Ghost of a Smile

SEVEN

They took their time, going up the stairs to the next floor. The mission and the building had taken a lot out of them. JC led from the front, as always, but even he had trouble maintaining his usual enthusiasm. He stopped little more than half-way up the stairs and sat down abruptly. The others immediately seized the opportunity to do the same. Kim hovered uncertainly beside JC, looking him over worriedly, and he gave her the best reassuring smile he could before leaning tiredly against the cold stone of the stairway wall. He looked down at Happy and Melody, sitting side by side some steps below, shoulder pressed against shoulder, their two heads tilted together. They looked even more tired than he felt. But they were all tired, battered, injured. They’d all spilled some blood. No time to rest and recharge their batteries, no time out to get their heads round everything that had happened. No-one said anything because there was still work to be done, so… what was the point? Even Happy had cut back on his usual whingeing, if only because he had more pride than to vent without good reason. Wasting a good moan on minor occasions would cheapen it. So he sat quietly with Melody, trembling and twitching occasionally from the psychic distress of his surroundings, while JC looked down at him and felt obscurely guilty for dragging him into a case like this.

JC probably could have kept going, but he made a point of taking a rest anyway because he knew the others would stay on their feet as long as he did, for pride’s sake. So he sat down and took a breather, taking one for the team. And it did feel good… to sit, relax, breathe steadily, and take a short break from all the madness.

JC smiled down at Happy. “What’s the matter with you, Happy? You’re sitting slumped on that step like an old man.”

“I feel like an old man,” growled Happy.

“Don’t you move, lover,” said Melody. “I’ll get you one.”

They all managed some kind of smile, but none of them had the energy to laugh. JC adjusted the sunglasses over his glowing eyes, to make sure none of the light was escaping. The glasses weren’t in any way magical, or scientifically augmented, and shouldn’t have made any difference to the glow in JC’s eyes, but they did. They toned things down, made the glare bearable to those around him, and helped him see the world more clearly. JC assumed it was a psychological thing and made a point of never testing it. No-one should have to see the world too clearly for too long. He nodded to Kim.

“That was some display you put on back there, sweetie. I didn’t know you could glow like that.”

“Neither did I,” said Kim. “Until I had to. It disappeared the moment the ghostlight disappeared. I haven’t tried to call it back. I’m not sure that would be safe. I’m not blind to how it affected Happy and Melody. Besides, it made me feel… uncomfortable.”

“Did it hurt you?” said JC.

“No,” said Kim. “Quite the opposite.”

There was a long pause as they all considered the implications of that, in their various ways. There was something of an uncomfortable gap now, between JC and Kim, Happy and Melody. Even if none of them were ready to acknowledge it yet. Between those who glowed, and those who didn’t. Happy finally broke the quiet, if only because silence bothered him more than uncomfortable truths.

“It does feel good, to sit and rest,” he said. “A little downtime, between all the ghosts and ghoulies. I only hope there aren’t any long-leggity beasties up ahead. I’ve never liked things with too many legs. Don’t like the way they move… All very well for you to smile, JC, the rest of us haven’t got your energy.”

JC nodded slowly. “Say it, Happy. It’s all right. Say what’s bothering you.”

“How am I supposed to know what you’re thinking? I’m just the team telepath. And you, it would seem, are so much more now. Certainly more than me. I can’t do the things you do. Are you the team psychic now?”

“I don’t know,” said JC. “Most of the time I’m me, same as I always was.”

“And sometimes your eyes blaze like the sun,” said Melody. “And the monsters run screaming from you.”

“You’re different,” Happy said bluntly. “Ever since you got those eyes. It’s like you can do anything.”

“Trust me, that’s not the case,” JC said carefully. “It might seem that way, but I’m as vulnerable to the bad things as you. In case you didn’t notice, I was taking the same beating as you from those cold-hands ghosts. I could have died back there if Melody hadn’t taken control of the air-conditioning and saved the day.”

