A/N: Hi, everyone! It's been a hot second since I last uploaded anything, hasn't it? Blame grad school - one semester to go! Quarantine has given me plenty of extra free time, though, so I've been able to write as well. Here's my latest offering, based on the marvelous Lockwood & Co. series by Jonathan Stroud - if you've never read them, I highly recommend! This story takes place post-TEG & is complete! It's 12 chapters long, divided into 4 parts similar to the books. I'll post a new chapter weekly. I hope you enjoy! :)

PART I: CLOCK & DAGGER

'Imposing' was an excellent way to describe the house stood before us – the manor was huge, with two full wings extending off either side of the central structure, a lengthy drive ending in a wrought iron gate easily twice my height, and grounds stretching as far as the eye could see. An automobile so shiny I could see our reflections even from a distance sat smartly beside the house, and…dear lord, were those fountains I could hear? 'Excessive' might've been a better word…

"All right, Luce?" a voice asked from my left. I turned to meet the gaze of Anthony Lockwood.

"Of course," I assured him. "Just scoping things out." I made a sweeping gesture towards the house's enormous façade.

"It is rather impressive, isn't it?" another voice chimed in from my right. George Cubbins' gaze was fixed firmly upon the house as well, an expression of appreciative awe in his blue eyes. As he was our resident researcher and history buff, I could see why George was so fascinated with the building in front of us.

My name is Lucy Joan Carlyle. Lockwood, George, and I make up the heart of A.J. Lockwood & Co., a psychic investigations agency based in London. Simply put, we're ghost hunters. Someone calls us about a troublesome spirit, and it's our job to visit the site of the haunting, find the Source – the object tethering the ghost to our world – and contain it.

Though our other team members (official or otherwise) were valuable contributors, George felt that this particular case didn't need all hands on deck – from what our client had said, it sounded like a typical Type Two, which, while plenty dangerous, we'd encountered in dozens of previous cases and were more than equipped to handle. As a result, it was just us three who'd traveled to the English countryside. It was just like old times, back when I'd first joined the agency, and I rather liked it.

"Ready then?" Lockwood asked. We'd reached the massive front doors, nearly half as tall again as any of us. Before George or I could answer (there was no need, really, as it had been more of a rhetorical question than anything), Lockwood raised his hand and rapped sharply upon the door.

Although we'd yet to meet our client (the case had begun with an over-the-phone consultation), we knew immediately that the woman who answered the door was the woman we'd come to see. She wore the same expression we'd seen on many previous clients: a mixture of fear, apprehension, and a little bit of hope, that last bit no doubt due to seeing someone who could perhaps help with her problem.

"Good afternoon," Lockwood said pleasantly. "Mrs. MacMurtrie, is it? We represent Lockwood & Co. – we're here about the psychic disturbances."

"Yes, welcome!" the woman replied, that bit of hope noticeably increasing now that she knew who we were. "Please, do come in." She stepped aside to allow us entry.

If the house's exterior was impressive, the interior was ostentatious, bordering on gaudy. Priceless antiques dotted nearly every surface, the chandelier overhead and the mounted mirror to my left were some of the biggest I'd ever seen, and there was enough gold leaf (whether real or imitation, I didn't know) to blind a person. It was a bit of a shame, really – based on what I knew of such things from George's recent research, the house really did have the potential to be a truly elegant estate, but the decorator had gone so far over the top that it never stood a chance. I had to admit I was also a bit confused. Mrs. MacMurtrie wore expensive clothes, to be sure, but she was dressed rather stylishly – our fellow agent Holly Munro would've approved – so unless her taste in décor was drastically different from her taste in clothes, she didn't seem to fit with the house at all.

"The kitchen is this way," our host instructed. "I apologize for not bringing you to the sitting room, but…well, you'll know in a minute." Our ears pricked up at that. If. Mrs. MacMurtrie was avoiding the sitting room, it most likely played a central role in the manifestation.

The kitchen was large and modern, with plenty of seating around a central island. It was also already occupied – a tall man crisply dressed in a dark suit and tie leant against the far counter. He seemed to be roughly forty in age, and he surveyed us with a critical eye as we entered.

"Tea?" Mrs. MacMurtrie asked, already reaching for the kettle.

"Yes, thank you," we answered. If there was anything Lockwood & Co. thrived on besides ghost hunting, it was tea.

"Tina, haven't I already said this is a bit much?" the man asked.

"And haven't I already said I'm going through with it anyway?" Mrs. MacMurtrie – Tina, we surmised – retorted.

"It's highly unnecessary-"

"I won't have my children in this house again until the problem is gone!" Our host turned to us, her angry expression softening.

"My sincerest apologies," she said. "This is my brother, Robert Danbury."

"That's Lord Danbury to you, thank you."

The countertop was high, which meant that Lord Danbury missed the subtle but effective squeeze to my leg, courtesy of Lockwood, that stopped me from running the pretentious twit through with my rapier. It was obvious from his brief exchange with his sister that the man didn't believe in ghosts – or, at the very least, was extremely skeptical – but honestly, he had a potentially dangerous Visitor in his house, and he was worried about a title? Most people had stopped caring about those decades ago.

"Robert, enough," Mrs. MacMurtrie said sharply. "You've made it quite clear what you think of my children's story, but Georgie saved Nathaniel Miller's life last month when she warned him of a ghost. If she said she saw something, she did." Danbury harrumphed but didn't speak further.

"Would you mind recounting your story once more, Mrs. MacMurtrie?" Lockwood asked politely. "We spoke on the phone, of course – goodness, but we haven't introduced ourselves, have we? I'm Anthony Lockwood, head of Lockwood & Co., and these are my associates, George Cubbins and Lucy Carlyle. Anyway, it would be most helpful for us all to have the same information before we begin. You said something about your children?"

