𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞┃ Anthony Lockwood┃2┃

Chapter Nineteen - En Garde

It was a pale, bent thing, stooped and thin. Yellowed, translucent rags coiled around it. Though its outline held firm, its substance bubbled up and over like soup in a pot. Glimpses of a ribcage, of a folding, twisting spine, of flesh and sinew, welled up, stretched, and were sucked back in again. The head was lowered, the white arms crossed over the face as if it feared to see agents, fingers splayed above like splintered horns.

Those of them young enough, those of them who saw, had their rapiers out before the second ghost-bomb landed. That would be Lockwood, George and Nola. Holly, observing her colleagues, struggled to pull her rapier free. Some of the younger Fittes agents, the ones not throwing sweets, dropped their trays of drinks and reached for their belts. But the adults were blind – even the ones right by the ghost looked straight through it, merely adjusting their coat collars as if they felt a sudden chill.

Another crack of glass. Another Visitor unfolding, up by the front of the float. Other ghost-bombs landed in the crowd. Almost at once, Lockwood & Co heard the screams begin.

Lockwood and Nola started forward. George too. Sir Rupert Gale had also reacted. He pulled at his cane, drawing out a silver blade. Above them, Penelope Fittes and Steve Rotwell turned, responding to the outcry in the crowd. A few startled dignitaries began to rise.

The first ghost moved. Its head rotated impossibly. It flowed backwards, through the nearest seat, straight through its occupant, a short, fat, tweedy woman. Threads of plasm lingered on her contours as it pulled around her and away. Her eyes rolled upwards, her arms jerked in rhythmic spasms. She slid soundlessly onto the floor.

"Medics needed!" Lockwood roared. A wave of fear had engulfed the company. People were throwing chairs back, milling back and forth, too stupid to wait and listen to their senses. Old as they were, faint sensations might have alerted them to the ghosts and so kept them alive.

The Visitor moved with random darts and scurries, hiding its head as if in pain. Two men toppled as it touched them, collapsing against others, redoubling the panic. Nola was almost on it. She raised her sword.

A Rotwell operative stepped out in front of her, a magnesium flare in his hand.

"No! Not here!" Nola shouted. "You'll—"

Too late. He threw it.

Nola kissed her teeth. "Fan-fucking-tastic."

The flare shot past the ghost, bounced off the back of the nearest seat and exploded against the side of the platform. Fragments of wood blasted into space, and Greek Fire rained down upon the crowds. The platform gave way. A whole section crumbled like a sea-cliff, propelling three people, including a screaming Miss Wintergarden, out onto the street below. Sir Rupert Gale, caught by the explosion, was spun to the very edge, left clinging to the broken boards. George escaped unharmed. He reached the ghost and carved the air around it with his rapier, seeking to prevent it touching the people on either side.

The Visitor had been peppered with burning iron, and the ghost lamps hanging above the street weren't doing it much good either. Plasm steamed from it. As it cringed back from George's blade, it removed its arms from its face. It had no features, no eyes or nose. Nothing but a sagging triangular mouth.

At the front of the platform, neither Penelope Fittes nor Steve Rotwell had lost their heads. From beneath his coat, Rotwell had drawn a sword that was longer and thicker than a normal rapier. Miss Fittes had taken her hairband off, shaking her dark hair free. The band was a crescent – moon-sharp, made of silver. She held it like a knife.

Rotwell jumped down amongst the seats, swatting a chair aside. He strode towards the second Visitor, a Phantasm, which several of his agents had pinned back. Holly Munro had been shepherding people to the far corner of the platform. She reached the fallen woman and knelt down at her side.