AH, NOT THE PIECE OF WOOD IN MOLLY’S hand. No – that didn’t have time to fall. For Furlock was interrupted before the count of three by the collapse of part of the ceiling.
It was a loose shank of timber that dropped, clonking the head of the ghoul who held Molly. Something – a rock – had been thrown across the room from the doorway, and had hit one of the ghouls who’d been leaning against a wooden strut up in the rafters. The door to the chamber stood open; Molly saw a shadow in the gloom beyond. Then it vanished.
“Who’s there?” Furlock shouted, and Molly noticed with wild relief that he appeared somewhat discombobulated. The ghoul who’d been struck by the falling timber still held Molly in position. Molly looked down at Gabriel. The little eye had closed. The cat’s tongue protruded slightly, as though Gabriel had wanted one last taste of life. The female ghoul who’d been holding him raised her head and grinned at Molly as if to say: He’s dead.
The shadow in the doorway appeared again, and Molly saw the mysterious visitor expertly pitch another rock at a ghoul sitting in the eaves. The ghoul spun around, shoving a rafter, and a shower of bricks narrowly missed Carl. Another beam fell, slamming to the floor close to Furlock. Dust billowed, making Molly choke. Furlock scrambled coward-faced behind the nearest ghoul (his ghouls seemed unconcerned by the falling ceiling) and screamed at it to cover him. The ghoul wrapped him in an awkward hug that made Furlock scream all the more.
Watching Furlock, Molly didn’t notice the gnarled lump of timber directly above Gabriel fall through the dust clouds until it was too late.
Crash!
“Gabriel!”
She looked down to see the hunk of wood lying on the altar where her oldest friend had been. The ghoul had slithered away and was now looking to Furlock for instructions. But he was trying to get to the door, locked in a sort of tango with his guardian ghoul.
“Who’s that in the doorway?” Furlock shrieked. “Ghouls – kill the girl! Pull down the ceiling, all of you!”
Molly, eyes full of dust and tears, looked up to see Furlock break free from his bodyguard and lurch towards the chamber’s entrance. And from the corner of one eye she saw a ghostly black shape skate along the wall.
Furlock scooped up a sharp stake of wood and bumbled through the storm of dust, flattening himself against the wall to one side of the doorway, where he stood ready to thrust the stake into the throat of anyone who tried to enter the chamber.
Then as the dust drifted aside, Molly saw a figure – no, two girl-shaped figures – in the murk beyond the doorway. It took her a moment to recognize them.
Felicity Quick – armed with a rock and her rounders bat – and Lowry Evans.
A strut of timber groaned and cracked overhead, for now the rest of the ghouls had climbed the walls and populated the rafters, where they were working deftly to dislodge the beams. The noise masked Molly’s shout of warning:
“Watch out!”
Felicity didn’t hear her – and as Carl Grobman swam pathetically across the floor in an attempt to clamber out of her path, Felicity rushed straight into Furlock’s trap.
She caught the thrust of Furlock’s wooden spike with her rounders bat, dashing it aside, but as Felicity attempted a backswing, Furlock grabbed the bat in his right hand and ripped it from her grasp. Lowry sprang onto Furlock but was thrown against the wall, her foot twisting horridly, a torn scrap of Furlock’s jacket and a couple of shiny buttons in her fist. And then Molly saw it again – the ghostly black streak crossing the floor. It wasn’t until the black streak leapt up onto Furlock’s back and scrambled aboard his skull that Molly dared to recognize what it was.
“Gabriel!”
Somehow he’d slipped off the altar before the chunk of timber had struck. The ghoul-woman had taken her hand off him, because—
He was playing dead! Molly thought. Just like Dad used to.
Furlock screamed and clutched at the cat whose front claws were in his eyes.
The two girls bumbled towards Molly, dodging a deluge of rubble, Lowry limping painfully. Lady Orgella watched from the wall. The torches writhed. Molly spied Carl Grobman slipping into a shadow in the corner of the chamber. At last Furlock, blinded, his face gored, managed to peel Gabriel from his head and lurched for the door, bouncing off the wall, feeling his way with his one good hand.
Meanwhile, a strut of wood above Molly was torn away and dropped.
“Molly!” Lowry cried – and Molly looked up in time to see the plank plummet. But not in time to get out of the way.
Instinctively she rolled over. The beam slammed into the side of her leg and for a moment Molly marvelled at how the falling wood had landed with a sound exactly like the sound of a bone cracking.
Then she realized that her leg-bone had cracked.
Bravely Felicity and Lowry wove their way across the collapsing chamber. Gabriel joined them at Molly’s side. With a grunt, Felicity hauled the timber from Molly’s leg.
“Get Gabriel and go!” Molly spluttered.
“What – that’s Gabriel?” said Felicity, looking with distaste at the cat who’d previously attacked her.
The cat hissed.
“You can trust her, Gabriel – she’s a friend,” winced Molly as Felicity helped her up. Gabriel let Lowry scoop him into her arms, and the girls headed for the door, four creatures supported on four terror-tipsy legs.
“Ghouls – come down and eat those children!” Furlock sobbed at the fiends in the rafters as he found his way to the door.
Carl cried out. “Mr Furlock! What about me?”
“And don’t let that useless orphan follow me!” Furlock commanded his ghouls as he fled – not up the stairs, but down the corridor. The silver-rimmed door swung shut, and now the ghouls were descending from the rafters, floating through the dust.
“Hurry!” shrieked Lowry.
Molly scooped up a length of fallen timber to use as a walking-stick, and half hopped, half pole-vaulted across the chamber with all her strength.
Felicity got to the door first and pulled it open – thank goodness Furlock hadn’t managed to lock it – as the long-haired female ghoul drifted through the dust clouds. The ghoul was nearly upon the girls as they bumbled into the corridor with Gabriel in Lowry’s arms. Felicity wrenched the door shut and the girls blundered towards the staircase.
“They’re not following!” Lowry gasped with wild relief.
“They need Furlock’s permission to leave,” Molly croaked, lolling as Felicity, with an arm around her waist, heaved her onto the steps. “They can only do what they’re told to do.”
Lowry, wincing with pain, held Gabriel with one arm and clung to Felicity’s shoulder with the other.
Molly was right. The ghouls remained in the chamber. Furlock was gone. The only thing that followed the girls as they toiled up the stairs was the sound of Carl’s screams as the ghouls closed in on him.