Ghost of a Smile

NINE

Some hours later, outside Chimera House

The night was almost over. The sun was fighting its way up the sky, pushing back the dark with streaks of red and gold. The shadows were no longer as deep, or as menacing, and a few of the more optimistic birds had started singing. London’s morning traffic was getting under way, the muted roar barely audible in the distance. It was still bloody cold, though.

The Carnacki Institute had turned out in force to mop up the mess left behind by its latest mission. Dozens of people were running this way and that, up and down the street before Chimera House, all kinds of people, representing all kinds of specialities, all of them moving like they had a plan. Or at the very least, all trying hard to look busy so they wouldn’t get shouted at. Some were inside the lobby, taking readings with an impressive array of instruments. Others were already deeper in and further up, cleaning the place thoroughly, before the local authorities were allowed in. Removing all traces of the weird and uncanny, and any and all evidence that might give lesser mortals nightmares. Scientific equipment was being removed, computers wiped clean, and certain objects were being bagged up and taken away for examination, autopsy, or a quick trip to the incinerator.

Everyone was moving quickly, hard at work, because the area had already been sealed off and isolated for far too long. People might start asking questions. Though the Carnacki Institute would have already seen to it that they wouldn’t get any answers. For their own good. The best way to keep a secret is to make sure no-one knows enough to understand which questions to ask.

JC, Happy, and Melody waited patiently outside Chimera House, being looked over by the Carnacki Institute’s very own medical team. Which on such short notice, and at such an ungodly hour of the morning, consisted of one paramedic ambulance, with driver, and one bleary-eyed uniformed nurse. JC had already been checked out, and declared fine. He bestowed his most gracious smile on the nurse as he pulled his ice-cream white jacket back on.

“Of course I’m fine,” he said grandly. “I could have told you that. I am always fine.”

“Actually, you look like something big and determined kicked the crap out of you,” said Melody.

“Yes,” JC said patiently. “But apart from that, I’m fine.”

“Oh good,” murmured Kim. “I was getting a little worried, back there.”

No-one could see or hear her, for the moment. She had made herself invisible so as not to spook the late-comers-and because she was still quite shy around strangers. JC could feel her presence near him, like the smell of a wild rose or the warmth of an unfelt breath on his cheek.

Happy sat in the back of the ambulance, sipping hot chicken soup from a plastic mug bearing the legend He’s dead, Jim. “I’m feeling better, too, if anybody cares. This is good soup. Good starter. Does anyone else feel like sending out for pizza? If we all club together and order the big size, we can get a stuffed crust…”

The nurse shut him up by thrusting a thermometer into his mouth. She’d already taken a blood sample and was shaking her head sadly. Happy raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t believe everything you see on a chromatograph readout,” he said carefully, around the thermometer. “It was an emergency situation. I don’t do the pills thing any more. Well, not as much, anyway.”

“It’s a wonder to me you have any blood left in your chemical system,” snapped the nurse. “I’ve seen your file. We pass it around back at base when we want to freak out the new girls. When you die, we’re going to put your organs on display, as a Horrible Warning to Others. Some people don’t even want to wait till you die. If I were to take your blood pressure, would I regret it?”

“I don’t know,” said Happy. “How good are your nerves?”

“Oh, get the hell out of my ambulance,” said the nurse, whipping the thermometer out of his mouth. She studied it for a moment, winced, and threw it away. “I haven’t got the patience to deal with self-harmers.” She manhandled Happy out of the back of the ambulance and gestured impatiently to Melody. “Come on, science girl, get your geeky arse in here. Happy, JC, don’t either of you go rushing off anywhere. I want to check you out with the Geiger counter before I sign off on you.”

“Amateur,” said Melody. “If I had my equipment here, I could test us for a dozen different kinds of radiation you’ve never even heard of.”

“Speaking of which,” said JC. “Look what’s just turned up.”

Melody looked where JC was pointing, and immediately pushed the nurse aside to sprint off down the street to where two large men were straining to push her equipment along on a trolley.

“Babies!”

The two men pushing the trolley took one look at what was heading their way, abandoned the trolley, and ran for their lives. Melody had a reputation for dealing very harshly with anyone who damaged her scientific instruments in transit. She threw herself across the piled-up equipment and hugged it all fiercely.

“It’s all right, babies-mommy’s here! Did any of the nasty men touch you, sweeties?”

JC looked at Happy. “There’s something entirely not natural about how that woman relates to her precious toys. If she shows half that much passion in the bedroom…”

“Don’t go there,” said Happy. “Trust me-you don’t want to know.”

JC grinned. Then the smile faded from his face. “Look who’s here,” he said, quietly.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around as the revered and very-much-feared Boss of the Carnacki Institute, Catherine Latimer, her very own bad self, came striding out of Chimera House. She hit the crowd at full speed and kept going, expecting everyone who mattered to keep up with her. And, of course, they all did, if they knew what was good for them. She talked in half a dozen different directions at once, giving orders, making observations, motivating people with harsh language and sharp looks. She gave new instructions to a dozen departments and sent them off on urgent errands with her voice still ringing loudly in their ears. Catherine Latimer got things done because everyone under her was too scared not to do them on her behalf. She stopped briefly, to glare back at Chimera House as though it had done all this to personally annoy her, then gave her full attention to the second field team she’d called in, standing patiently to one side.

JC had spotted them the moment they arrived and had been careful to maintain a more-than-respectful distance. It was no secret that the new team were here to search the whole building from top to bottom, in case JC and his team had missed anything. Trust, but verify, while carrying a really big stick. The Carnacki Institute got through mottos like a dog gets through fleas, but this one suited better than most. JC looked the new team over thoughtfully. He knew them. Everybody did.

Latimer wasn’t taking any chances-she’d brought in the Institute’s longest-established and most successful A team. Really big hitters, with a nasty reputation, led by the living legend Jeremy Diego, along with his exotic telepath, Monica Odini, and the tech wizard, Ivar ap Owen. They’d solved more cases, put down more Bad Things, and kicked more supernatural arse than all the other field teams put together. Diego himself was efficient, glamorous, and almost unbearably arrogant. In other words, everything JC aspired to be.

Diego looked across at JC, and his gaze was only spared from being openly contemptuous by its basic lack of interest. JC made a point of smiling meaninglessly at Diego, as though he sort of recognised the face but couldn’t quite put a name to it.

Diego wandered casually over to confront JC, who made a point of adopting an especially casual and unimpressed pose. The two team leaders nodded and smiled politely to each other, because other people were looking, but neither of them offered to shake hands. There were limits. Diego stuck his hands in the pockets of his long duster coat and made a point of looking JC square in the sunglasses.

