Chapter Text
He came to, lying on the ground. His first instinct was to keep his eyes closed. He knew from after a fall that high, there might be a concussion involved. His second thought hit him just as fast. Where was Lucy, and was she okay? The third thought he came around to sluggishly. Why didn't his head hurt? He wasn't cold, or hungry, or sore. Which he would have expected after that late of a night, a nerve wracking haunting, and injury.
He slowly sat up, cataloging his movements. His hand lifted to the back of his head. The feeling was weird. There was no weight to his arm. It kind of reminded him of swimming, and how your limbs could float next to you with no gravity or resistance. His fingers roved the back of his head. There was no bandage, and if there was any blood on the wound, he couldn't tell. He slowly opened his eyes.
What the hell? Since when did he sleepwalk? He was in the middle of Marylebone Cemetery, and right in front of him were the headstones of his family, looking old and weathered. He stared for a minute, giving them the moment of silence they deserved. He looked around, and the light was a grey blue, hitting off the stones around him. It was either twilight or about to be sunrise from the looks of it, he wasn't in the right mind to tell the difference.
He stood on steady, weightless legs. If that didn't clue him in that something was wrong, the glance down at himself that he took as he brushed down his slacks sure as hell did. He slammed his eyes shut as he noticed the tinge of green, the eerie light emanating off his hands. This couldn't be happening.
He took a steadying breath. He couldn't be a spirit. He had waited to join his family for so long. And though his friends, found family, and job had altered his mindset a bit, what could have kept him around? Where was the justice in that!
A single word popped into his mind. Lucy. She must be devastated. What about the rest of his friends? The business? He only had a minute of contemplation before a sharp tug behind his sternum almost doubled him over. It was so sharp and piercing, it took over his thoughts. The only thing that seemed to lessen it was walking the path out of the cemetery.
Keeping his eyes wide open, and his mind still on the fact that he couldn’t be dead , nevertheless a spirit, he headed down the desolate and grey street. As he started to pass the houses, he noticed the lack of protection. There were no lavender bushes out along the concrete paths. No metal windchimes hanging over doors or entryway arches. No running water channels in front of the mailboxes, or under steps.
It was so utterly bizarre, so unnatural it sent a chill running down his spine. Damn it. If he really was a ghost, it would suck that he wasn't wearing his greatcoat. Did ghosts get cold? Guess he would find out. He tried to turn down a crossing street, and the stabbing feeling in his chest did not return. Guess he made the right decision. He stopped short when he saw at least a dozen bodies blocking the way.
“This just keeps getting stranger and stranger,” he whispered aloud to himself. His hand instinctively went to where his rapier was normally attached to his belt, and grasped empty air a few times. He dropped his head quickly and let out a huff of air. “Of course. I wouldn't have my rapier if there are no alloys here. Ignoring the fact that if I am a visitor now, I have no need for protection.” His natural reaction was to avoid the spirits. Or have a salt bomb on hand. “Doesn’t make me hate them any less.”
Instead he did the most reckless and dumb thing, and walked right between them. They didn't even seem to notice. From that point on, he couldn't help but notice just how many spirits were milling about. In front of warped, broken townhouses, crowding up the streets and roads, even standing half in, half out of gnarled dead tree roots and bushes. That was a peculiar sight.
It was a testament of just how distracted he was, that he didn't realize he was rounding the corner to his own street. He almost tripped over himself when he caught sight of Arif’s corner market. He took a deep breath in preparation and walked up to where his gate used to run, keeping count of his footsteps like he used to instead of watching where he was going. He kept his eyes cast down on his trainers until he spotted the worn and cracked brick steps. “Do not be a coward Anthony John.” He said to himself, and finally looked up.
This was the place he was most comfortable at, the one place that held all the best, but also the darkest parts of himself. The loneliest parts. The house was dark. It looked like no one had inhabited it in years. It was warped, the paint cracked and peeling. Lifeless shrubbery and black tufts of what should be grass strewn out in the frozen yard. He took a step forward and frost crunched under his soles. He looked closely and saw a layer covering everything. Huh, guess spirits didn't get cold. He hadn't felt it, or really noticed it the whole walk.
It was like anything that had life just yesterday was stripped, sucked dry like a juicebox discarded by a toddler. He looked around wondering if he could just walk up and go in, when he heard shuffling behind him. He whirled behind to see a boy not much older than himself standing in front of him. Hands shoved in his trouser pockets, mop of spiked hair in an array around his forehead. Lockwood blinked a few times, trying to place where he would know this unfamiliar stranger from.
