Ghost and Bone Page 13

  Oscar could hear the wonder in Sir Cedric’s voice.

  Oscar could still feel the same wonder himself. His mind was buzzing with ideas—of course it explained a lot, but then again, there were so many more questions now that needed answers.

  Like: What happened if the God of Death was your grandpa?

  Suddenly, Sir Cedric dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “It is an honor, my lord.”

  Now Oscar felt embarrassed. “No need for that.”

  “I owe fealty to the offspring of my liege lord,” Sir Cedric said, still kneeling. “It is your due.”

  “Don’t think many living people would agree with you about honor,” Oscar said. “My mum always told me it was a real scandal when my granny had a baby when she wasn’t married. She never admitted who the father was to anyone—not even my dad. I suppose that all makes sense now.”

  “Living people do get judgmental about these things,” Sir Cedric agreed. “Small-minded. Such things matter so much less when you are dead.”

  “I don’t know,” Oscar said. “The god of death isn’t an ideal boyfriend, is he?”

  Sir Cedric chortled. The laugh echoed hollowly inside his helmet. “On the contrary, he is the greatest boyfriend you might wish for. And this explains a lot about you, young Oscar.”

  It did. If Mr. Mortis represented death in the world, that certainly explained why Oscar killed flowers when he touched them.

  The genetic lottery. Some people got blue eyes or a good memory from their parents. Oscar got the power of death.

  It also explained why Mr. Mortis had made that extraordinary agreement with Oscar’s father and broken all the rules just to keep Oscar alive. Oscar didn’t know how he felt about that choice. His grandfather had allowed his son to die to save his grandson.

  Oscar couldn’t really bear that thought. The chance he’d been given.

  “I won’t waste it, Dad,” he muttered. “I promise.”

  Sir Cedric was watching him carefully.

  “My lord,” he began.

  “Don’t call me that,” Oscar said.

  “My lord,” insisted Sir Cedric, “shall we go see where young Cromarty has got to?”

  It seemed terribly odd that Sir Cedric was deferring to him.

  “Very well,” Oscar said.

  It took half an hour to ride by ostrich to Sally’s small ghost house in Mile End. Oscar felt very conspicuous as they galloped through the streets, but no one took any notice. That was a good thing about ghost life—everything was so crazy that you could blend in pretty easily. Sir Cedric kept an eye out for GLE patrols, but they didn’t see any ghosts out looking for them.

  Someone had come looking for Sally, though.

  Her red door was hanging off its hinges, shattered. It looked as if it had been punched in by a giant fist.

  “By Mortis’s beard!” Sir Cedric exclaimed, a wobble of shock in his voice.

  They ran inside. Oscar was desperately afraid.

  “Sally!” he shouted. “Sally!”

  The usual cheerful mess of Sally’s house was a now a broken bomb site. There were signs of struggle everywhere. Drifts of paper were strewn about, and Sally’s modest possessions were smashed or tumbled out of drawers.

  She hadn’t had very much. A few sticks of furniture. A few jars of sweets. A dead rubber plant.

  “Sally!” Oscar shouted, running up the stairs. There was no answer.

  When he came downstairs, Sir Cedric was kneeling on the floor, sifting through the papers.

  “This is your case file, my lord,” he said. “I wonder what was taken.”

  “Apart from Sally, you mean.” Something horrible occurred to Oscar. “What happens to a ghost’s body when it is extinguished? Does it disappear?”

  “If Sally had been extinguished, there would be a residue, my lord,” said Sir Cedric carefully. “The process is quite messy. I do not believe that happened here.”

  “Here,” Oscar said. The knight’s implication was clear. It might be happening right now, somewhere else. “Where has Jones taken her?”

  Sir Cedric shook his head. “Do you think it was Jones?”

  “Look,” Oscar said. He picked up a gray cardboard folder. It was his death file that they’d taken from the Archive. During the struggle, some ash had spilled across the floor from the grate and someone, stepping in it, had left a dirty, great footprint across the file.

  “Whoever owned this shoe is the one who took her,” Oscar said. “Funny kind of shoe. It’s a bit pointy.”

