Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase

was lightly stained, and the tip of his forelock had been burned white by a drop of plasm. But where George’s face shone bright red, his had just gone paler; where George and I gasped and groaned and flopped about, he lay calm and rigid, waiting for his breathing to grow quiet. He had taken off his sunglasses and his dark eyes glittered. His jaw was set. I could see at once that he had drawn his emotions deep inside himself, made them hard and steely. There was something in his face I hadn’t seen before.
    ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It’s over for the moment.’
    George angled the torch towards the inside of the secret opening. Seconds before, thick fingers of blood had been pouring down it. Now the wood was dry, dusty and unstained. There was no visual sign that anything had happened. If we’d gone back into the empty room, no doubt that would have been dry and clean as well. Not that we were going back there any time soon.
    Lockwood sat up awkwardly, adjusting his bubble-wrapped loops of chain. ‘We’re in good shape,’ he said. ‘We’ve lost the heavy-duty chains and the stuff in the bags, but we’ve got our rapiers, iron and silver seals. And we’ve found what we wanted now.’
    I stared at the clean, calm surface of the door. ‘Why couldn’t it come after us? Ghosts can pass through walls.’
    Lockwood shrugged. ‘In some cases a Visitor is tied so completely to the room where it met its death that it no longer has any conception of there being any adjacent space at all. So . . . when we left its hunting ground, it was as if we ceased to exist, as if we ceased to be . . .’
    I looked at him. ‘You haven’t really got a clue, have you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Here’s a possibility,’ George said. He gestured with the torch. ‘See that ring we pulled to close the door? It’s made of iron. And look, there’s a lattice of iron strips all across the wood. And down the stone here too . . . They look old to me. Someone’s fixed them some time long ago as a way ofhemming in that particular Visitor. It keeps the passage safe.’
    He circled the torch around us in an arc, allowing us to consider the space in which we were confined. It was a very narrow corridor, walled and floored with old, thin bricks. It ran a short distance, then hit the corner of the western wall – the one that showed up as suspiciously thick on George’s plans. Here, the bricks were replaced by solid stone and the passage turned to the right. The bend was almost entirely choked with swathes of webbing that hung like fat grey curtains from the roof of the passage to the floor.
    ‘Don’t like all those spiders,’ I said.
    ‘This side-passage is mainly clear of them,’ Lockwood said, ‘because of all the iron. But once we turn the corner, we’re back in the original priory building, and we’ll be getting near the Source. That means more spiders and stronger visitations. From now on we use all available weapons as soon as anything shows up.’
    We struggled to our feet. I gave George back his rapier, and drew my own. I found my torch where I’d dropped it on the bricks, but the bulb had broken. Lockwood’s was gone, and George’s seemed dimmer than before.
    ‘Save it,’ Lockwood said. He brought out candles and distributed them between us; when lit, their flames were mustard-yellow, tall and strong. ‘They’ll be a good indicator of psychic build-up too,’ he added. ‘Keep your eye on them.’
    ‘Shame we can’t use caged cats, like Tom Rotwell did,’George remarked. ‘They’re the most sensitive indicator of all, apparently – if you can stand the yowling.’
    ‘I can’t believe the Source isn’t in the Red Room,’ I said. ‘That Visitor was so strong.’
    ‘And so weird,’ George added. ‘Mix of Poltergeist and Changer. That’s new.’
    ‘No, it was just a Changer.’ Lockwood held his candle out, surveying the way to the corner. ‘It didn’t have telekinetic properties at all.’
    ‘You forget it closed and locked the door,’ I said.
    ‘Did it?’ Lockwood said. ‘I don’t think so.’
    I frowned at his retreating back; he was already on the move. ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘You think another ghost?’ The answer came to me. ‘You mean someone living did it? Deliberately locked us in? But that means—’
    George gave a long, low whistle. ‘Fairfax or Starkins . . .’
    ‘But they wouldn’t come in here,’ I protested; ‘not after dark.’
    ‘ Starkins wouldn’t,’ Lockwood said. ‘Come