“It’s me, isn’t it?” said Kim, sitting in mid air now, hugging her knees to her chest. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you? Please don’t be afraid of me. I may be a ghost, but I’m a nice ghost. Like Casper, in the cartoons.”

“Casper the dead baby?” said Happy, smiling a bit. “I always thought that was a really creepy concept.”

“I don’t know where that light came from, or why it chose me,” said Kim, peering at him from over her knees. “And I don’t think I want it to happen again. What use is a gift you can’t control?”

“You were changed, along with JC, down in the depths of Oxford Circus Tube Station,” Melody said stubbornly. “And it’s not fair! Happy and I were down there, too, fighting the good fight, and we didn’t get anything!”

“We got each other,” Happy said diffidently.

“Don’t interrupt me when I’m on a roll!”

“Sorry, dear.”

“I’ve got a pair of trousers I could lend you,” JC said solemnly. “Since you don’t seem to be wearing them at the moment.”

“Are you kidding?” said Happy. “She scares the crap out of me!”

“I thought you two were having lots and lots of sex?” said Kim.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” said Happy.

“Stop trying to distract me from feeling unappreciated and hard done by!” snapped Melody. “Why didn’t we get a special gift?”

“We are not worthy,” Happy said solemnly.

“I will slap you in a minute, and it will hurt,” said Melody.

“Trust me-if you want this gift, you’re welcome to it,” said JC. “I can see the world more clearly than I ever did before, but that’s not always a good thing. You wouldn’t believe some of the things we share this world with. We walk in dreams and nightmares, in beauty and horror, and the sheer pressure of it all is more than my eyes can bear. And did you know, I can’t see colours any more? Except when I take my shades off? When I wear my sunglasses, which is most of the time, for my own sanity… all I see is black and white. Makes me wonder what else I’ve lost, as the price for this special gift.”

“I really would like to run some tests on you, JC,” said Melody. “Put you under a microscope and see what’s become of you. For your own sake, as well as my curiosity. Glowing that fiercely can’t be good for you.”

“Hold everything, go previous,” said Happy. “Are you talking radiation? Kim was glowing all over me, back there! Am I going to be sterile now? Are you going to make me get my ya-yas out in your laboratory, Melody, and poke them with sticks?”

“You know you love it when I wear the nurse costume,” said Melody. “Now behave yourself. The glow isn’t any form of radiation I’m familiar with. I have done some research. It’s not even light, as such, it’s the indication of an Outside force coming into contact with our lesser world.”

“Not really any wiser,” said Happy.

“That’s why I won’t let you run any more tests,” said JC. “I have enough worries as it is, without you adding to them.” He looked at Happy. “Nothing’s changed, Happy. Not really. I’m still me, in every way that matters. I never envied you your telepathy, I always knew what it did to you. Do you think this is any different?”

“God, we’re one hell of a team,” said Happy. “The psychically walking wounded.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Melody.

“I am, I am,” said Happy.

“So, are we still a team?” said JC.

“Of course we’re a team!” said Melody. “Who else would put up with the likes of us?”

“Yay!” said Kim, uncurling in mid air. “We totally bonded! Yay for us!”

“Oh God, now she’s getting enthusiastic, too,” growled Happy. “Bad enough when JC does it. I warn you all now, there is only so much sweetness and light I can put up with before the projectile vomiting starts.”

“Since we are all clearly back to our usual selves, make yourself useful, Happy,” said JC. “Scan the surroundings. See if you can pick up any hint of what we might be heading into.”

“Way ahead of you, as always,” said Happy. “I’ve been trying to force a scan through the general psychic jamming all the way up here, but it’s useless. The entire building’s affected, and it’s only getting worse the higher we go. The closer we get to the New People. It’s like they’ve psychically pissed in all the wells, poisoning the whole building’s ambience. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Chimera House is possessed. It’s like normal reality has been overwritten by something far more powerful.”

“The New People,” said JC, thinking. “We are going to have to do something about them.”

“When we finally get to meet these all-powerful, godlike people, don’t stand anywhere near me,” said Melody. “I plan to be right at the back saying, He’s nothing to do with me.”

