Lockwood & Co. The Secret Of Penelope Fittes

Chapter Twenty

Breathlessly, I stared at the locked door. We were on one side of the door, safe, whereas Kipps and Holly were locked up with Raziel.
You've got to be kidding me!
The second I thought we had a chance to survive, something like that had to happen!
Dangerously calm, I turned to the spirit of the skull. "Why didn't you let me take her?" I hissed at him.
The skull actually still had the courage to shrug its shoulders calmly in all seriousness: "If you had walked in now, I wouldn't have been able to hold Raziel back any longer. You wouldn't have made it anyway, and you would have ended up trapped with them. Then your dear boyfriend would have tried to strangle me with his bare hands and that isn't something I look forward to..."
Lockwood pulled up an eyebrow, but stayed still.
"...and besides, you don't have to worry, because I broke Raziel's neck. It doesn't kill a ghost, but it knocks him out for a while. I don't think much of Kipps, but I think, together with Holly, he's hopefully smart enough to lock the lid of the glass again. Zack, the problem is solved and Raziel is locked away again!"
It wasn't the best words I had hoped for, but it didn't sound so bad. I was hoping Kipps was really fast enough.
I sighed and right at that moment my brain turned on again: Lockwood and George could understand the skull! I turned to the ghost and as always left his comment on Lockwood uncommented. There were some very important questions to answer:
"Why can Lockwood and George hear you and how did you get out of the glass?"
He grinned at me: "I thought you'd never ask!"
A clearing of the throat followed and then the skull began its story:
"When you and Locky didn't come back that night and you were so considerate and in the hurry to leave my bar open, I used my chance immediately and whooshed like a small hurricane through the glass until it finally slipped over the edge. The lid broke open a crack wide and I was free! At first, of course, I thought about leaving, but then I remembered that you'd be at Marissa with a 101 percent chance. And I had a bone to pick with her! So I rushed to the headquarters. I'll tell you: The place was extinct! Then my clear mind told me she probably took you to the mausoleum. I flew along, overcame a few security measures, defeated Raziel, and now I'm standing here chatting with you."
He smiled at me broadly.
"And to come back to your first question: Your friends can hear me because the ghost glass has weakened my powers and only you have understood me through your sensitive hearing. But now I am free and on the highest of my powers! Explanation: Normally everybody can understand a Type-3 spirit, which is somehow susceptible to supernatural things. Another privilege of our kind!"
He fell silent.
Actually, I should have said something, but I had no idea what it was, so I kept quiet. Instead, Lockwood took the floor:
"I never thought I'd ever say that to a ghost... but thank you! You saved our lives today!"
The skull made a speechless face: "Woah! Hadn't expected that! But you're welcome, pretty boy!"
He started smiling again. Lockwood took a step up on him.
"Don't thin to much of it! That doesn't necessarily mean we're friends!"
"Wouldn't dream about it. Oh, but now we can talk openly! I look forward to telling you everything Lucy says when she thinks she's alone. I'm sure you'll like that!"
Lockwood looked at him suspiciously.
"An example of this would be how she..."
"And that is when your conversation is over!" I pushed myself between the two and gave the skull a warning look. Behind me, someone cleared his throat.
"As much as I appreciate a chat with a type-3 ghost and  I'm actually the last one to interrupt like that, but sadly we still don't have time for it now!"
I turned to George, who leaned against a wall with his arms crossed, and the rest followed my example. Lockwood stood next to him, "George is right!"
His eyes sparkled threateningly:
"It's time Penelope realises who she was messing with!"