“Anything in there we need to look out for?” he said casually. “Anything that was a little bit too much for you or might need another slap round the head to keep it quiet?”

“No,” said JC, smiling easily. “Nothing worth the mentioning. My team always takes care of business. Though if you could bring yourselves to clean up some of the mess… since you’re there.. .”

“We’ll run all the usual checks anyway,” said Diego. “In case you missed something. Better safe than sorry, eh?”

“Of course,” said JC. “It’s always best to keep busy when there’s nothing important left to do.”

By then, both men were being so laid-back it was a wonder they hadn’t toppled over. Diego and JC exchanged quietly venomous smiles before Diego turned his back on JC and wandered unhurriedly back to his own team. Happy moved in close beside JC.

“You wouldn’t believe what their team telepath Monica just thought at me! Some people have far too much imagination and not nearly enough inhibitions. You haven’t got a notepad, have you, JC? I need to jot something down, while the details are still fresh…”

“Tempted?” said JC.

“With her?” said Happy. “I’d rather stick it in a blender. I’ve heard stories about her. Most of them end up with emotionally distressed young men being dropped off at hospital emergency rooms. Besides, Melody would tear me limb from limb. Or even worse, ask Monica to join us for a threesome. I don’t know which option scares me more.”

“Heads up,” said JC. “Here comes trouble… Melody! Stop caressing that computer and get over here! I think the Boss would like a word with us.”

Melody came hurrying back to join JC and Happy. She knew the value of a united front against danger and had always been very big on safety in numbers. If only so there was someone else to hide behind when the shit started flying. The nurse saw Catherine Latimer striding forward and retreated quickly into her ambulance, locking the door behind her. JC would have joined her if he’d thought it would do any good. Meetings with the Carnacki Institute’s Boss rarely went well when he and his team were involved. Somehow, JC knew she was already working on a way to blame the whole mess on him.

The Boss crashed to a halt before JC and his team, who all made a point of nodding casually to her in a totally unimpressed sort of way. Latimer considered each one of them in turn with a cold and very direct gaze. She wasn’t all that impressive, physically, but her sheer force of personality more than made up for that. Medium height and sturdy, she wore a superbly tailored grey suit and smoked black Turkish cigarettes in a long ivory holder. She had to be in her seventies and looked like she’d fought for every inch of it. She was the most impressive, efficient, and downright dangerous woman JC had ever met. He spent a lot of time avoiding her, which most of the time she seemed to appreciate.

“I am here,” said Catherine Latimer, the Boss, in an even more than usually harsh and clipped voice, “because the first I knew anything about this mission was when you phoned in to say it was all over. It would seem Patterson set the whole thing up himself and ran it personally from behind the scenes. I’m still having trouble accepting that Robert was a traitor. I’ve known him for years, man and boy. His father was one of my best field agents, back in the eighties. I trained Patterson personally, pushed him up the promotions ladder as fast as I could… I had such plans for him. He would have gone far, the fool.”

“It’s always the ambitious ones you have to look out for,” Happy said wisely, as the Boss paused for a moment, lost in thought. She glared at him.

“When I want your opinion, I’ll have my head examined!” She switched her glare to JC. “Was it really necessary to kill him?”

“Yes,” JC said steadily. “He betrayed every one of us, put all of Humanity at risk by dealing in things he didn’t understand and couldn’t control. And he boasted that he and his secret backers were planning to do even worse things in the future. He had to die.”

“Did you make him understand that we would have given him full immunity, and round-the-clock protection, in return for information?” said the Boss.

JC met her gaze steadily. “He was more afraid of his own people than he was of us.”

“It’s true,” said Happy. “He said he’d rather die than betray them. He did. I was there.”

The Boss looked at Melody. “Do you have anything useful to add?”

“He wasn’t the man you thought he was,” said Melody, as kindly as she could. “He wasn’t the man any of us thought he was.”

The Boss nodded slowly. “I want every bit of information you have about this secret organisation Patterson answered to. Every word he said about them. I want fully detailed reports from all three of you on my desk before the end of day.” She looked back at Chimera House. “These… New People. Were they really living gods, or the final destiny of human evolution? I would have liked to have seen them. It’s not often you get to see something completely new, in this business.” She looked back at JC and his team. “You got lucky. You do realise that, don’t you? This could all have gone horribly wrong, in so many appalling ways. But, still-you did good. Well done. Don’t even think of asking for a raise.”

She drew heavily on her ivory holder, and blew a thick cloud of aromatic smoke out onto the early-morning air. “How could something as important, as extreme as this, have got so far completely undetected by anyone in the Institute? Patterson wasn’t that high up, or that connected… He couldn’t have managed all this on his own. You’re sure he didn’t mention any other names… Of course not. You would have said.”

JC could have said something there but didn’t. Happy and Melody took their cues from him.

“Reports,” the Boss said savagely. “Extremely detailed reports. And God have mercy on your souls if they aren’t in on time.”

She turned her back and strode off, to organise things and shout at people a lot. JC, Happy, and Melody all breathed a little more easily, and moved away to find somewhere quiet, and private, so they could talk. Once they were safely away from the crowds, Kim manifested again, a vague impression on the air, an outline of a young woman in pastel colours, so the others could see and hear her. She hated to be left out of things just because she was dead.

“We’re going to have to be very careful about what we say in our reports,” said JC. “And careful that they all agree with each other, in the things that matter. Because there’s a lot we’re going to have to leave out, or at the very least fudge around. We don’t know how many other traitors there might be, hidden away inside the Carnacki Institute.”

“Are you saying we can’t even trust the Boss?” said Happy, his eyes widening at the thought of trying to keep things from the dreaded Catherine Latimer.

“She’s the Boss!” said Melody. “She’s in charge of everything! If she’s gone over to the dark side, we are all royally screwed!”

“I think we can still trust her,” JC said steadily. “If only because she’s got too much pride to hide her dark side under a bushel. If she was the villain of the piece, she’d want everyone to know, and bow down to her. No-I was thinking more that whatever we tell the Boss might not stay with the Boss.”

They all paused to consider the implications of that, and none of them liked what they were thinking.

“We have to go our own way now,” JC said finally. “Follow the leads we’ve got and run our own very secret investigations into who’s really who, and what’s really what, inside the Carnacki Institute.”

“We can’t trust anyone any more, can we?” said Melody.

“Welcome to my world,” said Happy. “Lonely, isn’t it?”

“We only trust each other,” said JC.

“Situation entirely bloody normal,” said Happy. But he couldn’t keep from grinning.

