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—————Lockwood—————
This is a story best left untold. Forgotten. Left behind. A story that should never have to be repeated by words, by ink or by actions, by no tangible way. But in love and honor of that who suffered the most in this story, I shall retell it to the best of my capability.
It all started a few months after we defeated Penelope Fittes. Things were looking better for all agencies; ghosts were starting to decrease in apparitions, the Orpheus Society was apprehended and dismantled, and the amount of ghost-touch deaths became little to none among almost all cases. Ghosts were not as strong as they used to be, not even the most dangerous Type Twos encountered.
That was, until one morning a male agent was found dead on the streets. He wasn’t ghost-touched and there wasn’t any signs of ghost lock. The boy had been stabbed to death.
This was no real surprise for police men; not even the Problem had been able to truly stop night murders from happening. It appeared on the newspaper, the family was devastated, the usual for a murder but no one gave it much thought.
Until the next day, another male agent was found death on the streets. Again, stabbed many times in his chest. Then another boy the next day, and the next and the next and the next after that. Every morning a new male agent, sometimes more than one, was found cold death among the streets, stabbed, gutted, dismembered. Every kill was worse than the last one, and no one, no policeman, no detective, had an idea of who the killer was. But no female agent was found dead.
Agencies began fearing sending their agents to work, afraid that they wouldn’t come back and would have to call the authorities. DEPRAC did not stand aside during this crisis; they helped the police and detective departments with what they could, searching for evidence, analyzing the data and evaluating the testimonies from those agents that had been friends with the killed ones, but no one had an idea of who the killer could be.
Finally, DEPRAC called every ghost-hunting agency to a meeting of outmost importance, in which they announced that, until the killer was found, no male agent was to be sent to work on any case, and that anyone with any kind of information on the murderer should come and give it. We male agents and supervisors were enraged; to think that only girls would be able to go out and do our job was humiliating at least, but DEPRAC didn't budge.
But this was not enough to stop the murderer; after one night of no new-found-dead, a Night Watch boy was found in a cemetery, strangled to dead. The authorities were hysterical, still no clues; the assassin was too clever it seemed; no DNA proof, no weapon left behind, not a sign that could point as to who was the creator of this disaster.
This went on for weeks, DEPREAC also asked Night Watch boys not come out at night, but the murderer found his way around regulations; it started entering houses, always attacking boys, killing them in their sleep and left them to be found in the morning by their families.
One day, however, Mr Barnes appeared at my door, along a team of policemen. They barged into 35 Portland Row, not careful enough as to not displace the other-cultured decorations on the walls.
“Mr Barnes, what is the meaning of this?” I demanded as the men breached my property. They walked around the halls, entering the rooms while pointing their guns in front of them.
“Where is the rest of your team, Mr Lockwood?” Was the only answer I got.
“They are upstairs in the kitchen” I should have not replied to that question, but I did, and that was my gravest mistake. Mr Barnes and the men moved past me and upstairs, with me trailing behind them. They marched into the kitchen where I sat with George, Lucy, Holly and Quill a mere moments ago. As soon as the weaponized men entered the room, they all stood from their seats, with Quill and George in a slightly protective manner. This did not bother the policemen, who silently moved around them and towards Lucy.
“Miss Carlyle?”
“Yes?” She took a small step back, only to find another man standing behind her.
“You are now under arrest” The man closer to her pulled her hands to her back and pushed her on the table, keeping her from moving.
“Mr Barnes, what is the meaning of this?!” I repeated my question, now highly angered. Who were this men and what were they doing to Lucy?!
“I am afraid we have to take Miss Carlyle away, Mr Lockwood” George and Quill, who had tried to get the man away from Lucy, were now being held at gunpoint on the other side of the room, while Holly was guarded by another black-bullet-proof-vested man in case she tried anything.
“You have the right to remain silent” The policeman huffed while he fumbled with the cuffs. Then, Lucy’s calm demeanor was replaced by fighting spirit; she started struggling and wrestling, shaking her back so that the policemen couldn’t put the cuffs on her. This only managed to anger the man, who took out his club.
“No!” I wanted to step forward and stand between the man and Lucy, but I was immediately held by gunpoint, not even giving one step. We could only watch as the man brought down the club on her, time after time, until her struggling died into tired gasps. Once the cuffs were around her wrists firmly holding her down, the man lifted her from the table and made her walk out of the room.
