Spirits from Beyond

ONE

Sometimes he slept right through. Sometimes he got into bed and fell asleep and didn’t wake up again until the alarm bell rang. But mostly JC couldn’t sleep. He did all the right things, went to bed at the right time, but no matter how hard he tried, something wouldn’t let him sleep.

There are few things worse than lying in bed, in the dark, waiting for the endless hours of the night to pass. Dozing off and waking up repeatedly, convinced that after so many wakings, it must be four, five o’clock in the morning. . and then looking at the bedside clock and seeing it’s barely 2:00 A.M. The night barely begun, and all those long hours still stretching away. . JC Chance hadn’t slept properly since his ghostly girl-friend, Kim, disappeared. In all the months she’d been missing, JC couldn’t remember a single good night’s sleep.

He still got tired at the end of the day, still went through all his usual routines before retiring. . but mostly he lay flat on his back in his bed, in his marvellous new apartment in London’s West End, dog-tired and bone-deep weary. . and prayed for sleep that never came. Too tired to sit up and read, or even watch television, too tired to do anything but stare into the dark and wait for the night to end.

Sometimes he would get up and sit on the edge of the bed, head hanging down. . and sometimes he would get up and walk around the room in the dark, trying to convince his body how tired it was, and how late it was. . hoping against hope that just this once his body would give up and let him sleep. But mostly he lay there, legs crossed and hands folded neatly across his chest, as though wanting to be ready for the undertaker if he should happen to die in the night. Opening and closing his eyes though it didn’t really make much difference. Because in the end, it was another night without Kim.

Until one night a scattered aetherial glow appeared at the foot of his bed, slowly concentrating into the form of the ghost girl, Kim. She hovered at the foot of his bed, looking just as she had the first time he had seen her in the London Underground. A beautiful pre-Raphaelite dream of a woman, forever in her twenties, the age she was when she was murdered. A great mane of glorious red hair tumbled down past her shoulders, framing a high-boned, sharply defined face, with vivid green eyes and a wide, smiling mouth. She wore a long white dress that clung tightly here and there to show off her magnificent figure; and she shone and shimmered in the gloom of the bedroom like a star fallen to Earth.

How nice, thought JC. I’m finally asleep and dreaming of Kim.

“You’re not dreaming, darling,” said Kim. “I’m here. I’m back.”

JC sat bolt upright in bed. A fierce golden glow blazed from his wide-open eyes, the only outward sign of how deeply he’d been touched by forces from Outside. JC froze where he was, afraid to do anything that might disturb the vision or frighten her away.

“Hello, JC,” said Kim. “Have you missed me?”

“More than life itself,” JC said hoarsely. “Because it isn’t living if you’re not with me. Are you really back now? Tell me this isn’t only another brief encounter because I don’t think I could bear to lose you again.”

“I’m back,” said Kim. “But if you want to keep me, you’re going to have to fight for me. You have to come and get me, right now.”

“Where are you?” said JC.

“Where you lost me,” said Kim. “Outside Chimera House. I’m there now, waiting for you.”

Then she was gone; and the only light in the darkened room came from JC’s eyes as he glared desperately around him.

* * *

He grabbed up his phone from the table beside his bed and called his team-mates, Happy and Melody. He had their number on speed dial, right next to a twenty-four-hour exorcist and dentist. He was shuddering all over, clinging to every detail of what he’d just seen, fighting to convince himself it had been real and not a dream. He’d only got through to Melody and Happy’s apartment and heard Melody’s voice at the other end, when the phone went dead in his hand and the television set at the other end of his bedroom suddenly turned itself on, blasting light into the darkened room. And there on the screen were Happy and Melody, staring out at him from their bedroom all the way across the city, in North London. They were sitting together on the end of their bed, shoulder to shoulder, wearing matching towelling dressing gowns and matching furry Sasquatch slippers. JC slowly put his phone down.

“I can see you!” he said to the faces on his television. “And you can see me, can’t you. .?”

JC became suddenly self-conscious and pulled his bedclothes securely about him. Because he slept in the raw.

“Yes, we can see you,” said Melody. “And will you please put on your sunglasses, because you’re blinding us with the glare.”

JC picked up the very dark sunglasses from his bedside table and slipped them on. The golden glare cut off immediately though a little light still spilled around the edges. JC gathered his dignity about him and glared at his television set.

“All right,” he said steadily. “How are you doing this?”

Melody smiled briefly. “You’re not the only one who liberates useful items from the Carnacki Institute warehouse. Now and again. When no-one’s looking. After everything that’s happened to us, I thought it important we have a method of communication that no-one else could intercept and listen in on.”

“And you didn’t tell me about this before because. .?” said JC.

“Didn’t want to worry you,” said Happy.

“And we weren’t entirely sure it would work,” said Melody.

“So we thought we’d better save it for a real emergency,” said Happy.

“Hold everything,” said JC. “All our phones have industrial-strength security scramblers already built in! The Institute installed them personally, once we were officially designated an A team. So they could discuss important mission details in confidence.”

Happy looked at him pityingly. “Don’t be naive, JC. The people who installed the scramblers for the Institute are the very people who make sure to leave a back door open so they can eavesdrop if they want to. Given our current circumstances, with The Flesh Undying on our backs and at our throats, and God knows how many traitors inside the Institute, raging paranoia is a survival instinct. Of course, with me that comes naturally.”

“Look!” said JC. “This is important! Kim was just here-in the room, with me.”

“We know!” said Melody. “She was right here in the room with us, too.”

“She was speaking to both of us at the same time?” said JC.

“And giving us the same message,” said Happy. “The dead aren’t as limited as the living. They love to multi-task. Show-offs.” He stopped, to snigger briefly. “Good timing, too. If she’d turned up ten minutes earlier. . someone would have blushed, and it wouldn’t have been me or Melody.”

“She said we have to fight for her, back at Chimera House,” said Melody, giving Happy a fierce dig in the ribs with her elbow. “And I have to wonder. How was she able to manifest in our apartments? Given that both our places are positively lousy with aetheric defences, specially designed to keep out spooky apparitions? One of the few real perks you get working for the Carnacki Institute is that major-league protections come as standard, in case something from the Other Side should take a fancy to one of us and follow us home.”

“Right!” said Happy. “But I still check under the bed every night. How was Kim able to appear to us?”

“Because Kim isn’t any old ghost,” said JC. “Something from the Outside touched her, down in the London Underground, just as it touched me. It changed us both.”

“I can confirm,” said Happy, a bit diffidently, “that what we all saw wasn’t any kind of trick, or illusion. It really was her. Though of course really might not be the best choice of word, given that we’re dealing with a ghost here. .”

“Shut up, dear,” said Melody.

“Yes, dear, shutting up right now,” said Happy.

“Should we contact our revered Boss, at the Institute?” Melody said carefully. “Tell her what’s going on?”

“Best not bother her,” JC said immediately. “Given that we don’t know what’s going on, as yet. Catherine Latimer has always been big on questions. Besides, she might order us not to go, and I’d have to defy her to her face. Instead of behind her back, which is quite definitely safer for all concerned.”

“I thought the Boss was supposed to be on our side?” said Melody. “Are you saying we can’t even trust the person who runs the whole damned Institute?”

“No-one is on our side but us,” said JC.

“Now you’re taking!” said Happy. “I know; shut up, Happy.”

“Get yourselves ready,” said JC. “I’ll fire up the company car and come get you.”

“We’re really going back to Chimera House?” said Melody. “On the word of a ghost, and a pretty vague word, at that?”

“It’s Kim,” said JC.

There must have been something in his voice because Happy and Melody both looked away for a moment. Happy sighed loudly.

“Have I got time to update my will?”

“You’re always updating your will,” said Melody.

“I find it calming,” said Happy.

The television set turned itself off. JC waited a moment to make sure the screen stayed blank, then he threw back his bedclothes and swung out of bed. The early-morning air was pleasantly cool against his bare skin. He stretched easily. He didn’t feel tired at all.

He dressed quickly, then prowled through his apartment, snatching up things he thought might prove useful. Finally, he stopped before the full-length mirror in his hall and looked himself over. He wanted to be sure he was looking his best, for Kim.

His reflection smiled cheerfully back at him: a tall, lean, and only slightly sinister-looking fellow, perhaps a little too handsome for his own good. JC had just hit thirty and was putting a brave face on it. He had pale, striking features, dominated by the very dark sunglasses he had to wear in public and a huge mane of dark rock-star hair. He wore a rich, ice-cream white three-piece suit of quite staggering style and elegance, along with an Old School tie he wasn’t in any way entitled to but which he wore anyway because it opened doors.

