The Screaming Staircase

by Jonathan Stroud

  Down below was where the action was tonight. I was in a central space with three squared arches on either side. These led to the north/south platforms of the old Victoria Line. The curved walls still had their original white ceramic tiles, but in many places these had been levered off, and a shallow hole gouged out. Candles burned in these alcoves, their smoke weaving woozily against the ceilings, where old lamps hung like black, fat-bodied spiders. Everything shimmered with a soft and avaricious golden light: the tiles, the escalators, the black-garbed relic-men and women all around.

  There were dozens of them, milling in little huddles by folding tables where food, drink, and various implements of their profession were on display. Some were young, like Flo; others, bent and weathered like windblown trees, showed evidence of age and long privation: all were dirty, calloused, and hard of jaw and eye. They conversed in low voices, guarding their words carefully; the atmosphere was heavy with distrust.

  “Look at them.” Lockwood had dropped down beside me. “It’s like a medical textbook come to life.”

  “I know. I wonder if we gave ourselves quite enough warts.”

  Most of the relic-men seemed to be gravitating toward the arches on the right. A thrum of palpable excitement echoed from within, with many voices raised. And beneath that was a deeper psychic hum, like wasps buzzing in a buried pot. Muffled by silver-glass, maybe, but significant nevertheless.

  And these weren’t the only things I heard.

  “Lucy…Lucy, help me….”

  I dug Lockwood in the ribs. “We need to go that way. Come on.”

  We passed through the arch into what had once been the northbound platform. Now it was an immensely long, low-curving room, lit along its length by candles and hanging lanterns. Nearby gaped one of the tunnel mouths, plugged in part by an enormous wall of sandbags. Some of the bags were filled with iron filings, some with salt; they’d been slashed open, and the gray-white powder lay across the surface of the wall, as dirty and crusted as month-old snow. Cold air drifted out of the tunnel and with it came strong psychic unease. Again I sensed the distant screaming.

  At the base of the sandbags, the old tracks could still be seen, but along most of the room these had been concealed beneath rough wooden boards, built out from the edge of the platform. They had the effect of doubling the width of the space. A good many relic-men were congregating here, talking, arguing, making their slow, shuffling way toward a table halfway up the platform.

  It was well-lit by black candlesticks, tall as a man, that had been arranged behind it; and even from a distance, I knew who sat there. I recognized their silhouettes: a woman, large-boned, with massive arms and shoulders; and a short, squat person wearing a broad-brimmed bowler hat.

  Adelaide Winkman and her son, Leopold: the most powerful black marketeers in London.

  One by one, the relic-men were arriving at the table, showing their psychic wares, being paid (or not), and moving on. I could hear the clink of coins. Beside the table stood three impassive, muscular men. My eyes narrowed. It was not too hard a stretch to imagine them being the murderers of Harold Mailer, the ones who had chased me across the gardens of Clerkenwell.

  “Watch where the flunkies go, Luce.” Lockwood was mouthing in my ear. “They’re not storing the objects at the table, so they must be taking them somewhere….”

  It was hard to advance far along the platform. Most of the people there were hoping to reach the Winkmans’ table, and they resented our efforts. Staying in character, we shrugged off their insults and shouldered our way on. Once I caught a glimpse of Flo, arguing with someone in the crowd. Her eyes met mine, but passed on without any sign of recognition.

  And then, that voice again. “Lucy…I’m here.”

  My stomach twisted with exhilaration. We were close! I turned my face toward the wall so that no one would see me speak. “Skull? Skull—is that you?”

  “Let me see…Ooh, no, it’s another Type Three disembodied spirit who knows your name and your purpose and happens to be stored nearby.”

  That settled the matter. No other spirit could be that sarcastic. “It’s you.”

  “Of course it’s me! Get me out of this dungeon right now!”

  “It’s not that easy. And a bit of gratitude wouldn’t go amiss, either. Where are you?”

  “Some tiled room. Old cloakroom, maybe. Probably a former ladies’ room, knowing my luck. Neon light flickering over the door.”

  I looked along the platform; a short way beyond where the Winkmans sat, I did notice a faintly flickering light. Its source was lost in the room’s curve. “I think I see it. We’re in line to get to you.”