The boy lifted his hand in a lazy wave. “Welcome to hell!”
Lockwood looked around, noticing the spirits shuffling down the roads, the derelict buildings, the lack of anything living around. “I’m in hell?”
The ghostly boy shook his head as if he was annoyed. “Jesus, no. It's an expression. Welcome to being stuck in between, with everybody else that has died any other way than a natural death. And sometimes even them.” He swept his arm out as if he was a game show host, showing off a new car.
“So, purgatory. It's kind of crowded in here.”
“Yes it is, and getting worse all the time. Just wait until you see the gates.”
“Gates?” Lockwood asked in confusion. “And can you tell me your name? I don't believe anyone else is feeling up to conversation.” He looked around him, his eyes catching on a young female spirit weeping further down the sidewalk.
“Figures I'd be cursed to deal with you around. And you don't even recognize me.”
Lockwoods eyebrows shot up. “Why would I know you? I've never seen you before.”
“Have you been to see Lucy yet?”
No!?! Can I? And that would mean… "Hi Skull.”
Skull let out a deep, dramatic sigh. “I swear the three of you would be terribly behind without me. Yes. You have become a type three. Congratulations. You didn't want to die after all. You just have to lift the veil. Shouldn't be too hard with the traces I can see coming off of you. Just focus and pull some power out from within yourself, then voila. You can see in color again.”
Lockwood closed his eyes and looked damn silly for a moment. He cracked an eye open and looked at Skull. “It’s not working is it?”
“No shit. Just keep trying. Though if you do uselessly continue to try, you may want to find shelter soon before the storm stops. On the slim chance you succeed. You don't want to be caught in the sun's rays, trust me. If I'm lucky you'll go inside, manage it, freak her out, and she will vanquish you right back.”
“Oh, ha ha. Very funny. But why? What happens in the sun? Why are you even talking to me? I thought you'd be more mysterious and rude.”
The young ghost looked at Lockwood with the most bland expression. “When I'm not being a reluctant mentor, perhaps. Stick around and you'll bring it out of me I'm sure.” He turned his back and started walking up to the house. “You made her cry. You’re lucky I don't push you through the gates myself to banish you.”
Lockwood stood there staring towards his house for a few minutes after Skull entered, his mind weighed down heavily with the pain he must have caused. However, he refused to regret his decision to save his best friend. And that would just have to be something he would have to live with…or well, exist with.
It had been an undetermined amount of time, and he was still trying to find the stupid source of ‘power’ in him that skull mentioned. If he was type 3 shouldn't he know how to do this instinctively? Wasn't half the point of death to not learn anything anymore? However, he had learned other things about the weird limbo he was stuck in. Like the fact that though the sun didn't shine, the moon still appeared to have cycles. It was grey and dark and misty all the time, with frost or ice covering everything, but a few times when he actually went out under the open sky, he had looked up and swore he made out a light source.
He had still not gone inside his house. Instead he wandered on the streets behind crowds of other moaning, wandering lost souls. And ducking in open buildings when they did. He figured until he could know how to behave, following the crowd would be a good place to start. He wandered as much as the hook behind his chest would let him. It took him down to the waterbank, to roughly where he thought satchells stood in the living world, his street, and his parents grave. He wondered if that was his loop he was cursed to follow.
After the third time of looping back around to Portland Row, he finally slipped inside. Everything was the place he grew up in, lived in, loved. But also not. It was like looking into a funhouse mirror. Parts were skinny and distorted that shouldn't be, and the door hung open completely covered in hoarfrost. Suddenly there was a wave of warmth, so potent he seemed to move toward it without thought, as did a few others lingering on the path around him.
However, when he entered the doorway, there seemed to be a repulsiveness that kept the others out. It felt like the energy Skull gave off when he was standing in front of him last time, only more. He couldn't even find the words to describe it.
Following the wave of warmth, he found himself on the steps to the attic. The realization of what exactly led him here hit like a steel baseball bat to the sternum. He slowly entered the space, keeping close to the walls, going through the furniture rather than walking around it. Suddenly he was frozen to the spot. He could have sworn for a split second he saw her lying there, on the old rickety bed, fast asleep. But his mind cleared and it was just him alone, in the funhouse version of his house, the skull spirit not even to be seen.