“I don’t know,” said Happy, frowning. “It might be them, whatever they are now, or… I keep getting this feeling that someone’s playing games here. And that maybe the New People are pawns who only think they’ve become queens and kings.”

“How very eloquent,” said Melody. “I’m impressed. Really. I told you hanging out with me would be good for you.”

“Some of you must be rubbing off on me,” Happy said solemnly.

“If not, it’s not for want of trying,” said Melody.

“I swear to God, your entire life is a double entendre,” said JC. “And far too much for my innocent ears. Let us get up and let us go; the job isn’t anywhere near finished yet.”

They strode up the remaining stairs two steps at a time, burst through the usual swing doors, then stopped right where they were. All the lights were turned off. It was hard to see anything. The only illumination came from outside, amber shafts of street lighting falling through the glass windows that made up most of the far wall. The situation reminded JC of the abandoned factory, and not in a good way. Most of the light was soaked up by a thick, heavy darkness that gave every indication of being very real and very solid. JC gestured sharply for the others to stay exactly where they were. The whole floor felt wrong to him, in so many ways.

“What’s that smell?” Happy said quietly. “Can all of you smell that? It’s hot and wet and… swampy. I’m getting rotting vegetation, murky jungle, and something quiet definitely animal. Like being inside an enclosure at the zoo. Damn, that smells bad…”

“The air is hot and damp,” said Melody. “Beyond damp-saturated with moisture. I was in the Amazon rain forest, as a student, and this is a lot like that… but inside a building? At least the ghostlight was only supposed to be fog. This feels very much like the real thing.”

“The ghostlight was created,” said JC. “So was this. You were right, Happy, someone’s been messing with reality, playing games with the building and everyone in it. Someone or something has overwritten local conditions to make new worlds, inside the building. Test runs, perhaps? Tread carefully, children. We are in unknown territory.”

“Let me try the light switches,” said Melody. “Shed some illumination on what’s going down here.”

“Don’t,” said a Voice, from deep in the darkness. “We like it this way.”

JC strained his vision against the dark, searching for the source of the Voice. The sound of it had been harsh and brutal and inhumanly deep. Like a beast from the most savage part of the jungle that had taught itself to speak, the better to terrify its prey. Something moved, in the shadows. Huge and broad, radiating animal grace and power, and hard brute force. Old, old instincts yammered at the back of JC’s mind, screaming for him to run. He shook himself hard and slapped all the light switches beside the door.

Half a dozen fluorescent lights flickered into life up on the ceiling, enough to reveal a vast tract of tropical jungle spread out before him, where the rest of the floor should have been. It seemed to stretch away forever, as though the end of the floor had become a gateway to another world. Massive trees with huge, dark trunks, and long branches drooping under the weight of heavy foliage. Dark green leaves with heavy veins and serrated edges. Hanging vines and creepers, and great pools of dark, steaming water. Thick, unfamiliar vegetation, filling in the gaps between the trees. Technicolor flowers with huge pulpy petals. The harsh buzzing of insects and the shrill cries of unknown birds.

A crimson light suffused the massive jungle, blazing blood-red from some hidden source, pointing out all the savage details of a setting that had no business inside a London office building. The rich red light made it appear like a living slaughterhouse, where red in tooth and claw was business as usual. The blood-red jungle was a place of death and suffering, and didn’t care who knew it.

“They made this for us,” said the Voice, from deep in the bloody shadows. “The New People. Wasn’t that nice of them? They called it all into being with the wave of a hand. So to speak. They can do things like that-play with the structure and substance of the world like a child building sand-castles.”

Every word was clear, the meaning obvious, but still the Voice grated on the ear and on the soul, vicious and savage and brutal as any beast. For all its human speech, there was nothing human in it. JC stepped forward, making a point of looking down his nose at the jungle, his whole posture suggesting he was entirely unimpressed.

“Come out where I can see you,” he said. “I don’t talk to people who hide in the shadows.”

