The Empty Grave

by Jonathan Stroud

  Pale shapes came rushing out of the doorway with horrid leaps and bounds. One was the limping man with the broad-brimmed hat. They plunged past our hiding place and continued on into the road.

  Now, mindless as the wandering dead most probably were, driven only by mute compulsions, they really should have seen us behind those piles of rock. We weren’t hidden very well. For starters, our cloaks still smoked like chimneys, and Kipps’s icy crest-feathers poked like crazy periscopes above the topmost boulder. But the shapes that had pursued us took not the slightest notice of us any longer. Nor did the great group of spirits turn aside from where they jostled in the street. There was something else they wanted even more.

  A small company of silver-clad men and women were progressing slowly up the road from Trafalgar Square. There were six in total, and we knew at once that they were living. They were far more solid than the milling forms around them, and moved with focused, purposeful movements. Metallic clinks and clattering drifted toward us on the freezing air. They were the first such sounds we had heard in hours; the effect was almost shocking.

  All six wore light helmets, and goggles similar to the ones Kipps used. They didn’t have cloaks, but long tunics hanging loosely over pants. These outfits seemed to be made of the same material as the capes we’d taken from the Orpheus Society. Their backs were burdened with ice, and flickered with silent, chilly flames.

  Two of the company, trudging at the center of the group, had clusters of small glass cylinders hanging over their shoulders. The other four (women, I thought) wore silver stilt-legs, similar to the ones worn by the Orpheus secretary. Their job was to protect the men on foot; they carried long defensive poles with silver tips, which they used to keep the dead at bay.

  Altogether, maybe twenty or thirty gray forms swarmed around the little company. They sniffed at the smoke trail, twitching and reaching out for the living with their long pale frozen hands. The proximity of the dead did not disturb the group. The women on stilts waded waist-high through the throng, who rippled back as they sought to evade the painful touch of silver. Occasionally, the stilt-walkers threshed among the figures with their poles, stirring them up as a cook might a stew. There was the smell of burning. All the while, the two men with the cylinders continued marching along the road toward the square. They seemed resigned to the tumult, even slightly bored.

  I looked at the cylinders. Under the coating of ice, you could see that some of them shone with a vibrant light. I thought of the silver fences we’d seen, with the bright white flecks of plasm hanging on them. And I knew that this was a team that collected the plasm from such places, then carried it back to the woman at Fittes House. Suddenly, beneath my weariness and desperation, beneath the awful numbing cold, a great anger flared inside me—a desire to see justice done.

  When the dreadful group had disappeared, we emerged from our hiding places and went on, slowly, stiffly, going in the opposite direction. No one felt the need to speak about it. Everyone understood what we had seen.

  Mists filled Trafalgar Square, and the column rose through them like the launch trail of a rocket, stark and straight and gray against the pitch-black sky. We kept as close to the perimeter as we could; once we had to duck inside the shell of a blackened, frost-blown church as something else on silver legs passed by. Otherwise, we were undisturbed. Soon we came to the great black canyon of the Strand, with cliff-buildings towering above us. It was a scene of desolation, of swirling mists and shadow—and there were the steps of Fittes House rising on the right-hand side.

  We knew it was the place. The frost on the steps had been worn away by the passage of many feet, and a silver net hung suspended in the open doorway to keep the wandering dead at bay. It hung there like a portcullis, like a row of jagged teeth. We watched from the shadows of the building opposite. There was no sign of any silver-clad workers. Everything was still.

  “Got to risk it,” Lockwood croaked. “We can’t wait any longer.”

  “I think my cloak is giving out,” George said. “Let’s just—Wait, what’s that?”

  A golden light was advancing far off along the center of the Strand, shining on the mists, illuminating the buildings as it came. It swelled and grew. At its heart were two figures, approaching side by side. We pressed back against the wall and watched. The first was a woman, tall and beautiful. She wore a silver cloak that went down to her feet; it swished and swirled about her and turned the mist to golden froth. Her long hair was pulled back almost out of sight beneath her hood, but the graceful lines of the face were clear enough. It was the woman known in our London as Penelope Fittes—but we knew her real name.