JC Chance-Ghost Finder Extraordinaire.

“I’m on my way, Kim,” he said. “And God help anyone who gets in my way.”

* * *

He left his apartment block, quietly and surreptitiously, and strode down the street to where he’d parked his car. He’d commandeered it from the Carnacki Institute car pool sometime back because it was the brightest shade of red he could find. He certainly intended to return it someday. He was entitled to a company car now he’d been officially upgraded to A-team status, and he really didn’t see why he should go through all the hassle of filling out paper-work every time he wanted a car, like ordinary mortals. So he took one, and kept it. No doubt someone had noticed by now, but they couldn’t come and reclaim it until they’d filled out all the necessary paper-work. By which time he would probably have crashed it or lost it in some other dimension.

JC always left his car parked outside in the street because the rents the local garages charged were nothing short of extortionate. He never worried about anything happening to the car because it was, after all, a Carnacki Institute official vehicle and could look after itself.

It wasn’t particularly flashy or interesting because the Institute didn’t want its field agents driving anything that might get them noticed, but it got the job done. JC drove his car swiftly through the deserted streets of early-morning London, by the straightest if not necessarily most legal route to Happy and Melody’s apartment. There was hardly any other traffic on the roads anyway at this hour of the morning, and JC found that what there was usually got out of his way quickly enough if he hit the horn and drove straight at them. He kept his foot hard down on the accelerator, confident the traffic police wouldn’t bother him because all Carnacki Institute cars carried Corps Diplomatique plates. It saved time and helped avoid awkward conversations that weren’t going to go anywhere useful.

JC had a definite feeling there was something odd about the streets he was driving through. Not only the quiet and the lack of other traffic, which meant he could drive on whichever side of the road he felt like. . It took him a while to realise it was all the empty parking spaces. During the day, you didn’t see a parking space unoccupied anywhere in London. Unless it was a trap.

JC turned on his music, and the gently rasping melancholia of The Smiths filled the car. JC always played The Smiths when he was feeling reflective and in the mood to kick the crap out of someone deserving. Someone had been keeping his Kim from him, all this time, and JC was quietly determined that when he found out who, he was going to make that Someone very unhappy.

* * *

He finally slammed his car to a halt in front of Melody and Happy’s place, shut off his music with a flourish, and threw open the car doors. Happy and Melody were already standing outside on the street, waiting for him; but it couldn’t be said that either of them looked particularly enthusiastic. JC decided to be charitable and put it down to their being disturbed so early in the morning.

Melody looked exactly as she always did. Pretty enough in a conventional way, short and gamine thin, and burning with enough nervous energy to scare off anyone with working survival instincts. In her thirties now, and quite openly resentful about it, Melody wore her auburn hair scraped back in a tight bun, never bothered with makeup, and wore severe glasses with old-fashioned granny frames. Along with clothes so anonymous they wouldn’t have recognised style or fashion if they’d tripped over it in the gutter. Melody was all business, all the time.

Happy Jack Palmer lurked slouching beside her, wearing his usual put-upon look. Well past thirty but resigned to that as the least of his troubles, Happy was short and stocky, prematurely balding, and might have been handsome if he ever stopped scowling. He wore grubby old jeans and knock-off sneakers, along with a T-shirt bearing the message ASK ME ABOUT MY DAY. GO ON. I DARE YOU. under a battered old black leather jacket whose occasional rip and tear had been repaired with black duct tape. Happy made a point of telling everyone that he Saw the world more clearly than anyone else and was therefore entitled to feel clinically depressed.

On their own, they both made a strong impression. Together, they looked like they could kick arse for the Olympics. And take a bronze in fighting dirty.

Happy was first off the mark and into the car, grabbing shotgun. Melody threw a bulging knapsack into the back seat, and dropped heavily in after it.

“Just a few things,” she said loudly. “Useful items. Because you never know.”

“Girls and their toys,” Happy said vaguely.

The car doors slammed shut, JC stomped hard on the accelerator, and the car jumped forward like a goosed dowager aunt. Off through the empty streets of London, on their way to rescue a ghost.

* * *

It didn’t take them long to get to Chimera House, not with Happy on board. His marvellous telepathic mind could detect short cuts, avoid obstacles, and when necessary make other people get the hell out of the way without even knowing why they were doing it. And it did help that JC drove like a demon, ignoring the occasional wails of distress from his passengers. As they entered the home-stretch, JC shot Happy a thoughtful gaze.

“I know the streets look empty. But could anyone be following us? Are we being observed, perhaps, from a distance?”

“No, and no,” said Happy, clinging to his seat belt determinedly with both hands. “Accompanied by a large side order of Not A Chance In Hell. I’d know.”

“I could check,” Melody said immediately, determined not to be left out of things. “I’ve got a down-and-dirty sensor package somewhere in my back-pack.”

“By the time you’ve got it out and adjusted the settings, we’ll be there,” Happy said witheringly.

“Someone’s looking for a short sharp visit from the Slap Fairy,” said Melody.

Chimera House was right in the middle of London’s business centre; but when JC finally brought the car screeching to a halt in front of the massive office building, the entire area was completely deserted. Not a living soul in sight. Which was a bit suspicious because there’s always someone about in every part of London, whatever the hour. Everyone from the police to the homeless, party-goers, and minor celebrities-all of them out and about doing something they shouldn’t because there was no-one around to see. .

Melody was immediately out of the back of the car, her hand-held scanner at the ready. She waved it around, adjusting the dials and hitting the thing with the flat of her hand when it didn’t do what she wanted it to do quickly enough. Happy took his time getting out of the car, so he could get his slouch exactly right, and show everyone how unhappy he was at being more or less awake at such an uncivilised time of the morning. JC got out of the car, locked it carefully, then sat on the bonnet and looked thoughtfully about him.

“No life signs anywhere,” Melody said briskly. “No dead signs, either. We are strictly on our own here. Sorry, JC.”

“Bad vibes,” Happy said wisely. “People can sense this is a bad place, and go out of their way to avoid it, even if they couldn’t tell you why. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be. Of all the places Kim could have chosen to show up again. I don’t like it here. I’ve got the shudders. Have you got the shudders? Even the homeless wouldn’t sleep in these doorways. This entire area is spiritually polluted, right down to the stone and concrete.”

The three Ghost Finders stuck close together, looking the area over with professionally discerning eyes. None of them had been back here since the distressing Affair of the New People. Which. . could have gone better. Chimera House still dominated the area, a massive steel-and-glass business edifice towering over the open square before it. The square itself felt cold and empty, laid out under an open night sky full of stars, and a pale full moon. The main illumination was the unwavering flat amber light from the street-lamps.

Everything had been carefully cleared up since the great battle of Chimera House. No sign anywhere of the great cracks in the ground or the shattered windows in the surrounding buildings. All the blood and bodies gathered up and spirited away. . Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to make it all seem as if nothing happened.

Chimera House itself stood silent and empty. No lights on anywhere, and heavy steel chains hung from the closed front doors. No-one allowed in or out, by order; and if you were wise, you didn’t ask on whose order. JC looked the building over carefully. He couldn’t avoid an uncomfortable feeling that the building was looking back at him. And not in a good way.

“Shouldn’t there be guards outside that building?” said Happy. “I mean, armed guards, heavily armed, to make sure no-one messes with whatever’s left inside?”

“Chimera House was supposed to be pulled down,” JC said steadily. “Completely destroyed, reduced to rubble, and built over because of all the really bad things that happened inside it. More than enough to make the entire building a strange attractor, drawing in nasty people, and things, from all around. So I have to ask: why is it still here?”

“You should keep up on your interdepartmental memos,” said Melody. “Somebody very high up on the food chain over-ruled the Carnacki Institute. And I mean someone with really impressive clout. They insisted on preserving the building until a full investigative study could be performed on its contents. The Boss was mad as hell. Took her argument all the way to the top. And got nowhere.”

“Are we talking political or business clout?” said Happy.

“Yes,” said Melody.

“Ah,” said Happy.

“Pretty much the same thing, at that level,” said JC. “What was the name of the big company in charge of the medical experiments that went wrong, in Chimera House?”

“Mutable Solutions Incorporated,” said Melody. “One of the biggest drug companies in the world. Where does the eight-hundred-pound drug company sit? Anywhere it wants. .”

“But what good does it do them, keeping Chimera House intact?” said Happy. “No-one will be able to work in it for ages. It’ll take years, more likely decades, to get the psychic stains out. You’ve heard of Sick Building Syndrome; well, Chimera House is the psychic equivalent of the Ebola virus. That whole building is crazy on a stick, waiting to happen.”

