THERE WASN’T TIME TO FORM A PLAN. Furlock was pulling the lever, and hidden cogs in the wall were emitting a rusty shriek. Presently the windows high in the circular wall began to hinge open like the slack jaws of zombies.
Creatures proceeded through the frames.
Some floated down from the windows. Some crawled face-first down the wall like geckos. All were shrouded, grey-faced; all had bright blue left eyes; all were weighed down with gold and silver jewellery robbed from the dead.
Molly whimpered and thrashed as one of the ghouls – female, long-haired – scuttled over to untie her. The ghoul’s breath was eye-wateringly vile. “Wonderful, aren’t they?” cooed Furlock. “It so tickles me when visitors say that the ghouls on my tour aren’t realistic. If only people knew of the havoc my slaves wreak when I permit them to leave Loonchance Manor to perform my errands. In the eyes of my ghouls, I possess the authority of Lady Orgella herself.” Furlock gestured to a pair of the creatures. “Get her in position.”
Molly was free of the ropes now – but she was even less free than before; cold ghoulish hands were gripping her. Flicker-lit by the torch flames, Furlock’s ghouls roughly shunted her across the chamber and forced her to her knees at the portrait end of the low altar. Molly’s fingers were prised apart and an object thrust into her hand: something heavy. Then the clammy hand closed around hers, forcing her to grip the object. A vague and inappropriate image came to Molly’s mind: her mum teaching her to write by enfolding her hand in hers as she held a pencil, helping her to form the words. She remembered how gently she’d guided her hand…
But the ghoul wasn’t gentle, not at all. She knelt at the side of the altar near the wall-lever, to Molly’s right, silver hair falling in straggles over her face. She drew aside the sheet of cloth, and revealed a cat barely alive, eyes glazed, staring, his little ribs pulsing with fast, shallow breaths.
“Gabriel,” Molly croaked, her jaws not really working.
The cat twitched as he tried to raise his head to look at Molly. Then his head fell still; but his nearly lifeless eye continued to seek her.
The ghoul lifted her hand high, so that now she was poised to bring the heavy object in her grip – some sort of cudgel or truncheon – down on Gabriel’s head.
“Hold there – perfect!” cried Furlock. Molly realized that Carl, in the background, was whimpering with nerves.
“Gabriel,” was all Molly could say, her voice catching in her throat. Her jaw felt dislocated.
“It was Carl who told me that your cat, not the Evans girl, was probably your real best friend. But don’t worry; I promise that your other best friend is going to die tonight as well. Once my ghouls have staged the sacrifice of your cat and caused a little accident involving those loose timbers over your head, they’ll erase all traces that I was here. Then, when I give them permission to leave this chamber, they will head into the night for the next stage of my plan. An anonymous caller” – he indicated himself – “is going to telephone the Chief of Police to say that he saw a young girl breaking into Loonchance Manor holding a cat. The police will arrive to find that you and your cat were killed while you were performing a ghoul-raising ritual.”
Furlock smoothed his moustache in a manner that Molly might have found comical under other circumstances. The horrid clammy grip on her hand tightened.
“I have made a lot of money and accomplished a lot of devilry by blackmailing the people of Howlfair,” Furlock continued. “It’s time to put my ghouls into hibernation while I concentrate on winning the mayoral elections, as my mistress Lady Orgella has commanded me, and on the work that lies ahead. But first, I’ll be authorizing my ghouls to leave their lair and undertake one last mission: to kill everyone who might know about them. While the emergency services are here, digging your body out from under a pile of timber, my ghouls will be burning down Howlfair Infirmary and causing a number of other witnesses – including Mr Quick, Mrs Quincy and your own mother, of course – to die in their beds…”
“Please – don’t kill them!”
“Shush, shush, Molly!” laughed Furlock, revealing his glass hand and setting it to his lips. “Don’t fill your furry friend’s last moments with terror and anxiety! Spend your time comforting the poor creature.”
Molly felt herself swooning. The ghouls’ hands held her in position. Her head was full of fear and fog.
“You have thirty seconds,” Furlock told Molly, “to say goodbye to your pet.”
Molly looked down at her beloved sidekick, her companion through a thousand adventures. The ghoul was resting a grey hand on Gabriel’s flank, but there was no need to hold Gabriel down; the brave cat had no strength left. He could no longer move his head. But one little eye was straining sideways in its socket, looking at Molly.
“I’m sorry, Gabriel! It’s all my fault! But it’s OK – it won’t hurt, and you won’t have to worry about losing any more lives again, and I’ll be right behind you, and then…”
And then what?
“Time’s up,” yawned Furlock, though only seven seconds had passed. “I honestly thought your deathbed speech would be more entertaining. Anyway, let’s get this show on the road. It’s almost a shame that you won’t be around to see the unfolding of my mistress’ plan. She has given me the prestigious job of bringing the Dark Days back to Howlfair, and this time there won’t be any Guilds or Orders to fight her monsters. With me as mayor, our valley will become dark enough, evil enough, for the Mistress of Ghouls herself to come forth from the underworld and establish Howlfair as the capital of a new Hell. She will be its supreme queen – and she has promised to make me an honorary demon! But alas, you will be far too dead to see any of this. Ghouls – on the count of three, make the girl kill the cat.”
“In a minute,” Molly told Gabriel firmly, fixing her gaze on the little eye. “I’ll see you again in a minute.”
“One!” cried Furlock.
“You and Dad, and …”
“Two!”
“… and all the other brave Excelsior cats.”
Furlock opened his mouth, drew a breath, and the heavy lump of wood came crashing down.