  Beside her was something that wasn’t human at all. It had the vague shape of a man, tall and slim and glowing with a blazing light. It did not walk, but drifted forward in midair. You could see two golden eyes, and above its head was a coronet of pure white fire. Other than that it was too radiant to look upon. It was the source of the beautiful glow that spun around the woman and lit up the street. We watched them ascend the steps and pass through into Fittes House. The nimbus of light flared around the door and was swallowed by it. Darkness fell again.

  For a long while, none of us moved. Then we looked at one another.

  “Marissa…” Holly said. “And with her…”

  Lockwood nodded. “I think we just saw Ezekiel.”

  It was a strange thing, entering that other version of Fittes House. What a contrast it was to the one we knew. In our world, the entrance foyer was abuzz with business at all hours, ranks of cool receptionists attending to queues of prospective clients; visitors reading magazines on comfy sofas; a small statue of Marissa Fittes blandly watching over all. Here, the foyer was a black and empty room, like a cavern in a coal mine, with a low-slung roof and wet ice on the floor. A few cracked cylinders and plastic oil jugs lay abandoned in the shadows.

  A row of glimmering oil lanterns led us deep into the building, marking a safe route through. It was a necessary measure: in certain places the floor had fallen away completely, or the ceiling had collapsed under the weight of ice. The walls bowed inward; floors slanted. I began to experience the same claustrophobia I’d felt at 35 Portland Row.

  Moving slowly, rapiers out in case of danger, we followed the lights, and soon came to the Hall of Pillars—or its dark and dismal counterpart. Here, disconcertingly, the nine trapped spirits stood, faint and flickering, just as the skull had done in Portland Row. They watched us avidly as we passed, rotating to keep visual pace with us. Pinpricks of light burned in their hollow eyes. Long Hugh Hennratty, the highwayman whose ghost had been one of the first captured by Marissa and Tom Rotwell, grinned lopsidedly above his broken neck. The Clapham Butcher Boy made urgent motions to us with his spectral knife. Fortunately the silver-glass pillars on the other side held firm.

  The spirits could not speak, but that didn’t stop them calling out to us, hooting and crying like owls. As a Listener, I’m used to such stuff, though it was strange to hear it in the silence of the Other Side. It disturbed the others more than me. To their surprise, they found they could hear it, too.

  We left the room in haste, and so came to the Hall of Fallen Heroes, where elevator shafts accessed other floors. In our world, lavender fires burned perpetually here beside the shrine to fallen agents. Here the room was a black void; the six shafts nothing but gaping holes, plugged with mist. The lanterns led us past them, and presently we came to a staircase going down.

  “The gate must be in the basement,” Lockwood said. He mustered a frozen smile. “This is the last push, everyone. Stay strong. We’re almost there.”

  Down we went, flight after flight; and the stairs led us steeply into the earth. We went very slowly now, past openings to unknown levels, and still we saw nothing. Twice, George nearly fell; his legs were giving out, and Kipps and Lockwood had to grapple him under the arms and pull him onward. Holly and I supported each other, too. In this manner, fumbling, disheveled, and almost dead, we came at last to th
e deepest basement beneath Fittes House. It was all we could do to go on now, for our stamina was at an end.

  The lanterns led through a dark and empty chamber toward an arch, and here I finally heard what I’d been straining for all this time: the psychic thrum and tumult of a nearby gate.

  Lockwood sensed it as well. He made a noise that in better times might have been a cry of triumph. We roused ourselves and hobbled forward.

  “And what time do you call this?” said a voice.

  We stopped in our tracks. As one, we raised our hoods a little and stiffly looked around.

  “If I’d have known you’d be this long, I’d have put my curlers in,” the thin youth said. He was standing on the far side of the dark and icy room. His spiky hair gleamed with other-light; otherwise he was as faint and flickering and supercilious as ever.

  “Skull!” A wave of something washed through me. Relief? Pleasure at seeing something familiar in this dreadful place? Whatever it was, it made me warm. “I’m so happy to see you,” I said, hobbling toward him. “How did you get here?”

