A/N: Warning, implied child abuse and echo of a death

We spent the rest of the day after my visit to Jacobs preparing for our excursion to the station that night. The meeting had left me feeling off, but now that we were making our way through the streets I started feeling better. Cases were familiar grounds to me, even if there were still nerves fluttering in my stomach. I was wearing my standard case outfit, which comprised a black skirt and leggings, my combat boots, a roll collar shirt, and my warm jacket. My equipment belt sat underneath it. I'd also pulled on an old pair of fingerless gloves. It was a lot easier to use my sense of touch if I didn't need to take off and put on my gloves all the time.

The others were decked out similarly. We were carrying our regular kit and in Quill's case a pair of crystal goggles. Despite him not being an official part of our team, he was carrying a rapier as well. Lockwood had bought the extra sword when restocking our supplies and swore that the fact that it was an Italian rapier with a small green stone in the hilt was purely a coincidence. I knew Quill appreciated it all the same.

Lockwood and George flanked me as we walked up to the station, a fact the skull in my backpack had commented on multiple times during our walk.

"You'd think they are afraid you will break down," it had chuckled when I first noticed the boys' proximity when we left my street. "Poor little Lucy, off to fight her father."

"Shut up," I had hissed in reply. "I'll put you back under the bed."

When we made our way up the steps to the main entrance of the station, Lockwood grabbed my hand. I stopped walking as the others went ahead, giving us a moment to speak privately.

"We can stop and go back to the cottage at any time," Lockwood promised, his voice soft and serious. "You only have to say the word and we'll leave. No questions asked."

I gave him a soft smile. "I'll be fine, Lockwood. Let's just get this over with."

Lockwood watched my face for a moment, searching my face for fear or hesitation. I wasn't sure. What he saw apparently satisfied him because he gave a shallow nod and let go of my hand.

It was odd, being at Whitton on Dean's station at night. Despite only being a small-town station, the station hall was never empty during the day, never this still. There were no commuters waiting for the next train, no porters keeping the station order, and no one manning the kiosk to sell sandwiches, newspapers or dish out the town's latest gossip. And yet, I could feel we weren't alone.

So could the others. George and Lockwood still stuck to me like glue, guarding my sides like Lockwood and I had done for George in the Bickerstaff house. This would have annoyed me under normal circumstances–I was not a trainee anymore after all–but now their presence held a comforting quality. Holly seemed uneasy too. Her dark eyes kept flitting across the hall as we set up the first of our circles, and she kept one hand near the hilt of her rapier.

"There is something in the atmosphere here," she remarked in a tight voice.

"There is," Quill agreed. He pulled down the goggles and glanced around, keeping watch for unexpected Visitors. "And not just those stale sandwiches."

I finished closing the chain circle and looked up, concentrating on my inner senses. I had to push away the unease that lingered in my gut. Some nerves during a haunting are inevitable, but these weren't the usual haunting jitters. For as long as I can remember, I had disliked being at the station. Something about the building and the tracks had always made me uneasy. When I was small, the tracks took people to far off destinations I didn't know. After my father had died there, that unease took on a more permanent quality. Because I was too small to stay home alone, Mam took me along when she visited stationmaster Mills to collect the tiny widow's pension she got after my father's death. Mills had realised how I felt about the station, even during daytime, and suggested Mam came to his house across the road instead.

"I'm not getting any sounds yet," I said after a moment of Listening. "There seems to be miasma though." I reached for my mints, only to find they weren't there, and turned to walk back to the doorway we'd entered through. It was where Mam had been found, so I expected stronger phenomena there. However, when I measured the temperature it didn't differ much with the outside temperature

I wrote down the temperature and closed my eyes, intending to give Listening another shot, when the skull made himself known.

"I can spare you the effort," it chuckled. "You're following the wrong lead. This visitor isn't going to appear on these steps."

"Isn't it? I thought it would appear in the station for sure,"

"I never said it wasn't in the station."

I bit back a deep sigh. "So where is it, then?" I asked, already suspecting that his answer would not be particularly helpful. The skull clacked his none existent tongue. "I'm not sure I want to help," it said. "If you want some quiet time, you only have to ask," I replied swinging off my backpack and reaching in to close the lever.