***************************************************************
Lucy went into the storage room to grab a few things of varying psychic strength. Besides for the skull, the only thing she used from her own test was the red hair ribbon. She didn't know where the knife had gone off to, and she wasn't kidding when she said the watch should never be used. She did however, grab a handkerchief from a job a while back that had passionate anger tied to it. Along with a matchstick box with barely any energy clinging on it. She didn't know where it came from, but knew she really wanted an array to test Jax with. She went back upstairs, prepared for a psyche aptitude test.
Lucy found herself and Holly in the main entrance room, where they always met clients. It gave her a strong sense of Deja Vu, but everything was warped and distorted. She was standing behind the place where Lockwood had sat. Her combat boots metaphorically wore a hole in the area rug where she paced back and forth, and her leather jacket was on versus his suit he always wore. Holly was primly perched on the same armchair George had been in, instead of a comic book she had a notepad and a fancy pen in hand. Lucy swallowed down the panic, the irrational anger that spiked within her at the sight. They had enough problems without her picking absurd fights.
She returned her attention to Jax, who was sitting where she once did. They had just had breakfast, and a bit of time to mentally prepare before meeting here. She took a deep breath and figured they should get this show on the road.
She walked up and rested her arms over the back of the long couch, and met his eyes. “You said your talents were mainly touch and secondary sight, right?”
“That's right.” He nodded. “I needed those baby mittens mum used to tell me, or I would constantly cry. Took her a while to figure it out too, poor woman.”
Holly chimed in from across the room. “Sounds like you, Lucy.”
“It does a bit.”
Holly continued. “It's probably an indication you are really strong Jax. Everyone I've met seems to line up with the earlier it started, the better at this job you are.”
He looked slightly uncomfortable for a moment and Lucy saved him from replying. “Let's get moving with this. I'd like to take you out on cases and start the paperwork if you choose to join me.” She removed the bath towel from the top of the skull jar. “Do you know what this is?”
He looked excited until he schooled his expression. “Yes I do! They are expensive, right? Jars from the sunrise corp. How'd you get it? Or why do you still have it?”
Right as she opened her mouth to answer, Skull decided to show his ectoplasm. Lucy watched Jax’s face, and got to see his eyes light up as he reached forward to touch the glass.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you. He doesn’t like it much.” Lucy could see the Skull’s formed lips moving. She knew she would suffer for it, not opening the grills of the jar to hear him. He would pay her back with his complaints and murder threats later. He made grotesque movements within the jar, probably trying to startle Jax. It didn't work.
“Don't tell anyone we have it. It may be secret, illegal, and theft.” She walked around the couch and plopped down, suddenly feeling very drained. “But he's very important to me and he holds my secrets.”
“You mean from it being a type three? Jax said.
Both the girls shot up in their seats and their eyes met.
How did you…? Holly asked.
“Not to be rude and cut you off, but I kind of heard earlier. I wasn't trying to eavesdrop or anything, but the doors were open. Besides, I've never felt stronger energy from a source before. Is it just the skull in there? That's the source right?”
Lucy bit the inside of her cheek for a moment. “Okay, I don't have to explain it to you then. Yeah he's a mouldy skull in a jar. He’s mostly full of riddles and ominous yet creative ways to tell us we are going to die. Moving on!” She picked up the silver tea tray she had found earlier in a dusty cupboard, and held it out to him. It held the ribbon, handkerchief, and matchbox. “What do you feel from these?”
He let his hand hover over them and looked at her. She nodded her head in confirmation to his unspoken question. He picked up the hanky first.
He sat in silence for only a minute, before snapping out of it. “There's a lot of anger here. Seems a gentleman was screwed over by his lady and best friend.”
Holly sat in silence, scribbling down in her notebook.
“Good, good,” Lucy said. “And the next?”
He went for the hair ribbon. It was the same as before. He closed his eyes and sat in silence for a couple minutes. When he came back into awareness of the room, he quickly wiped a tear off his cheek that was slowly falling. “Ouch that hurts. She’s so sad. I mean, I'm obviously not a parent but I can imagine I would feel that too, in her situation.”
Lucy looked at him, cataloging all his reactions and facial expression changes. “And what does she feel exactly?”
“Like she can't breathe. Like the whole world has ended so there is no point for her to exist anymore.”
“What did you see that time?” Holly asked.