“You cannot do this Mr Barnes!” I called before he left “Lucy has done nothing wrong!”
“That is what we are trying to uncover, Mr Lockwood”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my fighting spirit dying in me at what Barnes was trying to imply. He stared at me and then at the others silently, before deciding we should know.
“We have reason to believe Lucy Carlyle is our loose murderer”
This was, of course, a ridiculous accusation. They had no proofs! They had no facts! No arguments! No validations! No way to claim what they were claiming! And yet we couldn’t do anything to stop them from taking her.
Later that day, we received a letter from a judge, saying that in two days time we were all to show ourselves in court to testify in trial for Miss Lucy Joan Carlyle.
Those nights before the trial there was three more murders, which led me to think that this whole trial was going to be useless. Lucy couldn’t be the murderer, there was no way; she would never hurt anyone, she was not capable of it and I was sure of it.
The day of the trail was oddly bright for a day in which someone was murdered and a suspect would be judged. When we got there Lucy was already there; she was sitting in the seat for the accused, with two burly men on either side, as well as a lawyer. I tried to catch her gaze in a attempt to reassure her, but she kept her eyes dutifully on the table.
They asked us lots of questions about her, how she normally acted, about her past, if she had any changes in behavior during the last weeks, and we all answered honestly. After they were done questioning us, they asked Mr Barnes about how he and the detective department came to the conclusion that Lucy was the murderer. Their answer was simple; a few days ago they found hair that did not belong to the victim on the dead boy’s bloodied body. The hair was taken to the best laboratory in London, where its DNA was researched and compared with the medical records of everyone in the city that the hospitals held, and found only one match: Lucy.
However, the judge did not found this to be enough proof of her guiltiness, so he asked for a psychological test to be done. To me, this was all nonsense.
Before taking her away, the judge asked Lucy if she wanted a few minutes to talk with us, since they had to keep her locked afterwards. We all wanted to talk to her, but she refused. It felt like a stab directly to my gut, but she refused to talk to us and directly asked to be taken away. We were sent on our way back home, while they took Lucy back to wherever they were keeping her, assuring us they would let us know what would happen after the psychological test.
Next day, after investigating the new-found dead boy of the morning, Inspector Barnes and some policemen escorted Lucy to Mrs Harriet Alders’ office, a behavioral psychologist that has worked with the police since her days of youth. She claims it took many hours, more than the ones she usually took with the patients, in which she questioned and questioned Lucy, but she insisted in remaining silent, until, in the end, she broke into angry yelling and admitted all her crimes with bitter tears. She was taken back to her confinement after that.
We were sent a letter the next day revealing this events us and asking us once again to go to court to determine Lucy’s future. I wanted to believe it wasn’t true. I knew it couldn’t be true. Lucy couldn’t be the killer. She had been in prison for the last days and still there were killings going around, how could she ever be the killer!
I sometimes wish I hadn’t gone to the last trial, cause maybe then things would have been different.
That next day was cloudy with a threat of rain.
That next day we weren’t the only ones to be witnesses, they had brought the families of all those murdered.
That next fateful day Lucy was still silent.
Mrs Harriet Alders was there with the test, Mr Barnes held the DNA proof, and then there was all those other people who came to see justice being made. The angered fathers who held heart-broken mothers of those who were killed, boys and girls from all agencies and the Night Watch were there, all of them with looks of utter and pure hate and despise in their tear-stained faces. All directed to Lucy. The love of my life.
The trial hadn’t even begun when things got out of control. Lucy finally tore her gaze from the table in front of her and turned to the guard beside her, whispering something before starting to tremble, at first lightly then becoming alarmingly hard.
The man, seeing the way her arms and legs shook while restrained to the chair, figured it would be better to get her out of the room, so he took the keys and unlocked her.
“…need to breath!…” was all Lucy said before falling on the floor, clutching her chest, her voice steadily rising into panicked screeches “Oh God, what now? Oh God not now! Help me! Somehow, please take the pain away! …how it fills me…this will kill me! Please, God will me somehow to fight! Help me! God have mercy! Don’t let THEM SEE! NOT ON THIS VERY DAY!”
