Lockwood and Nola had left Flo Bones back at the canal. For now, anyway. Despite her being rather useful when it came to information on Jack Carver, Nola felt slightly relieved. She was sure that she would've been thrown yet another insult if the pair had been forced to interact with each other any longer.
"Shouldn't we get a cab home?" Nola asked Lockwood as he strode down one of London's darkened streets. A clock chimed a singular time in the distance, indicating that it was 1am, followed by the slightly ominous sound of a dog howling. A black to navy gradient was the backdrop for a full moon; the night sky so clear, you could almost see every crater. The moon, a glowing yellowy white, loomed large, surrounded by an ethereal glow. Millions of stars were sprinkled behind it, a few large ones but mostly a multitude of little white pin pricks. As much as the setting was rather picturesque, the night was bitterly cold and blowing quite the gale.
"It's such a lovely evening for a stroll." Lockwood grinned, bouncing along the pavement with his usual gusto.
Nola scoffed. "Said no one. Ever."
Lockwood continued to walk with haste, his coat billowing behind him.
Nola shuffled her feet along quickly, trying her best to keep up with his pace. "So... how did you meet Flo?" She asked curiously.
"I can't even remember. It was ages ago." He said simply, giving a small shrug of his narrow shoulders.
"Has she always been like that? I'll say... abrupt, in fear of being rude." Nola flashed a smile at her partner.
Lockwood chuckled. "Yeah, bless her. She won't take shit from anybody. There's one thing you two have a common. See, I'll make friends out of you yet!"
Nola rolled her eyes at his comment. She couldn't see herself befriending Flo Bones for as long as she lived. "She cares about you, though, doesn't she?" She raised an eyebrow, watching over Lockwood. His expression remained determined; he was on a mission. His hallow bone structure was tight and tense, and his eyes were narrowed into the distance. It wasn't exactly clear what he was glaring at so intensely, but the bright, dark eyes were most certainly narrowed.
"Yeah, but she's a worrier. That's all." Lockwood hummed.
Nola scuffed her boots across the tarmac briefly as she skipped to catch up with Lockwood. "Jeez, will you slow down a little?" She frowned. "So, what about Kipps? Why doesn't he favour you? Piss him off in a past life?"
"I suppose you could say that. We both trained at the same place when we were younger, with a bloke called Sykes, and we were once battling in a rapier competition. He was considerably older than me, but I still won, and stabbed him in the bottom in the process." A proud grin pulled at Lockwood's lips.
Nola expelled a hearty giggle. "Oh, you must be joking! Kipps has been so bitter for all these years because of a bloody rapier match? That's rich."
The pair chuckled along together, before continuing to walk in a comfortable silence. They walked close together, their feet falling into an alignment and their arms brushing up against one another's every now and then.
"Anyway." Lockwood spoke up. "We don't know how long it will take for Jack Carver to get that message. We need to move fast."
"Well, I did say we should get a cab. After all, wheels are much faster than feet." Nola frowned, looking up at Lockwood beside her.
Lockwood clicked his tongue against his teeth. "We're not headed back home yet, though."
"But it's 1 o'clock in the morning. You know full well that George will be waiting up for us. He'll be worried sick." Nola's voice shook slightly. She knew what George was like. He would start stress cleaning, and that would involve turning the whole house upside down if he had to. George had a nasty little habit of tidying away her things when she doesn't expect it, thus leading to her never being able to find said things again.
"Don't worry." Lockwood's eyes interlocked with Nola's. He smiled charmingly. "George will be thrilled when we bring the mirror home."
Nola's eyes widened. "No, you must be mad." She shook her head back and forth, glaring at Lockwood as though he had grown a second head. "Not Winkman's place."
"You heard Barnes, James. That thing is lethal. Who knows who's hands it'll end up in tomorrow? Plus, it's easier to break in and steal things at night. Besides, it's on our way home."
"Lockwood." Nola said quietly, stopping in the centre of the quiet road. Her chest and stomach suddenly felt as though they were weighed down by a boulder. "Flo said that they would kill us. You heard her." Her voice cracked. She was scared.
Lockwood stopped walking, and turned to face Nola. His eyes landed upon hers sadly, and his thin lips parted in a sigh. "Yeah, but Flo is a worrier. I'm not worried. Are you?"
"Just a bloody little." Nola huffed, exhaling heavily through her nostrils.
Lockwood's eyes flitted over Nola's face that was illuminated in the moonlight. He scanned over her skin, noting the way her freckles bridged over her nose. Her green eyes were glinting beneath hazing tears, though they never fell from her lash line. They rarely did. Her raven fringe blustered across her forehead in the night's breeze, whilst the rest of her hair was tied up at the back of her head.
He thought she looked as beautiful as ever.
Lockwood held his hand out to her. "Come on, James. You know I'd die before I let anything happen to you. Hell, I nearly have several times already. One more won't hurt."