  “What, are you queuing now? Just how British are you people? Don’t just stand in line! Kill somebody!”

  “Lucy…” Lockwood’s dirty face loomed near. “You’re mumbling to yourself.”

  “It’s the skull. I can hear it. It’s close by.”

  Lockwood glanced around at the shuffling, stinking relic-men. “I think we’re all right. Half of these bozos talk to themselves all the time anyway. Still, keep it down.”

  “Lucy, you’ve got to get me out of here.” The skull’s voice broke in on my thoughts again. “They’re taking me to the place of blood.”

  “The place of blood? What does that mean?”

  “Well now, I should think it’s quite a jolly spot where nice things happen and everyone’s good chums together….How do I know what it is? With a name like that, it’s got to be bad news, even for me! There’s some hideous stuff piled up here…Your friend Guppy’s Source, for one.”

  “Guppy’s Source?” I stared at Lockwood, who grimaced. “Not that jar of teeth?”

  “Yeah. They were very pleased with that.”

  “Who’s ‘they’? The Winkmans?”

  “Search me. A woman in a flowery dress that makes her look like last year’s sofa, and some kid with a face like a slapped butt.”

  “That’s them.”

  “It’s their men who brought me here. They’re not the bosses, though. There’s a guy here, too. At the end of all this, they’ll sell me to him.”

  “Ah! The collector! What’s he look like?”

  “Erm…” The voice grew vague. “Just a bloke. About yay high, neither this nor that….He’s actually quite difficult to describe. Tell you what, you might see him yourself if you swing past and rescue me. Are you alone?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t tell me. I know who it is. Stands to reason he’d help you.” Even at a distance, the appalling parody of Lockwood’s voice was clear. “‘What? A suicidal mission, you say, Lucy? Certain death, you say? Just what I enjoy. Sign me up!’ Well, all the better if it is Lockwood. You can sacrifice him to rescue me. I call that a very decent swap.”

  Fury filled me. “You foul skull! I swear I’m going to leave you right there.”

  There was a pause. The voice spoke again, more quietly. “This isn’t just about me, Lucy. This is big. Come and get me, and I’ll tell you what they’re doing. Death’s in Life and Life’s in Death, Lucy. This is the proof of it.”

  I snorted. “Proof of what? What does that actually mean?” But the psychic connection had broken off, and Lockwood was shaking my arm. Taking a breath, I told him what I’d heard.

  He scratched at his black wig; beneath the cheek paste and eyeliner, his face was genuinely pale. “It’s not going to be easy, Luce,” he said, “but I can get you access to that room. The catch is, you’ll need to deal with whoever’s in there on your own. Up for it?”

  My anger at the skull still boiled inside me. The comments about Lockwood had made me feel queasy with guilt. But there would only be one answer. I nodded. “Yup.”

  “I’ve missed you so much, Lucy.”

  Okay, what with the wig and the makeup, and his blacked-out teeth, he didn’t look too great right then; but behind his gappy grin shone the old Lockwood smile, and that smile and those words together swept everything else aside. All guilt and queasiness were gone,
and I was conscious of nothing other than the thrill of being there with him.

  “You, too,” I began—but he didn’t hear me. He was still talking, telling me the plan.

  “So I’ll cause a diversion,” Lockwood said, “that’ll distract everyone by the table. When they’re busy, you just walk straight past and into the room. Then you’ll have to be back out again with the skull in the blink of an eye.”

  Now if it had been me making that suggestion, and I’d been putting it to Ted Daley or Tina Lane or one of the other lame-duck agents I’d worked with in my freelance career, there’d have followed a long series of questions as they tried to weasel their way out of doing anything remotely dangerous. But it was Lockwood making the suggestion, and me listening, and though my veins fizzed at the danger he was putting himself in, I didn’t waste time or effort. I only nodded. If Lockwood saw a way, I went with it. He trusted me. I trusted him. That’s how we stayed alive.

  “Great,” he said. “Two minutes—and I’ll meet you back here. Then we stroll to the ladder and get out. Ready? Okay. Three, two, one—go.”

