Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy Read Free

but they’re guilty.
Guilty as sin.”
    George nodded. “Did you see the ketchup? No one’s had breakfast here in a
long
time.”
    “They must know it’s all over for them,” I said as we went on. “If something bad happened to their guests up here, we’re going to sense it. They know what Talents
we have. What do they expect us to do when we find out?”
    Lockwood’s reply was interrupted by a stealthy tread on the stair behind. Looking back, we caught a glimpse of Mr. Evans’s gleaming face, his hair disarranged, eyes wild and staring.
He reached for the fire door, began swinging it shut…
    In a flash Lockwood’s rapier was in his hand. He sprang back down, coat flying—
    The fire door slammed, slicing off the light from downstairs. The rapier cracked against wood.
    As we stood in the dark, we heard bolts being forced into place. Then we heard our captor laughing through the door.
    “Mr. Evans,” Lockwood said, “open this now.”
    The old man’s voice was muffled, but distinct. “You should’ve left when you had the chance! Look around all you like. Make yourselves at home! The ghost will have found you by
midnight. I’ll sweep up what’s left in the morning.”
    After that it was just the
clump, clump, clump
of carpet slippers fading downstairs.
    “Brilliant,”
said the voice from my backpack.
“Outwitted by a senior citizen. Outstanding. What a team.”
    I didn’t tell it to shut up this time. It kind of had a point.

H old it. I suppose I should stop before things start getting messy, and tell you exactly who I am. My name is Lucy Carlyle. I make my living
destroying the risen spirits of the restless dead. I can throw a salt-bomb fifty yards from a standing start, and hold off three Specters with a broken rapier (as I did one time in Berkeley
Square). I’m good with crowbars, magnesium flares, and candles. I walk alone into haunted rooms. I see ghosts, when I choose to look for them, and hear their voices, too. I’m just under
five feet six inches tall, have hair the color of a walnut coffin, and wear size seven ectoplasm-proof boots.
    There. Now we’re properly introduced.
    So I stood with Lockwood and George on the second-floor landing of the boardinghouse. All of a sudden it was very cold. All of a sudden I could
hear
things.
    “Don’t suppose there’s any point trying to break down the door,” George said.
    “No point at all….” Lockwood’s voice had that far-off, absent quality it gets when he’s using his Sight. Sight, Listening, and Touch: they’re the main kinds of
psychic Talent. Lockwood has the sharpest eyes of us, and I’m the best at Listening and Touch. George is an all-arounder. He’s mediocre at all three.
    I had my finger on the light switch on the wall beside me, but I didn’t flick it on. Darkness stokes the psychic senses. Fear keeps your Talent keen.
    We listened. We looked.
    “I don’t see anything yet,” Lockwood said finally. “Lucy?”
    “I’m getting voices. Whispered voices.” It sounded like a crowd of people, all speaking over one another with the utmost urgency, yet so faint it was impossible to understand a
thing.
    “What does your friend in the jar say?”
    “It’s not my friend.” I prodded the backpack. “Skull?”
    “There’s ghosts up here. Lots of them. So…
now
do you accept that you should’ve stabbed the old codger when you had the chance? If you’d listened to me,
you wouldn’t
be
in this mess, would you?”
    “We’re
not
in a mess!” I snapped. “And, by the way, we can’t just stab a suspect! I keep telling you this! We didn’t even know they were guilty
then!”
    Lockwood cleared his throat meaningfully. Sometimes I forget that the others can’t hear the ghost’s half of the conversation.
    “Sorry,” I said. “He’s just being annoying, as usual. Says there’s lots of ghosts.”
    The luminous display on George’s thermometer flashed briefly in the dark. “Temp update,” he said. “It’s