“I was the one who brought Qi to you,” she said. Why should Norma get the credit for that, when Harriet had done the dirty work?
Rufus raised his eyebrows. “I was wondering which secret admirer had left me that little gift. How did you manage it?”
“I … pretended to be Rima. She followed me straight downstairs.”
Rufus laughed. “Brilliant! Congratulations on such a useful power. Well, I suppose I can help you out. Just this once. You’re practically family now, aren’t you?”
Harriet frowned at him. He gestured to his white hair, and hers, a secret smile lighting up his eyes. “Matching features! It’s as if we’re related.”
Beside him, Vini snorted.
“Right,” she agreed. She’d agree to anything, if it would help save her.
Rufus turned to the pool-playing ghost. “Sorry. This one’s off the menu for now.”
The boy nodded and turned to leave, but Rufus grabbed him by the back of the collar. He thrust him towards Harriet.
Her reaction was automatic. As soon as the boy’s skin touched hers, she tugged at the edges of his soul and sucked up his energy. The boy screamed in rage, wriggling in their grip.But Rufus held firm as Harriet drank until the boy disintegrated into nothing.
Rufus drew his hand back, flexing his fingers. He nodded at Harriet in approval. Why had he done that for her? He must dislike being in someone’s debt for any longer than necessary.
The boy had filled the empty place inside, quenching her thirst a little. She was safe from becoming a Shell now, and could probably defend herself if someone else attacked her. Every muscle in her body ached, though she couldn’t even tell if that was real, or some pain-induced hallucination. Had her gran really attacked her? Surely that had been an impossible nightmare, not real life. Though, why had Norma left her with enough energy to stop her from disintegrating? Why hadn’t she gone ahead and destroyed her completely, instead of leaving her on the verge of becoming a Shell? It was like Norma didn’t actually want to get rid of her.
Harriet shivered. It was no use thinking about this. She was just going to stay as far away from her grandmother as she could. Forcing herself to sit upright, she pushed her head back up to centre. “Thank you, Rufus.”
“Why don’t you come with us?” he said. That strange glint reappeared in his eyes. “I think there’s something you’ll want to see.”
FELIX
Leah led them down the red-brick tunnel, stepping lightly over stones worn from centuries of footsteps. Claudia was more active than Felix had seen her in ages, burbling and skimming the bricks with her fingers. Cody hopped along too, stopping to do invisible little wees up the wall every few paces.
They passed a ghost dressed in a long gown, with her hair covered in a cap. There was a purple bruise on her cheek. When she smiled, Felix caught sight of sharp fangs jutting out of the corners of her mouth. He skirted past her, though Leah said a friendly hello in something like medieval English.
“Her skeleton is still sealed up in that brick wall,” Leah said to him, as they moved on. “Poor thing.”
Felix shivered.
Finally, Leah stopped walking. “This is far enough. This wall here is right up against the property edge. They won’t be able to get behind us.”
They all sat down, with Leah keeping a close eye on the hallway.
“Qi must be gone,” Rima said. “If the ghosts have escaped the basement.”
“Oh, no,” Felix said, devastated. He hadn’t thought of that. “Do you think Harriet got to her?”
“Or Norma,” Kasper said darkly. “I wouldn’t put it past them to have teamed up.”
Rima asked Leah, “Why are the Tricksters after you? You have to tell us this time, Leah. You can’t keep it a secret for ever.”
Leah sighed. “Fabian wasn’t a good man. Worse than his brothers. The three of them used to work as a team, completely in sync. Rufus and Vini would take down other ghosts like prey, feeding on their fear. Then Fabian would extract their memories and use their weaknesses against them.”
“His power let him see memories?” Rima asked.
“Fabian could visualize people’s memories and create fake ones. He was very good at playing with people’s brains. The three of them would implant fear into their servants’ minds to make them compliant. Then they could use them without damaging their bodies through torture. He put fear in me, too. Even after he disintegrated, it took centuries for my brain to stop being afraid of all the things he wanted me to fear.”
Leah swallowed. “Anyway. Fabian’s power gave him utter control of the ghosts in this building, but that wasn’t enough for my husband. He wanted more. He hated that he’d died young, before he’d achieved everything he wanted to do as a human. He had plans in the army, you see. He was always ambitious, even after his death. We spent the first few centuries as ghosts living alongside the human Roman soldiers. But eventually, the army started withdrawing from Britannia. The Roman Empire was falling apart.
“After our encampment was abandoned, Fabian became fixated on searching for a way to get more energy, more powers, more spirits. He couldn’t stand the thought of ever disintegrating. He wanted to live longer, survive and outlast everything.”
Felix was so focused on Leah’s story that he forgot to even breathe.
“The reason I can’t use my power any more is because he was always asking me to look into the future. He wanted to know everything that would happen, stretching over hundreds of years. When I started telling him things he didn’t want to hear – about a time when he was gone, and the rest of us were here without him – he started looking for a way to stop it.”
Leah closed her eyes. “He became convinced there was a way to come back. He
