It was not the first time someone Quill Kipps knew died. It wasn't the second either, or even the first time he was actually there to see it happen. The first time that happened, he had been a lot younger and a lot less cynical. Still, the fact he had seen it before did nothing to change the way it felt; like his heart froze in place mid-beat, and then after a painful moment of silence, shattered into a million tiny pieces.
It had taken him a moment to recognise the two figures beneath their blueish green capes, but the height difference between the two, and the black combat boots on the smaller figure, were unmistakable. So his mouth fell open in a silent scream when first Lockwood, and then Lucy stepped over the giant iron circle in the middle of the hangar, pulling themselves into the maelstrom of Visitors by the iron chain cutting through it.
Holly's scream wasn't silent, but the sound of her shock and terror was absorbed by the psychic static that even Quill-who had lost the last traces of his Talent a good two years ago-could notice at the edge of his hearing. George's reaction was more subdued, but Quill saw the way he swayed on his feet before clutching at Holly's arm, the colour draining from behind the shoe polish on his cheeks so fast he looked about to keel over.
The dizzying force of psychic energy pushed against the inside of the iron circle, which barely seemed able to contain it all. A shadow moved between the pale, undulating lights and then disappeared again. Quill scrambled for the goggles George had handed him earlier that evening, pulling the strap over his head in a desperate bid to… to what? Spot the ghost touched bodies among the plasm? See the first appearance of their Visitors?
The mere thought made his stomach cramp together into a tight little ball, but still Quill pulled the goggles over his eyes.
The mass of flickering greys took on shape when Quill stared through the crystal lenses. He had realised what the circle contained even before he could recognise individual forms, as much as recognising individual forms was possible while they whirled and swarmed around like a flock of starlings. On the outside of the mass, he could recognise bodies, glimpses of disfigured faces and bloodied clothes. The light did strange things and staring longer made his eyes hurt, so eventually he turned away his face, fighting against the tears stinging in his eyes. As he did so, his gaze fell on a familiar backpack with the top of a large jar sticking out of it. Apparently Lucy had found the skull in the jar right before she'd followed Lockwood into the iron circle. The irony of the whole situation stung. After all she'd done to recover the skull, Lucy hadn't even been able to enjoy the reunion. Now she was the one lost, and Quill didn't think he'd find her again this time.
"Why-why would they-" Holly started in a small voice, but she cut herself off when a side door opened, and a team of Rotwell scientists filed into the open space of the hangar. The three of them ducked back behind the crates, unsure of what to do. Quill was aware they needed to get out as soon as possible. They would be discovered if somebody just glanced at them from the right position. But he couldn't bring himself to move. Weighed down by the pain, confusion and the ghost hunting weapons they had swiped, Quill could only watch as the scientists helped a tall man dress in a large, clunky looking set of armour. They covered him up in iron plates until nothing but his eyes were visible beneath the iron anymore.
The white coats stepped back, and after a moment, the armoured man took a step towards the iron circle.
"He's going to go in," George whispered. There was a strange waver in his voice that Quill chalked up to shock or devastation at first. He had just lost his two best friends, after all. Holly touched his shoulder, but Quill kept his eyes on the Rotwell employees. They were taking out stopwatches and clipboards, murmuring amongst themselves as the armoured man approached the mass of spirits. An unnoticed escape was growing less likely by the minute.
There was a soft metallic click to Quill's left when George pulled a magnesium flare from his belt, and with a shock Quill realised he had jumped to the wrong conclusion. The emotion he had heard in George's voice hadn't been grief. His words had been coloured by unbridled fury.
"No, Cubbins! Don't-"
But it was too late. With a yell that seemed to come from the deepest, most hidden part of George's emotions, he threw the flare into the middle of the hangar.
If he had been aiming for anything in particular, he missed spectacularly. The flare went sailing past the scientists and hit the floor beside the armoured man, where it exploded in a burst of bright white flames. The magnesium flames lit up the space like starlight, and like the beacon it was, drew the attention of everybody present.
"Damn it, Cubbins!" Quill growled, grabbing George by the collar and dragging him down behind the stack of crates. They had approximately three seconds before the Rotwell scientists figured out where the attack had come from and would be on them, and he knew better than to allow George to remain in full view.
Quill went through their options in his head. They could flee back the way they came, through the lab and the armoury, but he doubted they'd get far when everyone was aware there were intruders. He could already hear someone shout into their radio for the guards outside to search the grounds. What else could they do? Fight their way out? No, Quill was confident in his skills as a fencer, but not even well rested and emotionally stable would he think they'd win against a small army of scientists and security operators. They were sitting ducks when it came down to it.