“Just because one conspiracy theory has turned out to be true, it doesn’t mean they all are,” JC said sternly. “Let us all please concentrate on the matter at hand. The Carnacki Institute is far too important to the world to remain compromised in this way.”

“What is this other secret organisation?” said Melody. “We don’t have a name, or a statement of intent.”

“They have got to be big,” said Happy. “And I mean really, really big to have the connections and resources to pull off something like this, right under the Boss’s radar.”

“So how come no-one even heard a whisper?” said Melody. “You can’t put something like ReSet together without making serious waves.”

“We did hear a whisper,” said JC. “Those agents from the Crowley Project, Natasha Chang and Erik Grossman. They said there were forces at work bigger than either the Institute or the Project. But we didn’t believe them because Project agents lie like they breathe. They live to spread lies and paranoia. But now…”

“We have one end of the string,” said Happy. “I say we tug on it and see what unravels.”

“You are enjoying this entirely too much,” said Melody.

“My entire paranoid existence has been justified,” said Happy. “I am a deeply satisfied man.”

“We’re not going to solve this mess overnight,” said JC. “We have to be in this for the long haul… all the way to the end. So we carry on taking cases, going on missions, as though everything were still normal. People… some people… are going to be watching us very carefully.”

“But… wouldn’t it be safer to let it go?” said Kim. “I mean, what can the four of us do, against a secret society this big, this dangerous?”

“We go on,” said JC. “Because we have to. Because it’s part of the job. And because no-one plays us and gets away with it.”

“Right,” said Happy.

“Damn right,” said Melody.

“Oh well, if you put it like that,” said Kim. “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.”

They walked away from Chimera House, putting it all behind them, for the time being at least. Happy looked sideways at JC.

“So,” he said casually, “did you really steal that Hand of Glory thing from the Carnacki Institute’s Armoury?”

“You’d be surprised at what I’ve gotten away with, over the years,” JC said solemnly.

They all stopped abruptly as Kim clapped both her hands to her head and cried out in pain. The sound rose and rose, a miserable howl of horror and agony, filling the night, continuing on long after living lungs would have been unable to sustain it. She swayed on her feet, eyes clenched shut. JC stood before her, saying her name over and over, trying to make himself heard over the deafening noise she was making, reaching out but unable to touch or comfort her. Melody and Happy looked at each other, both of them lost for anything useful to do. Latimer came hurrying back to join them. And Kim stopped screaming as suddenly as she’d begun. The returning quiet would have been a relief, if it hadn’t been for the horror and abject misery still filling her pale face.

“What is it?” said Latimer. “What’s happening? Why was she making that God-awful noise?”

“I don’t know,” said JC. “Nothing happened… Kim? Kim, sweetie, what is it? What’s upsetting you… Kim, look at me!”

Kim finally forced her eyes open but didn’t look at JC. She only had eyes for Chimera House, staring at the tall building as though it was the entrance to Hell itself. JC looked, too, but it all seemed perfectly ordinary to him. Everything was as it should be. He could see silhouettes of the Institute people outlined against brightly lit windows, going about their business.

“It’s not over,” said Kim. “It’s not finished. Not yet.”

“What do you mean?” said Latimer. “Is it the New People? You said they were gone.”

“They are gone,” JC said impatiently. “We all saw them move on.. . Kim, did you… hear something?”

Kim looked at him for the first time, her pale features still slack with shock. “You didn’t hear that? You didn’t hear anything?”

“I didn’t hear a damned thing,” said Melody. “Except you, screaming fit to burst my eardrums.” She looked at Happy, and he shrugged quickly.

“Don’t look at me. I’m not picking up anything. If this night was any quieter, it would be tucked up in bed with a nice cup of hot milk.”

“It sounded… like the roar of some great Beast,” Kim said slowly. “Nothing human in it, not in intent, or emotion. Just this great roar, of anger and hatred and defiance… and evil. An ancient evil, beyond anything human.”

Happy’s head snapped round, and he stared at Chimera House with wide, shocked eyes. His face screwed up with pain, and he bent over suddenly, as though he’d been hit, and hit hard. He made soft grunting, moaning sounds. Melody moved quickly in beside him but had enough sense not to touch him.

“What is it, Happy? Are you hearing something now?”

“He’s killing them,” said Happy, forcing the words out between harsh gasps of strained breathing. “He’s killing them all! He’s going back and forth in the building, killing everyone he finds. Get them out! Get everyone out of there!”

Latimer moved in close, to glare right into his face. “Talk to me, Happy. I need to know what’s happening. Concentrate! Follow your training! Find your focus and tell me what the hell is going on inside that building!”

Happy swallowed hard and bit down on his moans, fighting to regain his self-control. He made himself straighten up, by sheer effort of will, though his hands still clenched and unclenched at his sides.

“They’re all dead,” he said flatly. “Everyone on the upper floors. He killed them all. I heard their terror, their dying screams. He’s working his way down through the building, floor by floor, killing everyone he finds. And loving every moment of it.”

Latimer glared at JC. “You missed something. Some monster, some hidden killer… You told me it was safe to send my people in there! But you left something hidden in some secret place, waiting for its chance because you didn’t do your job properly!”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it!” said JC, giving the Boss glare for glare. “Your own psychics told you the place was clean!”

“We didn’t miss anything,” Happy said flatly. “This is something new.”

JC deliberately turned his back on Latimer, to face Happy. “Human? Alive? Dead? What?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know!” Happy wiped the sweat from his face with the back of one shaking hand. “There’s something new in there, and it’s big and powerful… Trying to See it is like staring into a spotlight. Its presence is hitting me so hard, I can hardly think straight, barely keep it outside my head… It’s a man… but it’s so much more than a man! And there’s something very familiar about it…”

They were all looking at Chimera House by then. Latimer took out her cell phone and tried to raise someone, anyone, on the upper floors of the building, but no-one answered. She put the phone away and gave a series of quiet orders to the commander in charge of her security people. They moved quickly forward to form a semicircle facing the building, guns at the ready. Everyone else left, clearing the area, followed by all the other vehicles, and the ambulance. Kim hovered beside JC, fading in and out as her concentration wavered under the onslaught of so many unpleasant emotions. Happy was still breathing hard but was as back in control as he ever was. Melody looked briefly at her instruments but stuck with Happy, for the moment. Every time she saw him wince, she knew he was hearing someone die.

There was a burst of gunfire from the lobby. Chattering bullets, shouted orders, jagged screams suddenly cut off. The security people tensed but held their positions. Everyone strained their eyes, but none of them could see what was happening in the lobby. All the glass had suddenly become opaque. And then, suddenly, all the windows were spattered with crimson, thick blood sliding down their insides. The gunfire died away and stopped. Latimer looked at Happy, who shook his head sickly. Latimer beckoned to the commander, and he hurried over.