JC couldn’t help noticing that Happy didn’t even want to look at Chimera House as he spoke. They could all hear the open strain in the telepath’s voice.

“Maybe what happened inside the building is what makes it valuable,” said JC. “Valuable to The Flesh Undying, or its agents. . Maybe it wants to maintain bad places, to make weak points in the walls of the world, so it can break out and get back where it came from.”

“Don’t you start,” Melody said firmly. “It’s bad enough having to live with a paranoid depressive, without having two of them on the team.”

“I don’t like it here!” Happy said loudly. “I feel. . vulnerable. Like a target. Like I’m standing at ground zero, right in the middle of a bloody big bull’s-eye. With a target painted on my forehead.”

“Will you please calm the hell down!” said Melody, waving her hand scanner around. “There’s no-one else here!”

“There’s always something here,” said Happy. “We’re never alone, wherever we are. The world is packed full. . I can See things, feel things. . I want to get out of here!”

“We’re not going anywhere until Kim turns up!” JC said firmly. “However long that takes. Get a grip on yourself, Happy. This isn’t your first time at the rodeo.”

Happy sniffed miserably and stared determinedly down at his shoes. “Still want to know why there aren’t any guards.”

“He may be paranoid, but he has a point,” said Melody. “I’m pretty sure that was a condition on the building being allowed to stand. So where are they?”

“Someone must have called them off,” said JC. “Which implies. . someone knew we were coming here before we did.”

The three of them stood close together. It was still the early hours of morning, cold and quiet and empty. No sign of the living, or the dead. But not exactly peaceful. JC and Happy and Melody hugged themselves against the chill and stamped their feet hard on the ground to keep warm.

“This is just like last time,” said Melody.

“Bloody better not be,” said Happy. “We were lucky to come out of that mission with all our important parts still attached. Dead men walking, insane doctors with cutty things, rogue transplant organs on the loose, Gog and Magog and the New People. . We should get danger money. We should get unionised!” He scowled about him, still carefully avoiding looking at Chimera House. “I never thought it would be like this when the time came to get Kim back. I thought we’d have to storm some kind of castle, fight some monsters, to win back our lost princess.”

JC smiled at him. “You would, too, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course!” said Happy, surprised and even a little outraged that JC could think otherwise. “She might be your girl-friend, but she’s our team-mate, too.”

“Damn right,” said Melody. She draped an affectionate arm across Happy’s shoulders. “He’s very sentimental, on the quiet.”

“Of course,” said Happy. “There are limits. I’m giving Kim ten more minutes, then I’m going back to wait in the car. With the heater full on.”

“Sentimental, but practical,” said Melody. And then she stopped, grabbed Happy by the chin, and jerked his head around, so she could look him straight in the eye. “Happy, what is wrong with you? You’re shaking all over, and it isn’t from the cold. Are the psychic impressions here really that bad?”

“This whole area is saturated with weird energies,” said Happy, jerking his chin free. “And I mean, really strange stuff. It’s all information, you see, soaked into the surface of the world, radiating back and forth like emergency broadcasts from Heaven and Hell. . And it’s getting more difficult all the time to keep it outside my head.”

Melody checked the readings on her scanner again. “I’m not picking up anything I’d consider. . out of the ordinary.”

“Science is limited,” said Happy. “Science deals with the surface of the world, not what’s Below or Above.”

“Compared to your marvellous mutant mind, I suppose,” said Melody, testily.

“Yes,” said Happy.

“Oh come on,” said JC. “It can’t be that bad. I See stuff too, sometimes, but. .”

He broke off. Happy was glaring at him.

“You never get it, do you? What it’s like to See the world as it really is, all the time, to know what’s really going on, all around us. All right! See the world through my eyes, for once!”

He grabbed JC and Melody by the arms; and immediately, all three of their minds were linked tightly together by the sheer force and power of Happy’s telepathy. He couldn’t have done it with anyone else; but the three of them had linked before. They weren’t just everyday Ghost Finders, after all.

The everyday view of London in the morning disappeared, replaced, or rather overwritten, by a larger view. The world around them was suddenly packed full of life and death, Heaven and Hell, and everything in between. Overlapping layers of spiritual and spatial dimensions, interspersed with spiralling moments of Time. Past, Present, and any number of Futures, all happening at once. Ghosts coming and going, following paths that didn’t exist any longer in the physical world. Stone tapes everywhere, ghostly images imprinted on their surroundings, playing back loops of repeating Time, over and over again.

JC almost cried out, as he saw old images of the A team who died inside Chimera House. Jeremy Diego, Monica Odini, Ivar ap Owen. Legends in their field; caught by surprise and killed in a moment. Still there, held forever in a repeating moment, like insects trapped in amber. Forever going to their deaths, and not knowing it. And there was nothing JC could do to help them or even warn them.

He’d never liked them much. Somehow, that made it worse.

More images now, layer upon layer, with people from every period of history, all shouting at once. An endless din of dead voices. Unfinished bodies walking in and out of buildings as though they weren’t even there. Because they weren’t, once. Dead men and women walking in and out of each other, teeming like the unseen microscopic images that swarm in a drop of water. How many ghosts can dance on the head of a pin? Depends on the tune. .

More voices, more sounds, human and inhuman. Great booming Voices, shouting at the world from Outside. Sounds that might have been screams or laughter, or human interpretations of Voices beyond our comprehension. The dead, reaching out for answers, or comfort, or simple human contact. Crying out against the dying of the light or the rising of the dark.

Flashing images of this world and that and countless others, coming and going, superimposing themselves, turning and twisting and combining to make new things, the way two colours can mix to make a third. And always. . creatures, strange things, moving through our world from one unknowable place to another. The apparently empty open square before Chimera House was like the Grand Central Station of the supernatural. And this, JC and Melody slowly realised, was what it always looked and sounded like in Happy’s world.

The telepath jerked his hands free from JC and Melody, breaking contact, and the world was quiet and empty and sane again.

JC swayed on his feet, his heart hammering, struggling to win back his mental equilibrium. His face was wet with sweat. He looked at Melody; and she looked the same. They both looked at Happy, who stared back defiantly.

“You see?” he said. “That’s what I see and hear all the time. All the things that never go away, never shut up, never leave me alone. I have to fight with everything I’ve got to keep them out of my head. So the only thoughts in my mind are my own. So I only see and hear what everyone else does. The pressure never stops, never lets up for a moment; and I get so tired, so tired. .”

“Oh, sweetie,” said Melody. She took him in her arms and held him close; and Happy let her.

“There’s nothing we can do to help, is there?” said JC.

“No,” said Happy. “Though I am working on something.” He pushed Melody gently away from him. “We’re not here for me. We’re here for Kim. Where is she?”

“Back at the Haybarn Theatre, she said she wasn’t abducted-just missing,” said JC. “That she was busy, following leads of her own. She said she saw, or experienced, something important here while she was possessing Robert Patterson; and that she had to pursue it. So where has she been all this time? And what has she been doing?”

“Out in the world,” said the ghost girl Kim. “And walking up and down in it.”

They all looked around sharply; and there she was, standing before them. Glowing very faintly in the gloom, her bare feet hovering an inch or two above the ground, smiling happily on them all. JC rushed forward, reaching out to take her in his arms, only to remember at the last moment. He stumbled to a halt before her, and they stood face-to-face, smiling into each other’s eyes. Lost in each other but unable to touch. After a respectful moment, Happy and Melody came forward, and Kim turned away from JC to smile on them. Happy put up a hand for a high five; and Kim put up a hand that almost touched his. Melody threw the ghost girl a quick salute, and Kim nodded in return.

“Where have you been, Kim?” said JC.

“I’ve been tracking down the individual who was inside Patterson’s head, before me,” said Kim. “The servant of The Flesh Undying; the secret traitor at the heart of the Carnacki Institute.”

“Who?” said JC. “Who is it? Who are we talking about here?”

“I can’t tell you,” said Kim. “Not yet.”

“Why the hell not?” said JC.

“Don’t you raise your voice to me, Josiah Charles Chance,” said Kim. “I can’t tell you because I’m protecting you. I know the name; but they can’t read my mind.”

“They?” said Happy, his ears pricking up immediately.

“Exactly,” said Kim.

“Why didn’t you come back to us before this?” said Melody.

“Because the traitor saw me,” said Kim. “Saw and knew me. And so The Flesh Undying sent its agents after me, physical and spiritual, chasing me all across the world, and Above and Under it. The living and the dead, in hot and cold pursuit. It’s taken me a long time, travelling through the sacred and profane places of the world, to shake them all off. . and to search out what I was looking for.”

“All that matters is that you’re back,” said JC.

