Chapter Text
“Stop! Or I fire!”
Winkman had risen up behind the table, his face blackened, his hair blown back, pince-nez askew. Burned salt encrusted his face, his mouth hung open, and his jacket was peppered with smoldering holes. He had a black snub-nosed revolver in his hand.
I froze with my arm still back. Lockwood halted, facing me, almost alongside.
“You think you can run?” Winkman said. “You think you can rob me? I will kill you both.”
Lockwood slowly raised his hands. He said something quietly at my side. His mask muffled it; I couldn’t hear a word.
“First we will discover who you are,” Winkman said, “and who sent you. We will do so at my leisure. Put down the canister, girl. You are surrounded now.”
Sure enough, the guards had reemerged from the shadows, each also carried a gun. The young man, still immaculate in his soft brown coat, stood by, sword-stick glittering in the light.
Lockwood spoke again, urgently; once again I couldn’t hear it.
“Put down that flare!” Winkman cried, his gun hand shaking dangerously with rage.
“Lockwood, you’re going to have to speak up” I muttered. “I can’t hear you.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” Lockwood ripped up the bottom of his mask. “The other case! The one with the ghost! Do it!”
It was lucky I already had my arm in position; even so, it wasn’t an easy shot. The glowing case with the rusted sword was several feet away, and half blocked by Winkman’s head. If I’d thought about it too long, I probably would have missed. But I didn’t have time for that. I swiveled slightly, lobbed the canister high, and watched as it soared over Winkman’s head toward the case.
Just in time for Winkman’s gun to fire.
Time slowed as a sharp pain stabbed through my left side. I jerked back from the impact, landing hard on the steps.
My ears rang. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t hear. Couldn't see, for that matter. I sat there frozen as my body was overcome with shock.
In a daze, I peered down at my blue evening dress and watched as a dark red stain bloomed across the fabric.
From somewhere behind me, a voice cried my name.
“Luce! Can you hear me? Lucy!” Lockwood shouted.
I was barely able to register his words over the ringing in my ears. It sounded like he was underwater.
One sound broke through the din, and that was the sudden screams of Winkman and his men.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw flashes of light swirling through the room. Winkman and his crew dropped like flies as the spirits of the dead embraced them with their icy touch. The freed relic ghosts were certainly doing their job.
Unfortunately, they were slowly making their way towards us.
“We have to go,” Lockwood said. He hoisted me up, wrapping my right arm around his shoulders to take the majority of my weight.
My head still swam, but the black at the edges of my vision was starting to fade. I tried to focus on my breathing as Lockwood and I made for the stairs.
I did my best to move my legs, one foot in front of the other. My feet felt like bags of flour.
It was only by some miracle that we managed to clamber all the way up to the second-floor catwalk. I didn’t have time to peer down at the men being attacked, but I could hear their screams growing fainter as the psychic energy grew.
We reached the glass door leading to the next staircase and scrambled through. Lockwood slammed the door behind him, sliding down the metal bolt and shutting out the screams from the auction room. We were both panting and pale-faced, but we couldn’t stop there. We raced up the next flight of stairs.
I gritted my teeth as we went. Up until now, my whole body had been numb and cold from shock. Now, a hot, throbbing pain was beginning to overtake my left side. With every movement, it got worse. It hurt to breathe.
“I know, Luce. It'll be okay. You’ll be okay, just a few more floors,” Lockwood gasped.
He was trying his best to stay calm for me. I needed to stay awake for him. I blinked in an attempt to clear my vision. There was no way he was dragging my unconscious butt out of this building alone.
At last, we reached the sixth floor where we'd left the window open. From several floors below us, I heard someone banging hard on the locked glass door.
There was no way I was going to be able to climb down that drainpipe the way we'd come in. Lockwood knew this. His head swiveled this way and that, desperately searching for another exit.
I tried to think of some way to get out, but the fog in my head was fighting to take hold. The pulse in my ears had begun to fall into rhythm with the pounding from below.
Finally, Lockwood's eyes locked with mine, and I saw his calm facade crack down the middle, dread seeping through.
We had nowhere to go.
A bang resounded from the first-floor landing. One of Winkman’s men had shot through the glass door.
At the same time, a voice came shouting up from the open window.
Lockwood and I raced to the window to find George standing on the curb, four floors down.
“George!” Lockwood shouted. “We can't climb back down. Lucy’s hurt; we need another way.”