“Send half your people to join the established perimeter,” she said crisply. “Tell them no-one gets in or out until I say otherwise, in person. And no-I don’t care who they are, or who they say they are. I want this whole area sealed off until we know for sure what we’re dealing with. Contact Institute Headquarters, and have them send every special force and field agent they can find. They’re to reinforce the perimeter, but not come in until I say so. When you’ve done that, take the rest of your people and secure the situation inside that lobby. You are authorised to shoot the shit out of anything you see. Go.”

The commander nodded quickly, and moved off to follow Latimer’s orders quietly and efficiently. JC and his people stood close together, shivering in the cold, gusting wind. They all watched silently at the commander led his people towards the now-entirely-quiet lobby. Latimer glared at Happy.

“Happy Jack Palmer! Look at me!”

Happy looked at her. His face was still slack with shock. “You don’t have to shout. I’m not deaf.”

“I need to know what you’re hearing,” said Latimer. “What’s going on in the lobby, right now? Who or what is killing my people?”

“They’re all dead now,” Happy said dully. “Everyone in the building. Bullets couldn’t stop him. They never stood a chance, any of them.”

“What about the other field team? Can you reach their telepath?”

“You’re not listening to me! They’re all dead, all of them! Including your precious Jeremy Diego, Monica Odini, and Ivar ap Owen! Your legendary A team, the best you had, your most experienced field team, were nothing to him! He killed them as easily as you would swat a fly. All their power, all their weapons, all their legendary experience, didn’t make a damned bit of difference. I heard Monica crying out to me with her mind, trying to reach me… but he wouldn’t let her. He… walked right over them. They didn’t even slow him down.”

Latimer actually looked shocked, for the first time. “But… Diego was one of my best! I would have trusted him to deal with anything! What the hell is going on in there…”

“All the training in the world won’t help,” said Happy, almost dreamily. “Something bad has come here, to teach us a lesson. To teach us our proper place in the scheme of things.”

“You’re still listening in, aren’t you, Happy?” JC said quietly. “Is it the New People? Are they back?”

“No,” said Happy. “It’s not them. Look. There he is.”

He gestured at the lobby door with a shaking hand, and they all turned to look. The commander held up one hand as the door opened, and his men froze in place, guns trained on the door. The door swung open, and a man stepped out into the night. One man, walking unsteadily because most of his bones were broken, because he was dead. Robert Patterson. His once-splendid clothes were tattered and torn, and soaked with blood. It dripped thickly from him, leaving a messy trail back into the lobby. It was far too much blood for it to have been only his-too much, and too fresh. He carried the marks of his murders on him. Some of it fell in thick drips from his clenched fists.

His body had been broken and shattered by the long fall and sudden impact that had killed him. Every time he moved, the sound of splintered bones scraping against each other came clearly across the quiet. Broken limbs and broken back, broken neck and smashed head. His right eye had been pushed forward, straining half out of its socket, so that he seemed to stare at them all with a fierce, manic gaze. He was grinning widely.

“Robert Patterson,” said Happy. “He died and came back from the dead. And he’s brought something back with him.”

Latimer called out to the dead man, and he stopped and turned to look at her. His neck made sickening grinding noises.

“Robert!” said Latimer. “Robert, it’s me, Catherine! They said you were dead! What’s happened to you, Robert?”

He looked at her, still grinning his humourless grin. He didn’t move, and he didn’t answer her. JC stepped in beside Latimer.

“I don’t think that is Patterson any more, Boss,” he said carefully. “Or at least, not the Patterson you knew. Happy, talk to me

… what’s going on inside that dead man’s head?”

“He’s not alone in there,” said Happy. “He’s hardly there at all. More like a memory, now, pressed down and supplanted by something else. Someone else has… moved in and taken over. Riding him.”

“And that’s what killed everyone?” said Melody. “One dead man, with a rider in his head?”

“He’s not like any dead man we’ve ever encountered,” said Happy. “Not a zombie, not any kind of lich… Whatever’s riding Patterson has suffused his body with so much power, it’s a wonder the world is able to bear his presence. This is far more than a simple possession. This is a Power, walking unfettered in the world.”

“I don’t care what it is,” said Latimer. “It’s killed my people. No-one gets away with that.” She nodded quickly to the commander. “Blessed and cursed bullets, half and half. Take that thing down.”

The commander nodded easily and turned to his men. He didn’t seem too bothered at the idea of shooting Patterson. JC wondered briefly if perhaps the commander had known Patterson, before. The commander moved easily among his people. His voice was calm, professional, assured. “Target dead ahead. Put him down.”

The security people all opened fire at once, and the quiet night was filled with the roar of massed gunfire. Bullets pounded into Patterson, over and over again, and he stood there and took it. Every single bullet hit him, not one miss, and none of them did him any harm. The dead body soaked up the punishment, and the horrid smile on the dead face didn’t waver in the least. He didn’t even rock on his feet under the multiple impacts. The bullets made holes in his flesh, but that was all they did. He felt no pain, took no injury. The occasional head shots blasted the back of his skull away, blowing out long streams of grey and pink brains, but his awful gaze never wavered. He was dead, and there was nothing more the guns could do to him.

The gunfire died slowly away, as one by one guns ran out of ammunition. The security people lowered their weapons. The echoes died away, and Patterson was still standing. The security men looked at each other and muttered uneasily; but not one of them retreated. The commander opened his mouth to give new orders, but he never got to say them because Patterson was already off and moving. He raced forward with inhuman, unnatural speed, arms and legs moving without grace or efficiency. Shattered bones in his arms and legs made harsh protesting sounds as the possessing will drove them on. Patterson hit the commander first. One punch ripped the man’s head right off, and Patterson was already moving on before the body hit the ground. He was in and among the security people in a moment, striking them down with closed fists, breaking their necks and clubbing them down, ripping out throats with clawlike fingers. Most of them didn’t even have time to scream before they died. He tore arms out of their sockets with inhuman strength, his dead fingers sinking deep into mortal flesh, laughing silently as blood sprayed over him. He crushed skulls and punched out hearts, and stalked over fallen bodies to get to those who remained. None of them ran. They fought him with gunbutts and knives and bare hands; and none of it did any good.

It was all over very quickly. In the end, Patterson stood alone, surrounded by the dead, with fresh blood dripping from his hands. He laughed soundlessly. And then he turned to look at Catherine Latimer.

He nodded cheerfully to her, and she stared back at him with stiff, frozen features. Patterson took a step towards her, and JC, Melody, and Happy immediately moved forward, putting themselves between their Boss and the dead man. Latimer started to say something, then stopped herself. They were following their training. Patterson studied them all thoughtfully.