There was a pause, then a slow roll of laughter, a cruel and utterly malicious sound. “Don’t be in such a hurry. We’re not to everyone’s taste, these days. Once I was a man, like you, but I got better. ReSet saw to that. But… not all of us blessed by the drug became New People. We all took the same drug, but ReSet only woke up part of our junk DNA. Perhaps it was damaged in us, or it mutated, down the millennia. Either way, we were cheated of our inheritance. We only got part of the package. Not enough to take us all the way, to what we were meant to be. We didn’t get to become more than human, to become New People. No-we became monsters. Not fit to associate with the glorious and wonderful New People, up on the top floor. We are Outcasts.”

“How many of you are there?” said JC. “Maybe there’s something we can do to help.”

“Help?” said the Voice. “What makes you think we want help, little man? There are two of us here, now. Male and female, as it should be. There were others, but we killed them. They were superfluous.” The Voice laughed again, a dark and nasty sound that sent shivers up and down JC’s spine. “Only room for one alpha male and alpha female. The best of the best. The beast of the beast. So we killed the others and ate their bodies. Delicious… There’s still some left if you’re interested.”

JC gestured surreptitiously for Happy to ease in behind him. Without looking back, JC murmured over his shoulder, “What are you picking up, Happy? Are there really only two of them here?”

“I can’t see or hear a damned thing,” Happy said quietly. “The jamming’s so oppressive in here, I have to keep all my mental shields nailed down tight to stop my brains leaking out my ears. Sorry, JC, you’re on your own. I’m going to go back and hide behind Melody now.”

A single dark figure moved slowly forward to the edge of the jungle, emerging from the blood-red light and the dark shadows. It was nine, ten feet tall, with broad shoulders and a vast barrel chest. It was careful to stay a silhouette against the blood-red light. Its powerful arms hung down past its knees, and the ground trembled with every step it took. It stood still, and another figure suddenly appeared beside it. Just as tall, just as massive, but something about it suggested female, to the first figure’s male. They stood easily together, as though they belonged in each other’s company and no-one else’s, in the bloody jungle the New People had made.

“Take off your sunglasses,” said the Voice. “We want to see your eyes.”

JC did so, with his very best dramatic flourish, as though he’d meant to do it all along. His eyes glowed fiercely bright, but the golden glow didn’t travel far and made no impact at all on the blood-red light. JC’s eyes didn’t affect the jungle or the two figures in the least. JC’s breath caught in his chest as he saw them clearly for the first time. The larger figure laughed its slow, awful laugh.

“Yes… You have more in common with the New People than we do. You have their eyes…”

JC swallowed hard and fought to keep his voice steady. This would be a really bad time to sound nervous or uncertain. “Come with us. We represent an organisation that is used to dealing with strange and unnatural things. We have all kinds of specialists. We can help you.”

“Can you?” said a second Voice, the female Voice. It was just as savage, just as brutal, but there were emotional undertones that somehow made it even worse. “I don’t think you understand, you Good Samaritan. Can you undo what has been done to us? Make us human again? I don’t think so… We’ve moved on from being human.”

“What makes you think we’d want to go back?” said the first Voice. “To being merely human? That’s your limited thinking getting in the way there. If you could only see us, and our world, the way we do.. . without your petty human preconceptions getting in the way… This is a glorious world, and we glory in it.”

“I can See you,” said JC. “I can See everything you are. Step forward into the light, and show yourselves if you’re not ashamed to be seen.”

He put his sunglasses back on and gestured for the rest of his team to come forward and stand beside him. They did so, some more readily than others. There was a pause, and the two dark shapes moved smoothly forward into the blood-red light at the edge of the jungle. They straightened up, to show themselves off, and JC could feel the rest of his team fighting not to look away. The two figures were physically and spiritually monstrous, a blunt assault on the senses. The triumph of the beast over man. Like demons from the Pit taking on the shape of man to mock and befoul the human figure. They were both a good ten feet tall, and half as broad across the shoulders. Swelling chests, muscular arms and legs, all of it covered with thick dark fur matted with blood and shit and other things. Their hands had claws, their mouths held massive teeth, and sharp, pointed horns thrust up from their broad foreheads.