"Wait, wait," it cried. I paused in my movement. "There's no need to take away my entertainment! Check out the site of death."

Deciding not to dignify him with a response, I made my way back to the others, who were standing near the little kiosk.

"There's a colder spot next to the archway to the platform, but it is a degree lower than the rest of the station hall, so it could just be a draught," Holly began the discussion of our observations. "Near the lockers? I noticed that too but didn't observe any other phenomena," George agreed.

"Well, it is still early, so that's not too surprising," Lockwood interjected. He was leaning against the booth, glancing around the small hall with a searching look. I assumed he was keeping an eye out for visible traces while we conversed so he could warn us if the visitor popped up. Our chain circle was big enough for all of us to get into if we needed its safety, but it would be a tight fit. As there was no immediate danger of a ghost, Quill and I were still standing outside it. "Maybe we should wait for fifteen minutes and then do another round of measurements."

"The skull said we should have a look at the site of death," I said. My friends turned their attention to me.

"The site of death?" Quill repeated. He had pushed the goggles up, and the red circles around his eyes gave him an owlish look. "Was he helpful enough to tell you where that is, for once?"

"No, he prefers to leave us guessing, but it isn't too hard in this case. I'm assuming we should check out the tracks…"

We got right to it, making our way to the platforms. After we had created another chain circle to retreat into if the situation got dire, Lockwood spoke again. "There is a remnant of a death glow above the tracks, right in the middle," he said. "The skull was probably right about us having more luck here. George, Lucy and Holly, you stay on this side of the tracks, Quill and I will check out the other platform. We'll meet back up here in half an hour."

I watched as Lockwood jumped off the edge of the platform down to the tracks. He moved without hesitation, crossing the tracks and climbing up on the other platform. Quill followed at a slower pace, wobbling slightly when some ballast stones moved beneath his feet. The height difference between the platform and the tracks was only a few feet, but I suspected sticking the landing on those stones was harder than Lockwood had made it look.

"George, you go left, Holly stays in the centre and I go right?" I asked, turning back to George and Holly. They nodded. George pulled a packet of mints out of a pocket on his belt and handed it to me. "I saw you were out of them. Call us if you find something, Luce," he said gravely. I pocketed the packet and moved towards my chosen location.

The first thing I did was close my eyes and listen again. The only sound I heard was the whistling of the wind through the conjugated iron roof and a few last birdcalls in the far distance. On the paranormal level, everything still seemed silent. It was as if the station was holding its breath in expectance of the haunting that might begin any second now.

I walked towards the few benches on the far end of the platform, getting my thermometer out to take temperature readings. It felt repetitive, but I didn't know what else I could do. Perhaps I should've made myself comfortable and waited for something to happen, but the nervous had reared their head full force and I couldn't bring myself to stay still.

The moon was out and its light cast strange shadows through the uncovered gap over the tracks. I stopped my exploration to glance the black shapes for a moment, standing on the dotted line near the edge of the platform.

Were the shadows near the bench moving? It was hard to see in the low light, but I could swear the dark area had grown since I last looked at it. I slowly brought up the thermometer I was holding and shuddered when the whistling of the wind picked up.

"Poor Lucy" a voice snickered, and I jumped, pulling my rapier and taking on a defensive stance. I had forgotten all about the ghost jar in my backpack, which seemed to amuse the ghost greatly. "Afraid of shadows now?"

Forgetting all about my malaise, I slung off the backpack. When I opened the flap, the grotesque face in the jar grinned back up at me.

"Don't scare me like that, you idiot!" I hissed.

"Why not? It's funny!" was the snickered reply. "It's not like there's much happening here. This case is beneath you!"

"No, it's not! Whatever's lurking here killed my Mam. She didn't give herself ghost-touch!"

"Are you sure about that? I'm telling you, there's nothing he-" The skull cut himself off mid-sentence. "Oh. Never mind, there it is. Good luck!"

And with that cheery comment, the skull went dormant again. The face disappeared in a swirl of plasm and left starring down at a grinning old skull while his words registered in my mind.