“Who are you?” said JC.

Patterson stood very still, not breathing hard, not breathing at all. He nodded slowly to JC, still smiling his wide, wide smile, as though this was the finest thing ever, the most fun he’d ever had.

“You’d know my name if I said it,” the dead man said in a breathy, scratchy voice. “So I won’t say it.”

The voice grated on everyone’s nerves. It was only breath, moving over vocal cords. Nothing human in it at all.

“All right,” said JC. “Let’s try an easier one. What do you want?”

“I will kill you all,” said the dead man. “And you can’t stop me. You should never have come here. You should never have interfered.”

“I hate to be picky about this, oh high-and-mighty dead person,” said JC, “but you brought us here. Or at least Patterson did, presumably on your orders.”

“You were supposed to fail,” said the dead man. “I chose you, above all the other A teams, because you had the least experience. I had to get you in place before someone better turned up. You were supposed to walk in there, like good little sacrificial lambs, and fall to the New People. Or their creatures. The New People were taking too long. They needed a nudge, some exterior pressure, to get them moving. We arranged for their creation, you see, so they would damage reality… break it open from within. Smash the walls of the world.”

“You wanted the New People to destroy the world?” said Latimer. “Why?”

“The world doesn’t matter,” said Patterson. “It’s merely a cage, from which we will escape. The New People were only ever a means to an end.”

Latimer’s phone rang. Everything stopped for a moment, reacting to the harsh ringing tone. Latimer took out the phone and put it to her ear, never taking her gaze off the dead man before her. He looked vaguely annoyed at being interrupted but let her answer it. Presumably some reactions are ingrained, even on the dead.

“Yes, I know,” said Latimer. “Yes, I’m looking right at him. No! Stay where you are! That’s an order! Maintain the perimeter at all costs. Nothing else matters. Hold the line until I tell you otherwise

… or until it’s clear I’m no longer in charge. Then you take your orders from the Second In Command. God help you. Now don’t bother me again. I’m busy.”

She put the phone away. Happy looked at her, almost in shock.

“That’s it? Shouldn’t we contact Institute Headquarters, get some serious reinforcements down here, with really serious weapons?”

“By the time they could get here, this will all be over,” Latimer said flatly. “One way or the other.”

“You should get the hell out of here, Boss,” said JC. “You’re too valuable to the Institute to put yourself at risk.”

“Yes, I am,” said Latimer. “Good of you to remember that, for once. Unfortunately, my emergency teleport button isn’t working. It should have removed me to safety the moment it became clear brute force wouldn’t stop that thing but it would appear something… is blocking it. Which isn’t supposed to be possible. I can only assume Patterson betrayed us on a great many levels, sharing his insider knowledge with whoever or whatever is riding him now. I could run, I suppose but I doubt I’d get very far.”

“Typical,” Happy said bitterly. “The Boss gets an emergency teleport button, but we don’t. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an emergency teleport button.”

“I did,” said Melody. “I’ve been trying to hack its files for months, so I could build one of my own.”

“Oh, that was you, was it?” said Latimer. “We will discuss that later, young lady.”

“Excuse me,” said JC. “Do you think we could all concentrate on the matter at hand, pretty please? Namely, the dead man with the blood of many on his hands, standing right in front of us? And no, I wouldn’t try outrunning him, Boss. You saw how fast whatever it is moved. I suppose once you’re dead, human limitations don’t apply any more.”

“No,” said Kim. “They don’t. But there are other limits.”

JC looked at her. “Anything you can See, anything you can tell us, about the dead man?”

“He’s got one hell of an aura. Lots of purple. Just by being present, he’s burning up that body. Though probably not soon enough to do us any good. So much power… Whatever it is that’s riding Patterson, I don’t think it’s human. Or at least, not human any more.”

JC nodded quickly, as though that was nothing more than he’d expected, and turned his attention back to Latimer.

“Have you got any special weapons about you? Objects of Power, that kind of thing?”

“Not actually on me,” said Latimer. “Didn’t think I’d be needing them. I wasn’t even expecting to be up and about at this ungodly hour of the morning.”

“It’s a pity you haven’t got that Hand of Glory monkey’s paw thing any more,” Kim said artlessly. “I’m almost sure it would have helped.”

Latimer glared at JC. “I knew it! It was you! The moment I heard another of those things had gone missing from the Armoury, I knew it was down to you!”

“Another?” said Happy. “How many of those things have you got in storage? They’re dangerous and damned, and I think I’ll stop talking so you’ll stop glaring at me in that really quite scary way ooh look a sparrow.”

“Something else we should perhaps discuss at a later time,” said JC, ignoring Happy with the ease of long practice. “The point is, I don’t have it any longer.”

“What? What have you done with it?”

“I sort of… lost it,” said JC.

“I will have your balls for this,” said Latimer.

“Melody, Happy,” said JC. “Do you have any weapons, legal or otherwise, about your person and please say yes.”

“I’ve still got my machine pistol,” said Melody. “But it’s out of ammo, remember? And there’s probably some useful things I could be doing with my instruments if I’d only had time to activate them.” She scowled. “I hate being caught unprepared.”

“She does,” said Happy. “She really does.” He stuck both hands in his pockets and glowered at the dead man. “And don’t look at me, either, JC. I’ve got nothing that could even touch Patterson. He’s got shields you wouldn’t believe. We are all seriously outclassed here.”

“You mean, like we were with the New People?” said JC.

“Well, no, not on that level,” Happy said immediately. “He’s a Power. They were more like gods.”

“We won out over the New People,” said JC. “So, we should be able to beat Patterson if we put our minds to it.”

“Confidence is a wonderful thing,” said Happy. “Where did I put my pills…”

And then he broke off, as he realised Patterson wasn’t looking at them. The dead man was giving his full attention to Kim. She rose and fell slowly in place, her eyes locked with his, unable to look away.

“Little ghost girl,” said Patterson. “You shouldn’t still be here. Flaunting your undecided status. You’re staying for him, aren’t you? He can’t ever love you, not really, because you’re not a real girl.”

“He knows me,” Kim whispered. “The thing inside Patterson. He can see inside me. I can hear him, he wants to do things to me. Awful things. Things he can’t do to the living…”

JC moved forward, deliberately putting himself between Kim and the dead man. He took off his sunglasses with a sharp flourish, and fixed Patterson with his glowing eyes. And for the first time, Patterson stopped smiling.

“Abomination,” he said tonelessly. “Unnatural thing. You don’t even know what you are, do you?”

“Leave the girl alone,” said JC.