  “So it is,” Sir Cedric said. “Might I have a look, my lord?”

  Oscar was about to hand over the file when he noticed something else. The dirt and soot from the bootprint had uncovered another bit of ghost writing. Writing that Oscar hadn’t noticed the first time. It was easy to see why: the writing was very small and precise, printed in a neat bureaucratic hand that was quite different from Mr. Mortis’s extravagant flow. It was on the bottom part of the folder, just below Mr. Mortis’s signature. He turned the page to the light and read.

  Addendum to Contract

  Solemnly witnessed by

  Sir Merriweather Northcote

  “Hang on,” Oscar said. “So Northcote was there at the accident? When it happened?”

  “That is his signature,” Sir Cedric said. “So it would seem so.”

  “But he said he had no idea about any of this! That means he was lying. He knew who I was all along, and he didn’t say anything!”

  “Deuced odd,” said Sir Cedric. “Dammee!”

  “It’s more than odd,” said Oscar. “It’s suspicious. What if he’s the one behind all this?”

  “Northcote?” Sir Cedric asked. “Are you sure? The man’s a withered prune.”

  “I’m positive,” Oscar said, surprised at how certain he felt. “He’s always complaining about how he doesn’t get any credit. How he does all the work. What if he’s done something to Mr. Mortis and wants to take his job? That Fiji story was awfully fishy. And Northcote could easily use his clout to get Hieronymus Jones all that gear. They must be in league!”

  “A dangerous and deadly ally,” said Sir Cedric, but he was nodding along. “You see things truly, Oscar. But that still doesn’t explain why he would want to kill you.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I’m not worth the bother, am I?”

  “Ohoho! Yes, you are, my lord!” Now it was Sir Cedric’s turn to have a good idea. He slapped two metal fists together. “Perhaps he wants to kill you because you have Mortis’s blood flowing in your veins? Perhaps your very existence is the only thing keeping him from achieving total power? It is potent, you know, your inheritance. You’re the last thing he needs to tidy up. It’s the kind of detail that Northcote wouldn’t miss.”

  That felt true to Oscar—and more than a little scary. Northcote had a really good reason for killing him—Oscar was the most powerful ghost in the world.

  Sir Cedric was already striding out of the house.

  “Wait!” Oscar said. “Where are you going?”

  “To stop him, of course,” Sir Cedric said, climbing up on its back. “And to save Sally. Keep up, my lord.”

  Once Oscar climbed in, Sir Cedric was away. He drove the ostrich hard, whizzing through London at breakneck speed. The crutch strapped to Oscar’s back made it awkward to sit on the bird, but there was no way Oscar was leaving it behind.

  “Every second counts,” Sir Cedric growled. “Sally is in terrible danger.”

  It took them only seventeen minutes to arrive at the Ministry. This must have been some kind of record, Oscar thought. Sir Cedric had ridden like a lunatic—half the time, the ostrich had been almost flying, threatening to tumble over. He’d taken such risks that Oscar had shut his eyes for the last five minutes of the trip.

  It was only when the
ostrich had come to a complete halt that he dared to open them again.

  “All right,” Oscar said, staring up at the imposing Ministry building. “So now we go back there? Back up to Mr. Mortis’s office?”

  “Precisely, my lord,” Sir Cedric said. “You have hit the nail on the proverbial tombstone. We will go there, and we will confront the villain Northcote.”

  “How are we going to get inside? Won’t they have guards?”

  “We have right on our side.” Sir Cedric stood tall and jutted out his chin. In his armor, he looked the very picture of a noble knight.

  Then he bent down toward Oscar and tapped a finger on his helmet, just where his nose would have been. It clanked softly.

  “Also, I know a cunning way in,” he whispered. “Helped build the new extension a thousand years ago. Know all sorts of secrets, my lord.”

  “That’s handy,” Oscar said.

  Sir Cedric’s cunning way in turned out to be Mr. Mortis’s private staircase. It wound up through the heart of the building, and it was utterly unguarded. They climbed stairs for a long time. Sir Cedric whistled “Rule, Britannia!” all the way.