Then she fell silent.
“…Miss Carlyle?” Barnes took a step forward.
“There is no ‘Miss Carlyle’…only I!” She turned around to look at the rest of the people in the room. Her voice had deepened a few tones, but that was the least of our concerns “you are right for once, Barnes, it was I who killed all those boys, but what would you have done with them once the Problem was over? Leave them to rot on the streets?! At least this way their families get compensation for their useless work!”
“Dammit…Miss Carlyle, enough!” He yelled.
“Enough indeed” She replied as one of the guards tried to apprehend her, but she punched him hard on his gut and took the club from its satchel “end of game!”
She threw the club at Barnes and Mrs Harriet, who just managed to get away from it. She jumped to the table and easily broke it, throwing half of it at the guards who were trying to get to her. She threw the other half to the families of the dead, who now looked like they had seen a wraith with their own eyes. We all stood from our seats but unlike the other people, we didn't ran away. One of the guards took out his gun and pointed at Lucy, who was now slowly striding for the aisle.
“Miss Carlyle, step back! Stop! Stop now!” The gun went off one, two, three times, firing at her, scaring the people who were still in the courtroom. The first two bullets went past her as she dodged, but the third one went directly through her arm, snatching a shriek from her as she fell.
“Lucy!” I couldn’t stand it anymore. I ran, ran for her, to her, knowing that with me there no one would pull another trigger “Oh God, Lucy!” I kneeled close to her, with her back to me, yet I could hear her ragged breaths.
“Mr Lockwood, no! Stay back!” But I didn’t listened. I was just a crawl from her and I wouldn’t back away.
“Lucy!” Her breathing began evening “Lucy, its me! If this is you…show me”
“GRHAA!” She jumped on me and I yelled. Lucy pushed me to the floor and sat on top of me, her hands swiftly clasping my neck and applying pressure.
“No!” I heard George yell.
“Stop her!”
“Stay!” Lucy called back to her attackers “Or he dies!”
“Lucy…” I managed to choke out, my hands firmly resting on her wrists “I know…you don’t want…to hurt me! I know you can hear me!”
Her gaze came back to me while I gasped scaredy. Her hands were strong enough to end me and they were every time heavier on my neck. As I choked those words her eyes seemed to start to re-soften so I kept my breathless rant going.
“…let me go” my voice steadier as her hands ever-so-slowly started to leave my neck “Lucy, please…for us, let me go…please”
Her hands flew away from me like if I was fire. She fell from my stomach and into the floor. I gasped grandly, taking in mouthfuls of air. Lucy looked around the room, which now only contained her, me, no standing guards, George, Holly and Quill. She crawled away from me and towards Quill as non-threateningly as she could manage with a bullet-drilled arm. Quill backed away from her but she stopped when she was a respectable distance from him.
“Do it, Quill” She begged miserably. None of us understood what she meant, until we noticed how Quill had his rapier drawn before him, ready to strike her if she attacked him “I beg you! SET ME FREE!”
He remained silent, small tears forming on the corners of his eyes.
“…I can’t” he stuttered.
“As my friend, Quill!” Her plea was broken by her heart-felt voice and she extended her arms, offering herself fully to him, however, Quill made no move “forgive me”
Her hands flew to the rapier and she lunged forward, Quill doing the same out of instinct, the blade instantly cutting through her chest and out of her back.
“NO! NO!” I pushed myself from the floor in time to catch her as she fell. Quill had let go of the rapier, which was still perched in Lucy’s chest. Her eyes were distant and changed from pained to angered. Her hands clawed at her chest for something beneath her clothes, which she finally took; the necklace I gave her for that Fittes party so many years ago.
“Lockwood…” Her voice was strained in her throat, her eyes suddenly focusing and defocusing on and from me “Lock…wood,…lock…”
“Rest now…my tortured love” I whispered as her head fell on my lap, her final breath landing on my face.
There was no trial after that.
There was no killing that night. Or the next. Or the next, and the next after that one. No boy was found dead after that, no family woke up to the painful discovery of a murdered son laying in his bed.
The killer had been taken care of.
However, Mr Barnes was still a razonable man, and agreed to keep the murderer’s identity a secret from the public, and swore to silence all those who witnessed the ‘trial’.