  No sooner said than done. I set off, keeping to the curve of the wall. I slipped past the first few men in the line in front of me, ignoring their exclamations of annoyance. At every point I expected someone to pull me back. I drew nearer to the table, to where the Winkmans sat, surrounded by the men in black. And now I saw that there were two other men farther on, standing guard at a little arch, beneath the flashing neon light. At any moment I’d be spotted, and the enemy would descend on me….

  There was a sudden cry behind me, a heavy blow, a roar of rage. Everyone at the table looked up. I could hear the sounds of repeated punches, rude insults, the shouting of the crowd. It was an almighty clamor. All eyes were on it. The men beside the archway left their posts and ran past me without a glance. Lockwood’s diversion was successfully under way.

  Lockwood…My heart hammered against my chest. I was desperate to turn around, see what he was doing, but that wasn’t part of the plan. Without a backward glance I walked quickly past the table to the arch, and stepped through it into a small room.

  Whatever the skull’s complaints, I didn’t think the chamber had ever been a ladies’ room. It was far too spacious. It was a simple tiled recess, once probably used for railway supplies, and now a storeroom of a different kind. In its center, a long trestle table had been erected; on that table, and in neat piles on the floor to either side, sat silver-glass boxes and jars of varying size, and each one of those containers was full. I glimpsed bones, lumps of ragged cloth, pieces of jewelry, the usual bric-a-brac that makes up supernatural Sources. But there were powerful ones among them; I could feel the psychic buzzing even through the glass.

  Very powerful, some of them. There, in a silver-glass box halfway up one pile, I spied the Ealing Cannibal’s tooth collection.

  And there, propped precariously at the end of the table, a certain familiar ghost-jar.

  The ichor that surrounded the skull was thick and syrupy, but tiny pulses of green throbbed in its center, and the ghost’s voice echoed in my mind.

  “At last! Am I glad to see you! Right, stab this guy quickly, and let’s be going.”

  I didn’t answer. I needed to concentrate. I was not the only person in the room.

  Behind the table, sitting on a plastic folding chair, was a man. A small man in a black suit with a dull blue tie. Those aspects I could instantly attest to. The rest was curiously vague; even as I looked at him, the details were slipping from my mind. He had nondescript brown hair, slicked back away from a bland, slightly shapeless face; he also had an expression of mild concentration; the tip of his tongue protruded from the side of his mouth. He had a cigarette in one hand, and with the other he was making notes on a piece of paper with a pen. But distinguishing features that would pick him out in a crowd? None.

  Something about this overt and almost aggressive ordinariness made me assume that he was not the person I was looking for. He was a bookkeeper, an underling—certainly not the mysterious collector for whom the Winkmans toiled. But another part of my mind was jolted to sudden alertness. I felt as though I had seen him before.

  Even as I made this connection, the skull’s voice came again. “Beware this man,” it said. “He doesn’t look like much, but he’s dangerous. Oh, great—I see you forgot your sword.”

  The little man looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. “Who are you, please? You are not welcome here.”

  It was a precise, finicky, almost waspish sort of voice, and now I knew I was right. It was familiar to me. A voice that dealt in figures and paperwork and bureaucratic details, as well as the qualities of the strange, unpleasant psychic relics on the tabletop before him. A voice that kept tabs on things, that reported on them to others…

  “Who are you?” the man asked again.

  I’d met him. Not so long ago.

  “Fiddler, sir,” I said, giving a small salute. “Jane Fiddler. Mrs. Winkman sent me. There’s been a mistake with one of the items. That manky skull in the jar. We should have brought you a different skull, sir. This one’s a dud.”

  “Dud?” The little man frowned over at the jar, then down at his jottings. “It’s in an official containment vessel. Old, too; it’s the style of jar used by the Fittes Agency years ago. They didn’t often make mistakes.”

  “Did with this one, sir. The thing’s got almost no psychic force. Old bit of junk that needs burning, Mrs. Winkman says. She’s sent for the good skull now; it’ll be along in a minute. I’m to take the useless one away. She sends her apologies.” I made a sort of tentative saunter toward the skull.