  “Well, I’m not actually here, am I?” the ghost said. “I’m still in my precious jar, sitting in a brightly lit laboratory storeroom below Fittes House, surrounded by cylinders of stolen essence, and with one or two rather fainthearted scientists pottering about. In fact…hold on…yes, I’ve just scared one of them half to death by showing him the Happy Farmhand. And all while talking to you. Isn’t that clever?” The youth grinned. “I rather think it is.”

  “But how did you—?”

  “Lucy.” Lockwood shuffled alongside me, the others close behind. They were peering at the youth in bafflement. For a moment, I couldn’t understand their confusion, then I realized what it was: they could hear him.

  “This is the skull,” I said.

  Lockwood’s mouth was open. “The skull’s…spirit? He…he looks different.”

  The youth scowled. “Yeah? You look just the same. I was banking on frostbite taking a few of your fingers, or even your nose. Here’s hoping something else has dropped off that I don’t know about. If not, I’ll be sorely disappointed.”

  Lockwood stared. “Does he always talk like this?”

  “No. Usually he’s worse. See what I have to put up with?”

  “Oh, she likes it,” the youth said. “She can’t get enough of it. I cheer her up no end.”

  “Cheer me up now,” I said, “and tell me briefly how you’re here—and what’s on the other side of the gate. We’re going to come across now…if we can.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” the ghost said. “The lab technicians have just gone for a coffee break. I think they were getting tired of all my faces. And the last Other Side shift won’t be back for another hour. Well, I say it’s not a problem. That’s assuming you’ve got enough energy to survive the crossing.” It cast its eyes over us. “Let’s see—hangdog, lackluster, clearly dead on your feet. George in particular looks like he’d fall to pieces if you took off that cape.”

  George drew himself up. “Hey, nothing’s falling off me. Just a bit stiff, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, sure. In ideal shape for a finale.”

  “Don’t lump me in with these lightweights,” Kipps said.

  “And Kipps…” The scrawny youth stared at him. “How are you feeling, then?”

  Kipps blinked. “Me? Great. Why?”

  “No reason.” The ghost’s image flickered out, then returned to cast contemplative eyes around the empty room. “I’ll keep it short,” it said. “Sir Rupert Gale brought me to Fittes House to be ‘assessed’ or ‘processed’ or chucked in the furnaces, whatever they want to do. He brought me down here, and I’ve been sitting in this lab ever since, watching a steady stream of madmen put on silly suits and go back and forth to the Other Side. Marissa herself came past just now. She took off her cape and caught an elevator up top. She was in a hurry. Didn’t stop to say hello.”

  “Marissa came by?” Lockwood asked. “Was she alone?”

  “Hey, Lucy asks the questions around here,” the youth said. “You can’t just horn in and take over like you’re the leader or something. Where’s your respect?”

  I cleared my throat. “Please, Skull, was Marissa on her own?”

  “There—see? That’s how it’s done.” The ghost smiled broadly at Lockwood. “Yes, Lucy, she was on her lonesome. Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ve got to follow her.” A thought occurred to me. “What time is it now, in the living world? Is it morning yet?” I had a sudden desperate yearning to see the sun.

  “Nope. Clock on the wall says just past midnight. Hours yet till dawn.”

  Lockwood spoke through cracked lips. “Wait! That can’t be true! Winkman and Gale raided Portland Row just after midnight. It’s got to be later than that.”

  “It is. Twenty-four hours later. I was brought here early morning, and a whole long day’s gone by.” The youth grinned maliciously at us, and in that grin the face in the jar was clearly visible. “I said you’d been a while.”

  Our faces had sagged. “Impossible,” Holly whispered. “We’d have known….”

  “That’s the thing about being dead,” the ghost said. “You lose all track of time.”

  There was no further delay; no one wanted to stay a moment more. The others shuffled toward the arch. Only I hung back.

  “Thanks, Skull,” I said. “I’m glad I found you.” I hesitated. “Listen, seeing you with a face and body and everything, it seems a bit weird to still be calling you ‘Skull.’ Can’t you tell me your name?”

  “Nah, forgotten it.” The youth shrugged; the dark eyes glittered. “Besides, shared names come with trust.”