“Or what?” said Patterson. “What will you do? What can you do? The terrible thing that reached down and touched you, and changed you, and gave you those eyes… wasn’t what you think it was. It can’t help you against me. You’re on your own here.” He was smiling again now. “You think you’re so important-the great white-suited ghost hunter-but what have you ever really achieved? The world still turns as it always has, and the night is still full of monsters. Like me.”

“Then why is it so important to you, to kill us?” said JC.

“You know too much,” said Patterson. “Far more than you were ever meant to.”

“Okay,” said Happy, actually brightening up a little. “Now that’s interesting. Which of the many things I know, or think I know, are important enough to kill me over?”

“Not now, Happy,” said JC.

“Yes, now! This is proof! If I’m worth killing, then at least some of the things I’ve always believed have to be true!”

“He sort of has a point,” JC said to Latimer, putting his sunglasses back on. “If we do know really important things… we should get a raise.”

“What do you want?” said Latimer. “Danger money?”

“Oh, please,” said Happy.

Patterson looked back and forth as they talked. He seemed to be having trouble accepting that he wasn’t holding their full attention.

“Keep him busy,” Melody said suddenly.

“What?” said JC.

“Patterson! Keep the dead man occupied! I’ve got an idea.”

She turned and ran, sprinting down the street. Everyone else stood there and watched her go. Happy looked longingly after her.

“Running away looks like a really good idea to me. Wish I’d thought of it first.”

“Stand fast!” JC said immediately. “She’s not running out on us. She’ll be back.”

“You think she has a plan?” said Happy.

“Hopefully.”

“A cunning plan?”

“Let’s not set our hopes too high.”

Happy sighed heavily. “What if we all ran in different directions at once?”

“We can’t abandon the Boss,” said JC. “The dead man would kill her in a moment if we weren’t here to protect her.”

“Well, yes,” said Happy. “But you say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“I am still here!” said Latimer. “I can still hear you! There will be discussions about this later.”

Happy looked down his nose at her. “I never liked you. I’m only still here because of the principle of the thing, so shut your cake-hole and let us concentrate.”

Latimer looked at JC. “When did he grow a pair?”

“My little boy is all grown-up,” said JC. “I couldn’t be more proud. Now do as the terrified but still somehow holding his ground telepath says, and keep the dead man occupied while Happy and I try to think of something. You might try asking him why he hasn’t killed us yet, a question that has been much on my mind.”

“Don’t give the dead thing ideas,” growled Happy. “He’s probably got a very good reason, and I don’t want him doubting it.”

Latimer sniffed loudly. “I do not negotiate with monsters. And I am not helpless! I didn’t get to where I am in the Carnacki Institute without learning a few useful and really unpleasant tricks along the way… Like this one.” She glared at Patterson. “You! Dead thing! Pay attention! Whatever you are, within my old friend’s body. You think you’re so hard, cope with this!”

She slammed her wrinkled hands together while speaking aloud a Word of Power, and the ground shuddered under everyone’s feet. A harsh grinding noise filled the night air, and the ground tore itself apart. A huge split opened up, zigzagging its crooked way across the street between Patterson and the others, then the split widened abruptly into a crack, enlarging into a great crevice that opened up beneath the dead man’s feet. He fell into the wide gap without a sound, and it swallowed him up. Latimer brought her hands together again, and the two sides of the crevice slammed together. The loud, grinding noises stopped immediately, and the ground settled. The night air was still. All that remained of the crevice was a long, jagged crack in the street. JC looked at Latimer with new respect.

“I didn’t know you could do that.”

“Not many do,” said Latimer. “That’s the point.”

“And the dead man is toast!” said Happy, doing an ecstatic little jig on the spot. “He is flatter than toast! He is dead and very definitely departed.” He stopped dancing and nodded brusquely to Latimer. “I may be a little more respectful at future meetings. It’s possible.”

Then the ground shuddered under their feet again. They all looked down. The ground shook again, more insistently, then groaned loudly as the jagged split jerked itself apart, opening up foot by foot, until it was a crevice again. And from that crevice, up out of the dark, Patterson rose. He soared into the air, like a dark bird of ill omen, hanging in the air above them, held there in defiance of all natural laws by sheer force of will. The two sides of the crevice slammed together again, and Patterson sank slowly down to stand exactly where he had before. Unhurt, untouched, unruffled. He smiled condescendingly at Latimer.

“Is that really the best you’ve got?”

“There is no way you did that on your own!” snapped Latimer. “You had help. Powerful help. Outside help. Who are your masters? ”

Patterson nodded slowly. He looked heavier now, more solid. More real, as though he was several things in one place. The ground cracked and broke beneath his feet, as though he weighed more heavily on the world than a real thing should.

“Ah, Catherine,” he said. “I have always enjoyed our little chats. You’re quite right. I’m not alone. You have no idea who and what you’re facing.”

“Happy,” JC said quietly, “I need you to look inside that thing’s head. No excuses. Get me some idea of what’s going on in there.”

Happy sighed, in his best put-upon way, and reached out to the dead man with his most powerful and subtle probe, only to recoil immediately, shaking violently.

“He let me See!” he said, breathlessly. “Just for a moment, just for a glimpse… Whatever’s riding Patterson was human once, but it’s a whole different thing now. Something horribly powerful. I couldn’t even look at it straight on! Man is not meant to look into the face of the Medusa…”

“It’s not Patterson,” said Latimer. “It doesn’t talk like him, or move like him. My dear friend is gone.”

“Oh, he’s still in here somewhere,” said the dead man. “So I can enjoy his suffering. He was never your friend…”

“Excuse me!” Latimer said sharply, “But I think I knew him better, and longer, than you ever did! He may have… drifted away, wandered off the proper path, but I have no doubt he would have found his way back, eventually.”

JC could have said something there, about Patterson, but he didn’t.

Latimer fitted one of her dark Turkish cigarettes into her long ivory holder, lit it with her monogrammed gold Zippo lighter, and blew a mouthful of smoke at Patterson. She looked him over disparagingly.

“You said… you enjoyed our little chats. So I do know who you really are. Do you really think you can hide from me?”

“Ah, Catherine,” said the dead man. “I’m afraid you’ve left it for too late. You never did appreciate me.”

Latimer blew a perfect smoke ring. “Why haven’t you killed us yet?”

“Because I’m having so much fun,” said Patterson.

“If we’re having a civilised little discussion before the slaughter,” said JC, “can I ask again-what is it we know that we’re not supposed to know?”

“I don’t know anything,” Happy said immediately. “I never know anything. I am famous for not knowing anything, so there is absolutely no point in killing me.”