Lucy was given a marvelous funeral, one worthy of one of the Problem’s Heroes, the First to Fall. At least that’s what was decided she would be called. They even gave her a worthy story: she was the murderer’s last victim, the first female to die in its hands, but taking its life with her in revenge of all those assassinated boys that fought the Problem for years like her.
The whole city of London cried when one of the youngest heroes gave her life so shortly after defeating the Problem. Even the sky remained solemn and grey during her funeral.
She was placed on a beautiful silver coffin worthy of a queen. They placed her in the it with the clothes she liked the most, chosen by Holly; leggings, skirt, shirt and her work boots, looking like a fallen warrior on the red silk and cushion that colored the coffin’s interior. She was paraded around the city for the people to commemorate her, and was finally placed six ft. underground along with those boys who had recently been buried. The tombstone was decorated with flower vines engravings, along with her name, her title and her birth and death dates.
Lucy Joan Carlyle
The First to Fall
March 13, 1969 - October 28, 1986
I cried the whole ceremony. And the parade and the paying-of-respects and as they closed her coffin to finally lower her to the ground. Lucy’s sister, Mary, was the only member of her family who attended. She told us how she and Lucy sent letters to each other, and of how much Lucy told about us in them, how much we meant to her, how much she loved us and how much he hated putting our lives at risk.
The days after that one seemed to drag; mornings were long, afternoons were restless and nights were disturbing, painful all together. Our hearts were heavy, our souls desolate. Nothing could brighten our days, and work was not endearing at all, since no one was crossing to The Other Side anymore.
People all around us gave us their condolences, telling us they too highly lamented Lucy’s death, but that she died a hero. But she didn’t. Lucy didn’t die a hero. She died a murderer.
I wanted to do something other than cry. I wanted to scream and punch things, I wanted to be angry at something, everything, anything! I wanted to be angry to that who took my beloved from my side!
But there was no one to be angry at but Lucy herself. She killed those boys. She brought fate upon herself.
That’s how it seemed at least.
I hadn’t had the courage to come close to Lucy’s old room since her death, fearing what I might find. Her clothes, her hairbrush, her sketches, each and everyone of the things that reminded me of her and of when she was alive with me.
However, I wanted to have something of her, something that would remind me of her, every waking hour of every single day. Something to remind me of the love we both shared after we had confessed.
As soon as I stepped into the room the fading scent of Lucy attacked my nose and I wept. I wept for hours all over the room; in her old bed, in her old pillow, in her old clothes, in everything that still kept her scent of tea and lavender. After countless hours of emotional outlet, I finally brought myself to the task I had come to fulfill.
I found many things I wished to keep; her favorite jacket, her old perfume, some drawings she made of all of us: me, George, Holly, Quill, the skull and finally one of all of us together. She was always so talented.
Yet, the biggest thing I discovered in the room, was the only thing Lucy never shared with another living soul; a diary. Or more like a thinking journal. Like the thinking cloth, but much more organized. I figured this one was the last one she started for it only went to a few months back (I soon found all her other journals in a box under her bed), to before we confronted Penelope Fittes.
It felt wrong to me that I was so curious as to what was written in it, and I’m ashamed to say I read it from top to bottom. However, this journal held the answers to my every question. This journal held the key to my confusion. This journal brought peace to me after everything that happened.
And so I will share with you the entries that held the answer to my prayers. The entries that gave reason to everything that happened:
February 20, 1986
My bravest Journal:
The skull has finally come back. After all this time! After almost a month of disappearance it came back! I was overjoyed to see that it was still alright, however, the connection was troubled. He said it was because his source was half destroyed and that that could bring him trouble to appear in this world. He said it would be better to look for a new source.
I was not aware ghosts could change their source. Maybe only Type Threes can do that.
Believe me when I say I did this with no intention. I didn’t thought of it before hand, but it is already done. I offered the skull to take the necklace Lockwood gave me for the Fittes party all those years ago, and told him to use it as a source. I don’t know what I was thinking when I said that, maybe I wasn’t thinking at all, but he accepted.
The necklace got cold like any other source, and the connection wasn’t troubled anymore.
I must not tell of this to anyone, only God know what Lockwood would do if he found out.