Quill ran a hand through his hair in frustration, and then his eyes fell on Holly. The girl was clearly distraught, silent tears streaming down her face, but it struck him how put together she still looked. Her dark hair was neatly pulled back in a ponytail, and her clothes were barely even crumpled. He would have said she looked very prim and proper, if it weren't for the tears on her cheeks, and the weapon Quill could only describe as a grenade launcher she was holding in her arms.
He stared at it, and then quietly made his decision. George was wearing two belts of magnesium flares across his chest, as well as a massive version of a flare clipped to his regular work belt, roughly the size of a coconut. Quill himself was armed with more salt bombs than a mid-sized Fittes team used in a week, and some of the ghost bombs they'd found in the armoury. Perhaps the three of them were sitting ducks, but these ducks could make life very difficult for Rotwell and his lackeys.
"Holly?" Quill called, abandoning all attempts to be quiet. The girl turned to him, wiping the tears from her eyes with a quick gesture. "Yes?"
"Get that grenade launcher out." He didn't wait for her reaction, but turned to George instead, ready to tell him to keep giving fire.
George didn't need any encouragement, however. He plucked another flare from one of the belts and threw it towards the people rushing in their direction. He missed, but before their adversaries could make much of an advance, Holly climbed up between the crates and fired her weapon.
Quill had to put his hands on Holly's back to stop her from toppling over with the recoil, but the oversized cartridge of Greek Fire landed in front of the scientists and exploded in burning salt and magnesium. Their cries of shock and pain were a delight to Quill. Served them right.
"Nice shot!" George told Holly, already chucking another flare towards the man in armour.
"Thanks," Holly replied. She kept upright when Quill pulled his hands back, so he grabbed one of the salt bombs from his belt and launched his own attack.
The projectile hit the armoured man with a satisfying thunk, and he stumbled backwards into the electrical cart filled with equipment as it exploded. George's flare hit the ground in the side tunnel leading away from the centre room, and the white flames effectively blocked off the exit. Their attack had launched the Rotwell team into chaos. Some of the scientists were trying to put out the fires, while others rushed over to help the armoured man back to his feet. The electrical cart he'd fallen against had rolled away and toppled over as it hit the wall of the hangar.
The three of them kept the barrage going to make sure they wouldn't recover anytime soon. Quill knew that as soon as they stopped, the scientists would be on them and he, Holly and George would be in deep shit. But there was a certain kind of catharsis in the shouts and flickering lights of flames that resulted from their attack. They couldn't keep this up forever. Slowly some scientists gathered themselves, and they started to return fire. At some point George, Holly and he would run out of ammunition and the Rotwell team would get the overhand, but for now Quill satisfied with the general chaos. Let these useless scientists and supervisors experience a fraction of the panic agents felt daily.
The green glimmer of other light shining out of Lucy's abandoned backpack pulled Quill's attention to it again. Through the crystal lenses of the goggles he could see the top of the ghostly jar sticking out of the fabric of the bag, the green other light blinking at him imploringly.
"Cover me," he told Holly and George. Without waiting for their response, he dashed around the crates, throwing two salt bombs in the general direction of Rotwell and the scientists. When they went off in twin explosions, he scooped up Lucy's bag by the handle and rushed back to their cover.
"What did you do that for?" Holly asked, not taking her eyes off of their opponents. There was a manic edge to her voice Quill didn't comment on when he answered her.
"Lucy went through too much trouble for the skull for me to just leave it here to be trampled."
He put the backpack on one of the crates, moved to the side so he was covered from sight of the Rotwell team, and pulled the fabric of the backpack down a bit. A face floating in the ectoplasm greeted him. It was sharp and detailed, so much so that Quill felt he could count the hairs in the ghost's eyebrows if he squinted. Lucy had complained about the ghost being evil, citing the way it pulled the most disgusting faces and used language that was even worse to cheer for her demise, but Quill just saw a teenage boy like one of many he'd handled. Stubborn, petulant, and most likely very lonely.
The ghost's rubbery lips moved, but Quill couldn't hear anything. His hearing had never been strong enough to catch anything from beyond the living.
"You're welcome," He told the ghost anyway, and almost laughed when it let its eyes roll out of its sockets.