“Not quite,” said Kim. “I’m sorry, JC, but we’re not alone here. Something unfriendly is here in this place with us.”

“What?” said Happy. “What?”

He spun quickly around in circles, as though hoping to catch something by surprise. Melody slapped her scanner with the flat of her hand again.

“Still not picking up anything!” she said angrily. She shook the thing fiercely. “You are seriously underperforming! You can be replaced!”

“I’m not Seeing anything!” said Happy. “I Spy with my third little eye. . nothing out of the ordinary! So to speak.”

“The Flesh Undying knew I would reappear here,” Kim said calmly. “I had to return to this place because this is where I’d left from. Closing the circle was the only way I could come back, to the material world I left. There are rules, you see, for the dead as well as the living. Perhaps especially for the dead. And The Flesh Undying took advantage of that. It’s set a trap here, for me, and for you. It’s not too late for you to leave if that’s what you want.”

“Never,” said JC.

“Well, I don’t know about never,” said Happy. “But I’m here now.”

“He’s so brave,” said Melody. “Isn’t he wonderful? Of course we’re not leaving, Kim! You’re part of the team.”

“Then brace yourselves,” said Kim.

JC and Melody and Happy moved quickly to stand back-to-back-to-back; so they could watch and cover all the open space around them. So nothing could sneak up on them or catch them by surprise. Melody put her scanner away and produced a machine-pistol. She swept it smoothly back and forth with professional ease, looking for a target. JC had to smile.

“All right,” he said, “I give up. Where do you keep that gun, Melody?”

“Trust me,” said Happy. “You don’t want to know.”

Kim stood very still, looking at whatever ghosts looked at.

“I can See layers of protection, still in place,” said Happy. “Laid down around Chimera House. But it’s standard off-the-shelf stuff. The kind of defences that would collapse in a moment if anything seriously demonical even leaned on them.”

“The threat to us isn’t inside the building,” said Kim. “It’s out here, with us.”

“Okay,” said Happy. “I am now running for the car. Try to keep up.”

“Too late,” said Kim, sadly.

The ground before them split violently apart-soundlessly, jaggedly. Solid stone and concrete tore like paper. The ground shook and juddered, and the three living Ghost Finders staggered back and forth, clinging to each other for support. A deep chasm opened up, stretching across the open square, full of darkness. Kim turned a stern gaze on the wide gap, and like that the ground was still again. Everything was quiet. Melody took a cautious step forward, peering down into the great dark crevasse. Happy moved in behind her, staring over her shoulder. JC looked at Kim, who looked calmly back at him.

“More major structural damage, right in the heart of London’s business centre,” said Melody. “Someone’s insurance premiums are about to go right through the roof. What do you want to bet that the powers that be will find some way to blame all of this on us?”

“No wonder the security guards were called off,” said JC. “Someone didn’t want any witnesses. .”

“This isn’t like the last time,” Happy said slowly. “It feels different. .”

They all eased forward, right up to the edge of the chasm, and looked down. A long range of old stone steps headed down into the darkness. Scuffed and much-used stone steps, without any banister or railing, falling away, apparently forever.

“Impressive,” said JC.

“They’re not real,” said Kim.

“What?” said Happy.

“The steps aren’t really there,” said Kim, apparently entirely unimpressed. “This is merely a transition, from one place to another. Your mind interprets what’s there as steps to make life easier for you.”

“How come you can See that when I can’t?” said Happy, frowning hard at the steps, which still insisted on looking like steps.

Kim smiled. “Because I’m dead. It’s very revealing, being dead. You should try it sometime.”

“Not right now,” said JC. “We’ve got work to do.”

Melody took out her hand-held scanner again and aimed it down into the dark chasm. Smoke immediately poured out of the machine, from every side at once, and the whole thing overheated so quickly, Melody had no choice but to throw it away before it burned her hand. It dropped away into the darkness and quickly disappeared. Happy looked at Melody but had the good sense not to say anything. JC peered dubiously into the chasm.

“All right,” he said. “Where do these steps that aren’t actually steps go, Kim? And why do we want to go there?”

“Hold everything,” said Melody, blowing gently on her scorched fingers. “Before we go into that, I want to know; who actually broke open the ground? Who provided this extremely dramatic transition; and who wants us to go down there, into London Undertowen?”

“Into what?” said Happy.

“Is this you, Kim?” said Melody. “Did you crack open the world?”

“No,” said Kim.

“Is this the trap?” JC said carefully. “The trap The Flesh Undying has set for you, and us?”

“Yes,” said Kim. “But for once, I think The Flesh Undying has outsmarted itself. It’s so used to thinking of itself as the most intelligent and superior creature on this planet that it has never stopped to consider that wasn’t always the case. There’s something else, waiting for us down there, that we can use against our enemy.”

“Will somebody please tell me,” Happy said doggedly. “What the hell is London Undertowen?”

Melody sighed loudly. “Am I really the only one on this team who takes the time to read the regular reports the Carnacki Institute circulates among its field agents every month?”

“Yes,” said Happy. “You sweet little girl swot, you.”

“We get regular reports?” said JC. “Really?”

“Information is ammunition in our line of work,” Melody said primly.

“That would look good on a T-shirt,” said Happy.

“Never wear them,” JC said firmly.

“We noticed,” said Happy, crushingly. “Maybe we could stencil it on the back of your jacket.”

Kim looked at Melody. “They haven’t improved while I was gone, have they?”

“No,” said Melody. “Men. . Evolution; I’m looking forward to it. Hey! Both of you shut the hell up and listen! Thank you. . London Undertowen is the city beneath the city. Or perhaps even the world beneath the world. Catacombs, set deep in the earth, that the Romans and everyone else built London over.”

Happy glared down the long series of stone steps, concentrating hard, as though he thought he could make them look like something else if he tried hard enough.

“Don’t,” said Kim. “Steps are good. Learn to love the steps. Because all the alternatives are worse.”

“So. . what’s down there, exactly, in this Undertowen?” said Happy.

“I’ve been trying to get a straight answer on that for months,” said Melody. “I’m pretty sure someone somewhere in the Institute knows, but I’ve never been able to hack the security around those files. You’d have to turn up at the Carnacki Institute’s Secret Libraries, in person, and read what they’ve got there. Except mere field agents like us don’t have a high enough security clearance to get in there.”

“Ooh! Ooh!” said Happy, bouncing cheerfully up and down on the spot. “I’ve always wanted to get inside the Secret Libraries!”

“The Boss did promise us access,” JC said slowly. “But she never got around to updating our security rating. . Which may or may not have been an oversight on her part. . Kim; do you know what’s down there, in the Undertowen?”

“Something very old,” said Kim. “Something The Flesh Undying thinks it can use against us. That’s one of the reasons why I stayed away so long, guys. Because I didn’t want to put you in even more danger. But I finally saw a chance to come home again, and I took it. I have a plan; so let’s hope I’m as smart as I think I am. If you want to keep me, JC, you’re going to have to go down there into the dark and fight for me.”

JC grinned. “Isn’t that how we first met?”

They smiled at each other.

“I can’t help noticing,” Happy said loudly, “that I still haven’t had an answer to my question. What the hell is down there?”

“Tell me,” said Kim. “What do you guys know about Druids?”

“Oh hell,” said Happy. “The answer hasn’t even started yet, and already I hate it. You mean the real Druids, the original Druids? Scary, and I mean seriously scary. Not like the current bunch, the Stonehenge botherers. Big, hairy, refried-hippie, tree-hugger types. The original pre-Roman bunch were seriously nasty, bad-arse, mystic warriors. Heavily into murder magic, human sacrifice, burning their enemies en masse in giant Wicker Men. .”

“Good film, that,” said JC.

“Bloody good film,” said Happy. “Which only goes to show we shouldn’t mess around with anything that involves real Druids. We’re only supposed to deal with ghosts. I think we should back away, very carefully and at speed, and turn this whole thing over to someone with more experience in this field. Like the Droods.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” said Melody. “They’re scarier than the Druids ever were.”

“True,” said Happy.

“You deal with the dead,” said Kim. “And what’s waiting for us down there very definitely qualifies.”

“Only back ten minutes, and already I’m getting into situations that give me twitches in the backstairs department,” muttered Happy.

“Tell me more about Druids,” said JC. “I never was very big on ancient history.”