"Yes." Mrs. MacMurtrie passed us teacups and set a tray laden with accoutrements within reach. We thanked her politely as she poured the hot water, and she began her tale.

"This house has been in our family for over a century," she explained, "and we – myself, Robert, and our other siblings – have been hard at work restoring it since we inherited it from our late father some five years ago. In all that time, we'd never noticed anything amiss – of course, the restorations take place during daylight hours, but even then, I know that stronger spirits can sometimes stir up trouble long before nightfall. As the work is finally nearing completion, I decided to bring my children for an afternoon visit – it's important that they know their family history. Robert and I were having tea in the sitting room when Georgie and Tom – my children, of course – came running into the room, practically hysterical. Once they'd calmed enough to speak, they explained that they'd seen something – a translucent figure – hovering near one of the upstairs bedrooms. They'd barely finished when Tom started screaming again – there was another, he said, in that very room."

"What did your son say about the second apparition?" Lockwood inquired. Mrs. MacMurtrie shivered.

"His exact words were, 'She's ever so much clearer, and she's got a bloody knife!' I was about to scold him for his language when his sister clarified that he meant it literally. This…vision was much clearer than the one they'd seen upstairs – so clear they thought she was a real person at first – and she carried a wicked-looking dagger, its edges slick with blood."

"I still believe this is a waste of time, Tina," Lord Danbury said disdainfully.

"And I still believe that in this particular instance, I'm going to trust my children more than my skeptic of a brother!" Mrs. MacMurtrie snapped. "Adults can't see spirits at all, we all know that, but just because you didn't have a shred of psychic ability as a child doesn't mean it doesn't exist! And given the history of this particular house, you'd think you'd be more inclined to believe me for once!"

Whoa. Tina MacMurtrie was clearly much stronger than she'd seemed when she'd first opened the door. I was liking her more by the minute. And from what she'd said about her children, it sounded like they each had a fair amount of psychic talent themselves – not that I was going to bring that up in this particular situation, of course.

Her brother, on the other hand, sickened me. Did he not realize how many children had died protecting idiots like him from that very same fate? Given what we knew about his own case, did he not realize how lucky he'd been thus far? Contrary to what we'd originally thought, it sounded like we were dealing with more than one Visitor, at least one of which was highly dangerous. His petty jealousy was ridiculous.

"You mentioned the history of this house – have you heard of the Mad Mistress then, Mrs. MacMurtrie?" George asked then. Mrs. MacMurtrie looked thoughtful.

"I cannot say I recall the name – the only notable name attached to this estate is that of the Willoughbys, the original owners."

"Then perhaps you've heard of her after all," George replied. "The Mad Mistress' real name was Lady Madeleine Willoughby. Her branch of the family lived here back in the early eighteenth century, and they were, by all accounts, quite influential. Ironically, she earned the moniker 'the Mad Mistress' over a mistress – when she discovered her husband was having an affair, she murdered both the husband and the mistress before killing herself, all in the same night. The authorities never found the murder weapon, but the official report spoke of slit throats and stab wounds."

"Everything George said lines up with the children's account," Lockwood pointed out. "Your son and daughter saw an apparition carrying a dagger – Lady Madeleine herself, no doubt – and it sounds like our Visitor upstairs is one of her victims. It would stand to reason that the other is here as well, bringing our ghost total up to three."

Three Visitors. This job was looking less straightforward by the minute…but as that was essentially our M.O., I wasn't bothered. Lockwood, I knew from experience, would be bouncing around like an overexcited child as soon as the adults was gone, and George was practically drooling over the house's history. Even I was looking forward to it – ghosts were dangerous, oh yes, but non-agents could hardly understand the thrill of the chase, and of course, I couldn't resist the chance to test my Talent.

Kids good enough to become agents have at least one of three Talents: Sight, Listening, and Touch. I happen to be unusual in that I have two exceptionally strong Talents, those being Listening and Touch. Through those Talents, I can hear glimpses of what happened in the past, which often gives me a better understanding of the scene, and of the ghost itself. In some instances, I can even communicate with the ghost, although as most ghosts can't say more than a phrase or two, this is difficult. The only ghosts capable of full conversation are Type Threes, which are so rare that only one has ever been (officially) recorded. As it so happens, we know of a second Type Three, a spirit attached to a human skull we kept in a jar at Portland Row. George stole it when he left the Fittes agency, but it was only when the ghost spoke to me that we realized it could do much more than just pull faces. Many of the conversations we had weren't repeatable, but it was definitely a learning experience all the same.

"This house is a historical treasure – I won't have it damaged in any way," Danbury suddenly said sternly. "At my sister's insistence, I shall allow you to stay the night, but I know what you agents carry around. Flares, explosives – this house is full of priceless heirlooms, and I won't have them destroyed. Is that clear?"

"Absolutely," Lockwood assured him, but we looked at one another. We didn't exactly have the cleanest record when it came to damage, and how exactly did Danbury expect us to deal with these Visitors without any lasting effects? What were we supposed to do if the Source was buried under the floor, or in a secret compartment requiring excavation? Was he really expecting us to fend off a vengeful Type Two with nothing but iron filings and lavender?

"Is there anything else we can do for you, any other information you need?" Mrs. MacMurtrie asked us.

"No, I don't believe so," Lockwood replied. "Between your testimony and George's research, I think we've got enough to be going on. If you'd be so kind as to show us the specific rooms you mentioned, we'll let you be on your way."