The Bloomsbury Antiques Emporium, also known as Winkman's Store, stood on Owl Place, a narrow side road running between Coptic and Museum Streets in central London. It was a dowdy, uneven little lane, with only three commercial establishments: a pizza place on the corner with Coptic; a Chinese psychic healer, whose narrow glass door was shadowed beneath bamboo-and-paper awnings; and a broad-fronted building with two bay windows, which was the Bloomsbury Antiques Emporium. The windows of this shop were low-slung and hatched with diamond leading. The interior was always dark. Nevertheless, a variety of objects can be glimpsed within: an equestrian statue in the Greek style, with one fore-hoof broken off; a Roman vase; a cabinet in red mahogany; a Japanese ghost-mask, grinning from ear to ear. Stickers on the door announced the types of credit cards accepted; and the hours of business, which extend to after curfew. There were no ghost-bars on the door, and no obvious defences. Mr and Mrs Winkman, who lived above the shop, seemed to have no need of them.
Nola frowned at the building. "Lockwood, we'll never get in there. You don't think we should just come back first thing? You could pretend to be a customer-"
"Let's go down the side." He soon interrupted. Darting swiftly down the narrow side alley of the building, Nola was left blinking dubiously in the middle of the street.
"Oh for goodness sake." She shook her head back and forth, her eyes fixed on the tarmac, before beginning to follow him.
Wrapping his slender hands around the brass doorknob of the side door, Lockwood attempted to prise it open. Alas, he had no luck.
Nola peeped over his shoulder. "Uh, Lockwood?"
"Mhm?" He hummed, repeatedly shaking the door handle, only growing more and more frustrated as it did not budge.
She pointed a finger. "There's a padlock on it." Her voice was quiet.
Lockwood's face dropped and grew blank. He simply sighed.
"Here." Nola removed a sharp hairlip that held up half of her short hair, and placed it in the palm of Lockwood's hand. He looked at it absently. The pair stood there in silence. "Oh for goodness sake. Have you never seen a movie before?" Nola scoffed, before snatching the hair clip back. Swiftly, she jimmied the lock with its tip, and the door popped open within a mere few seconds. "There." She grinned, her expression smarmy. "How hard was that?"
A small bell, dangling from a D-shaped spindle above the door, danced and tinkled madly as they stepped inside the shop. The interior was dim, cool and smelled of dust and herbal polish. The ceiling was low. Behind them, sunlight glistened against the diamond panes, passed through stained net curtains and stretched in broken shards across the old scuffed floor. The room was a forest of stacked tables, display cabinets, chairs and random objects. Straight ahead was a counter, emptied of any staff.
Lockwood and Nola drifted around the shop, drinking in the details. They found a weird variety of paraphernalia: things of value, stuff that was evidently just junk. An Appaloosa rocking horse, dappled white flanks stained yellow with age; a tailor's dummy, head and shoulders of moth-eaten cloth, sitting atop a wormy wooden pole; an early metal twin-tub, with a hose coiled on its top; a Bakelite radio; three weird Victorian dolls with glassy, staring eyes. Those dolls made Nola shudder. She was sure that even Victorian kids would have gotten the creeps from them. Away to the left, a black curtain hung half concertinaed across a doorway. Beyond it was some kind of annexe, or smaller room.
They wandered here and there a little longer, staring at objects, casing the joint. Nola's snap survey told her that there were two exits from the shop floor: an open door behind the counter that led to the domestic apartments (she could see a narrow hallway with a faded Persian rug and sepia photos on the wall), and the room behind the black curtain. She listened, as she always did. And there was something there: not strong, not a noise exactly. Perhaps the faintest hum, coiled up, waiting to be let out. Was it the mirror? She remembered the sound she'd heard in the cemetery – like the buzzing of countless flies. It didn't sound quite like that. Whatever it was, it was very close.
"I don't like this." She whispered, her boots creeping across the wooden floorboards. Of course, they were obnoxiously creaky. Why wouldn't they be?
Lockwood too crept across the floor, his eyes scanning the room back and forth. "Can you hear the mirror?"
Nola shook her head, keeping her left hand tightly gripped to the hilt of her rapier. "There's too many sounds." She hummed, her ears filling with shouts, screams, songs. "It's like there are airways that are jammed with signals. Everything is just overlapping each other." She soon heard the echoing cries of a melancholy child. A man wailed. A woman croaked.
Lockwood and Nola continued to rendezvous around the room. Their eyes met. They didn't say anything, but they shared an understanding.
Nola suddenly gasped, staring in the direction of the room concealed behind the black curtain. She froze upon her spot, feeling as though her limbs had gained an enormous weight.
"What?" Lockwood asked, looking at her with concern. His eyes were clouded and wide, while his thick brow furrowed neatly above his eyelashes. "Is it the mirror?"
"No." Nola's voice quivered. "It's something living. We need to get out of here. Or hide. Or something." Her head flicked around the room in panic, her eyes darting in every different direction.
Lockwood pondered silently. "You're right. But, it sounds... mechanical. There's no footsteps." He took a couple of hasty steps forward. "If anyone comes out, you hide."
"Lockwood." Nola hissed, pleading for him to step backwards. Even just one single step. But, of course, Lockwood was too stubborn and insisted on prying further.
As he took another step forward, a small boy appeared from behind the black curtain. He had the physique of an upturned pear, with slicked back hair and toad-like mouth. He wore grey, woollen trousers and a tight white shirt. His eyes were blue and piercing.
Nola flinched at his sudden appearance, nearly jumping a mile from the floor, before swiftly stumbling under the disguise of a cloaked table. She crouched uncomfortably in hiding, watching Lockwood and who she assumed to be the Winkman child.
Lockwood stared at the child with a quizzical look. His head was retracted, and his right eyebrow raised. "Well. Hello there."