“The old-time Druids dealt with wood and water, fire and earth,” said Melody, patiently. “And like the Nature they worshipped, the Druids were red in tooth and claw. So seriously hard-core they actually shocked the hardened Roman Legionnaires. Three times the Roman armies tried to invade Britain, and twice the Druids drove them back into the sea, till the waters ran red with blood up and down the coast. The Romans only won the third time, in 55 B.C., because they were able to sneak in agents and get the various British tribes fighting each other. The Romans practically invented Divide and Conquer. But, you have to remember that the Druids had an entirely oral tradition of knowledge, with information passed only from mouth to mouth. Nothing was ever written down, to preserve their ancient mysteries. So the only written records we have of the Druids at that time are Roman writings. People with no interest in presenting the Druids in a good light.”

“So they were actually good guys?” said Happy.

“No,” said Kim. “Not by any definition we could be comfortable with.”

“Druids worshipped the triple goddess,” said Melody. “Macha, Badb, Neman. More gorecrows than gods, they thrived on slaughter and butchery. And then, there was Lud. .”

“And then there was Lud,” said Kim. “A very ancient Being, he predated the Druids who worshipped him. Long dead now, of course.”

“Good,” said Happy. “Anyone the Druids worshipped is not someone you’d want to meet in a dark catacomb. You are sure he’s dead?”

“Oh quite definitely,” said Kim. “I’ve seen the body. That’s why we’re going down into the Undertowen-to talk with him.”

They all looked at her.

“Are you saying,” Happy said carefully, “that somewhere down there, is the ghost of an old god?”

“Ghost of an old monster, anyway,” Kim said cheerfully. “Surrounded, of course, by all kinds of other dead things of an equally upsetting and dangerous nature.”

“Including a whole army of dead Druids, perchance?” said Melody.

“Exactly!” said Kim.

“I’m going home,” said Happy. “Right now. Really. Watch me.”

“I thought you wanted to fight for me?” said Kim.

“Well, yes, but,” said Happy.

“And there you have his entire character, in a nutshell,” said Melody.

“Come along, children,” said JC. “Lovely night for a stroll in the Undertowen. We are going down!”

“Of course we are,” said Melody.

And then she broke off, as Happy produced a pill bottle from one of his jacket pockets. He studied the handwritten label carefully, put the bottle away again, and fished out another. He nodded over the label, undid the screw cap, and knocked back two of the pills quickly, swallowing hard. Melody stared at him, openly shocked.

“Happy!” she said finally. “You swore you didn’t need those any more. . You promised me you’d thrown them all away!”

“I lied,” said Happy, meeting her angry gaze unflinchingly. “I do that sometimes. When necessary. To keep the peace.”

“You don’t need pills any more!” Melody said fiercely. “You’ve got me!”

“You make me feel safe,” said Happy. “But you can’t make me feel brave. To go down into a place like this takes more of me than I’ve got.”

Melody turned to JC. “Do Something! Say something!”

“He’s a grown man,” said JC. “He can make his own decisions. He knows what he needs better than you or I.”

“Sorry, Melody,” said Happy. “But love can only take me so far. After that, it takes chemical courage to push me over the edge.”

His eyes were already glassy, and his smile was a lot wider than they were used to seeing of late. Melody glared at him coldly.

“We will talk about this later.”

“If there is a later,” said Happy. He went right up to the edge of the great chasm and looked down the long steps into the dark. “Ooh. . You’re right, Kim. They really aren’t steps at all, are they?”

“What are you Seeing down there, Happy, that the rest of us aren’t?” said JC. And if he was as surprised and shocked as Melody at Happy’s return to a chemical crutch, he kept it out of his voice. He had a job to do.

“Let’s just say. . When I say It’s quiet, too quiet, that means something,” said Happy. “In this case. . it means Something’s down there waiting for us. And not in a good way. Let’s go say hello!”

He went clattering quickly down the stone steps, taking them two at a time, and the others had no choice but to hurry down after him.

* * *

The stone steps felt real enough, solid enough, under JC’s feet as he took over the lead from Happy. On the grounds that if you were heading into danger, the one leading the way should have at least some of his survival instincts still working. The small group moved steadily down into the depths, surrounded by a small pool of moon-pale light with no obvious source. JC couldn’t help noticing that none of their feet made any noise at all on the apparently solid stone steps. Without any landmarks, it was hard to get any real sense of descent, or time passing, until the stairway suddenly stopped without warning, and they were Somewhere Else.

The catacombs stretched away before them: ancient stone galleries, with corridors and passageways, endlessly turning and branching. Rough stone arches, all of them full of shadows and darkness. Dusty openings and endless grey avenues led off in every direction. Old stone, without markings or character, constructed to serve a purpose and a function, not decoration. The silence was complete, hanging heavily over everything. JC looked at Melody, who was hanging on to her machine-pistol like a security blanket. She actually jumped slightly when he turned to her.

“Yes! What? I don’t see anything!”

“I was wondering. How big is London Undertowen supposed to be?”

“How big is London?” said Melody. “They say you can find everything that London’s lost down in the Undertowen. Lost people, lost secrets, lost civilisations.”

“Albino alligators!” Happy said brightly, smiling about him beatifically. “Grown from small pets flushed down toilets when they got too big.”

“First, that’s an urban myth,” said Melody. “And second, it’s an entirely American urban myth. Alligators as pets never caught on over here because we are a sane people.”

But Happy had already stopped listening to her. He’d spotted thick mats of blue moss growing over most of a nearby wall. In fact, there were heavy splashes of the stuff all over the place. It looked moist, and springy; and JC thought the moss might even be breathing, rising and falling very slowly. Happy darted forward to study the nearest patch of blue moss, pushing his face right into it.

“I know what this is!” he said loudly. “I’ve read about it, in the kinds of magazines you never find in supermarkets. . Supposedly, whoever eats or smokes this stuff is supposed to receive visions of Heaven and Hell. And a chance to have actual conversations with the inhabitants of both places.”

“Are you intending to try it out?” said Melody, pointedly.

“No,” said Happy, backing away reluctantly. “I have enough problems as it is. Besides, you should never talk to the dead. You can’t trust anything they say. They always have their own agenda.” He stopped and looked back at Kim. “No offence.”

“Dear Happy,” said Kim. “You haven’t changed at all.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Happy said earnestly. And then his head came up suddenly, and he turned his back on the blue moss to stare out into the surrounding gloom. “Heads up, people! Company’s coming!”

JC looked quickly about him. The pale moonlight that fell from nowhere stretched away in all directions but didn’t reveal much.

“What’s coming?” he said. “And from which direction?”

“From everywhere,” said Kim. She was glowing more brightly now, her face eager and intent. “Hold your ground, guys. And don’t do anything to draw their attention.”

Melody pulled Happy over to stand at her side and held her machine-pistol at the ready. JC stood beside Kim, who didn’t even look at him. Someone was coming, or Something; JC could feel it, like a pressure on his skin. Something unnatural, from out of the dark.

They came from every direction at once, emerging from the tall arches or appearing suddenly out of narrow stone corridors, glowing faintly like poisoned candles. Walking in silence, drifting along as though blown by an unfelt wind, staring straight ahead and saying nothing. Walking the low road, the paths of the dead, driven by needs and purposes that only the unliving could understand. Ghosts of dead soldiers, in uniforms from armies across the ages; deserters from every force that ever marched through the streets of London. Ghosts of plague victims, dumped in mass graves and unmarked burial pits. Still huddled together for comfort, even in death. The marks of the plagues that killed them still vivid on their faces, like deadly kisses. Ghosts of small children, worked to death in sweat-shop businesses, or abandoned to die cold and alone, in the streets and back alley-ways where civilised people never went.

All the ghosts London doesn’t want to remember.

And all the Ghost Finders could do was stand very still and watch the dead file past, disappearing back into the dark. The ghosts didn’t even look at them. When the last of them was finally gone, JC turned almost angrily to Kim.

“There must be something we can do to help.”

“You can’t,” said Kim.

“But there were children!” said JC. “There shouldn’t be children in a place like this. I won’t stand for it!”

“London is a city built on the dead,” said Kim. “You know that, JC. You’d need an army of exorcists, working in shifts for years, to wipe London clean of its past. And even then, a lot of those ghosts would almost certainly come back again. Because they’ve nowhere else to go, or because they’re not ready to let go. Ghosts are all about unfinished business, and this many ghosts, together. . They have a spiritual weight, a spectral impact on their surroundings, that is way beyond our understanding. And a purpose beyond our comprehension.”

“But. . there were children,” said JC. “That’s not right. We can’t just leave them down here, in the dark.”

“I love it that you care,” said Kim. “And it’s sweet that you feel the need to Do Something. . but you can’t help those who don’t want to be helped.” She looked briefly at Happy, then stared out into the dark again. “We have to keep moving, JC. There are far more dangerous things in the catacombs than ghosts.”

