The Phenomenals: A Game of Ghouls (19 page)

‘It’s better than our other plan,’ Citrine managed to joke as they tied themselves together using the cords that had earlier bound them. Vincent tested the rope, deemed it
sufficiently taut (though he could hardly have deemed it otherwise under the circumstances), and together they launched themselves from the ledge into the unknown.

The metal hand, its fingers locked into a hook-like shape, slid rapidly down the length of the line with Vincent and Citrine dangling beneath. On the shore Jonah braced himself with every ounce
of strength he possessed to keep the tension on the rope. Folly held on to his belt and pulled from behind to give him extra purchase. The strain was beginning to tell.

‘I don’t think I can pull any harder,’ gasped Folly, and she felt her feet starting to slip on the slimy rocks.

‘Only a few more seconds,’ panted Jonah. ‘Hold tight.’

Then Vincent and Citrine suddenly loomed large before their rescuers and, just as their feet touched the shore, the lighthouse gave one last groan and toppled into the water.

In Leucer d’Avidus’s study four men – the governor himself, Edgar Capodel, Professor Soanso and Leopold Kamptulicon – were busy congratulating
themselves on a hugely successful and exciting evening.

‘I thought the tremor in the middle only added to the atmosphere,’ remarked Edgar.

‘Indeed,’ said the professor. ‘I couldn’t have asked for better timing! It gave the demonstration that little bit of extra tension. Kept the audience on the edge of their
seats.’

‘So, you think perhaps we three can work together?’ enquired Leucer, topping up Arkwright’s glass again. ‘Kekrimpari and tar and chemicals seem such an ideal
combination.’

‘Oh yes, Governor,’ replied the professor, slurring slightly.

Leucer put a friendly arm round his shoulder. ‘Oh, call me Leucer, please! After all, we’re going to get to know each other very well indeed. I can tell.’

‘Now, Leucer, that old woman,’ began Arkwright. ‘A criminal and a fugitive, you say?’

‘Oh, no need to worry about her. She is well and truly dealt with.’

‘She seemed a little disturbed by proceedings.’

‘Very disturbed,’ chipped in Edgar. ‘Belongs in the asylum. And another criminal was apprehended too, in the very act of robbing this house!’

Professor Soanso took a step back. ‘Good lord! What a truly remarkable night!’

‘Indeed,’ said Kamptulicon. ‘Two down, two to go. The Urban Guardsmen are waiting at the Kryptos. The others will be apprehended before sunrise.’

‘Well, I propose a toast,’ said Leucer. ‘To what lies ahead.’

And all four touched glasses and each toasted his own vision of the future.

The sounds of consternation and confusion were ringing around Mercator Square as the crowds mingled about the entrance to the Degringolade Playhouse and lingered in the
streets. The show inside had been over for some time, but nobody wanted to go home. The startled audience didn’t know quite what to make of the events they had witnessed. Ironically, the
sight of the grey-haired woman running away seemed a fitting conclusion to Professor Soanso’s attempt to revive a dead body. Some wondered if the old lady had not had a shot of kekrimpari
herself. The atmosphere was further heightened by the rumour spreading that the lighthouse had fallen.

Away from the hubbub, in the back room of the Caveat Emptorium, Jonah, Folly, Citrine and Vincent were also in a state of disbelief, mainly on account of the fact that they were all still alive.
Suma and Wenceslas were fussing over the foursome, pouring tea and attending to wounds and plying them with horsemeat-and-mustard sandwiches and hard cakes.

‘So, Professor Soanso tried to revitalize a dead body with kekrimpari,’ speculated Wenceslas. ‘But how did they know you were there?’

‘I think Edgar knew that there was a pretty good chance I would want to see the kekrimpari demonstration,’ said Citrine quietly. ‘If I had stayed quiet, I wouldn’t have
been found out, but I took their bait. How could I not say something? The thought of my poor father being subjected to such . . . such wickedness.’

‘Despicable,’ said Suma. ‘Edgar rooted you out by appealing to your devotion to your father. He is beyond contempt.’

‘That’s if it even was Hubert,’ said Jonah.

‘I really couldn’t see, but I was so shocked at the time, and after all that has happened, that I actually believed Edgar might be telling the truth.’

‘What about Leucer? You say he sneaked out. How could he have known that Vincent was planning to go to the Governor’s Residence?’

‘Well, I saw this in the
Degringolade Daily
the other day,’ said Suma quietly. ‘I wonder if that might have something to do with it.’ She held up the paper,
folded to show the article about the governor’s new safe.

