temperature was steadily chilly which was to be expected for a place underground and I had the idle thought that if it didn't already have such a macabre purpose, this might have been a perfect wine cellar.

Finally, my torchlight ended up where all the others had theirs. On the monstrous sarcophagus in the middle of the room on which the Fittes logo was dramatically draped. I rolled my eyes. My disillusionment with the company had finally reached a stage where even I found the theatrics ridiculous.

"I suppose this is it then," Tony stated redundantly.

"This is it," Cubbins affirmed in a whisper. "That's the special coffin she supposedly lay in state. Three days with mourners passing by in Westminster Abbey."

I snorted. That sort of thing was not for mourning, it was for publicity. For all the rich and famous to have their picture taken while crying prettily and lamenting the loss while simultaneously plotting on how else to take advantage of whoever passed.

"Then they brought her here," Cubbins finished.

"If she is here." Lucy remarked.

"Which is what we've come to find out," Tony added briskly. He was a tightly wound coil, ready to spring. That extra jaunt in his step and the stiffness of his slightly manic smile gave away that while he was absolutely high on adrenaline, he was also scared out of his wits.

We – people who knew all too well that the dead ought not to be messed with, were about to open the coffin of one of the legends of not only our industry, but our entire nation. A woman who had in all senses of the word been praised as a hero and saviour of all of England.

"It'll be fine. Won't take five minutes. Just open and shut and we're out of here," he ranted. "Get the chains ready, just as we practiced."

And practiced, we certainly had. I had spent almost every evening for a month at Portland Row, practicing on the stupid sofa until I had fallen asleep on it and woken the next day to go to work. I almost hadn't been at my otherwise perfect new flat. Only to shower, shave and change my clothes.

We carefully laid out all the defences and I kept a close eye on the others. Cubbins was sweating even more than usual, which was quite a feat. He started reciting the specs of the coffin as one would with a car. I gathered that it might be a nervous tic of his. Tony was as jumpy as a squirrel on cocaine, but he seemed to try to pass it off as excitement. Holly's eyes had become wide as saucers and I was getting increasingly worried that she might freeze up if something happened unexpectedly.

Lucy seemed relatively calm, even if the furrow of her brow gave away her worry.

She looked at me and her face relaxed a bit as she made an exasperated sigh. "You'll chew a hole through your lip if you keep that up," she remarked.

I released my lower lip from between my teeth where I hadn't realised it had positioned itself. I wanted to say something cheeky, like offer to bite hers instead, but I was frankly too nervous. This was not a place for flirting. Besides, Tony was scowling at us.

I cleared my throat and stood on attention the best I could in front of who I, in spite of everything, still had trouble seeing as anything other than an eight-year-old little boy.

Tony took a deep breath. "Right. Now it's my turn."

He paced a bit in front of the coffin. "Old Marissa started it all. Agencies, the fight against the Problem. Much of the knowledge we have today comes from her. But we know that something else is going on. We have come here to confirm that."

"Move fast," Lucy reminded him.

He winked at her. "Always."

I refrained from pointing out that fast wasn't always the best way for everything.

He ripped the silver drape off the coffin with a flourish and opened the clasps. He gave the lid a little push and jumped back behind the chain.

Slowly and soundlessly, it opened. The coffin was lined with deep red velvet. We were all holding our breaths, but the tension wasn't broken when the coffin had opened fully because against our expectations, the coffin was in fact occupied.

"Well, somebody's at home," Holly remarked in a squeaky voice.

"Fucking hell. No film for you, skull," I ground out.

"Skull!" Lucy practically roared.

The jar came to life and she had a short argument with the green plasm.

"I suppose we had better check."

The body in the coffin was covered with a shiny white cloth. Tony went to flick the cloth away and I immediately wished he hadn't.

At least I wasn't the only one who jumped back when the face was revealed.

It felt so wrong in so many ways. We all stood, staring at it for a bit, mesmerised by the pure wrongness of it. In this line of business, we had all seen a lot of corpses in various stages of decay. It had been decades since her death and yet, she looked like she might just have gone down here for a nap.

"Shit!" I cursed. I had forgotten to keep an eye on my candle and accidentally dripped wax on my fingers.

"Close it, Lockwood," Holly cried. "Close it before she –"

You know. Kills us all.

I was rapidly filled to the brim with anger. "This? This is what we came for? What we risked so much for?" I ranted. "Tony we need to get out of here now. She won't be happy we've disturbed her. Let's go!"

But Tony was staring at the disgusting face, completely transfixed. He even leaned in to examine the body. "She seems relaxed enough so far," he remarked, and I felt like shaking him.

"Who cares? Let's just get out," I argued.

"How do you reckon they kept her like this?" Tony wondered.