  “Apologies? From Adelaide Winkman?” The man rested his cigarette carefully in an ashtray and folded his hands over his neat little belly. “That doesn’t sound like her.”

  “The mix-up’s caused all sorts of problems. Can you hear that racket?” I swiveled a thumb toward the door, where loud thumps and shouts could still be heard. Anxiety for Lockwood welled inside me, but I kept my voice calm. “Some of the boys out there are getting very worked up.”

  The man sniffed. “How tiresome. You people really are revolting.” With an irritated gesture he picked up the piece of paper before him. It was attached to a plastic clipboard—and, with sudden startling clarity, I realized who he was.

  Five nights ago, in the foyer of the insurance company. I’d looked down from the balcony, battered and bruised from my encounter with the ghost of Emma Marchment; I’d seen the Rotwell group, with Mr. Farnaby, my stupid supervisor, reclining in his chair. And at Farnaby’s shoulder, supervising the supervisor, clipboard in his hand…

  The man from the Rotwell Institute, the soft-spoken, anonymous Mr. Johnson.

  I reached the table, stretched out casually for the ghost-jar. “I know. We are appalling, aren’t we? Sorry. Well, Adelaide will be along in a minute to explain.”

  “My mother will be along to explain what?”

  And with that, my outstretched hand curled up like a scalded spider and retreated from the jar. Slowly, stiffly, I looked back toward the arch.

  It would be a lie to say the doorway was blocked by a menacing shadow. Half of it was, but only the lower portion, because while he was pretty broad (and broader still thanks to the ridiculous shoulder pads on his expensive fur coat) Leopold Winkman wasn’t very tall. He had the bulky but diminished physique of a wrestler who’d been hit by a grand piano falling from a height, and the wide brim of his hat and loud checks on his designer suit only made him look more horizontal still. He was in his mid-teens, his face dumpling-soft and malleable, with a toad-like mouth strongly reminiscent of his father, the imprisoned Julius Winkman. Despite his soft and dandified appearance, his character was reminiscent of Julius, too. In the London underworld, Leopold had a reputation for precocious ruthlessness. His eyes were bullet-hard and blue.

  I didn’t say anything. We stood staring at each other.

  Behind me, I heard Mr. Johnson’s bland tones. “S
he wants the skull in the jar.”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Like your ma ordered. She did tell you, right? Go and ask her.”

  I didn’t expect him to buy it; it was a hopeless situation. But while his brain worked, I ran my eyes over the tabletop next to me. I figured I had about five seconds.

  “My ma?” Leopold Winkman said. “She wouldn’t have asked a grubby little punk like you to—” His face changed; grew suddenly slack. Whether it was the limitations of my disguise, or because he remembered who had owned the skull, or simply because of the way I’d looked at him, clear-eyed and contemptuous, he finally got it. “Wait…” He took a slow step back. “Wait, I know who you are. Lucy Carlyle!”

  “Don’t worry.” It was the skull’s whisper. “You can take him, big girl like you.”

  Leopold flung back his coat, revealing a pistol at his belt.

  “Or possibly not,” the skull said.

  But I was already diving for the table, seizing the skull’s jar and tucking it under one arm, grabbing at another silver-glass box, and hurling it at Winkman. As I did so, I ducked. The gun went off. Glass shattered beside me; one of the boxes on the table exploded, fragments pattering against my back. The box I’d thrown cracked into Winkman’s shins, bowling him over. He dropped the gun and rolled onto his back, squealing.

  “Shrimp down,” the skull said. “Nice.”

  There was a concussion of air beside me, strong enough to move the wig across my head. From the shattered box in the center of the table rose a blue-white shape. Winkman’s bullet had freed its ghost. Mr. Johnson sensed it. He sprang off his chair, retreating to the back of the room.

  I didn’t stay to see how he fared. With the ghost-jar in my arms, I leaped over Leopold and made for the arch….

  Only to find it truly blocked this time—by a one-eyed relic-boy little older than me. He carried a curved knife with a serrated edge. Behind him, two of Winkman’s men were also stepping bulkily into view.

  “My turn,” the skull said. “Lift up the jar and keep going.”