Young Writers Society

I watched the light return.

The tentacles brought to mind glimpses of spirits I had seen while traveling with Natty boy and Asmira—and specifically made me think of Faquarl, who hadn't hesitated to use his when he thought I was Bartimaeus. The rest of it—the feeding off of energy and willpower—was all too familiar to me. I could do that myself, if I was prepared to get kicked out of my body afterwards.

The other ghosts couldn't ever enslave another world. They didn't have the intellect for that. They were just echoes of what they had once been. Maybe Ezekiel and old Marissa Fittes would have, if I hadn't stopped them with Lucy's help.

"Sounds like the effects of ghost lock and touch," I said. I let the air chill for a moment, tapping into the ghostly side of my powers that I had been testing before I ended up here. Something like a temperature change wasn't going to sap my energy.

I let the temperature return to normal.

"The survival rate's pretty low," I said, "unless you have an agent on hand. And even then it's...questionable."

"Ahh, are you part of a secret organization, my good man?" Sorenson shivered; it was suddenly a bit nippy in here. "May I ask what ghost lock and touch might be? It sounds like some sort of delightful game--do humans play it where you come from? I've studied a great many humans in my time and none of them have played any such thing."

I caught Sorenson shivering out of the corner of my eye, but I didn't regret playing around with the temperature in the slightest.

"It's not a game," I said. "Though the ghosts that do it might thing it is. Ghost lock is when being near a ghost makes your body freeze, and ghost touch is when you come in contact with a ghost. It shuts down your organs one by one until you die."

I gave Sorenson a smile.

"I'm sure it's a horrible way to die," I added. I stretched a little, looking up at the ceiling above us. "As for the secret organization: no, I'm not part of one."

"Ah." Sorenson frowned at him. What a curious thing to be thinking about. "Well, let's do our best not to run into a ghost and we should be fine, eh?" The lights rose above his head and rotated lazily, putting the two of them in a sort of spotlight in the darkness.

I smirked. If the goal was to avoid running into a ghost, Sorenson was failing miserably at it.

"Maybe you've already met one," I ominously said. I decided to tempt fate by messing with the temperature again—I lowered it just enough that our breaths would form in the air.

I kept my gaze on the hallway in front of us, not wanting Sorenson to figure out who the ghost was just yet.

"Aha, existentialism! Speculation! I do enjoy a bit of that myself." He blew out a breath. "Oh, would you look at that! Interesting temperature changes in this hallway, though I'm glad I've seen a cloud at last. It gets a bit lonely in a cramped tunnel like this one. He raised a hand just as the cloud was about to dissipate and it paused in midair, then swirled and coiled around his fingers. Sorenson toyed with it thoughtfully, moving it like a snake. "Mm, I do love the feeling of a warm breath leaving my lungs, don't you?"

I frowned.

That...wasn't the reaction I had been angling for. I turned and looked Sorenson over again. Maybe I had underestimated him. He definitely felt like a noble, but it was clear his adventuring had made some kind of impact on him.

And there was that magic of his, too. It wasn't anything like the magic I had back on my world—or on other worlds I had seen—with how much it varied. He didn't seem to have a specific kind of ability. He had manipulated the lights, cushioned my fall, and was now playing around with his breath like it was a toy.

(Sorenson's a chill kinda guy)

"So, how does a human get a name like Skull?" Sorenson asked as the vapor slid up his arm and ringed around his neck. "It's awfully strange, though I suppose I shouldn't judge--Sorenson Ogleby isn't exactly a common Elven name, either." It was a name of his own choosing, of course: an alias skillfully crafted from extensive study of human names and cultures. It was a name that stuck out, but nobody could ever guess who he truly was with a ridiculous name like Sorenson Ogleby. Silly as it was, though, he'd grown quite attached to it over the years.

I had no way of knowing what Sorenson was thinking, but my name was similar to his: it was technically of my own choosing, and was different enough from my actual name that no one would be able to figure out who I used to be.

There was also the fact that I had died over a century ago, but that was besides the point.

I smirked again.

"It's an old nickname," I said. "Short for 'the skull in the jar' or even just 'the skull', depending on how annoyed someone was with me."

"Skull in the jar?" Sorenson repeated, absolutely delighted by the strangeness of the name. "Gods, that's a mouthful!" The vapor left his neck and curled into a comical mustache that hovered just above his upper lip. "Your parents must have had quite a sense of humor, old chap! Strange one, though. Named after a beloved heirloom, were you?"

I faltered, for a moment, at the mention of my parents. I hadn't thought about them much lately. I tried not to. I didn't like to think about how disappointed they would be if they saw me now.

"You could say that," I replied, a mischievous glint to my eyes. "Though they weren't the ones to give me that name."

"Who, then?" Sorenson pointed to him, and the vapor slid from his face toward Skull, forming a wide ring around him. He blew out another breath and this joined the first.

I kept my eye on the ring that was forming around me. It didn't seem dangerous, but I still remained wary.

"Depends," I said, shrugging. "I was called it for a long time, but the ones who shortened it to 'the skull' were Lockwood & Co of 35 Portland Row. It was a literal name."

I stretched with that smirk still on my lips, lazily shooing away the cloud ring directly in front of me.

"I decided to go by Skull on my own," I added. "After hearing skull for so long, it felt natural."

The ring parted where he touched it, and Sorenson frowned at him before calling both clouds away. They circled him instead. "Well, it's a fascinating name by all accounts. What is this Lockwood and Co?"

"A ghost hunting agency," I replied. I turned my attention back to the hallway we were still walking down. How long had we been going down it? No matter how hard I squinted, I couldn't make out any sign of it ending soon. When I spoke again, it was with a fond tone to my voice. "They have a high rate of burning down houses, a long list of enemies, and are technically all teenagers, but they're some of the best ghost hunters London's ever seen."

...I hope none of the aforementioned agency ever found out about how much I had just praised them. They'd never let me live it down.

Assuming we met again.