‘I didn’t see that,’ said Folly with a frown.

Vincent pulled the same article from his pocket. ‘I tore it out,’ he said. ‘I wanted to leave it in the safe when I took the Blivet. A message to Leucer.’

Folly looked at him in astonishment and tutted loudly. ‘More like a message to you! You do realize it was a trap?’

Vincent threw up his hands. ‘OK, so I flamped, I messed it all up, I failed,’ he began, but Folly cut him off.

‘It’s all right. I know you can’t help it. It’s like an addiction. You just can’t resist a challenge.’

Vincent reddened ever so slightly and began to pat his hair, ostensibly to remove the dust and dirt from the lighthouse collapse, but really to conceal his embarrassment. Folly was right, but he
wasn’t going to admit it. Then something flew out of his hair and landed at Suma’s feet. She picked it up.

‘It’s a silver cufflink,’ she said. ‘And it’s engraved – “HNC”.’

Citrine sat bolt upright. ‘HNC? Hubert Nathaniel Capodel! It’s my father’s. Vincent, where in Aether did you get this?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. At the lighthouse maybe, when it started to crumble. There was stuff flying about all over the place.’

‘What was my father doing in the lighthouse?’ wondered Citrine as she placed the cufflink in her locket. ‘Well, I made a promise to myself not to give up on finding out what
happened to him. Until I have real proof that he is dead, I will continue to believe that he is alive.’

‘Speaking of lighthouses,’ said Suma, addressing Jonah and Folly, ‘what I really want to know is how you two found your way to the lighthouse.’

‘The Puca told me the way.’

Suma’s eyes widened and Wenceslas’s mouth gaped. ‘The Puca told you?’

Folly nodded and adopted her inscrutable expression, the one that defied anyone to probe any further.

Suma said no more, but looked as if there was plenty she could say, and Wenceslas slapped his thigh heartily. ‘Well, it seems to me you’ve all had more than your fair share of
Degringolade luck.’

‘Thanks to you, Wenceslas, in no small part,’ said Jonah humbly. ‘Those glasses you gave me saved all our lives. I even managed to get my whale spear back from the
river.’

Citrine sighed. ‘I still have to prove my innocence.’

‘I might not have got the Blivet this time,’ said Vincent rather defiantly, ‘but at least we know now for sure that Leucer has it.’

‘And what about you, Folly?’ asked Suma in that knowing way of hers. ‘Have you made any promises to anyone or anything?’

Vincent looked directly at the leather-clad, Blivet-wielding Supermundane hunter (in many ways all that he himself wanted to be), but Folly just shrugged and didn’t answer. He chewed on
his lip thoughtfully. There was at least
one
promise he could think of: the one she had made to Axel. As for the Puca, he just knew there was more to that encounter than she was
telling.

In his pocket his hand slipped again through the hole in the lining and his fingers closed round the silver compact. Instantly he remembered the dream. He heard Lady Degringolade’s voice
again, as if she was right beside him, and it sent a cold thrill down his spine.

‘
You will know when to come
.’

Folly, for once, averted her gaze from Vincent’s penetrating stare. Suma’s question was unnervingly close to the bone. What exactly did the wily old woman know about dealing with the
Puca? Had she guessed the bargain that had been struck? Folly could barely bring herself to think on it. But she had had no choice. She could not have escaped the tunnels, or saved Jonah, without
the Puca’s help. As for the deal, how could she have known that it would happen so quickly, that
she
would rise from the dead? Folly had so hoped that she had imagined the woman in
the tunnel, but when she looked down at her boot and saw the stain, the stain that wouldn’t rub away, the stain of the beast’s saliva, she knew that it had all been very real.

Now she must honour her promise . . . and bring to the Puca the head of Lady Scarletta Degringolade.

Or face certain death
.

Far away from the Caveat Emptorium, where the Phenomenals were mulling over their respective problems and secrets, and far too from the Governor’s Residence, where
success was being celebrated, another performer in the complicated drama playing out in Degringolade was pondering her own fate.

Lady Scarletta Degringolade, with faithful Katatherion at her side, was standing at the top of the once magnificent staircase of Degringolade Manor. And her haughty gaze fell not on the
all-encompassing decrepitude of her former home but on the quivering horde of Pluriba below awaiting her instruction.

‘Home, sweet, home,’ she murmured. ‘It’s been too long.’