The male and female had grossly exaggerated sexual characteristics, as inhuman as every other part of them. They moved like animals, held themselves like animals, and they stank of blood and musk, of slaughter and sex. They were everything that humanity was supposed to have left behind and risen above. To look at them was to know there was nothing left in them of human reason, or human concerns. They would do what they would do because they could, and because they wanted to. They had left Humanity behind, or perhaps thrown it off, for the freedom that provided. Their faces still had human lines, but there was nothing of man or woman in them. And if the eyes are the window to the soul, only the Beast looked out.

“Oh God, JC,” said Kim. “Do you see what I’m seeing? They did this to themselves! ReSet changed them, but these shapes came from urges and needs hidden deep within them. Horrid dreams, bestial nightmares, all the things we’re not supposed to want or believe in…”

“Monsters from the id,” murmured Happy.

“We could have been anything that we wanted to be,” said the male. “But if we couldn’t rise to be New People, what was the point? So we let the Beast out. Followed the alternative path our partially awakened DNA showed us, the way we could have been if Humanity hadn’t got in the way. We didn’t have to give up much to become so much more. Meet the progenitors of a new race. All the power of the Beast, and the intellect of man, with none of the drawbacks. I am Gog. This is Magog. You may kneel and worship us, if you like.”

“Are we not glorious?” said the female, Magog. “We’re what happens when you strip away all the human limitations, physical and mental and spiritual… When you let the Beast out, and adore it. It’s amazing what you can do, what you can achieve, without conscience or ethics or control to get in the way. We can do anything.”

“And we have,” said Gog. “And we will. Oh, the things we’ll do.. .”

“What about the New People?” said JC. His mouth had gone dry, and he had to fight to keep his voice calm and apparently effortless. “You really think they’re going to let you run wild?”

“You think they care about the world?” said Gog. “They’re up there deciding what to do with it.”

“Making their minds up about what to make of it,” said Magog. “And when they’re finished with the world, we won’t recognise it at all.”

“They have no use for civilisation,” said Gog. “They don’t need it.”

“I really think we need to get out of here,” Melody said quietly. “We are not equipped for big-game hunting.”

“Look at the size of those brutes,” said Happy, very quietly. “They’d run us down before we got anywhere near the doors. Keep them talking, JC. Give us time to think of something that doesn’t involve wetting ourselves.”

“My plan exactly,” said JC. “Think hard. And quickly.” He raised his voice to address Gog and Magog again. “Do you know what the New People are planning? What their intentions are?”

“No,” said Gog. “I don’t understand them, any more than you could. They don’t think like people any more. They’ve risen above that. Perhaps they don’t think at all. Perhaps they do something better than mere thinking…” He rolled his head slowly across his broad shoulders. And then he smiled, to better show off his teeth. “They’re up there, at the top of the building, deciding the fate of the world. .. But whatever they finally settle on, you can be sure neither your kind nor mine will have any part in it. They don’t need machines, or tools, to change their world, or a civilisation to protect them from it. They’re the gods we were all supposed to become, before something went wrong in our DNA, and we all had to settle for being human.”

“Whatever kind of world the gods choose to live in,” said Magog, “odds are, we won’t understand any part of it.”

“So what are you doing here?” said JC.

“A world within a world,” said Gog. “A playground for the cute little doggies to romp in.”

“The jungle is where we belong,” said Magog. “The New People set us here, to wait for you. Oh yes-they knew you were coming. They’ve always known. I don’t think Time works the same way for them. They put us here to keep you from bothering them. Because we make such excellent guard dogs.”

“I don’t believe you,” said JC.

“You think we care?” said Gog. “We don’t care about anything. We don’t have to, any more.”

JC turned his head slightly to look back at the others. “Anyone got any good ideas yet?”