  At the top was a secret door hidden behind a portrait. Sir Oscar looked out through the picture’s eyes and scanned the room.

  “Good,” he said. “There’s no one there.”

  Oscar couldn’t help feeling that this was all a little easy, but he wasn’t complaining. They made a quick search of the office. Sadly, Northcote hadn’t left any incriminating documents behind. Oscar was a little disappointed—in his mind’s eye he’d imagined a little folder with MY EVIL PLAN stamped on it in red letters. It seemed like the kind of thing that Northcote would do.

  “What now?” Oscar asked. “Do we wait for him to show up? What about Sally?”

  Sir Cedric was searching through the garbage bin. “He will return, I’m sure of it.”

  Oscar wandered about. This didn’t feel right. He was missing something.

  His eye fell on the cupboard in the corner of the room. Suddenly, he remembered Northcote standing beside it and whispering. When he reached for the handle, he felt a familiar cold tingle and a shiver ran down his spine.

  He had been missing something. There was phantasma here.

  Oscar examined the handle. It looked wrong for the door—too big—and oddly familiar.

  Oscar blinked at it for a moment. Where had he seen it before? He pictured Hieronymus Jones pulling a handle out of his pocket. He saw him use it to open a door in midair and escape. This was the same one, he was sure of it.

  “It’s only a handle,” he said as he turned it.

  The door creaked open on an impossible space. Ancient stone stairs led down into the darkness. A cold wind blew up from the depths. The air smelled of dank and decay and great age. There was a faint sound of humming machinery too.

  He turned with a smile, ready to share his discovery.

  “Loo—”

  Sir Cedric hit Oscar in the face with the wastepaper basket. The blow sent Oscar reeling.

  What’d he do that for? he thought, until he was hit with the truth.

  Sir Cedric was a traitor.

  Then his feet went out from under him. Rolling backward, he tumbled down the stairs into the darkness.

  Tumbling down the stairs didn’t hurt as much as Oscar was expecting. He slammed his head into the wall three times. Somersaulting, he crushed his spine repeatedly on awkwardly shaped steps. He even whomped himself twice in the nose with his own kneecap.

  If he’d been alive, he’d probably be dead. Instead, he was just in agonizing pain. Oscar hadn’t realized ghosts could feel pain until now.

  Crumpled at the bottom of the stairs, Oscar looked about him. Or tried to. He’d never seen stars before, but he was seeing them now, tiny bursts of pain that exploded behind his eyes like pinprick fireworks.

  From what he could see, the cavernous room looked a bit like a crypt from a horror movie. It had cobwebs and moss-eaten statues and sinister, pointy arches. At the same time, it looked just like a mad scientist’s laboratory. At the end of his tumble, Oscar had narrowly avoided impaling himself on a propeller-powered one-person plane. Every surface he could see was crammed with bubbling retorts, Bunsen burners, blunderbusses, brass cones for extinguishing guns, bombs, and brains in jars. A giant mechanical robot suit loomed in the darkness.

  Near the stairs, he spotted an incongruous everyday touch: a hat stand with a long coat and scarf and a very familiar, wide-brimmed hat.

  Hieronymus Jones.

  “Oscar! What are you doing, you fool?” Sally’s voice shouted.

  Oscar blinked and looked toward the noise.

  “Wake up! Run! While you’ve still time!” Suddenly, Oscar realized that the statue he’d thought he’d seen on the far side of the crypt was actually Sally tied to a pillar. Northcote was lurking in the shadows beside her, watching him.

  “I was wondering when you would show up,” the villain said with a wry smile. “Didn’t expect you so soon, though.”

  Still a bit dazed, Oscar didn’t reply or get to his feet. He was staring at the tall, unconscious man tied to the pillar next to Sally’s. The man was wearing a suit. He had neat black hair flecked with gray. There were many brass funnels pointing at him, and loads of complicated piping. The air around him hummed with energy, as if a storm was about to break.

  “This…is your grandfather,” Northcote bellowed with glee, as if he was revealing a grand secret.

