Since then, I have re-read Jonathan Stroud’s excellent Lockwood & Co. series and experienced an attack by a predator. This has inspired me to repeat, enhance and add to some of the original material.
The Lockwood & Co. books
The main characters in these supernatural thrillers are very interesting, and there is much witty and amusing dialogue. The action mostly takes place in and around an alternative version of modern-day London, which for me makes the stories even more enjoyable to read.
While much of the material doesn't inspire commentary, there is some particularly illuminating and relevant information about predatory ghosts in The Empty Grave, the fifth and final full-length Lockwood & Co. novel.
Just as Terry Pratchett did with his Elves, Jonathan Stroud gives some warnings about his ghosts in words that have a wider application - to energy vampires and other predators for example - and provide independent confirmation of a few points made on here.
Jonathan Stroud’s ghosts
The ghosts that invade the world of the living are known as Visitors; they come from the Other Side. They are malignant and very dangerous, often deadly. There is an ever-increasing infestation of them, known as the Problem.
Destroying these ghosts is a profession in itself, a service rather like exorcism or pest control, which is where Anthony Lockwood and his fellow agents in his paranormal detection agency Lockwood & Co. come in.
In their world, the only good ghost is an eradicated ghost.
Who are the Visitors’ victims?
The Visitors may particularly attract or be drawn to passive victims, people with psychic wounds, people with little to live for and people who are physically and mentally weak, but no one is safe from them.
While some people are easy marks, not all victims are low-hanging fruit: even the experts can be destroyed when they are caught off guard and/or in a vulnerable state.
In The Empty Grave, both Lockwood and his colleague Lucy Carlyle fall under the spell of a malignant vampiric ghost who uses glamour to attract her victims then makes them weaker and weaker by pulling their spirits out of them.
Lucy and Lockwood come very close to being destroyed by having their life force sucked out of them by this ghost.
They should know better than to let themselves be beguiled by Visitors; they do know better, but their superior, specialist knowledge and experience, their abilities, expertise and weapons are not enough to protect them here. How can this happen?
Adults lack the necessary psychic sensitivity, so the Visitors can be detected and dealt with only by talented children and teenagers; it could be said that Lucy and Lockwood, while they are among the best of their kind, made mistakes because of their youth.
It is customary for young psychic detection agents to work with an adult supervisor; it could be said that Lucy and Lockwood got into trouble because there are no adults at Lockwood & Co.
Neither of these possible explanations applies in this case.
The answer lies in their inner state at the time. This made them vulnerable where their two young and unsupervised team mates were not.
What attracts the Visitors?
Lockwood’s colleague George Cubbins makes some insightful remarks. He says this in connection with two previous victims of the glamorous ghost:
“...the kid who died was totally lovelorn, practically starving himself through romantic misery...As for Charley Budd, he was sickly. It may be that he subconsciously wanted release—that’s why he followed the ghost. In other words, neither of the victims was physically or mentally strong."
George goes on to say:
“We all know Visitors sense anger and sorrow. They’re attracted to people who give off strong emotions. Perhaps they’re also drawn to weakness and despair. These two were enfeebled in different ways…They both had weak connections to life. Each was clearly vulnerable to some cut-price supernatural glamour.”
Anthony Lockwood believes that he is not vulnerable to the Visitor’s glamour in this way; he is very wrong.
What went wrong for Lucy and Lockwood?
Why did they behave unprofessionally and out of character?
Later, after George has saved her when she is being lured to her death, Lucy Carlyle says this:
“I was feeling…momentarily vulnerable. It was like she sensed it and homed right in.”
Lucy in turn saves Lockwood, who also tells her that she was vulnerable. Lucy replies:
“I was, it’s true. I was thinking about my sisters—and other things like that. It sensed my sadness and took advantage ... What were you thinking about when it appeared to you?”
They do the right thing by asking these questions and trying to connect their thoughts and inner states at the time to the attack from outside. This is independent confirmation that working backwards from an incident to a possible cause is very good practice.
More about vulnerability to the spectral glamour
Lucy had been thinking about the family she was mostly estranged from, which gave her dull pangs of pain; she was also very fearful at the time because of a premonition that Anthony Lockwood would die and she would be responsible.
Lockwood had been thinking about his own family, who were all dead. He has deep-rooted feelings of loss; he also has something of a death wish.
Anthony Lockwood was additionally vulnerable because of Lucy’s feelings for him:
“Before George had intervened, the ghost and I had shared a psychic connection. In thrall to her glamour, I’d passively opened my mind to her. Which meant she’d read my thoughts. She knew what I cared about. She knew who I cared about.”
Energy vampires too have an uncanny ability to read their victims’ minds.
This too could have wider applications: perhaps the practising of energy vampirism and psychological black magic leaves a mark - and on the victims too - that other predators and evil entities can sense.
Distress signals attract predators
The Lucy and Lockwood episode reminds me of the incident in which a predator caught me off-guard when I was in a vulnerable state. She sensed my pain and distraction and took advantage. All my knowledge of unseen influences was no protection.
Lucy Carlyle says this:
“Enchainment worked on those who, one way or another, were already somehow looking to the next world.”
Or, perhaps, looking to the past, as I was.
Distress signals really do attract predators.
The five novels in the Lockwood & Co. series:
