Lockwood & Co: The Empty Grave

“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.

‘And no, you can’t visit him. You’d only cause disaster somehow. Cubbins would trip up and impale him on his sword, or Lockwood here would grin him half to death. Just let him be.

I bent close, frowning. It was only then that I saw the beautiful golden necklace curled on the papers, with the sapphire glinting at its heart. Lockwood had taken it out of the old crushed box his mother had kept it in. Even in the dusk, the gem was glorious, undying and undimmed. It was as if all the light and love it had gathered in the past was shining out on me.

Then he left the chair and walked round the table and put his arms about me and pulled me to him

was a symbol of his undying devotion.’

The first read:

He will go into the dark.

The second:

He will sacrifice his life for you.

your moral shabbiness fascinates and appals you. You can’t take your eyes off it. Which is why you’re so crashingly dull. Oh, and I know the DEPRAC rules as well as you, and if you pick fights with accredited agents off about their appointed tasks, Barnes will have your tweedy backside hauled over hot cobblestones to Scotland Yard. So why not go off and hassle someone else?’

Somewhere in London a chained boy impatiently awaited death. The first stars showed in the sky.

‘That’s nice to know,’ Lockwood said. ‘George will bear it in mind. Now, how can we help you in our present capacity as professional psychical investigation agents?’

As always, I found myself smiling after him. As always, the room felt a little darker after he’d left.