A/N: Final chapter! Sorry it took so long for me to get here! I've really had fun writing this. Hope you enjoy!
Though George's rare instance of good aim had, in fact, taken care of the primary haunting, the secondary Visitors were another story. The absence of their collective murderer seemed to bolster them; their forms regained their previous radiance and their voices swelled. They eyed us hungrily, inching ever closely to the chain circle.
"We've got to get out of here now!" I yelled. "The Visitor could reform at any moment!"
"There's so many of them," cried George. "How are we going to get past them all?!"
"Plan J!" Lockwood yelled, "Execute Plan J!"
"Plan J?!"
"What the hell is Plan J?!"
"Oh, for the love of—do none of you listen during strategy training?!"
"Um—"
"Don't answer that! Look, just get behind me, both of you! I'll cut a path forward, and both of you stay behind me. Lucy, to my left. George, to my right. Defend the sides and back. Ready on three!"
George and I scrambled into place, rapiers raised, iron canisters clutched in our spare hands.
"One!" Lockwood slashed his rapier through the air, cutting a woman with rollers in her hair in half.
"Two!" George and I swiped our rapiers through the ghosts on either side of the newly dissipated apparition, then braced ourselves.
"THREE! GO, GO, GO!"
We were off, George and I walking almost backward, slashing and parrying, our swords whirring through the air.
Disembodied faces rushed at us. Ghostly arms reached for out, fingers attempting to grasp us, hold tight. We hacked frantically through them all, half-walking, half-running towards the exit. I hoped to god that none of us had been ghost-touched, but with the burning chill of the house, it was hard to tell the difference between a ghostly embrace and the choking, cold air. Gray wisps of things surged past me. I slashed and parried, panting, slashed and parried, twisting ward-knots in the air with my rapier.
"Cover me!" yelled Lockwood. By some miracle, we'd reached the door. Lockwood was fumbling with the doorknob. George and I turned fully to face the onslaught, the apparitions pouring from every corner of the house to rush at us, to hem us in, to entrap us in the same fate they'd been doomed to suffer all these years. I threw down my canister, spilling iron filings in a line in front of us, simultaneously bringing up my rapier and stabbing through the leering face of a lanky old man reaching for my neck. I slashed and hacked some more, panting with exertion, feeling the sweat dripping down my neck. Beside me, George was panting, too, his face set in a snarl as he stabbed and hacked his way through the onrush of ghosts.
And then, suddenly, we were stumbling through the door, barreling down the porch, crossing the property line and seeking refuge in the bright white circle of light cast by the ghost-lamp in the street.
From here, the little unassuming cottage was lit up, its windows and open front door suffused with greens, blues, and violets. As I watched, a pale blue wisp of a ghost tried in vain to follow our path down the porch but was promptly sucked back into the house. It was as we'd hoped; the haunting was too local. We were safe, beyond the house's influence, too far for any of them to reach.
We stood there awhile, panting, shaking, feeling the sweat cool on our necks, checking ourselves for injury.
"Everyone alright?" Lockwood asked, at last.
We nodded assent. Aside from the fact that our clothes were undoubtably ruined by the ectoplasm burns, we had escaped unscathed. We stood there a few moments more, catching our breath.
A thought struck me.
"The Skull!" I gasped, horrified. "I left it in the basement!"
"Not to mention half our supplies," muttered Lockwood. "Just when things are getting especially pricey."
"We are not going back in there," George snapped.
"Of course not, we're not insane," I retorted.
"We'll have to go back first thing in the morning," Lockwood said, "retrieve everything."
"Yeah."
"Definitely."
Exhausted as we were, we would have lingered in the street awhile longer, had not Lockwood's keen eyes noted an unsavory shadowy figure lurking some distance down the street. It was probably just a Tom Shadows, but, given the night we'd just had, we didn't want to take any chances. We trudged back home, sore and exhausted, glad that we were alive.
The Skull was safely retrieved the following morning, along with the rest of our supplies. Of course, its whining at being left behind was insufferable. After a few minutes, I flipped the lever and let it yammer on in silence.
In the end, we recommended to our client that the property be dug up. We supervised the excavation. During the day, under controlled conditions, I tested them using my sense of Touch. It took a few days, but we found what we were looking for. It was a ring, a simple gold band, much weathered by time, with a ruby set in it. The instant I touched it, I felt that awful prickling feeling once more. The sensations I got from it were vile, to say the least. If you want to know, the ring belonged to a man. An heirloom of some sort based on what I saw. He'd been lonely, friendless, ostracized by his own family. Abused—first by his parents, then by bullies, then finally by his own, tormented mind. The cruelty he'd endured had made him, in turn, cruel. Perhaps to shield himself, he'd developed an inflated sense of self: a God-complex, if you will. It explained the words the apparition had spoken, its insistence that we repent. Like all ghost stories, it was a rather melancholy one. We did our bit; informed DEPRAC, turned the artifact over to Fittes Furnaces. We all watched it burn. There were several more artifacts that had to be burned along with it—antiques and odds and ends left behind previous homeowners over the years. Afterwards, just to be sure, we strengthened the ironwork DEPRAC had laced into the bricks of the house ages ago and added some more. It seemed to do the trick. Our client was satisfied, and we never heard of anymore untoward happenings at that address.
We got our bit in the Times, too, among other publications: Cluster Haunting in Mayfair No Match For Local Agency: Exclusive Interview with A. J. Lockwood, Founder and CEO, page 3. Lockwood, however, was surprisingly muted in his description of the case. Though he mentioned that we'd faced a Fetch (for what else could a thing that imitated people we knew so accurately be?), he made no reference to the strange cunning of the monstrous thing we'd faced. Nor did he protest privately about our being only on page three, rather than page one. Such modesty in Lockwood, who was usually so keen to claim the spotlight, was unusual to say the least. Eventually he admitted that it had something to do with Barnes. Apparently, the fact that we, a small, independent agency, had succeeded where the almighty power of Fittes and DEPRAC combined had failed rankled.
All in all, it was a good outcome, considering. We'd broken key rules and still come out alive. It was lucky, and now at least we wouldn't make the same mistakes again. I was glad to put the case behind us, and move on to better things, as were Lockwood and George.
Still, sometimes I dream of that giant, twisting form. And when I wake, chilled, I can't help but wonder at that lonely, melancholy life. A man whose only legacy was violence begetting violence, through life and death alike, and an old ring that was now little more than cinders in an underground furnace.
The only remedy to these brooding episodes was a hot cup of tea, and the welcome reminder that life wasn't like that, not for me.
No, basking in the warmth of Portland Row, laughing with George and Lockwood, I knew I would never be so alone.
A/N: And that's a wrap! Please review and tell me what you think :D All your reviews have heartened me in my efforts to get this thing finished. And look, I finally did!