Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

George being George, the question didn’t faze him. “As psychic artifacts? Rare. Has to be the right conditions for mummification: either very dry, or containing certain chemicals, like you get in peat bogs. Can’t have much air, else the microbes get to work. Why?”

“No reason. Just I heard of two recently, and I was wondering how likely it was, that’s all.”

He grunted but said nothing. Silence enveloped us.

“George,” I said again, “what Lockwood did back there—”

“I know.”

“It was brilliant, yes, but also—”

“Crazy?”

“Yeah.”

George took off his glasses and rubbed them on his sweater as he always did when considering something disagreeable. It was a different kind of rub than the one he used when he was excited, agitated, or simply being a know-it-all. I’d forgotten how clearly I could read him. If you’d hidden his face and simply showed me his glasses moving on his shirt, I could easily have told you his mood.

“Yes,” he said, “and the really bad thing is that I wasn’t at all surprised. This is typical behavior for him now. Lockwood’s more reckless than ever. He throws himself into everything like he doesn’t care. Most cases we go on, I don’t have time to even do a quick background check, let alone research the haunting.”

I stared into the dark. Lockwood’s recklessness was part and parcel of who he was. I guessed he’d been that way since his sister died, when he was very young. It was also linked to the reasons why I’d stepped away from the agency, though it wasn’t the full story by any means. “He’s always been like that,” I said. “That’s just his way.”

“But it’s worse than before.” George was staring down at his sweater. His eyes, exposed without his glasses, looked smaller, weak, and frail. “You know he was always brave, but not like that .”

I knew what he meant. We were both thinking of the shape at the door.

“When did it start?” I said. “When did it get worse?”

George shrugged. “After you left.”

“And you think…” I frowned, hesitated. “Why do you think that is?”

George put his glasses back on; his eyes sprang back into focus, sharp and questing. “Wrong emphasis, Luce. Why do you think that is?”

“Well, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Of course not. Your leaving the company had no effect on any of us. Why, a day after you left, we’d forgotten your name.”

I glared at him. “You needn’t be like that. That’s hurtful.”

George gave a sudden whoop of rage. “How d’you want me to put it? You waltzed off on a whim and left us to pick up the pieces. Now you suddenly swan back and expect us to carry on where we left off! You can’t have it both ways—either we were affected by your departure or we weren’t. Which do you prefer?”

“I didn’t ask to come back!” I roared. “Penelope Fittes—”

“Has got nothing whatsoever to do with it, as you well know. It was Lockwood who came knocking on your door, and that’s why you considered the proposal, and let’s face it, that’s why you said yes.”

“Well, would you rather I hadn’t?”

“It’s none of my business what you decide. You cool freelancers walk your own path.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Now you’re just being childish.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

Neither of us spoke after that. We sat in silence on the wall, waiting for our separate cabs.

Seven fifteen that same morning, I was awake again in bed.

At other times, in other years, I would have greeted the day in jaunty spirits. It had been an exhilarating night, and the artificial elation that you always get at the end of a dangerous hunt still coursed through my veins. I’d gotten back early enough to fall into a brief exhausted sleep, but had been woken not long after by trash collectors shouting in the street outside. And now that my eyes had opened, I couldn’t close them again. My body was too tense. My mind was whirling.

So much of it was good, of course. The Ealing Cannibal had been a notable case, and news of its entrapment and destruction would spread widely; the reputation of all of us present in the house last night would definitely be enhanced. For me, the prospect of Penelope Fittes’s approval was particularly gratifying. With her knowledge of her grandmother’s Talent, she was unlikely to undervalue me, as Rotwell’s and other agencies had done. I could expect a slew of new cases as reward.

And Lockwood & Co. would do quite nicely, too; Ms. Fittes had made that clear enough. This pleased me. By helping them out, I’d maybe gone some small way toward paying off the debt I owed for having left so suddenly. Now that the case was successfully completed, I could turn my attention to other things.

Yes, so much of it was good. Yet my room and bed seemed bleaker on that sunny spring morning than on any rain-lashed afternoon during the foul, dark winter. Lockwood had wanted me for one job, and I’d done that job, and now there would be no more, and the pleasure I’d felt while working alongside him—and George and , yes, even Holly—made that prospect bitter. But I could have coped with it, just as I’d coped these last four months, if I’d still felt secure in my original reasons for leaving. It was to protect Lockwood that I’d left the company, and even though it had been painful, I’d known that it was right. He was safer with me gone.

Or was he? If what George had said to me was true, I might actually have made things worse. He’d become even more reckless without me there. And the varied implications of that kept me lying rigid in that bed, with the sun streaming over my rumpled bedspread.

Really, I should have tried to get back to sleep, but I was too keyed up—and keyed down; I was both hyped and befuddled at the same time. At last I got out of bed, only to stumble over the ghost-jar in the middle of the floor.

As I stood there cursing and rubbing my shin, an unsavory face manifested behind the glass. “You look worse than me this morning,” it observed. “Well, when you recover, I await your groveling thanks. You know where I’ll be.”

I went to put the kettle on. “Groveling thanks for what?”

“For my help last night in pinpointing the Source. You only found it after my tip. Quite clearly we make an excellent team, and I have an idea. I suggest we go into business together. ‘Carlyle and Skull,’ we’d call it, or possibly ‘Skull and Co.’ Yes, that’s it, with a little picture of me over the door. I can see it now….” Chuckling, it receded into the plasm.

I didn’t respond. I wasn’t in the mood. I picked up some of my scattered clothes, found my bathrobe, went across the landing to the bathroom. I came back and made coffee. I got out my casebook and tried to make a few notes about the evening, but found I didn’t have the words. The other thing I needed to do was make out my invoice to the Lockwood & Co. agency. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that, either. Not right then. So I took a shower, threw on some clothes, grabbed cash from my wallet, and went to get some takeout food. Obviously I should have cooked something, but I didn’t have the energy. It was the same old story.

Or at least it was until I arrived back on my landing carrying the bag from the Thai place, the Styrofoam box inside already cradling me in lovely fragrant steam, and saw that the door to my room had been kicked in.