“I vote for running,” said Happy. “Everything forward and trust in the Lord, separate and hope they don’t get us all, and even I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Normally, I’d say we should at least go out fighting,” said Melody. “But look at the size of those things! They look like they could bench-press a blue whale.”

“They are the three-headed Cerberus, guarding the gates to Heaven and Hell,” said Kim. “We have to get past them to get to the New People. That’s why the New People put them here. To test us, to see if we’re worth talking to.”

“Don’t suppose you feel like glowing?” Melody said to Kim.

“I’ve been trying to bring it on from the moment I saw those awful things,” said Kim. “Not even a glimmer.”

“Terrific,” said Happy. “We can’t run, and we can’t fight. What does that leave? Hoping we choke them when they eat us?”

JC turned back to Gog and Magog. “What do you want? What do you want, with us?”

“Maybe we just want to play with you,” said Gog. “Play tag, in and out of the jungle. You’re It.”

“We’re Outcasts,” said Magog. “No place for us in the glorious new world that’s coming. So we might as well enjoy ourselves in the time that’s left to us. And take out our frustrations on you.”

“You’re good people,” said Gog. “We can tell. You stink of it. We will make you scream and suffer.”

“For our pleasure,” said Magog.”

“Told you,” said Happy. “Beasts, in body and soul. Hey wait a minute… Something’s changed. Something just changed.”

“What?” said Kim, looking quickly about her. “Are there more of them?”

“It’s not them,” said Happy. “It’s the jungle. Look at the jungle

…”

“Oh my God…” said Kim.

“What?” said JC. “What about the jungle?”

“It’s growing,” said Melody. “Look at that… the jungle’s moving forward.”

They all looked. The hot and steamy jungle world was closer than it had been. The blood-red edge was crawling forward, foot by foot. Vines and creepers hung down from the nearby ceiling, turning slowly, twitching at the group, as though stirred by dreaming thoughts. The buzz of insects was louder, the bird cries closer, and the heavy stench of rotting vegetation and corruption was all around them. The blood-red world had consumed all the rest of the floor, creeping up on the group like a silent predator, while their attention had been fixed on Gog and Magog. The two beasts laughed silently together.

“It’s in my head!” Happy said suddenly. “The jungle’s in my head!”

JC shook his head slowly, sickly. He could feel the pressure of the wild, of the Beast, closing in around him. The smell of it in his nose and mouth, the damp sweat of it on his skin, and the deep, dark, atavistic temptation of it, in his head and in his heart. To let go of being human, to let the Beast loose… to be free of all restraint and conscience… JC shook his head hard, refusing to give in. His hands clenched into fists, and his teeth clenched so hard his jaw hurt. JC did not give in, whether the pressure came from outside or within. He didn’t do that.

He looked back to see how the others were doing. Happy and Melody were both crouching, almost on all fours. Happy’s face was wet with sweat. Melody saw JC looking at her and growled at him, from deep in her throat. Happy beat his knuckles against the floor.

“It’s changing us, JC! Changing us inside and out… The jungle

… is its own world, with its own rules. You can’t be in the jungle and not be a part of it. Whatever you’re going to do, JC, do it now. Or Gog and Magog won’t be the only beasts here.”

Kim looked desperately at JC. She hadn’t changed because she was dead, and the call of life had no hold over her. JC gave her his best reassuring smile. From the look on her face, it wasn’t that successful. JC looked back at Gog and Magog.

“So,” he said. “You have a weapon. The jungle. Unfortunately for you, I have a better weapon. Ever seen anything like-this, before?”

He took a small withered object out of an inner pocket and held it up so they could all see it. A monkey’s paw, made into a Hand of Glory. The thin fingers had been soaked in wax from a dead man, and the fingertips made into wicks. Words had been spoken over the paw, and dread Power invested in it, and its presence alone was like a hammer-blow on the air, its very existence a rotten weight on the surface of the world. Gog and Magog stared at it, fascinated.

“Bloody hell!” said Happy, straightening up suddenly without even realising.