“This is true,” said JC. “He doesn’t know anything. Or at least, not anything you can prove.”

“Your whole team was a mistake,” Patterson said flatly. “You were getting too good, too quickly. We couldn’t allow that. And if you don’t know what you know, all the better. You can die ignorant. Yes. Enough talk. I have more important things to be about. Die, little things.”

Suddenly, Patterson’s stretch limo came squealing round the corner at high speed, Melody behind the wheel. She fought to keep the speeding car under control, and aimed it right at Patterson. He barely had time to react before the limo screamed across the intervening space, tyres howling, and ploughed right into him. She hit him dead-on, the impact breaking his legs again and throwing him forward across the long bonnet. His arms flailed wildly, his hands scrabbling for a hold on the smooth metal. Melody kept her foot hard down, hauled the car around, and drove it right at Chimera House. Patterson was yelling something, but no-one could make it out over the roar of the car’s motor.

The stretch limo slammed into the building and crashed to a halt half-way into the lobby. Broken glass pelted down from the shattered windows, like jagged rain. The car’s engine cut off abruptly. The driver’s door flew open, and Melody half fell out. Happy and JC ran forward, with Kim swooping along beside them. Melody stood up, slowly and painfully. Happy got to her first, took her arm, and slipped it over his shoulders, so he could take some of her weight. It was a mark of how shaken Melody was that she let him do it. She limped away from the scene of the crash, leaning heavily on Happy, while JC and Kim hovered beside them.

Latimer approached them, smiling broadly around her cigarette holder, and surprised them all by applauding loudly.

“Nice use of improvisation!” she said. “Gold stars all round when we get back.”

“Bloody airbag smacked me in the face,” mumbled Melody. “I know I’m going to have two black eyes.”

Then they all stopped and looked back, as the limo shifted suddenly to one side. Happy handed Melody over to Latimer, and he and JC moved to stand between the women and whatever was moving underneath the car. The limo tilted onto one side and fell over, as Patterson rose out of the wreckage, pushing the car off him with almost contemptuous ease. His clothes were even more of a mess than before, and jagged slivers of glass protruded from his dead flesh, but his gaze was steady, and his awful smile was broader than ever. He stood in the wreckage of the lobby like a conquering hero, posing and preening and showing himself off so they could all get a good look at him.

“I’m thinking this would be a really good time to start running,” Happy said quietly. “I won’t point a finger if you won’t. I’m in the mood to cover a lot of ground in a really short time.”

“Do you want to leave Melody and the Boss behind?” said JC.

“Well no, not as such, but…”

“No buts. This is the job.” JC looked Patterson over carefully. “Besides, whatever’s holding that body together has got to be really powerful. I don’t think you could outrun that with your best running shoes on. And anyway, I don’t run. It’s bad for the image.”

“When all else fails, try diplomacy,” said Latimer. She handed the still-groggy Melody back to Happy and gave the dead man her full attention. “Robert, if there’s any of you left in there, please listen to me. You know me. I knew your grandfather, and your father. Both of them excellent field agents. They wanted something better for you, and I did all I could for you… I watched you grow up, watched you rise through the ranks… You believed in the Institute! I know you did.”

“I’m here, Grandmother,” said the dead man, and the voice sounded suddenly different. There was a whisper of life, of Patterson, in the voice. “I’m lost. I’m damned. I rolled the dice in the name of ambition, and they came up devil’s eyes. Don’t make my mistakes. Don’t try and fight the rider. You can’t win.”

“Stop that, Robert!” Latimer said fiercely. “I won’t have it! I taught you better than that. Fight him, boy! Fight for your body, and your soul!”

“That’s enough of that,” said the dead man, and once again the voice was dead air moving in a dead throat. “Robert isn’t here any more. I am. He betrayed you and the Institute of his own free will. His body serves me now, as he served me in life. He sold his soul to us long ago, so why should he begrudge me his body? You shouldn’t grieve so, Catherine. It really was a very small soul.”

“Who are you?” said JC. “Come on-you know you want to tell us.”

“Ah, wouldn’t you like to know?” The teasing tone sounded very out of place in a dead man’s mouth. “See if you can guess. I’m not Carnacki Institute, and I’m not Crowley Project. But you people aren’t the only players in the game. You really should have paid more attention to what was going on around you. Now playtime’s over. Time to get down to business and remove some more than usually troublesome pieces from the board.”

Melody pushed herself away from Latimer. She straightened up and glared at JC. “Come on! You’re the clever one! Think of something!”

JC looked back and forth, frowning hard, then his gaze stopped on Happy. “You know… I do have an idea…”

“Oh bugger,” said Happy. “That’s never good. I’m really not going to like this, am I?”

“I said, time for you all to die!” said the dead man.

“Oh hush,” JC said coldly. “We’re talking.

“Go ahead,” said Patterson. “Plot and plan. I do so love to watch my prey squirm.”

“Listen, Happy,” said JC urgently. “You couldn’t get inside his head before, through all the mental shields, but that was only you. What if you had help? What if you linked your mind with mine, with my extra power? And Melody, with her scientific self-control? Could you do that?”

“Well, probably,” said Happy. “These aren’t the best conditions, but stark terror motivates the mind wonderfully. And if I can tap the power within you, use that to strengthen the link… But what then?”

“Then we push the rider out,” said JC.

Happy was already shaking his head. “Even if we could do that, it would step right back in the moment we stopped pushing.”

“Not if we put someone else inside,” said Latimer. They all turned to look at her, but she was looking dispassionately at Kim. The ghost girl stared back at her with wide, frightened eyes. And now JC was shaking his head.

“No. We’re not putting Kim at risk.”

“She’s already dead,” Latimer said ruthlessly. “Nothing more can harm her in this world. She can inhabit Patterson’s body and hold it, deny the rider access. After a while, he’ll have to depart, or risk dissipation. Then she can come back out of the body and let it fall.”

“No,” said JC. “This is a bad idea. A really bad idea. Somebody else come up with another idea.”

“It will work, and you know it,” said Latimer. “And it’s the only real chance we’ve got. You haven’t any more weapons, and I’m completely out of tricks. The ghost girl is our only chance, our only hope.”

“She has a name,” JC said tightly. “Her name is Kim.”

“Of course,” said Latimer. She bowed very slightly to the ghost. “I’m sorry, my dear. I can’t make you do anything. But if you want to save your young man here, it’s the only way.”

“It’s all right, JC,” said Kim. “I’ll do it. I quite like the idea of being the only one of the team left to save the day. It’s not as if anything could go wrong. I’m dead. That’s as bad as it gets. Just.. . don’t leave me inside that thing any longer than you have to.”

“I’m not sure I like this,” said Happy.