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

It wasn't hard to find the room where Marissa's grave was. The corridor was dark and narrow, but ended with only one door, and that was wide open. A look inside showed us that Penelope and Sir Rupert had turned their backs on us, so we scurried behind one of the many graves as soon as possible. From this place we could watch what was happening perfectly, which, if I could mention it, looked pretty weird.
Penelope had laid both hands on the grave and muttered something incomprehensible. From time to time green threads of smoke went out from her hands and scurried over the entire gravestone. I couldn't say exactly what she was doing with it, but it looked like she was doing something to the grave, because about every five seconds there was flickering around the stone.
"Okay, whatever she's doing, we have to stop her."
Lockwood, who had kneeled down next to me, slipped back a little.
"And what's your great plan?"
The spirit of the skull squatted beside me and had reduced its substance a little.
"First of all we need to find out what she's doing! George?"
Before George could even begin to answer, the skull clicked its tongue: "He won't be able to answer that, because she's cursing the grave right now. I'm afraid I can't tell you what kind she's using."
I stared at him with my mouth slightly open: "A curse? But she said she would destroy it!"
The skull laughed dryly. "How would that be an advantage for her? It would just get her annoying questions from the press. She probably just didn't want to tell you she stole that ability from me! That b*tch!"
Wow, that was mean of her.
George pushed his glasses back onto his nasal bone with his index finger: "We can call Penelope many bad names, but that doesn't get us anywhere at the moment!"
I turned back to the ghost and said, "Can you lift the curse?"
He frowned: "Possibly. But I need time for that!"
"That is something I can get you!"
Lockwood straightened up. I followed his example and George lifted himself to his feet with a groan. I looked at them all again. George, who looked a bit lost, Lockwood, who once again infected everyone with his determination, and the skull, who for the first time seemed a bit insecure.
I nodded my head once just to encourage myself: "Okay guys, I know it seems very unlikely, but we can do it! And, damn it...", I looked at Lockwood, "... be careful!"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You know exactly why!"
Lockwood said nothing more and turned back to Penelope, or Marissa... or whoever.
"Ready?"
Everybody nodded.
Lockwood cleared his throat and leaned casually with folded arms against the grave behind which we had hidden.
"You're not going to demolish the grave. Penelope! That's committing vandalism what you are doing here. With your age you should know that by now, shouldn't you."
When I stepped out behind Lockwood and looked into the bewildered faces of Penelope and Sir Rupert, I couldn't help but smile. Sir Rupert actually looked like always, but, holy cereal bar, Penelope made a damn creepy impression: the green threads swirled around her whole body and her eyes had taken on a dangerous dark green tone.
"Gabriel!", also her voice sounded a few octaves lower, "Grab them and make them... incapable of acting! I've enough!"
Like a good lapdog, Sir Rupert immediately jumped on Lockwood, who immediately plunged under his arms and kicked Sir Rupert in the ass to the opposite corner. Now it was George's turn and he threw himself at Gale's back with a considerable speed.
As much as I enjoyed watching this spectacle, I still had to take care of Penelope. I did it the same way as George, ran towards her and threw myself on her back with all my strength. Since I had the element of surprise on my side, she immediately began to falter. Her threads broke and she staggers back a few steps with me until she finally tilted backwards. Since I hadn't planned for this in my unique plan, I hit the ground hard, Penelope followed with all her weight.
Quickly he turned back to staring at the grave, whose greenish shimmering shield shone weaker and weaker.
"What have you done?!" she screamed in my face, "I wasn't finished yet!"
Desperately she hit me in the face, but I could block all the blows.
"That was the perfect plan," she kept hitting me like crazy, "But you children can't help it, can you! The curse would have made all of London blow up in fifteen minutes!"
I stared at her: "Why?"
"Well, why do you think? I'm done with this town and I may solve the ghost problem right away! Get out of this dump and go to New York! That was always my dream! But of course I could never realize it, because I still had the problem with my grave! And that would solve the problem!"
"You're crazy! You've set up a world empire here! Why would you want to destroy all this?"
"Because I know I can do it all in New York just as fine, if not faster. My plans are..."
I no longer listened to her, but looked out of the corner of my eye as the skull rushed around the grave in the shape of a mini tornado, leaving behind a white circle that moved closer and closer to the tombstone. Every time the fog touched the grave, sparks came out. Penelope stopped her monologue, followed my gaze and screamed. She straightened up and kicked me hard in the side so that I was thrown through half the room and staggered towards her grave.
Groaning, I rolled to my side and saw that I had landed right next to George, who was holding his stomach with a pain distorted face. Wordlessly, he pointed to Gale, who had just thrown himself at Lockwood's shoulder with full force, so they both went down. Gale on Lockwood. His face blushed with anger, he pulled out his sword and held it to his throat in Lockwood: "You are pathetic! You never had a chance, how could you think of that for a moment?! You don't even have weapons!"
Lockwood didn't pay any attention to the sword, but hissed back: "Being an agent means more than just being good with the repair!"
As quick as lightning he rammed his feet into Sir Rupert's stomach and threw him back on his feet where he stumbled trying to keep his balance. He staggered back and fell over George's leg, which happened to be exactly in the right place.
Sir Rupert fell and hit his head hard against the wall. A hideous crackling sounded and Sir Rupert Gale sank lifeless to the ground.
Horrified, I stared at him, but could not give him my attention for too long. Behind me a hiss sounded and a look back showed me that Penelope was desperately trying to finish her work. The skull had given up its tornado and, like Penelope, fought with white threads of smoke against their greens. At first sight it seemed as if they were both on the same level, but after a few seconds I saw that Penelope was unfortunately stronger.
The skull looked up and looked directly into my eyes: "You have to cut the threads! This is our only chance!"
"Already done!"
Lockwood jumped up elegantly, took Gale's sword and raced on Penelope. The ghost nebula of the skull had filled almost the entire room. Slipping, Lockwood slipped between Penelope and the grave and cut her threads in two with a single blow.
Immediately the green shield went out and the threads shot back to Penelope. She screamed one last time before the threads threw her through the room and she landed pretty much on Sir Rupert. Her eyes stared at nothing, her soul was destroyed.
I should have been happy; there was no explosion and all Londoners were safe.
Nevertheless, there was a problem: Lockwood was smashed hard against the grave by the momentum and from there was pushed directly into the fog. The deadly ghostfog...