I put the backpack down with great care and turned around slowly, as if fast movements would wake up a wild animal that would maul me to death. To be frank, I think I would have preferred a hungry lion or wolf. With growing dread, I watched as a mass of pulsing darkness detached itself from the shadows surrounding the bench. It moved with choppy motions, crashing forwards in waves of black ink before pulling back again like the surf of the sea. In the middle of the darkness, a figure grew taller in shocking bursts, as if somebody was assembling a puppet out of loose pieces, from the feet up.

A metallic rattling in the distance joined the whistling of the wind, growing stronger and stronger until it felt like my eardrums would pop.

What I had been hearing all evening was not the wind after all.

My sight isn't as good as Lockwood's. The black cloud around the ghost kept me from seeing the figure clearly. I couldn't see facial features or the details of the clothes it was wearing, but as the ghost formed itself, I still knew.

In front of me stood the ghost of my father.

I wanted to turn around, shout for George or Holly-anyone- but I couldn't move. The malaise that had gripped me all evening had deepened into ghost-lock. I was forced to watch in horror as the darkness around the ghost pulsed, grew, shrank, and grew again.

"My blood…" a long-forgotten voice rasped over the psychic train tracks rattling and high-pitched whistling. "My own BLOOD!"

Most ghosts are barely more than memories of the person they were in life. Except for Type Threes, ghosts can't properly communicate, and most are doomed to repeat scenes from their life or death for eternity. My father was no Type Three, so when he started moving in my direction, it was in the slow, drunken stagger he'd had in life. Because of the ghost-lock, I was forced to stay still and watch his approach. He raised an arm as if preparing to strike something, and suddenly I was four years old all over again.

After six daughters he could barely keep track of, my father didn't care for me much when I was a little girl. He was as glad to leave my upbringing to my sisters as my mother was, and I can't recall if he ever called me anything besides 'girl'.

There was only one occasion that I can recall when I had his full, undivided attention. Even though I didn't know it at the time, I could hear ghosts before I could see them. One night, shortly after curfew, a loud knock sounded on our front door, and I went gone to open it. One of my sisters-to this day I still don't remember which one-stopped me before I could let the stone-knocker in, but our father had seen the whole thing. The evening had ended with me crawling into Mary's bed, where she held me until I had cried myself to sleep because of the pain.

Right now I was thrown right back into that memory. Despite being older and taller, I still felt like my four-year-old self, cowering before the intimidating figure of my father.

"No…" I managed despite the ghost lock. "I didn't do anything!" But my father didn't hesitate. He raised his arm above his head threateningly, and the station seemed to fade away around me.

"Please, don't!" I screwed my eyes shut in anticipation and clenched my teeth, steeling myself for what was coming. I balled my fists.

Or tried to, anyway. My fingers were wrapped tightly around the hilt of a sword.

At once the ghost-lock fell away, and I was back in the present. With a cry, I slashed through the manifestation. The move wasn't elegant, or even an actual manoeuvre, but it made the dark spirit move back, dark curls of ectoplasm dissolving as my blade passed through. The thing didn't appreciate my assault. It let out a burst of psychic energy that almost threw me off of my feet. I did my best to regain my balance, but when I placed a foot backwards, I stepped into thin air.

My heart leapt into my throat as I fell, but I didn't have time to cry out. As mentioned before, the height difference between the tracks and the platform was only a few feet. That didn't mean that I Landed softly. I toppled over the edge and fell flat onto my back, right onto the iron tracks. The impact forced the air out of my lungs, and for a moment all I could do was lay there.

Somebody shouted my name, but I was too busy trying to regain my breath to acknowledge them. Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I placed my hand on the ground beside me to push me into a sitting position, so I could assess myself for injuries.

Someone once told me that my talent is a curse rather than a blessing, as it makes me feel the emotions, including the pain of someone else. I never paid the thought much attention, first of all because my talent had helped me find important information in a great many cases, and secondly, because I had been told so by a murderer. I didn't put much stock in the opinion of a man who bricked up the body of the woman he swore was the love of his life.

Right now I was inclined to agree on the thought though. The moment my bare fingertips brushed across the ballast stones, I was thrown back into the past by the echo they held.

It was as if somebody turned the dial of a radio to full volume. Suddenly the station came alive with the sounds of a busy day: A sharp, shrill whistle of a train conductor, talking people, the distant rattling of train tracks. Somehow my head felt dull and muddled as if my brain was stuffed with cotton balls.