  “Mr. Mortis,” Oscar said. “What are you doing to him?”

  “My goodness!” Northcote exclaimed. “Not even a flicker of surprise. You’ve worked it out already, haven’t you? Not bad, Oscar!”

  The piping that was connected to Mr. Mortis was slowly sucking phantasma from him. The air wobbled around him. It stank. A strange, briny chemical smell. Oscar could see that the pipes were connected to several large bell jars, which were all full of a dark, frothy substance that seemed to writhe as he watched it.

  Behind the machine was a huge shelf filled with little glass jars neatly labeled with people’s names. The jars glinted and swirled darkly—the same awful frothing.

  Phantasma, Oscar knew at once. All those jars! A lot of ghosts must have been extinguished here.

  “Oh, and to answer your question, Oscar, we are killing your grandfather.” Northcote giggled, as if he was surprised at his daring for saying such a thing aloud. “Problem is, it’s taking rather longer than we thought. Huge amount of phantasma stored up in him, you know. He is a deity, after all.”

  Sir Cedric clanked past Oscar. He had a brass trumpet in his hand.

  “Traitor!” Sally snarled, trying to shake herself free. “Villain! Snake!”

  Sir Cedric struck her in the face with a mailed fist. Sally moaned. Then Sir Cedric pointed the brass trumpet at her face.

  “Do what we say, Oscar. Or Sally dies.” The plummy, cheerful knight had vanished. The voice that had taken its place was a cold, calculating sneer.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Sally said. “Everything he says is a lie.”

  “Who are you?” Oscar said.

  “You haven’t guessed yet?” Northcote said. “Tsk, tsk, Oscar.”

  Sir Cedric flipped up the visor on his helmet. At once, Oscar recognized the face from the Wanted posters. It was Hieronymus Jones himself.

  He was smiling.

  “How did you get the boy here without a fight, Jones?” Northcote asked.

  “Oscar saved me a lot of trouble by working everything out,” Jones said with a shrug. “I just had to nudge him a few times. Made it all very discreet. It’ll be much easier to dispose of the lad down here, in private, than out in Londinium. Perhaps we can harvest him too?”

  “Bravo,” murmured Northcote, rubbing his hands together. “We’re nearly set, then.”
r />   “Why?” said Oscar, getting to his feet.

  “What do you mean, ‘why’?” Northcote asked.

  “Why are you doing all this?”

  “For the good of the Ministry,” Northcote said. “The fact is, I do all the real work: the administration, the mountains of paperwork! If you had any idea of the hours I put in while Mr. Mortis loafed about and took all the credit. It was a very inefficient system.”

  “Sounds like it’s for the good of Northcote,” said Oscar. He was trying to sidle round, grab something, anything that could be used as a weapon. There were several jars of Mr. Mortis’s phantasma on a table near the plane. Oscar remembered Sally in the Department of Contraptions saying you could use the stuff as a bomb. That made sense. The jars were giving off a ripe, chemical stink that was practically alive.

  “That too, my boy. That too. I deserve to be in charge after all my hard work. And Mortis was never going to retire. He had to be helped.”

  “You’re both as bad as each other!” Sally shouted. “When this gets out, you’re finished!”

  “Finished?” Northcote said. “We’re just getting started.”

  “We,” Sally said. “Listen to yourself. You’re teaming up with Hieronymus Jones.”

  Oscar wondered if Sally had realized what he was trying to do. She was certainly trying to distract them. He took another couple of steps toward the loaded, stinking jars.

  “It made perfect sense,” Northcote said. “I needed to kill Mr. Mortis, and it turned out that Hieronymus here had been working on a plan to do just that for twenty years. That’s why he disguised himself as Sir Cedric. Deep cover. Such admirable dedication to villainy.”

  Oscar sidled another few steps.

  “You’re idiots,” said Sally. “Extinguish Mr. Mortis and you kill Death. That means no living person will ever die! There’ll be chaos. The world will end!”

  “That’s right!” Hieronymus grinned. Oscar could see the madness in his eyes. “No more new ghosts—and the living world will fall apart! Win-win!”