Cubbins shrugged. "Mummified?" he suggested, followed up by the entire mummification process. I cut him off before he could start reciting prayers to Anubis.

"Right, so mummification is possible. We get the idea." I wrinkled my nose.

"All the same," Tony continued absently. "I've never heard of a mummy looking quite like this."

Then he did the unthinkable and stepped back across the iron chains.

"Lockwood. What are you doing?" Lucy hissed.

"It's like she died yesterday," he noted in that annoyingly dreamy voice of his.

Then he reached in and put his hand to the side of her face.

"Well, don't touch her," I exclaimed in disgust.

"Ak! Lockwood!" Lucy cringed next to me.

He poked his fingers deeper into the skin and I couldn't look. I grabbed Lucy's arm. I heard Holly do a sharp intake of breath and Cubbins gagging as the sound of something sticky peeling away filled the chamber.

Lucy was stiff as a board.

Then I heard Tony stepping away and I risked opening one eye just a bit. He stood in front of the coffin with a shit-eating grin, holding the woman's face in his hand.

"It's just a mask," he chuckled. "Just a plastic mask and a wig. Look!" He laughed and held up the wig with the other hand.

I blinked and stood completely frozen for a moment before the ridiculousness of it hit me and I burst out laughing. The others soon followed, even if Holly at first only managed a few nervous chuckles.

Hesitantly, we stepped closer to the coffin. I gave the 'corpse' a small nudge with a finger. When nothing happened, I risked knocking on it a few times. It sounded hollow.

"I don't believe it."

"It's just a dummy made of wax. The mask was just there in case anyone looked inside." Tony smiled.

"Lockwood, that has to be the ickiest thing I've ever seen you do! And that's saying something," Lucy exclaimed.

I smirked. "Still doesn't top mine. I once saw him reaching into his own nappy -"

"No!" Tony tried to cut me off and threw the mask and wig back in the coffin.

"Taking out a piece -"

"No, no, no, no, no!"

"of his poo -" I laughed when Tony tried to tackle me.

"And flung it -" Tony tried to cover my mouth with his hand but I dodged him.

"Shut up!" he shouted, but he was half laughing too.

"At my brother -"

He tried to charge me again.

"Like a demented baboon," I finished in a chuckle.

Tony stopped fighting and stood, looking at the floor with a red face and an embarrassed smile.

"I'll get back at you for that," he warned, looking at me with narrowed eyes, but his heart wasn't in it.

"Best memory I have of you both," I grinned at him.

When I looked at the others, Lucy was covering her mouth with her hand, but her eyes were narrow slits of silent laughter.

Holly was smiling widely, and Cubbins was still examining the dummy.

"You know, we need to go forward with this, right?" he said casually as if I hadn't just told a superiorly embarrassing story about his employer.

Tony looked disgusted. "With my –"

"No, not with your poo, you idiot. With this whole charade," I gestured at the coffin. "Take the mask and the wig to DEPRAC. Take it to the press," I, for once, agreed with Cubbins.

Tony winced. "A good plan in theory, but you said it yourself before; DEPRAC is infiltrated. With both Fittes and Rotwell's representatives in her pocket, Penelope practically owns DEPRAC."

"Right." I tapped the dummy another couple of times in a jaunty rhythm. "Barnes is good though."

Holly offered me a piece of chocolate which I gladly accepted when she showed me the label with a wink. The chocolate the others were having was far lighter in colour and I was grateful she offered to share the good stuff with me.

I shuddered a bit from the cold.

"Yes, but even so, what does this even prove? The skull says that Marissa is Penelope, but it just sounds so ludicrous. Who's going to believe us?" Holly asked rhetorically.

Lucy made an exasperated sigh. "Quill could you stop with that noise. It's getting annoying."

I frowned at her. "I'm not making any noise. I'm eating my chocolate. Same as you."

It felt like a rat with exceptionally cold feet was crawling up my spine as Lucy looked around at all of us.

I pulled up the Orpheus glasses just in time to see the ghost fog spilling out of the coffin in thick tendrils.

A yellow, waxy hand was making its way up in jerky movements. I unfastened my rapier and swallowed the rest of my chocolate even though its bitterness left my mouth dry.

This was the sort of thing nightmares were made of. Heaven and hell knew we had enough of those to spare.

What was one more to the collection?

I'm really happy to have writing as an outlet. Just had to cancel a ton of clients because the shut-down here has been prolonged again this evening. Hadn't really expected a re-opening, but still. It hurts enough to cry about every time.
Still better than the alternative though. I think a lot about you people in other countries and how you're coping with the pandemic, with the isolation and all the insecurity the future only seems to be holding.
I hope you're all as well as you can be, and I hope the bit of childishness at the end of the chapter put a smile on your face.

Thank you for keeping up with this story.