“Could any of them help us?” said Happy. “With whatever it is we’re here to fight? I need information, and clarification, and possibly a very big stick with nails sticking out of it.”

“This isn’t like you, Happy,” said JC. “It’s an improvement, but it isn’t like you.”

“There is thunder and lightning in my veins,” said Happy. “And a lion growling in my heart. Point me at something, before it wears off.”

* * *

Kim led the way, into the dark heart of the catacombs. The stone passageways radiated out before them, with doors and rounded openings and high stone arches leading off in every direction. They all seemed extremely real and solid, but JC wasn’t entirely convinced. He trailed his fingertips through the thick dust covering the walls, and rubbed the stuff between his fingertips. More dust rose with every footstep they took though it took its own sweet time about falling back down again. Couldn’t get much more real than dust. . JC peered over his sunglasses, now and again, to check out his surroundings with his altered eyes, but it all looked exactly the same. The catacombs were certainly real enough to contain and guide him and his team.

At least he could hear his footsteps now, even if they didn’t seem to echo, along with Happy’s and Melody’s. Kim made no sound at all as she moved, even when her bare feet did seem to make contact with the floor. And she didn’t leave trails in the dust, like the others. JC kept a careful eye on the trail they left in case they needed to get the hell out in a hurry.

“The air down here smells bad,” said Melody, after a while. “Dry, and sour. .”

“We’re a long way from the surface,” said Kim. “And I hate to think what else here has been breathing this air before us.”

“Oh, gross,” said Happy.

“Wish I still had my scanner,” Melody grumbled. “I’ll bet the carbon-monoxide levels are appalling.”

“Is it only me?” said Happy. “Or can anyone else smell blood?”

“We’re entering the oldest part of the catacombs now,” said Kim. “Built centuries before the Romans even thought of invading Britain.”

“Who by?” said JC.

“Good question!” said Kim. “I’m not sure there’s anyone still alive, or dead, or in between, that could tell you. We’re passing out of history and into legend. Into the place of myths and madness. I can say these are Druid things. Their subterranean galleries. Miles and miles of them. .”

“The Druids were supposed to be all about the Nature,” said Happy. “Why would they bury themselves away down here?”

“To do the things their triple goddess wouldn’t approve of,” said Kim. “And given some of the things they got up to in the open, in the forests. .”

“This isn’t just a catacomb,” JC said slowly. “This is a maze. . Built, perhaps, to keep Something in. .”

“Or to keep Something out,” said Kim.

JC looked at her thoughtfully. “What is this place a home for, now?”

“The dead, mostly,” said Kim. “Those not departed enough.”

“Depends on whom you talk to,” Melody said sternly. “There are sites on the Net. .”

“And you’ve argued with most of them,” said Happy.

“I don’t necessarily believe everything I hear,” said Melody, ignoring Happy. “But there are some fascinating stories out there, concerning what lives or perhaps more properly speaking exists, down here in the Undertowen.”

“I know I’m going to regret saying this,” said JC. “But such as. .?”

“Some say. . the results of scientific experiments, run wild, having broken out of very secret laboratories,” said Melody. “Or, the abandoned offspring of Snake Deities and Alien Greys. Refugees from the Nightside, hiding out until the pursuit goes cold. The last surviving remnants of ancient races and species long thought extinct in the world above. The lost and the strayed, the forgotten and the damned.”

“Happy’s right,” said JC. “You will believe absolutely anything.”

Melody brandished her machine-pistol angrily. “At least I’m prepared!”

“You really think a gun is going to help you down here, in the place of the dead?” said Kim, not unkindly.

“Couldn’t hurt,” said Melody.

JC looked at Kim. “What, exactly, are we going to be facing?”

“The ghost of a dead god and what remains of his court,” said Kim. “But don’t press me for details. The Flesh Undying has been meddling here. There are rumours, in certain places, that these days the corridors are full of his creatures. The weaponised dead. .”

Happy leaned in close beside JC. “Remind me again why we wanted her back?”

* * *

The Ghost Finders walked on through the stone galleries, which slowly and subtly changed their shape and nature until the group realised they were walking through a dead grey forest, made up of twisted and distorted trees, looming above them, made of stone. Branches protruded stiffly, with no leaves anywhere. Mottled tree-trunks thrust directly up out of the grey stone floor, with no sign of roots. The stone trees were packed close together, with only a narrow, twisting trail to lead the Ghost Finders on. Happy leaned in close for a good look at one of the grey trees; and then never did that again.

“Fossilised trees?” said Melody, after a while. “How is that even possible? I mean, how old would trees have to be, before. .”

“Maybe there’s a Gorgon down here,” Happy said brightly.

“The trees continue because the Druids continue,” Kim said quietly. “Because this is the world they remember. From when they were alive. There are old sleeping powers here, and people. The Flesh Undying has promised to aid them if they will serve him. They know we’re here. They know we’re coming.”

“All right,” said JC. “How do we fight them?”

“We can’t,” said Kim. “But the ghost of the old god Lud, he can. If we can persuade him that such actions are in his best interests.”

“Marvellous,” said Melody. “What can we promise him that The Flesh Undying can’t? What does a dead god want, anyway?”

“Broad band?” said Happy.

“Come on,” said JC, “We can do this! Slapping down ghosts is our business.”

“You can be so cocky sometimes,” said Melody.

“I know!” said JC. “It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”

* * *

Kim insisted on taking the lead as they pressed on between towering stone trees, following a trail or direction only she could see. The moonlight that fell from no moon took on a blue-white, shimmering aspect, while the surrounding shadows seemed to grow deeper and darker all the time. The air smelled close and bad, as though something had breathed all the goodness out of it long ago. JC strode along beside Kim, quietly trying to get her to open up and answer some questions; but she had nothing further to say. Melody clung firmly on to her machine-pistol with one hand and hauled Happy along with the other. He kept wanting to go off and chase butterflies. But in the end, he was the first one to realise they were not alone in the stone forest. That something, or rather some large number of somethings, was following along with them. Sticking to the more extreme shadows, staying well out of sight; a presence more felt than properly observed.

JC pulled everyone in close and kept them moving. He trusted Kim’s sense of direction, but he still had to wonder if they were being herded. . Whatever was moving silently along with them between the grey trees felt bad. A threat to the spirit as well as the body. Something that served the kind of forces that could only be found in the dark. JC could hear them, after a while, moving in closer, behind and around them. Surrounding them, forever on the edge of vision, barely glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. Melody waved her machine-pistol around until JC made her lower it again. He didn’t want to start something he wasn’t sure he could win. Until finally the trees fell suddenly back to either side, revealing a huge open space before them-a vast natural amphitheatre. A carefully arranged setting for what was waiting for them.

The Ghost Finders came to a halt. JC looked up, half-expecting to see an open night sky above, complete with full moon. But there was only stone and gloom above. So JC had no choice but to look at the terrible thing sitting on its throne, before them.

Lud was huge. A massive, towering, mostly human figure, sitting unmoving on a throne so old. . that both Lud and his throne seemed impossibly ancient. And equally fossilised. Like the trees in his forest. JC had never seen anything, living or dead, as big as Lud. In his time, in his prime, Lud could have intimidated dinosaurs. His shape and proportions were subtly wrong, even disturbing to any normal human sense of aesthetics; but in the end the thing on the throne looked more like a man than anything else. Its skin was grey and dusty, like the trees. It almost looked like a statue, a nightmare carved in old stone; but it was clearly, unsettlingly, so much more than that. It had a huge, horned, almost skeletal head, with an elongated muzzle packed full of blocky teeth, and two deep, dark, empty eye-sockets. The horns looked more like branches than bone, and even more like branching antlers.

JC hated to think how big Lud would be if he ever rose from his throne again.

“He’s been dead for centuries,” Kim said softly. “And he hasn’t moved from that throne since the Romans left Britain.”

“But, he’s still. . here,” said Happy. “A physical presence; not just a spirit. Like you.”

“That is the ghost of a god,” said Kim. “The rules are different.”

“Rules?” said Melody. “There are rules? Who sets them?”

“Such things are decided where all the things that matter are decided,” said Kim. “On the shimmering plains, in the Courts of the Holy.”

“If anything, I think I feel even less confident than before you started explaining things,” said Happy.

