Lockwood & Co. The Secret Of Penelope Fittes

Chapter Sixteen

Without hesitation we plunged into the main headquarters of Fittes. Lockwood, who apparently knew his way around, quickly approached the registration office and demanded an immediate meeting with Penelope Fittes. The woman sitting behind the registration desk, a slightly older and thin woman with pinned up hair, assured him in a professional calm voice that this would not be possible at all, as Mrs. Fittes only granted immediate access to certain persons.
"But it is extremely important and must be clarified immediately," Lockwood insisted.
"I'm sorry, but if you don't have an appointment or are not a celebrity in town, you can't go through. I have my instructions that need to be followed!"
Lockwood puffed, "I do believe Mrs Fittes is expecting us to come and wants to talk to us!"
"He's right about that, Linda. Let them through."
Immediately an unfortunately all too familiar smell of aftershave rose to my nose. Slowly Lockwood and I turned around, just to find a grinning Gale who greeted us with a sly smile.
"Well, well, well.If it isn't Mr. Lockwood with his little girlfriend Lucy Carlyle. Didn't Penelope tell you not to interfere?! Well, you know what they say, if you don't listen, you have to deal with the consequences... Seize them!"
Immediately five stocky security men appeared behind him, carrying, to my great horror, two huge sacks. Before I could even think about the escape, I was already packed and dragged behind the registration desk. Before the sack was pulled over my head, I saw Lockwood, who tried to defend himself and locked his eyes with mine a last time until he was finally knocked unconscious with a rapier knob.
Then everything turned black for me too...

..........*****..........

