FOOTSTEPS ON THE FLOORBOARDS. WHISPERS and feral breaths as something cold crept close. Any summer-night warmth left in the hallway flew away with the stinging suddenness of a ripped-off plaster. Molly spun – a mistake, because a freezing unseen hand grabbed her as she spun, and spun her some more, kept spinning her; and she screamed – an even worse mistake, because while her mouth was wide open, something like rope (she was pretty sure it was rope) was wrapped around her lower head, wedging between her teeth so that she couldn’t shut her jaws.
Now she was being dragged by the head, lassoed, herded, with no idea which direction she was going in. It was like spinning through space. The fear was cosmic. Thought was impossible. Then the torchlight blared, and Molly saw who was pulling her: it was Benton Furlock, his delighted white face as shiny as a melting ice cube. He was walking backwards, dragging Molly towards him; Carl must have been behind Molly, aiming the torch.
“Well done, Carl!” Furlock laughed. “And well done to you, Molly – for figuring out that Carl has been working for me all along.” His pale, evil face glowed as he yanked the rope. “Unfortunately, you found out too late.”
Molly tried to claw at the rope wedged in her mouth, but it was too tight. Besides, she needed both hands for protection – she was bouncing off walls and furniture. She stumbled, knocking over a waxwork of that crooked old viper Grandma Loonchance. She knew that if she fell over, Furlock would yank her to her feet, and it would hurt. She put her hands out and fended off a flapping cobweb as Furlock wrenched her through a doorway.
“At least you get to go on my Ghoul Tour before you die, eh, Molly? Look! This is the room where Daphne Loonchance told her family that she would be marrying a gravedigger…”
Molly was unable to take in the features of the drab, miserable room. Furlock hauled her like an anchor and her hand sliced through the glass of a grandmother clock. She moaned as the glass slashed her flesh to free a flow of blood. The clock toppled behind her.
“Daphne, of course, discovered the secret of gaining control over ghouls – her fiancé gave it to her before the Loonchance family murdered him. She wrote it in her diary, on a page that went missing. And I found the missing page when I took possession of Loonchance Manor. Took me months to find it…”
Molly wanted to beg Furlock to let her go, but the rope was wedged tight between her jaws.
“The secret of gaining power over ghouls, Molly, is a sacrifice – performed on the night of a blue moon.” Furlock’s voice faded as he moved into the darkness of a side corridor. “A sacrifice made to a very special demon – Lady Orgella. A sacrifice that will persuade her to command a mob of ghouls to obey your every wish, ghouls desperate to win the Lady’s favour and return to Hell. Ah, and do you know what you must sacrifice to meet the Mistress of Ghouls’ demands?”
Molly felt a surge of centrifugal force as Furlock swung her around a corner. The torch beam followed, bobbing.
“You must sacrifice your best friend, Molly. Friendship, you see, is a sacred thing, and Lady Orgella loves to desecrate that which is sacred. Daphne Loonchance sacrificed her best friend on the night of the blue moon. I poisoned Mr Halfstar – my business partner and closest friend – on an altar beneath this manor. And tonight, Molly, you are going to sacrifice your best friend on the same altar.”
Molly thought: Lowry!
“I’ve had my eye on you for some time, Molly – your investigations have caused me much amusement. But then you began meddling in my affairs, telling everybody about the plague pits underneath a plot of land on which I wish to see a new housing estate. Helping Doris de Ville by spying on me. And then Carl told me that you were investigating Mrs Fullsway’s death – I never meant for my ghouls to give her a fatal fright, by the way – and I knew I had to get rid of you. Not only get rid of you, but destroy your reputation so that nobody believes anything you’ve ever said.”
“Scumbag!” Molly tried to shout – but the rope didn’t allow her to form the word. Her palm slammed into a wall, leaving a bloody print from her cut. The rope creaked as Furlock dragged Molly up a short flight of wooden steps. She stumbled, cracking her knee on the splinter-riddled wood. A sob of pain and terror and fury escaped her.
