Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

was strewn with the remnants of the meal we’d eaten before going out on the garden job, and the work surfaces were clogged with clutter. I noticed the pots of iron filings nestling by the cereal, and a little pile of salt bombs stacked where George had been preparing them. None of that was useful to us now: we went in search of human prey.
    Lockwood advanced to the little basement door. It was very slightly open. With the tip of his blade he caught the handle, pulled it softly outwards. Darkness, silence, the top of the spiral stairs . . . Warm air rose from below, heavy with its smells of paper, ink and magnesium. The lights were out, and we didn’t try to switch them on. From somewhere came a little scuffling noise, like rats nosing through tight spaces in the dark.
    We looked at one another, clenched our sword hilts tight. Lockwood set foot upon the topmost step. He descended, moving swiftly. George and I followed, boots barely making contact with the iron. In moments we were at the bottom.
    The bare-brick room we stood in was an empty portion of the cellar, occupied only by filing cabinets and sacks of iron. Without the lights, it was entirely black, except for a faintly greenish glow shining from the archway on the right. From the opposite arch came the rat-like scuffling. A teasing hint of torchlight darted momentarily and was gone.
    Drifting softly as Visitors ourselves, we double-checked the right-hand arch and found a scene of chaos. Files upended, cupboards opened, a sea of papers on the office floor. On George’s desk the ghost-jar had been uncovered. The skull was silhouetted in its luminous green plasm. Above it, the disembodied face spun dismally round and round.
    The rapier room was empty, our storeroom door still locked. All that remained was the rear of the basement – where the trophy shelves were. We flitted closer. Ahead of us it seemed that someone grew impatient in their search. The rustling noises sounded rather louder than before.
    We reached the final arch and looked in.
    The trophy room was not entirely dark. It rarely is, by night, thanks to the glow of the cases on the shelves beside the door. Some of Lockwood’s prizes – the bones and bloodstained playing cards, for instance – are entirely harmless. You could give them to a toddler to play with because they have no supernatural power. But others are active Sources still, with spectral force that manifests during the hours of darkness. Soft lights glint beneath the glass – pale blues and yellows, lilacs, greens, maroons – shifting, ever-changing, always looking for escape. It’s a beautiful sight – but also eerie, and best not studied for too long.
    Someone was studying them now.
    A shape stood beside the shelves, a hulking figure dressedin black. It was a man, broad in the shoulder and half a head taller than Lockwood; he wore a long coat, with the hood drawn up to hide the face. A bright rapier hung at his belt. He was turned away from us, examining one of the smaller cases in a black-gloved hand. He had his torch trained on it closely; spears of light reflected off its facets and extended over the ceiling.
    Whatever he sought he didn’t find. He tossed the case contemptuously on the floor.
    ‘Can I offer you some tea while you ransack our place?’ Lockwood said politely.
    The figure wheeled round. Lockwood shone his torch full into the intruder’s face.
    Despite myself, I let out a gasp. The hood hung forward, curving like a raptor’s beak. Beneath this cowl, the face was covered by a white cloth mask. The eye-sockets were black slashed holes. Another slash, jagged and off-centre, formed the mouth. Nothing of the man beneath it could be seen.
    The intruder was clearly blinded by the torch. He raised an arm against the light.
    ‘That’s right. Put up your hands,’ Lockwood said.
    The arm shot down. It reached for the rapier hanging at the belt.
    ‘It’s three against one,’ Lockwood pointed out.
    A swish of metal: the sword was drawn.
    ‘Be like that, then.’ Lockwood raised his blade, stepped slowly forward.
    Plan C seemed the obvious manoeuvre in the circumstances. We normally use it on powerful Type Twos, of course, but it works for mortal enemies as well. I went to the left, George to the right. Lockwood held the centre. Our blades were up and ready. We moved steadily inwards, hemming the intruder in.
    Or so we thought. The white-masked figure seemed unconcerned. He raised his left hand to the shelves