"Hurry Al!" a voice, younger, higher than I remembered it but still recognisable.

"We need to go back, he'll see us!" A different voice responded.

Despite the ruckus of the station, I could easily pick out her voice from the crowd. I felt the flare of anger, clouded by the haze in my mind.

"We just have to hide until the Intercity passes by, we can go to the other platform then."

"Too late, he's seen us! He'll stop us, Margaret!" A third voice called.

Anger, determination, another wave of dizziness.

"He's coming this way, we need to go!"

The rattling on the tracks grew louder, as did the anger. Sounds around me fluctuated as if I was making my way through a crowd to get closer to the girls' voices. The sound of flesh against flesh as a hand clasped around an upper arm, sick satisfaction. Emotions followed each other up in quick succession.

"Let me go!" a voice cried.

"Where do you think you are going?" The girls didn't answer. "WHERE?!"

"Newcastle…" the response was soft but high pitched and panicked. The rattling grew louder. "Let her go!"

Lost balance, a fall, and anger turned into terror. The tremors ran through the tracks, through me. A train whistle blew violently.

My scream mingled with the one in the echo until somebody ripped my hands away from the stones. The echo ended abruptly before I could hear or feel the moment of impact that was mercilessly inevitable. I snapped my eyes open, panting like a panicked rabbit. George was holding my wrists.

Footsteps pounded on the platforms as the others ran towards us, but I could not focus on anything but George, who gently released my wrists. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, and his face was pale. The worry in his expression grew sharper as I reached up to cover my mouth, trying to bite back the sob bubbling up in my throat. I lunged forward and buried my face in his shoulder.

There's a lot that can be said about George. He is stubborn and scatterbrained, lets himself get drawn in by his curiosity, and his hygienic standards can be frankly appalling at times. We hadn't gotten started on the best terms, that's for sure. Despite this, he had grown on me, and I was proud to claim him as a close friend. George wrapped his arms around me without comment and held me tightly as I struggled to get my breathing back under control, stroking my shoulders.

After a moment the world filtered through again, and I felt ready to pull away.

"Better?" George asked. I gave a small nod in response. "So, did we just meet your father?"

I hesitated. "Could you hear it?" I asked, wrecking my mind to remember whether the ghost had said anything besides the weird comment about blood.

George shook his head, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"No, but I heard you."

"Oh…" I managed. "It-it was…"

When I looked up to avoid George's eyes, I saw Lockwood and Quill running towards us along the tracks. Holly was up on the platform I had just fallen off of. She was holding her rapier ready, watching as the darkness slowly reformed into a man-shaped ghost. When he saw I was uninjured, Quill pulled his own rapier and joined Holly in holding off the dark spectre-my father-while Lockwood helped me up. He reached out a hand to pull George to his feet as well, but George shook his head. Without a word he slipped off his glove and put his fingers to the ballast stones.

George and I both have the talent of Touch, but where it comes naturally to me, George has to concentrate a lot harder to pick up on the psychic traces left behind in objects. I'm not sure how he experiences them, but I was sure it was safe to say it wasn't as deeply as I did. The only outward change I could detect in him was the way his frown grew deeper.

"Well, that was a bad one for sure," George sighed as he pulled his hand back. "I'm sorry you experienced that Luce…"

"If you're quite done down there, we could use some assistance," Quill called out. As if to emphasise his point, the darkness swirled forwards, as if to swell up him and Holly. Anger flared up in my gut, burning with a vengeance. I tore a canister off of my belt and hurled it into the cloud of dark plasm.

"Back off!" I shouted as the Greek fire ignited in an explosion of salt, iron, and magnesium. The vicious flames tore the spectre apart, and the ectoplasm dissolved into the air.

There was a beat of silence. Quill shoved his goggles up to stare at me, Holly lowered her rapier, and George raised a single eyebrow. I didn't pay them any mind, climbing up onto the platform and making my way to my backpack, where even the skull was staring at me from his jar.

"Lockwood?" I asked without looking back at him.

"Yes?"

"I'm saying the word."

A/N: I'm still here! It's been a while since I had the opportunity to write, but I was on a roll the past few days, so here's chapter six!

I'd love to hear what you think, so please leave a review.