“We’re currently standing under that part of London known as Ludgate,” said Kim. “Where St. Paul’s Cathedral is now. A Christian holy site, put in place over an old pagan site. They did that a lot, to hold the old things down. Lud’s Gate, where the first Wicker Men were ignited; whose awful burning light illuminated Druid Britain from coast to coast. And here before us, on his throne, all that remains of the old god Lud. People have attributed all kinds of stories and powers to him; sun god, warrior god, protector of his people during the long winter. . but Lud was here long before there were humans around to worship him. He chose to become a humanlike form, so humans could more easily worship him. He wanted to scare them, not scare them off. Lud isn’t even his real name. I don’t think anyone knows what Lud was, originally. Faith is fuel, to his kind. They feed on emotions, and death, and souls. You don’t think The Flesh Undying had the shape it does now, the one we saw in the vision, before it was kicked out of the greater world it came from? No; it was forced into its present shape, contained by the physical limitations of this world, to punish it. Its shape and conditions are the true bars of its cage.”

She drifted silently forward, to stand directly before the throne, tilting her head all the way back to look up into Lud’s awful face, half-lost in shadows.

“Lud, forgotten now, no longer worshipped by anyone or anything, outside of London Undertowen. Oh yes, JC, there are those here who still look up to him. The Flesh Undying has given them new shape and power, so they can raise Lud from his long sleep. So The Flesh Undying can bargain with him. Appeal to him, as one outcast to another.”

“Hold it,” said JC. “Are you saying Lud came here, to this world, from some other place? Like The Flesh Undying?”

“They weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last,” said Kim. “Other-dimensional remittance men, slumming it in the lower dimensions. But it’s all conjecture. If Lud was forced through a crack in the sky, there was no-one human here to see it. This all happened long ago, before human history, let alone human civilisation.”

“We are not the original owners of this world,” said Melody, unexpectedly. “We merely inherited it.”

“She reads a lot of H. P. Lovecraft,” said Happy, a bit apologetically. “I never read horror fiction. Gives me nightmares.”

“She could be right, this time,” said Kim.

“Oh thanks a bunch,” said Happy. “I may never sleep again.”

“Good,” said Melody, unfeelingly. “So I won’t have to put up with your snoring.”

“I do not snore!”

“Cut it the hell out, right now, both of you; or I will slap you both, and it will hurt!” said JC. “We are standing before the ghost of an old and very dangerous god. Keep the noise down.”

“Lud is the trap,” said Kim. “But he is also the way out of the trap. The Flesh Undying promised Lud that if he would destroy me, and all of you, then it would make Lud powerful again. Worshipped again. A force to be reckoned with in the world of men. Question is-is Lud desperate enough to actually believe that?”

“Kim,” JC said carefully, “I have to ask. How do you know all this? I mean, you’re talking about things that even the highest levels of the Carnacki Institute almost certainly don’t know about.”

“I have travelled in many places,” said Kim. “And I have witnessed many things. I will tell you everything, JC, eventually. When it’s safe. But right now, down here, I need you to trust me. So we can concentrate on what’s before us.”

“I trust you,” said JC. “If only because the thought of not being able to trust you scares me more than anything else.”

Kim laughed softly. “Dear JC, always so wonderfully practical.”

Happy put his hand in the air and waved it around. JC looked at him.

“What is it, Happy? Do you need to be excused? I don’t think there are any facilities around here. Use a tree. Take your pick. It won’t care. We won’t look. Though I can’t promise anything for what’s out there.”

“I have a question!” said Happy, with great dignity. “Why does the appallingly powerful Flesh Undying need help to destroy us? We’re only human. Apart from Kim, obviously. No offence. Have I said that before? Oooh. . flashbacks. .”

“He may be out of his skull, but he has a point,” said Melody.

“The Flesh Undying is stuck at the bottom of the ocean,” Kim said patiently. “To try anything directly would use up a great deal of power. So instead, it prefers to act in this world through agents. Like the Faust, or the Phantom of the Haybarn. Or the traitor who possessed Robert Patterson. Lud would make a far more powerful local agent. Even if he is much diminished from what he once was. Only a ghost of his former self. . As to why The Flesh Undying is so determined to wipe us out. I think it’s scared of us.”

“Us?” said Happy. “Really? Gosh; I do feel proud. .”

“But why us?” said Melody. “Out of all the Ghost Finders in the Carnacki Institute? I mean, remember poor Jeremy Diego and his team, back at Chimera House? Wiped out in a moment, without a second thought!”

“I think. . it’s because of what happened to me, down in the Underground,” said JC. “When Something reached down from Outside and touched me. And Kim.”

Happy looked at Melody. “I don’t feel touched. Do you feel touched? I don’t remember being touched even though we were both right there, alongside these two cocky drawers. .”

“On the other hand,” Melody said slowly, “did you notice. . when the four of us linked together, that time, our eyes glowed golden, too. That has to mean something.”

“I don’t feel different,” Happy said stubbornly. “I don’t want to be different. .”

“Even if it makes you stronger?” said Melody.

“Being stronger means they expect more from you,” Happy said wisely. “Like right here! We’re supposed to fight the ghost of a god? Come on! There aren’t enough chemical combinations in the world to make me that brave. Or that stupid.”

Melody sniffed and turned to JC. “He may be chicken, but he has a point.”

“I am not chicken! I am just survivally orientated!”

“The ghost of a god is so far above our pay grade we can’t even see that far from here,” said Melody. “This is not what we do! I am keeping my machine-pistol handy in case I need to shoot myself repeatedly in the head.”

JC looked steadily at Kim. “She may be a girl science geek with a weapons fetish, but she has a point. This is so way outside my experience, I don’t even know where to start.”

“Good thing you’ve got me, then,” said Kim, smiling widely. “I know where to start. We start with Lud.”

“Heads up, people!” said Happy. “Enemy forces on the move!”

“Where?” said JC, glaring quickly about him, into the gloom between the stone trees.

“Everywhere!” said Happy. “Whoever or whatever was following us is now closing in from all sides. I don’t see a possible exit route anywhere, and I am looking really hard!”

They came forward, out of the dark, from every side at once. The last Druids, emerging from the shadows of London Undertowen. Thousands of them, stalking forward, as grey and dusty as the trees through which they moved. Some of them were splashed with blue woad. For old time’s sake. Human in size and shape, they no longer moved like anything human. They had spent far too long down in the Undertowen, in the dark. In the dead forest. Their flesh glowed unnaturally pale, like mushrooms. Their puffy faces held no human emotions. And their eyes were deep, dark, empty sockets, like their god. They carried weapons carved from human bones-ugly, brutal, deadly things.

“All that remains of the original Druids, driven underground by the invading Roman forces, two thousand years ago and more,” said Kim. “The Romans built London over the catacombs, at least partly to keep the Druids down here.”

“So the catacombs were built to contain the Druids?” said JC.

“No,” said Kim. “The catacombs came first. They were expanded and strengthened to keep the Romans out.”

“I’m getting seriously confused here,” said Melody, sweeping her machine-pistol steadily back and forth, to cover the nearest approaching figures. “What exactly are we dealing with here? Two-thousand-year-old Druids? Are they dead, or liches, or ghosts? They can’t still be alive after all this time, can they?”

“They don’t feel human,” said Happy. “As such. And I can’t get inside their heads. . It’s as though they’re all wrapped inside something. Something that reminds me very much of The Flesh Undying, and I do wish it didn’t.”

“The Druids died out down here long ago,” Kim said steadily. “Nothing to eat and drink but each other. Must have been a bad way to go. . They’ve been nothing but old bones for centuries, haunted by an undying hatred for those who lived on, in the world above. Now these old bones have been given new life, wrapped in new flesh provided by The Flesh Undying. So they can have their revenge at last.”

“Revenge on whom?” said Happy. “The Romans are gone!”

“But we are their inheritors,” said Kim.

“So, essentially, these are the ghosts of old Druids,” said JC. “We can handle ghosts.” He stepped forward and challenged the approaching figures in a loud and carrying voice. “What is it you want? Speak up! I’m listening!”

And all the grey dusty figures stopped moving, standing very still, right at the edge of the open amphitheatre. And when the answer came, it seemed to come from all of them at once. A single dry and dusty voice, still packed full of hatred after all the centuries.

“We will have our vengeance for what was taken from us. We will make a Wicker Man here and burn you alive in it, as a sacrifice, to make Lud strong again. We will have power and life again, and leave this place for the sun and light of the forests. We shall rule all the peoples of this land, as we did before, and we shall burn out everything that does not follow Druid ways. We shall serve Lud, and he will serve us, and it will be a glorious time of blood and slaughter. We shall take your precious civilisation and nail its guts to the old oak tree.”

“Long-winded buggers, aren’t they?” said Happy. “I’ll bet they’ve been rehearsing that for ages.”

“Your time is over,” JC said steadily, to the dusty figures. “You must know that; or what are you still doing down here? You wouldn’t even recognise the world above, now.”

