Lockwood & Co.: The Creeping Shadow Read Free

I spoke so low that no one else could hear, meanwhile shining my flashlight on the old dark paneling. What would it be? A lever? A button? Most likely a simple pressure-release board that, when pushed, allowed a weighted door to open. It had been closed a long time; maybe it had all been sealed up, in which case we’d need to smash it in. I changed the angle of the beam of light. Now one section of the wood seemed slightly shinier than the rest. I pushed at it experimentally. Nothing stirred.
    Or at least, nothing
natural
did. But my inner ear caught a gentle cracking noise close by, like glass shards being trodden underfoot.
    The woman had been stabbed to death with broken glass. My stomach twisted, but I kept my voice upbeat. “Anything in those mirrors?” I said. I shoved at the panel again.
    “No, you’re good. All’s clear.” That was Dave, his tone flat with tension.
    “It’s getting colder,” Ted said. “Getting colder
really
fast.”
    “Okay.” Yes, I could feel the temperature draining away; the wood was freezing to the touch. I struck the panel with cold and sweaty fingers, and this time felt it move.
    Glass crunched.
    “She’s coming back, pulling herself out of the past,”
the skull said.
“She doesn’t like you being here.”
    “Someone’s weeping,” Tina said.
    I’d heard it, too: a desolate, angry sound, echoing in a lonely place. And with it came the rustling of approaching linen—sodden fabric, wet with blood….
    “Watch those mirrors, everyone,” I ordered. “Keep talking to me….”
    “All’s clear.”
    “Getting colder…”
    “She’s very near.”
    I shoved again, harder—and this time it was enough. The piece of wood swung in—and out seesawed a narrow door: a section of paneling cracking free of the wall, wreathed in cobwebs and trailing dust.
    Beyond it? Only darkness.
    I wiped the sweat from my face; both hand and brow were freezing. “There we are,” I said. “As promised—one secret room! Now all we need to do is go inside.”
    I turned back to the others, gave them all a beaming smile—
    —And looked into their mirrors.
    There was my pale face, reflected three times. And close behind it,
another
face, its skin melting off the bone. I saw pale hair like clouds; I saw bared teeth as small and red as pomegranate seeds. I saw the black and glinting eyes; and last, in the split second I had left, the five clawed fingers reaching for my throat.

W e all reacted, in our different, self-defining ways. Tina screamed and dropped her mirror; Ted leaped back like a scalded cat. Only Dave held his mirror firm—or firm
ish
—while he scrabbled for something at his belt. Me? Before Tina’s mirror had shattered on the floor, I’d reversed my rapier and driven it behind me. Wheeling around, I stared into emptiness. But smoke rose from the middle of my sword, and a worm of ectoplasm writhed and fizzed on the iron blade.
    I slashed the rapier frantically to and fro. Then I did it some more.
    “Waste of time,”
the skull said, after a pause.
“She’s gone back inside the wall.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me that right away? I hit her. How badly did I hit her?”
    “It was hard to see, what with your immense display of raw skill blocking my view.”
    “Well, where—?” But at that point I was blown sideways by a blast of salt, iron, and white magnesium fire that erupted from the wall a few feet to the left. For a second the room shone bright as day; it was like we’d been dropped into the sun. Then the flames drew back, and darkness closed in, and I was lying in a bed of ash and glowing cinders, with my ears ringing and my hair over my eyes.
    I got stiffly to my feet, tapping at my ear, supporting myself with my sword. Through the smoke I could see Ted and Tina goggling at me from a far corner of the room. Close by, Dave was crouched like a small, squat panther, a second magnesium flare ready in his hand.
    “Did I get it?”
    I patted down a small white flame