Lockwood & Co. Book Three: The Hollow Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

pause.
    “Is he dead?”
the skull’s voice said.
“Yay! Oh. No, he’s hanging on to the shutters. Shame. Still, this is definitely the funniest thing I’ve
ever seen. You three really are incompetence on a stick.”
    Frantically dancing clear of the nearest tentacles, I tried to get a view of Lockwood. To my relief, the skull was right. Lockwood was hanging out over the drop, his body a rigid diagonal,
clinging to the broken shutters. The wind howled around him, tugging his hair across his long, lean face, seeking to pluck him away into the November night. Happily, it was also buffeting his
burning coat. The silver flames were dwindling. They began to die.
    Which was what we were
all
in danger of doing. Any second now.
    George’s sword was only yards away, but it might as well have been in Edinburgh. Ghostly coils swirled around it like anemones waving in a shallow sea.
    “You can get it!” George called. “Do a cool somersault over them or something!”
    “
You
do one! This is your fault! Why can’t you ever throw things accurately?”
    “Coming from you! You chucked that bottle like a girl!”
    “I
am
a girl. And I put Lockwood’s fire out for him, didn’t I?”
    Well, that was sort of true. Over at the window, our leader was hauling himself back inside. His face was green, his coat gently smoking. He had a neat red circle on his forehead where the
bottle had struck. He wasn’t exactly tossing thanks my way.
    A particularly long and silver tentacle had homed in on me; it was steadily pushing me back toward the hatch, among cobwebs large as laundry.
    “Faster, Lucy!”
That was the skull in the jar.
“It’s right behind you!”
    “How about a little help here?” I gasped as a tendril brushed my arm. I could feel the stinging cold right through the fabric of the coat.
    “Me?” The hollow eyes in the face became hoops of surprise.
“A ‘dirty old pile of bones,’ as you call me? What could I do?”
    “Some advice! Evil wisdom! Anything!”
    “
It’s a Changer—you need something strong. Not a flare—you’ll just set fire to something. Probably yourself. Use silver to drive it back. Then you can get the
sword.
”
    “I don’t
have
any silver.” We had plenty of silver Seals in the bag, but that was near Lockwood, on the other side of the room.
    “What about that stupid necklace you always wear? What’s that made of?”
    Oh. Of course. The one Lockwood had given me that summer. It was silver. Silver burns ghostly substances. All ghosts hate it, even powerful Changers that manifest as ectoplasmic coils. Not the
strongest weapon I’d ever used, but it just might do.
    Squatting back against the angled roof, I put my hands behind my neck and undid the clasp. When I brought my fingers around, cobwebs hung from them in greasy clumps. I held the necklace tight,
and whirled it around and around my fist. The end made contact with the nearest tendril. Plasm burned; the tentacle snapped upward and away. Other coils flinched back, sensing the silver’s
nearness. For the first time, I cleared a safe space around me. I stood up, supporting myself against the rafter behind.
    As my fingers touched the wood, I was hit by a sudden wave of emotion. Not
my
emotion—this feeling came from all about me. It seeped out of the fabric of the attic, out of the
wood and slates, and the nails that held them there. It seeped out of the flailing coils of the ghost itself. It was a vile sensation—a sickly, shifting mix of loneliness and resentment,
speared with cold, hard rage. The strength of it beat against my temples as I looked across the room.
    A terrible thing had happened here, a terrible injustice. And from that act of violence came the energy that drove the vengeful spirit. I imagined its silent coils slipping through the floor
toward the poor lodgers sleeping in the rooms below….
    “Lucy!” My mind cleared. It was Lockwood. He had stepped away from the window. He’d picked up his sword.