“With Lud awakened and empowered, we shall leave the Undertowen and rise up,” said the mass whispering voice. “We shall set bale-fires from one end of this island to the other, and delight in the screams of our enemies as they burn. We remember what it is to be Druid; and we will make the world remember.”

Happy moved in beside Kim. “You brought us down here. You must have a plan. How are we supposed to stop this?”

“You can’t,” said Kim.

“What?” said Happy.

“Our only chance is to make a deal with the ghost god Lud.”

“Everyone stand back,” said Happy. “I’m going to dig a way out.”

“Stand still,” said JC.

“I need another pill,” said Happy.

“I don’t think the whole of the Carnacki Institute working together has enough power to deal with the thing sitting on that throne,” said JC. “We can’t fight a god, and even if we did. . Hold it. Hold everything. Fighting. . is what The Flesh Undying wants. It wants us to fight because it knows we can’t win. That’s why he enfleshed the Druids-to distract us!”

“Trust me, it’s working,” said Happy. “I am feeling very definitely distracted.”

“So let’s try talking,” said JC. “Not with the dead Druids. All they have are old grievances, old hatreds, that they’d rather die than give up. . Happy, can you make mental contact with Lud?”

“Not on the best day I ever had!” said Happy, loudly. “That may be only the ghost of a god, but they key word there is still god! My brains would boil in my head and leak out my ears. Unless. .” His voice trailed off as he looked around at the others, his brows falling into a serious scowl. He took out a silver pill box. “I suppose. .”

“No!” Melody said immediately.

“Yes,” said JC. “Sorry, Melody; but we need our team telepath firing on all cylinders.”

Happy had taken a single pill out of the box, a long yellow-and-green-striped one. He rolled it back and forth between his fingertips, studying the pill thoughtfully. “Now this. . is the good stuff. I distilled it from some weird esoteric chemical traces I found in Chimera House, left behind by the passing of the New People.” He looked at Melody. “You never did appreciate my talents as a chemist.”

“Happy,” said Melody. “Please, don’t. .”

“It won’t put me in the same league as Lud,” said Happy. “Not even close. But it should hold me together long enough to get his attention.”

Melody glared at JC, her voice cold and fierce. “You don’t care whether he lives or dies, as long as he gets the job done!”

“I care,” said JC. “But the job has to be done.”

“This isn’t about the job!” said Melody. “This is all about your getting Kim back! Your unnatural girl-friend!”

“Right now,” said JC, “Kim, and what she knows, is the job. Because what she knows about The Flesh Undying might be enough to save the whole Earth, and everyone on it.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Happy said cheerfully. He dropped an arm across Melody’s shoulders, ignoring the stiff rejection he felt there. “We have to do this. We can’t get out of here, we can’t win the fight, and we don’t have any kind of future. . as long as The Flesh Undying is still out there. We have to work together to do this, all four of us. Like we did before, remember? And I have to be able to control the contact we’re about to make with the ghost of a dead god. And that’s a sentence I didn’t expect to be saying when I got up this morning. You mustn’t worry, Melody. Really. The pill will keep me sane. Or at least sane enough that you’ll still be able to shout at me afterwards.”

“If you want to help Happy,” said JC, “you need to work with us, Melody. Be his anchor; root him in the real world. Give him something to come back to.”

“There will be harsh words later,” said Melody, nodding reluctantly.

“No change there, then,” said JC. “Do it, Happy.”

Happy hesitated, then took out several more pill boxes. He spilled the contents onto his palm, rolling the multi-coloured pills back and forth, as though judging the best possible combinations, and the most bearable side effects. JC leaned in close beside Melody.

“Did you know he had that many pills on his person?”

“Of course not!” said Melody. “And he didn’t stop to load up before we left the apartment. Which means he must have been carrying them around for some time. Must have been planning to use them, for some time. Why didn’t I notice?”

“Because he didn’t want you to,” said JC. “He didn’t want you to worry. And I think he’s been waiting for the right moment, or the right excuse, to start using them again. Being a junkie comes as much from the soul as the body.”

He moved over to stand before Happy, who was bouncing lightly up and down on his toes, in a thoughtful sort of way. He put away all the pills but one, the original striped pill. And then he smiled easily at JC.

“This can only go well,” he said, and swallowed the pill. All the colour dropped out of his face at once, and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.

“Damn. .” he said. “The dosage in that one is so strong it starts working almost before you take it.”

“How do you feel?” said JC.

“Good, good, good. .”

“What’s in that pill?”

“A bit of this, a lot of that, all of it entirely illegal, unethical, and unnatural,” Happy said rapidly. “Does you good on a spiritual level, with only the slightest chance that my liver will dissolve.”

“Are you sure you can link us all, to make contact with Lud?”

“Of course! Piece of cake. Don’t worry, JC. Over-confidence is all part of the ride. I couldn’t Do Something this dangerous and this scary if I were in my right mind; and neither would you. I’m not enough, you see, on my own. Never was. I need something to lean on. For a while that was Melody; but I always knew that wouldn’t last.”

“She didn’t know that,” said JC.

“Yes, she did,” said Happy. “I’m a telepath, remember?”

He reached out and pulled them all together. Four minds, not merged, but working in tandem. All their eyes burned golden in the gloom, then their whole bodies blazed with light. The Druids fell back, slowly and reluctantly, retreating into the protecting shadows of the stone forest. The four Ghost Finders, the living and the dead, turned to face the throne; and the dead god slowly lowered his head to look down on them. The Druids cried out, to see their old god move, for the first time in centuries. When Lud spoke, his voice reverberated in the heads and in the souls of all who heard him.

“At last,” said Lud. “A voice calls out to me. A human voice. . I remember the way things used to be, when all of Britain bowed down to me and burned for me. Life and death at my command, and at my whim. Worship to sustain me and purpose to give me a reason to go on. But all that passed, and I fell away, to become so much less than I was. Now. . I see the world above, and I see a world with no room in it for such as me. And there is nothing down here that I would wish to be a part of. So let me go. Break the chains that hold me to this city, this London, that I no longer recognise nor understand. Let me go wherever gods go when they die.”

“Fair enough,” said JC. He gathered up all the strength generated by the binding of the four Ghost Finders, locked in harness with him, and reached out in a direction he could sense, if not understand. A great Door appeared in the amphitheatre, beside the great throne. A Door into the Hereafter. And Lud stood up. He reached out a huge grey hand and ripped all the flesh off the Druids watching from the stone forest. The given flesh flew away from the old bones, burned in mid air, and was consumed long before it ever reached Lud. The new flesh that The Flesh Undying had provided. . gone in a moment, leaving nothing behind but old bones, lying scattered on the forest floor. Lud had taken the flesh of his worshippers and burned it in sacrifice to himself, to raise the power he needed, to do the thing he needed to do.

He opened the Door. It swung smoothly open before him, and a great light spilled out, forcing back the darkness. Lud shrunk suddenly, falling in on himself in fits and starts, until he was of a proper size to walk through the Door. The light was so bright that JC and Kim, Happy and Melody, had to turn their heads aside, unable to face it. The old god paused, on the very threshold of the Door, and looked back at them.

“I see the touch of Outside upon you all. Something reached into your world, from my homelands, and altered you according to its purposes. Something like me. That is what has made this moment possible. Like calls to like. . and pays its debts. I owe you a debt; so call on me, one last time, when you have need. . But beware gods bearing gifts; none of you were ever meant to burn this brightly. Be careful of what such a light attracts. .”

Lud strode through the Door, and it closed behind him, and was gone. The Ghost Finders fell apart and fell back into their own heads.

When they finally got their thoughts straight again, and looked, Lud was still sitting on his throne. Or at least his body was. The shape he’d made, so he could be worshipped and adored by the little human creatures. It looked a lot more like a statue now: grey and dusty, with cracks all over it.

“That’s it?” said Happy, rubbing at his aching forehead in a bemused kind of way. “No more trap? We’re all safe now?”

“Yes,” said Kim. “For now.”

* * *

They retraced their steps, back through the stone trees, kicking bones aside as they went. Back through the stone catacombs, heading for the surface. Back through London Undertowen to the world above. JC and Kim stuck close together, or as close as they could get without touching. They talked happily together, half-intoxicated with each other’s presence. Melody made a point of walking alone, swinging her machine-pistol moodily at her side, staring straight ahead. Happy didn’t even notice, tripping lightly along, sorting through the contents of his head.

“If you love me, JC,” said Kim. “If you really love me, don’t ask me where I’ve been, or what I’ve done. What I had to do, to get back to you. I will tell you, someday. When I’m ready. When you’re ready.”

“You can tell me anything, Kim,” said JC. “You know that.”

“Yes,” said the ghost girl. “But not yet.”