-Lucy J. Carlyle
———
April 15, 1986
My bravest Journal:
London has a killer on the loose.
It has only been a few days since the first murder, and six boys have already been found dead.
I have also been feeling tired this last days, but I’m not sure why. All the cases we have had have been fairly easy, we never come back home that late. Maybe its all those years of poor sleeping schedules finally catching up with me.
-Lucy J. Carlyle
———
June 5, 1986
My bravest Journal:
DEPRAC has called us; no male agent is to set a foot in the street after dark, only female agents are allowed to work now. This has made Lockwood rather angry, as well as George and Quill.
I’m not sure what to think. Lately I can barely keep my mind in a steady topic. I seem to start zoning out easily, if Holly’s and George’s words are anything to go by.
I can’t understand what is it that is keeping me like this. The skull said I was just stressed, probably because the murderer is still loose.
I hope he is right.
-Lucy J. Carlyle
———
July 20, 1986
My bravest Journal:
I don’t understand what is happening.
I constantly feel uneasy. Watched. There are things that are following me, constantly.
Figures that hide in shadows, in objects, in others faces! Things that come up behind my back and when I turn around they are never there!
Night is day. Day is night!
I suspect the skull has something to do with all of this.
Every time Holly and I go out at night to work, there are policemen all around us, looking. Are they looking for me?
What have I done wrong?!
Could there be something I’m not aware of?
-Lucy J. Carlyle
———
September 26, 1986
My bravest Journal:
The world has gone insane.
All kind of parasites eat me, all the time. Every time I go out, there are wolves howling in my hunt. I float on a lake -I’m put upside down! But when I try to breath I start to drown!
Ghosts that come to look for me during the day! Faceless and human-hungry.
Fiendish creatures taunt me, old friends rise from their graves to haunt me, godforsaken images daunt me!
Everywhere I turn, I see nightmares even worse than before, closing in on me.
Satanic demons, seas of snakes, grinning reapers!
Bad is good, good is bad! The world is berserk, profane.
I cannot speak of this. Not to Lockwood, not to George, not to Holly, or Flo, or Quill. He won't let me.
-Lucy J. Carlyle
— — —
October 19, 1986
My bravest Journal:
I now understand what happens.
The killings have not stopped. If only, they have worsened. It is all my fault. I should have not let the skull take my necklace as his source, if I hadn’t, all this could have been avoided. What has happened sounds so stupid to me, but I let it happen; I freed the skull from his prison when I shattered the glass, and now he resides in my necklace, which gives him a strong bond with me. I should not be surprised, but he has been taking advantage of the stronger bond we now share, and months ago he found a way to posses me.
It has been me all along. The killer on the loose. He takes control of my body as he pleases, when he pleases, and does as he pleases with it. I had never noticed before since he only took me when I was already sleeping. And even after I noticed, I couldn’t stop him, his influence in me is too strong.
I now see horrendous beings around me, and when I try to tell anyone, he takes control.
This seems to be one thing Marissa Fittes was right about, Type Threes are deceiving and power-hungry, with no goodwill and no way to fight their own nature, and it is a good thing there are so few of them.
I don’t expect to find a way out of this. I know they will eventually find me. Hopefully then, the demons I see will cease to taunt me.
-Lucy J. Carlyle
All of this only managed to make me cry harder. My dearest Lucy, having to go through all of this, on her own. I couldn’t bear the thought of her having to see the things she described on her entries; the monsters that she thought were after her, the ghosts that she saw in day’s plain light, the animals that hunted her vision, the demons that plagued her every waking moment.
To know that her lips were sealed from sharing this torments by a dead creature that harassed her possessions, preventing her from stopping him.
I will never be able to understand what Lucy went through during her last living months, specially her final weeks in which she was already conscious of what was being done with her. All those boys that died in her tiny hands, they suffered greatly, beyond anything that they could ever imagine, but they were not the ones who suffered the most.
She who’s lips were locked, she who had the visions, she who wrote what she saw, she who begged for mercy where there was none, she who out of kindness damned herself to the biggest punishment conceivable. She was the one who suffered the most.
In her honor and in seek of justice for her I write this.
This is my final display of love for her.
Lucy Carlyle, rest in peace, my tormented love.