Something in the hangar's atmosphere shifted. The face in the jar disappeared in a snap, and the pressure on Quill's ears doubled. Holly let out a squeak of surprise from beside him. George swayed on his feet and pressed his hands against his ears, abandoning his mad barrage for a moment. He turned his attention to the iron circle and cursed with feeling.
When Quill followed his gaze, he joined in with a heartfelt oath of his own. The spirits inside the hellish circle were whipped into a frenzy, whirling and pushing at the chains, melting from their human forms into wisps of ectoplasm and back again in a nauseating imitation of a dance. A sickening fear threatened to take a hold of Quill as he saw the individual shackles get pushed out until the chain laid taut in a perfect circle. Everything in him screamed to run away, but before he could turn around and flee, the armoured man appeared in front of the crates, reaching out a hand to drag Holly over it.
George wasn't having it. Without hesitation, he grabbed a flare and threw it against the man. For once he hit the bullseye, and the armoured man stumbled back. "We need to get out, I don't like the look of those chains."
"What's our plan?" Holly asked.
"We're going to give it all we have and see if we can slip away in the chaos," Quill replied. It was a long shot, and they all knew it, but neither George or Holly protested.
"If we spread out a bit further, we can cover more ground," George remarked. Quill and Holly nodded, and made their way to the edges of the platform the crates were stacked on.
George doubled his assault, throwing his flares with reckless abandon. It was impossible to predict where his projectiles would land, and the scientists ducked out of the way in a desperate bid to avoid harm.
The constant rumble of exploding flares and salt-bombs, combined with the ever increasing psychic pressure was disorientating. Quill was so focused on the scientists that he didn't notice the two figures hurrying over until a tall form appeared beside him. Lockwood startled him so badly that Quill almost shoved one of the ghost bombs into his face.
The curses Quill let out while trying to process his shock would have got him an official reprimand back at the Fittes agency. Lockwood raised an eyebrow.
"I'm happy to see you too, Kipps."
"You're dead!"
"Clearly not. Lucy's not either." Lockwood gestured towards the other side of the platform, where Lucy and Holly were sharing a short hug.
"… I have no idea what to say to you right now," Quill replied, thrusting the bag of ghost bombs towards him, "make yourself useful."
With two extra people joining their forces, the tide started to change. The barrage was now so fast and unpredictable that the scientists stopped trying to return fire. Most of them were actually turning tail and making their way to the open doors on the opposite side of the hangar. One well-aimed shot from Holly put an end to the armoured man's fighting spirit, and he too ran away, metal plating falling off as he ran.
Something Quill had learned fast when he first started working was that you needed to expect the unexpected. Having intel on a case was of the utmost importance, but not even the most diligent researcher could predict all the aspects of a haunting and surprises were inevitable. Sometimes agents needed to react to changes in the environment in a split second to avoid injury or even death.
Quill liked to think he was good at handling unexpected situations, but he still needed a moment to process when Steve Rotwell himself rushed at him with a raised rapier, ready to strike. If it hadn't been for Lockwood, he might have found his end right there, killed by the head of the second biggest agency in England instead of by a ghost.
Under normal circumstances, Anthony Lockwood was an excellent fencer. His movements were quick and nimble and he could make the tip of his rapier dance. Even as a child he had been able to defeat opponents who were bigger and more experienced than him. Quill had experienced that for himself when he'd lost his shot at becoming the DEPRAC junior fencing champion to 11-year-old Lockwood a few years ago.
However, with a good three decades of experience on Lockwood, and a lot more weight, Steve Rotwell was a tough opponent, and whatever had happened to Lockwood and Lucy in the time between them entering the circle and stumbling back out again, hadn't been good for Lockwood's general condition. Lockwood kept up a steady stream of banter as Rotwell gained ground on him, but the concentrated expression on his face tightened, and his rapier shook ever so slightly as he parried blow after blow.
The shocked relief that had settled in Quill's stomach when Lockwood and Lucy rejoined their little group curdled back into a desperate dread as he watched Rotwell tear into Lockwood, whose defence was weakening. George tried to interfere by throwing a magnesium flare, but missed spectacularly. The projectile exploded right next to the circle and damaged the chains.
"That does not look good. Where did you learn to throw, Cubbins?"
"He didn't," Lucy answered for George, "that's the problem." Without warning, Lucy jumped off the little platform, running over to Lockwood and Rotwell.
The man had disarmed Lockwood, and with a taunt Quill couldn't quite overhear from his position, he raised his rapier for the fatal strike. Lucy got there before he had the chance to complete it.