“What?!–”
“Here, catch this!” Lockwood reached for the sack at his hip that held the mirror and threw it down to George, who managed to catch it before it soared over his head into the channel below.
I could hear footsteps running up the stairs from below us. Lockwood cursed.
“George, we’ll find our own way out. Just get the mirror to Flo. We’ll meet you back at the house!”
I didn’t have time to hear his response as we raced for the stairs once more.
Lockwood was practically dragging me now. Every inhale was like being driven through with a red-hot poker.
“Lockwood–” I croaked.
“Just stay with me, Luce; we can make it.”
I tried to respond, but a fit of coughing overtook me. Something hot and wet spurted down my chin. I wiped my mouth, and when I pulled away, there was a red stain smeared across the fabric of my sleeve.
My eyes met Lockwood's. He seemed frozen with shock.
Then my knees gave way, and I slipped from his grip, landing on all fours on the metal stairs.
“Lucy! No, no, no, no, come on, please…”
I coughed again, and bright red droplets spattered the metal beneath me. My arms shook. My lungs burned.
Lockwood's voice faded in and out, battling the waves of static in my ears. Then my vision dimmed until I was swimming in a pool of darkness.
When I woke up, I was being carried. A cool breeze swept across my skin.
Did we make it? Did we get away?
A voice shouted from behind us. It didn’t sound like the rough, aggravated shouts of Winkman’s henchman. In fact, it sounded…young?
I did my best to get my bearings, forcing my heavy eyelids open.
Lockwood was carrying me. His breath came in ragged gasps as he readjusted me in his arms. I gathered we were on the roof, since I could see the inky black sky looming above us. Unfortunately, we weren’t out of danger.
Lockwood turned around to face the man who had spoken. Through a blurry haze, I made out the shape of the blond-haired man from the auction. He was still brandishing that tacky cane-sword of his. Yet, despite his poor taste in accessories, he still managed to look more intimidating than the two battered agents standing opposite him. One of us wasn’t even standing.
“My mirror,” I heard him say, “just give it to me, and the two of you will be free to go.”
Lockwood carefully set me down to lean against the wall behind him. He stood, creating a barrier between the man with the rapier and my half-conscious form on the ground.
“Unfortunately, that’s not possible,” Lockwood replied. “The mirror belongs to the Thames now.”
The man lowered his rapier in shock. Then the anger returned to his eyes. “Pity,” he said, raising his sword once more, “What am I to do with the rest of my night, then?”
“You could take up knitting,” Lockwood suggested.
The man raised his sword over his head. Lockwood drew his own in response. But the blow never came.
I heard a loud “THWACK!” like something being hit with a slab of wood. As it turns out, that's precisely what happened.
The fuzzy outline of Flo Bones stood triumphantly over the unconscious blond man. Propped on her shoulder was a heavy-looking baseball bat, covered in kelp and river scum. I’d never been happier to see her.
“Flo! You’re a lifesaver,” Lockwood shouted as she raced over.
“Yeah, let’s hope so,” she replied, tossing her bat aside and dropping down to the ground next to me.
Lockwood did the same, carefully lifting my head into his lap.
“She looks bad, Locky,” Flo admitted as she ripped a piece of cloth from one of the many layers beneath her grimy coat. She pressed it into the bullet wound in my side, doing her best to stop the bleeding. “Georgie’s called DEPRAC already. They should be here any time. Told ‘em they’d find us on the roof.”
“What about Winkman’s men?” Lockwood asked.
“Oh, don’t worry about them. I sorted it out.” She took something raggedy out of her pocket, threw it in the air and caught it. A relic. Flo was pretty handy when it came to terrorizing people.
Lockwood peered down at me, worry etched across his face.
“Locky,” Flo said. When he looked up, she continued, “She’ll be okay.”
Flo wasn’t normally the touchy-feely type, but the tone of her voice showed how serious she was.
Lockwood took a shaky breath but didn’t respond. Instead, he took my hand in his, holding it tight.
A sudden bang sounded from behind us. Shouts rang out. At first, I feared that Winkman was back, but then someone yelled, “DEPRAC! Stand clear!”
A crowd of agents burst through the open door that led out to the roof. Three of them stood with armed weapons pointed at the barely conscious blond man. The other two came running toward us.
Voices came from every direction, asking questions, repeating my name. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. The sounds faded in and out as my consciousness swayed. I tried to focus on the pressure of Lockwood’s hand in mine, but that too was slipping away. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t leave him to deal with this alone. I needed… to stay… awake…
Once again, the world dissolved into darkness.