“She was burying her baby. It was cold out, snow was falling on the freshly turned earth. She was the only one standing there.”
Holly’s pen scratched on her notepad as everyone fell silent. He looked up at Lucy. “Next one?” She nodded her head in confirmation and held out the tray once more. He grabbed the box.
He didn't close his eyes this time. “Okay, this is kind of cool. My aunt used to have one exactly like this, except hers had an engraving across the bottom.” He trailed off as his fingers rubbed the notches Lucy knew were there.
“Small world,” She said.
Jax hummed in response. “Did you get this from a pretty two story place just outside city limits?”
“I'm not sure, it's been in the storage room for a while.”
He closer inspected it, The L hand carved into it.“Well, I can feel there is something here, but it's not triggering any sights. Uncle Todd never told us she came back.”
Holly cleared her throat. “I couldn't imagine someone not telling me a close friend or family member had returned as a visitor. It would upset me to say the least.”
Lucy got an uncomfortable feeling in her chest just then. Was it really that bad of a thing not telling others he came back? Holly didn't know him that well, Jax did not know him at all and George and Flo… Well they were not around, and had their own thing going on.
“It's not that big of a deal. Especially if it's just a shade or glimmer standing around. Then you get someone to wrap up the source and no harm is done.” She felt energy from the skull flare up and was at once extremely glad he couldn't voice his opinion. She heard a poor fake imitation in the back or her mind already saying ‘you are such a hypocrite.’
“I don't know.” Jax said. “It would hurt, if the death was new. He probably didn't tell us to spare our feelings, or his.”
They all sat around quiet for a moment, lost in their minds. Holly decided to be the first to break the silence.
“We know you have the talent. If you and Lucy both agree to join moving forward, I can start the grade 4 paperwork and Lucy can start teaching you rapier drills so you can pass the tests.”
Lucy rolled her eyes. “So formal Holly. Hey Jax, you're on. I'll meet you in the basement in ten to help you learn how to stab Lady Esmeralda.”
He enthusiastically jumped up and bounded out of the room, yelling “you got it!”
Holly also stood up. “He seems like a good kid. And at least there are no more secrets we all have to keep from one another right? Please watch out for him, on the cases you take.” She left, the sound of her skirt swishing against her legs followed her out.
Lucy sat there staring at the items still lying in front of her. When did her life get so messy? In a way she wasn’t used to, anyways. No secrets indeed…
********************************************
Tuesday morning brought with it rain clouds and a sense of dread for Lucy. She had decided she would take whatever Penelope Fittes said with a grain of salt, Then take Jax out to the case she had purposefully lined up for tonight. His enthusiasm would lead him places, but his execution with his rapier needed a bit of work. He knew the basis. Holly would file the stupid paperwork today while she was out at Fittes House. Lucy was already tired of hearing about it. No wonder Lockwood was always complaining about it.
She was nursing a cup of tea, once again sitting at the kitchen table with Jax, while Holly was puttering around somewhere dusting something or another. They had just finished a bout of rapier training. He cleared his throat.
“So, you can tell me to shove off it if you want, but can I ask you a few questions?”
Lucy looked up at him, a reluctant expression in the twist of her mouth, because she was pretty sure she knew what was coming.
“Was this his house?”
“Mhmm.” She said, fiddling with her teacup. “He grew up here.”
“And was there a rest of the team? A supervisor?”
“Oh, he was our supervisor. And it was just the three of us here. Lockwood, George, and me. He hired Holly as a secretary a few months ago.”
“Oh,” he looked at her with surprise. “No adults?”
“Well, we have a DEPRAC liaison that likes to think he's in charge of us, that keeps an eye out, but no.” She drained her cup.
“And is George…”
“He’s around in London.” Lucy knew she was being short with him, but couldn't help it. “He may pop in one day, but for right now I doubt it.” She crossed her arms.
“I understand. You guys were all much closer than the average hunting team huh?”
She felt the prickle behind her eyes, signaling tears. She closed her eyes instead, running her fingers over the ring on the chain she pulled out of her pocket. She would take solace in the fact that in a few hours she may be able to talk to Lockwood again. “Yeah, we were. Those boys are my family.”
Seeming to understand, Jax dropped the conversation. They moved onto lighter topics, if you could call it that, talking about the research Jax would be going to do about the job that night, while she was also out. Before too long they were headed their separate ways.