One well placed kick, with enough grace and precision to make a martial artist jealous, and Steve Rotwell tumbled onto the chains. Within the blink of an eye, ice crept up his arm and onto his back, spreading over his skin in glittering veins. He struggled to get up, trying to tug himself loose from the grey masses that descended on him. Two times he seemed to be able to escape, but whether it was the ice still spreading on his skin, or the Ghost Touch that crept up his arm, he couldn't muster up the strength.
With a last sob, Rotwell was swallowed up by the spirits.
Quill stood on the platform, frozen in horror. This was what he thought had happened to Lucy and Lockwood. What was supposed to have happened to Lucy and Lockwood. One kick from Lucy ended with Steve Rotwell's being consumed by what Quill could only describe as a hell pit.
Not that he blamed her. It was either him or Lockwood and Quill wouldn't be mourning the man that didn't waste a second thought on sacrificing an entire village for the sake of his 'research'. Still, the way it had happened had shaken him up. Rotwell's life had ended so suddenly, and at the hands of a teenage girl at that.
The ghosts were by no means satisfied. It seemed like Rotwell's death had stirred them up even more. The vertigo caused by watching their crazed frenzy fought with the cold horror in his stomach, and the sensation may have kept Quill rooted to the spot, if it weren't for Lucy jabbing his side with an elbow.
"Prepare to run," she said. Shaken out of his stupor, Quill gave a nod and watched as Lucy threw the giant magnesium flare George had stolen from the armoury into the circle. Then she snatched up her backpack, grabbed Quill's wrist and made a run for the door, Lockwood, George and Holly hot on their heels.
They were halfway across the field towards the slope of the hill when the hangar exploded. The force of the blast threw them off their feet, but they clambered back up and kept running. When they'd reached the tree line, Quill turned to Lockwood. He was bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
"Thank you for-"
Quill didn't let him finish. Before Lockwood could get fully upright, Quill slapped him. George and Lucy let out outraged cries, and Holly tried to get in between them, but Quill stepped around her. His palm stung, but Lockwood's shocked expression made him feel somewhat vindicated. He jabbed a finger into Lockwood's chest.
"When I told you to think about what your recklessness and lone hero acts do to your team, I didn't mean you should just drag Lucy along in your impulsive, idiotic undertakings," he cried out,
"I don't know what saved your asses, but you saw what that- that hell gate did to Rotwell! Pull something like that again and I swear if you survive, I'll be the one to kill you!"
For a moment they stood there, eye to eye. Quill was half expecting Lockwood to hit back, maybe pull his rapier, but all he did was gape at him incredulously, not even speaking. Was it really that weird that Quill had freaked out? Lucy had been the first person he had got close to without the need to keep a professional distance in a long time. He hadn't intended to start a friendship with her when he saw her at DEPRAC that night four months ago, but she had wriggled her way into his life — hot-headedness, combat boots and all — and watching her follow
Lockwood into that circle was a scene that would haunt a good few of his nightmares for a long time.
A hand tugged at his sleeve, and when Quill turned to look, Lucy pulled him into a hug.
"Lockwood knew we would be protected under the capes," she explained, squeezing him tightly. "The ghosts couldn't touch us, so we weren't… well, I suppose we were in a lot of danger, but not necessarily from the circle itself…"
"That didn't make it any less terrifying to watch," Quill muttered into her hair. She stepped back and wiped a lock of hair out of her eyes. She was covered in so much ash and salt that it looked almost silver.
"The skull said you grabbed him out of the fray, so thank you from him."
"… You're welcome," Quill managed after a moment.
With a sigh Quill turned to the others, a halfhearted apology on his tongue. Even with the supposedly protective capes, he wasn't happy with the risk Lockwood had taken with his and Lucy's lives.
Lockwood had composed himself in the short time Quill had been distracted by Lucy. He looked tired and bedraggled still, but the incredulous expression was gone. Instead, a small, somewhat uneasy smile graced his lips.
"It's fine," Lockwood promised. "We'll chalk it up to the heat of the moment. Besides, I've hit you too, so I think we can say we're even now."
"Sorry, you've hit him, too? When did that happen?" Lucy questioned, but Lockwood shook his head.
"That's not important right now. We should to go back to the village."
George nodded. "We should. There is no way that explosion went unnoticed, so this place will be crawling with DEPRAC officers soon."
"Fine," Lucy grumbled, hoisting up the backpack higher, "but I will get an answer to that, eventually."
Quill didn't doubt she would, and he expected it to be an awkward conversation.
Still, he was grateful he would get to have it.