“I don’t like it,” said Kim. “It’s nasty. It’s looking at me.. .”

“Those things are strictly forbidden!” said Happy. “Even the Crowley Project won’t let its people use one of those in the field!”

“Only because their leaders are scared their field agents might use it against them,” said JC. “All right, I’ll admit having it is against all the rules, but if we were the kind of people who gave a damn about rules, we wouldn’t be field agents, would we?”

“Come on, JC,” said Happy. “Those things are seriously forbidden. Lots of places they’d hang you just for knowing such things were possible. Hell, they’d hang you for knowing someone who knew things like that were possible.”

“With good reason,” said Melody. “Some things should be forbidden. Because they’re too powerful.”

“They have their uses,” JC said easily. “The sight of it pushed the jungle right out of you, didn’t it?”

Happy and Melody looked at each other. They were both standing like people again.

“Where did you get it?” said Melody.

“eBay,” said JC. “You can find all kinds of stuff on eBay. Now hush, children, daddy’s working.”

He stepped forward, showing the monkey’s paw Hand of Glory to Gog and Magog, and the edge of the blood-red jungle retreated before him. The two beasts stirred uneasily. They couldn’t look at him or the Hand directly.

“A Hand of Glory can find any door, unlock any lock, reveal anything hidden,” said JC. “And a monkey’s paw can force a change on reality, on a small scale. So put those two things together, and I have the power to find what ReSet did to you and undo it.”

Gog and Magog looked at each other, then back at JC. Gog growled at him. “We can’t go back. We won’t go back. Not now we’ve tasted real freedom. We were never meant to be human! We might not be New People, but this is better than the small, insignificant things we were.”

“I’m sorry,” said JC, and part of him really was. “But I have no choice.”

Gog and Magog charged forward, crossing the intervening space with inhuman speed, claws outstretched for throat and heart. JC said a single activating Word, and flames blossomed at the paw’s fingertips. There was a flash of brilliant light, and when it subsided, the blood-red jungle was gone. Fluorescent light filled the whole empty floor, stretching away before JC. And at his feet, a naked man and woman lay very still. JC blew out the candle fingers, very carefully, and put the withered paw away. He knelt beside the man and woman and checked for pulses. He looked up at the others and shook his head.

“They’re dead,” he said shortly. He stood up slowly, brushing himself down here and there, checking that his marvellous ice-cream suit was hanging properly. A style is a style, after all. And it kept him from having to think things he didn’t want to think.

“Did the Hand kill them?” said Kim.

“Indirectly, perhaps,” said JC. “But you heard them. They didn’t want to live as people, any more.”

“Maybe they couldn’t,” said Happy. “After all the things they’d done as beasts.”

“They didn’t feel guilty,” said JC. “They just didn’t want to give it up.”

Happy looked at him, meaningfully. “If you had that awful thing with you all along, why didn’t you use it before? Did you really think it was that dangerous to us?”

“I had some concerns. But mostly-well, you don’t use a backpack nuke to crack a nut,” said JC. “Anytime you use something this powerful, it attracts attention. The wrong kind of attention. I’ve already been touched by forces of Good from Outside. I really don’t want to be noticed by the other side.”

“You have got to let me run some tests on that when we get back,” said Melody.

“Wouldn’t do you any good,” said JC. “As far as science is concerned, it’s only a preserved monkey’s paw. And you don’t want to try investigating it from the other side.”

“Why not?” Melody said immediately. “Knowledge is knowledge.”

“Because you don’t want to attract attention to yourself, either,” said JC. “Bad enough if Outside forces take an interest-can you imagine what the Boss would have to say if she found out? At best, she’d take it away. At worst…”

“There are still places where they hang you for knowing such things exist,” said Happy.

“Right,” said JC.

Happy shook his head. “Who looks at a monkey’s paw and thinks- That isn’t dangerous enough? I must make it into something even nastier? ” He stopped abruptly and looked at JC. “Something this powerful… It worked against the Beasts. Would it work against the New People?”

“Only one way to find out,” said JC.