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in a dark room. Slowly I straightened up. The room measured about 9 square meters and the only light source was a small light bulb hanging loosely from the cable. Lockwood was lying next to me, still unconscious. I crawled over to him and tried to wake him up. At first he didn't respond at all, which made me slightly panic, so I shook harder until he rolled to his side moaning.
"Lockwood!" I hissed, "Come on!"
Slowly he straightened up, leaning on the ground with one hand and holding his head with the other: "Oh my God..."
He looked around. "Where are we?"
"I have no idea."
Carefully I tried to get up, which I managed to do after two attempts. When I finally could stand without swaying, I looked around and helped Lockwood to his feet. He was still staggering because of the blow to the head.
"We have to get out of here!" he hissed and tried desperately to stay upright, "Now!"
But before I could even open my mouth to answer, the only door behind us was torn open. An old man in Fittes clothes looked at us behind a pair of glasses: "Ahh! You're awake! Well, that makes things easier."
Immediately four men stormed out behind him, each grabbing us in pairs and pulling us out of the room. I didn't even try to defend myself, because it would be useless anyway and Lockwood wasn't in any shape to do something anyway so he too stayed put. Nevertheless, you could clearly see that he would have preferred to resist the men.
We were carried through several corridors until we were finally pulled into a large room where they unceremoniously threw us into and I landed on Lockwood with an "Uff!" Swearing, I rose and helped Lockwood up. When we both stood halfway safe (I supported Lockwood who leaned against my shoulder thankfully) I finally looked around.
A normal, slightly larger room with a desk, three chairs and a large cupboard. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But then my eyes fell into a corner and I had to do a double take.
In the furthest corner of the room was (in a cage!) George.
Lockwood too had discovered him.
"George!" he moaned.
The person we spoke to looked at us with a tired, pitiful look and took a step to the side. It had to get worse, of course. Behind George stood, with his shoulders hanging, Kipps, and behind him on the floor...
"Holly!"
"Hey Lucy..." she smiled matt.
I was about to ask how she got here until I finally realized something. That she stayed away from work longer than necessary, that she never contacted us, that didn't look at all like Holly. The situation here explained a lot...
"How long have you been here?"
Lockwood looked at her expressionlessly in horror.
Holly was thinking, "I think over a week..."
"Oh, my God!" I took in the air and Lockwood closed his eyes for a few seconds. When he opened them again he had a murderous look on his face that I didn't see often in him.
Behind us someone cleared their throat.
Furiously, Lockwood and I turned around: There she stood, in a tight-fitting dark green dress. Penelope Fittes, London's most influential personality. Lockwood looked at her coldly: "Penelope, with your apparently non-existent honor, what, please, is that?", he pointed to the cage, "That goes way too far!"
"Well, Anthony," Penelope came up to him calmly, "I warned you! Since you wouldn't stop interfering, I had to act..."
"You can't call that acting! That's deprivation of liberty!" I approached her threateningly.
"Don't exaggerate, dear. Do you really think it was surprising when you stood in my office today? Do you really think you would have surprised me? No! I've got it all worked out. From your first break-in in my mausoleum to saving your friends."
None of us answered to that. At the moment, there was nothing else we could do anyway.
"It was only a matter of time before my skull told you the first part of my secret..."
"He's not your skull!" I flipped at her. Penelope laughed
"Oh, yes, sweetheart. At least he's definitely more my skull than he will ever be yours. . I created him after all!"
I couldn't stop myself staring at her in surprise. George also took in his breath behind me in horror. Only Lockwood kept staring angrily at her, as if he had already expected this statement. Penelope seemingly enjoyed our surprised glances visibly and continued with her head held high:
"Yes, it was a long time ago... It was a rainy November morning. I was already looking for your skull for a long time. The incident at Bickerstaff is known to you, I believe. Accordingly, he was the perfect victim for my attempt, and the source was also easy to find. I mean, a skull!", she scornfully shook her head, "That's not very original..."
"But that was over 150 years ago!" I looked at her in confusion.
"I'm over 300 years old, dear."
Boom!
So now she dropped a bomb.
Even Lockwood stared at her with his mouth open. (He still had to lean on me).
Penelope smiled confidently at us: "I know, I know. I aged fairly well. This has to do with a very specific method: The lifeblood of a Type-3 ghost. The elixir that holds a Type-3 spirit in this world. The method is actually quite simple: you awake a Type-3 spirit and burn the source at once. So you get a conspicuous orange smoke that makes you an immortal person, or as I say...", she paused for art, "... a Type-4 ghost. The only thing that is somewhat annoying is the effect on the Type 3 ghost: your skull is bound to our world forever. One cannot destroy the source and not carry the spirit to the afterlife. Well, at least I'm immortal, so it's worth it!"
I stared at her in horror. She was the only one who managed to torture a ghost forever. Penelope noticed my gaze and went on:
"Too bad you didn't make it to my grave back then. Because then you would have seen that there are no bones because Marissa never died. Penelope doesn't exist, neither does her mother. Tom and I have been planning this for years. Only it was a shame that he was never allowed to experience it... He never had the chance to try the elixir for himself and died from the ghosttouch..."
Shortly I saw her eyes flashing with sadness, but she grasped quickly.
"Accordingly, there was no reason for me to tell his successors... Still, I was so stupid back then and I told my best friends. You know who that was, don't you, Anthony?"
She smiled at him with a sweet smile. Lockwood tense up next to me.
„I knew from the beginning that your mother would tell your father about my plan. Yet I was young and still had trust in my friends." She laughed coldly. "Trust. You too will soon learn that the only way you can somehow successfully survive this way of surviving our life which we call living when you stay on your own. When you let people near yourself they either betray you which angers you or die which saddens you. I think some of you have first hand experience on this topic, ain't I right." Her gaze lingered on Lockwood whose face remained blank. "It was only a matter of time and of course it had to come that way. She shouldn't have done it! She had promised me she wouldn't say anything and yet she did. So it was actually her own fault, wasn't it?"
"What?" The word came out as a breathless his and I steadied my grip on his arm.
"The car accident. Well I suppose you can't really call it an accident... when I sent the car that was going the wrong way."
Okay, my hand just got squeezed in a rather hurtful way. I didn't dare look at him.
"You killed my parents..." He didn't shout. That wasn't Lockwoods way of showing emotion. It has never been. His voice was silent and collected. Which was even scarier. He looked...betrayed. Like even if Penelope was a bad person he would still never believe that she would be capable of doing something like that.
Penelope shrugged her shoulders: "There wasn't any other glad. Be glad that you and your sister survived that. Normally the whole family should have been wiped out!"
Lockwood eyes hardened. None of us dared to say anything. This wasn't our time and right to fight her. Still none of us could prevent the silent sob that escaped our throats.
"You killed my parents. You destroyed my childhood in one night and turned my whole life upside down! She was your friend! The only person that got betrayed was my mother and not you!"
Once Penelope coughed condescendingly and continued unflinchingly: "She didn't want to listen and on the other hand she didn't want to support my project either..."
"Who would support such a thing?" Meanwhile my horrified look had stuck on my face. "That's torture!"
"They're just ghosts!"
"What about Charlotte? Why is she still alive?"
I turned around: George leaned against the bars and looked at Penelope waiting.
"Charlotte was lucky. After Celias death she immediately moved back to Ireland. She wasn't a problem for me there for now. Nevertheless, she is now back and had, as I have heard, a conversation with you about me. Well, it's kind of a shame about her. She was a good friend..."
I opened my eyes and said, "You killed Charlotte, too?"
Now the time had come for Lockwood and me to hold on to each other.
"You are a monster!"
"Killed? I wouldn't say it so directly now, but rather that the cake without the nuts was with nuts. But as I said, it is a pity, because she was a faithful friend and told me immediately about your visit. But enough of that!"
She looked at us triumphantly.
"That's the secret you were trying to unravel. The big mysterious secret about Marissa Fittes. The secret that will now end your lives..."