  I looked at him. “Yeah. Well, whatever. I’ll pick you up when I get through.”

  “If you want. Oh, one other thing,” the skull added as I turned away. “Kipps.”

  “What about him?”

  “Anything happen to him recently?”

  “No.”

  “Sure about that, are you?”

  Before I could answer, I heard Holly calling me. Limping as fast as I could across the room, I went in through the arch—and saw the gate.

  Actually, calling it a gate doesn’t really do it justice. It was more than that. It was a bridge, a checkpoint, a highway for the living to pass through. George had been right. Lockwood’s parents had been right. For years, hidden here, in this basement below Fittes House in the heart of London, there had been a permanent route between our world and the Other Side.

  It was a large chamber lit by lanterns, and in the center was a pit. The pit was circular in shape and very broad, and it had a low wall built right around it. This wall, about the height of my knee, was made of solid iron. Thus, at a stroke, the Fittes Agency had dispensed with the hassle and impermanence of iron chains. Although the precise contents of the pit could not be seen, I knew it was stuffed with Sources—the familiar column of hazy light rose above it, packed with trapped and rushing forms.

  To cross the pit, the designers hadn’t bothered with small-time stuff like hanging chains. Instead, an iron walkway or bridge—thin, but very solid—led up across the wall and spanned the center of the pit, before disappearing into the swirling haze. I couldn’t see to the far side, but I knew that if we passed along it, we would be back in the living world.

  The others were waiting for me at the start of the bridge. I could scarcely recognize them beneath their crusted, steaming capes. Forget the spirits whirling in the pit beyond. We were five shapeless demons, made monstrous by our journey.

  “There’s just a chance someone will be in the room on the other side,” Lockwood said. With stiff, hesitant movements, he drew his sword. “I’ll go first. Holly, I want you to help George across. Kipps—you come behind George, with Lucy at the end. It’s the same deal as before. Heads down, ignore the ghosts. No one hang back for anything.”

  He didn’t have the energy for more, but turned and stepped onto the iron walkway.
You could see him flinch as he approached the psychic maelstrom, but he didn’t stop. The haze closed around him, and he could no longer be seen.

  Holly followed him onto the bridge; she stood to wait for George.

  As George climbed onto the walkway, he tripped and fell. Kipps reached out an arm to catch him. In doing so, his coat of icy feathers swung aside, and I saw his tattered jersey below, with the tear in its side where Sir Rupert Gale’s rapier had cut through. The fabric hung open, and I caught a single awful glimpse of the gaping wound beneath.

  The coat fell back into place. Kipps steadied George, helped him stand upright. Holly held out her hand to him; she and George moved forward. They shuffled up the walkway, shoulders bent, heads bowed, their cloaks humped and frozen like tortoise shells beneath their burdens of smoking ice. On either side, spirits moaned and chattered; pale arms reached out for them but broke asunder as they neared the strips of iron. Soon Holly and George had passed over the center of the pit and were gone.

  Kipps began to follow them.

  “Quill,” I said. “Hold on.”

  He looked back at me. “What? Come on! This is what we’ve been waiting for! We can find Marissa, bring her down!” His eyes were sparkling; he was grinning with the thrill of the chase. I’d never seen him so alive.

  “Wait.” My voice was thick. “Don’t go through.”

  He scowled. For a second it was the old Kipps, back again. “Why not? Don’t be stupid, Lucy.”

  It wasn’t easy to talk, and not just because of the cold. “Why do you think you’re starting to feel so good here?” I said. “So…at home?”

  He stared at me. “What? What nonsense are you talking about?”

  “It’s just…just…Quill, that injury you got…”

  He gave his little barking laugh. “When you say at home, Lucy, it’s almost like you’re saying—” Through the icy goggles his eyes held mine, and then he understood. The light slowly went out of them, like a flower closing. His face was a pale mask. Then he lifted up his cape and, ignoring the steaming, cracking ice that fell from the feathers, looked underneath it at his shadowed side. He didn’t move for a while. He let the feathers drop back into position. He nodded once, very slowly, as if to himself. He didn’t look at me.