“Your body will be found underneath a pile of fallen timbers in a vault undergoing renovation,” Furlock continued. “An investigation will reveal that you discovered the secret of Daphne Loonchance, the secret of raising ghouls, and broke into Loonchance Manor to enact a horrific ritual. What’s more, a note will be found in one of your school books, forged by Mr Grobman here, and will suggest that it was Doris de Ville – the mayor’s own wife! – who first encouraged you to break into my manor to spy on my operations ahead of the mayoral elections.”
Molly’s head thumped against a sinister ebony cuckoo clock. Her skull sang.
There was an old-fashioned paternoster lift halfway down the corridor. Furlock yanked Molly towards him, and with great dexterity he spun her around like a ballroom dancer and coiled her in the rope, pinning her arms. Hooking the rope over the crook of his elbow, he wrenched aside the cage door and gestured for Carl to enter the lift, then pulled Molly inside.
The torchlight roamed as Carl found the right button. Furlock’s presence seemed to freeze the air. Molly searched frantically for a means of escape. Furlock’s casual ease betrayed a certainty that no such means were available to her.
The lift lurched, falling. Molly’s stomach rose. She dreaded to think what horrid chambers awaited her beneath Loonchance Manor.
The lift gathered speed.
“Think of the scandal, Molly! The mayor’s wife encouraging a meddling youngster to spy on her husband’s rival… A morbid-minded young girl breaking into Loonchance Manor and murdering her best friend as part of a macabre black-magic ceremony intended to raise ghouls! Then dying in a horrible accident before the ceremony can be concluded!”
The lift thumped to a stop. Carl pulled the lift’s cage door aside and directed his torch down a tunnel studded with black archways.
Furlock followed. He gave the rope a tug, and Molly followed too. She found she was whimpering with fear. Her legs wobbled and danced wildly. She thought of Lowry trapped down there in some hideous vault, awaiting the fate that Furlock had planned. The evil philanthropist’s voice echoed as he led her down the tunnel.
“You’re playing along so nicely, Molly, that I’m tempted to tell you the thing that you most want to know: what happened to your father. But that is one mystery you will die without solving. I will only say that I cannot, unfortunately, take any credit for his death. I say unfortunately because your blasted father caused me a great deal of distress – not least because he cost me my hand.”
Over one of the archways was a metal sign, curved like a shallow rainbow. Furlock paused beneath it. The writing on the sign made Molly think fleetingly of fairground rides. It read:
Another sign below it read:
Furlock pulled Molly into the darkness beyond the archway, towards a spiral stairway of freezing stone. As Furlock trod, lamps set in little alcoves in the walls sprang alive. Carl switched off his torch. Furlock disappeared round the corner and gave Molly a tug.
“Keep left,” he barked as she jerked forward.
There were metal plates on every fifth step, one on the left, one on the right; stepping on a plate on the left caused the lights further down the staircase to illuminate, and plunged the stairs behind Molly back into darkness. At last they reached the foot of the steps, where they found a corridor bearing a row of wooden doors with silver edging. Carl moved ahead to unlock one such door. He shouldered it open to reveal a circular stone-walled room lit by torches that nestled in iron holders. The room breathed out rancid air; it had the haunted stench of a stagnant midnight pond.
Furlock shoved Molly into the chamber and released the rope; she tumbled to the damp, cobbled floor. Instinctively she thrashed to release her arms. Carl shut the door. Wildly Molly looked around the ghastly vault, searching for Lowry.
Opposite her, with steps beneath it, was a portrait of Lady Orgella, flanked by torches. Orgella wore a circular, cyan eye patch. Butterflies and death’s head moths were in her hair. Her face was grey and grave, beautiful and nightmarish. Circling the room were small booths, cut high into the wall, half of them empty, half of them occupied by – flipping Nora! – the skulls or leathery, embalmed heads of people sacrificed to the Mistress of Ghouls.
Above the booths were foggy, thick-glassed windows; Molly fancied she saw blue lights spangling behind the glass.
At ground level a large lever, the sort you’d imagine might open a lock, protruded from the wall. And in the middle of the room was a low altar…
There was a sheet draped at one end of the altar, the end nearest the demon’s portrait, and under the sheet was—
Well, it wasn’t Lowry, that’s for sure.
It was the size of a small animal, and it wasn’t moving.
Molly knew immediately who was under the sheet.
It was her oldest and truest best friend.