“Do you have a better idea?” JC said savagely. “I’d really love to hear a better idea! No? Then let’s do it. Happy-link us.”

It only took a moment. Happy concentrated, reached out, and brought the three of them together into a single unit. Three minds meshed together, like the working parts of a single great mechanism. Fitting as though they’d always belonged together. They still knew who they were, but now they possessed all of each other’s strengths and none of their weaknesses. They turned to look at Patterson, at the dead man, and he flinched suddenly because now all three of them had glowing golden eyes. The glare burned brightly in the dark of the night, so very bright, and the dead man had to turn his dead gaze away from it. He couldn’t even move, held where he was, but even so, the three minds working together still weren’t strong enough to punch through his shields. Latimer stepped forward.

“Robert! This is your chance! Your last chance to be the man I always knew you were! Break the shields from your side! Let them in!”

And whether what was left of Robert heard her, or whether the linked trio finally won through, or whether the rider’s power wore out

… the shields fell, and JC and Melody and Happy rushed in. They reached out to Kim and urged her on. The ghost girl smiled bravely and moved towards the dead man. Some unfelt breeze swept her on, flapping her dress and ruffling her long hair. She drifted up to the dead man and on into him, disappearing inside as though walking on in a direction none of the others could follow. In a moment, she was gone, and the dead man swayed and almost fell. A great mental cry of rage and pain and horror briefly filled the night, then was gone. The dead man slowly straightened up, broken bones scraping loudly against each other, and for a moment someone new looked out of the dead man’s eyes. And then it was only a corpse, standing still, and Happy broke the link.

JC and Melody cried out briefly as they dropped back into their own heads. They were already forgetting what it had been like to be so much more, because deep down they knew that was necessary for their continued sanity. Happy could have remembered if he’d wanted; but he already had enough problems. Latimer looked at them all expectantly, but they had nothing to say to her.

“Is it done?” she said finally.

“Of course it’s done,” said Happy. “Look at the bloody thing. Not an ounce of malice left in it. Probably fall over if you breathed on it. And I feel much the same, thank you for asking.”

JC moved forward to stare right into the dead face. “Kim? Are you in there?”

“She can’t answer you,” said Happy. “She is occupying the body, not possessing it. Give her a few minutes, to be sure the rider isn’t coming back, and I’ll haul her out of there.”

JC nodded slowly, only half-convinced. “Hang in there, sweetie. I have to talk to the Boss about something.”

“Right,” said Happy. “Boss, while we were linked, and touching the rider’s mind, we Saw something.”

“Something important,” said Melody. “Something bad.”

They all stood close together, as though afraid of being overheard, even though there was no-one else in the quiet, deserted street.

“Is this something to do with the rider’s identity?” said Latimer. “Did you See who it was?”

“No,” said Happy. “He’s gone. No trace of him in the body, or anywhere in the area. I’d know.” He looked briefly about him. “Quite a few other ghosts, though. Lot of good people died here. Most are already dissipating, fading away, passing on… You’d better bring another field team in to do the mopping up. This place is going to be a spiritual black spot for years. Too much has happened here.”

“Are you sure the other A team is dead?” said Latimer. “I mean-Diego and his people… I depended on them for years! They always got the job done!”

“They got arrogant and cocky,” said JC. “And they got caught by surprise. Can happen to the best of us.”

“None of them are here,” said Happy. “No ghosts, nothing. They’re gone.”

“Pity,” said JC. “I would have liked a chance to say I told you so .”

“Cold, JC,” said Melody.

“Stick to the point,” Latimer said sternly. “What is so important that you need to tell me all about it right now?”

“We found something inside the dead man’s head,” said JC. “A memory, but not from Patterson. Maybe not even from the rider. Maybe something the rider saw, or was exposed to… A memory or recording of past events, featuring the appearance on this Earth of something from Outside.”

“A memory, or a vision,” said Happy. “I stored it, because I knew you’d want to see it. So come here, oh Boss and mighty one, and See what we Saw.”

Latimer moved forward, one slow step at a time. Not because she didn’t trust Happy but because part of her really didn’t want to see what he had to show her. Happy thrust the memory into her head, and she cried out in spite of herself. The ocean, blue and grey and green, a choppy surface stretching away forever, miles and miles and far and far from land, under a clear blue sky. And then a door opened in that sky, and something fell through. A great crack in the sky, dark and crimson and full of roiling energies like the opening of some great eye of terrible aspect. A crack in Time amp; Space amp; Other Things, a split in Reality itself, and a brief glimpse into what lay beyond. Things came and went on the other side of the door, huge and awful shapes, big as cities, then a bright shaft of light shone through from the other place, into this world. A light that was so much more than any light should be. It scorched through the air, slammed down into the sea, and ploughed on down through the waters like some great driven force. Even in the stored memory, so many years after the original intrusion, the light was unbearably bright to look at, overpowering to merely human eyes. A kind of light that didn’t belong in this world, this smaller reality. And in the short moment the door was open, Something came through. It fell down through the light, huge and awful, its shape meaningless to human eyes and consciousness. It existed in more than three spatial dimensions, its extremities stretching off in directions the human mind couldn’t follow. It fell into the sea like a falling mountain, and the waters rose violently as it plunged deep beneath the surface. The waters boiled, and dead fish rose in their thousands, to float on the surface and stare up at the broken sky with unseeing eyes. The door closed, and the light snapped off. Everything returned to normal. Except, nothing would ever be the same again, because something new and terrible and utterly Other had come into this world, and it would not rest until it could find a way back again.

Latimer swayed on her feet as the mental images came to an end. Happy put out a hand to steady her, then snatched it back as she shot him a hard look. She shuddered once, then stood up straight, immediately back in control again. The others looked at her carefully to see what she made of what they’d all Seen in the dead man’s head. There was something new in the world, and it was not good.

“I suppose the first question,” JC said finally, “has to be-did it fall, or was it pushed? Was it some kind of accident, or did Something Else push that thing through the door, against its will?”

“No, that can wait,” Happy said immediately. “What matters is, something really quite appalling has entered our world from the Outer Reaches, and we have no idea what it is, or what it can do. It’s trapped here… and you all felt the same things I did. It’s awful and it’s vast and it’s powerful, and it wants to go home. Back to where it came from, where it did awful things and loved it. This thing is what’s been working behind the scenes of our reality all this time, weakening the walls of the world, so it can break out of it. It sees this world, our reality, as a prison! It doesn’t care if it destroys this whole world and everything that lives on it, as long as it gets to go home again!”

“Stop hyperventilating,” Melody said coldly. “You know what that does to your sinuses. JC’s got a point. Even if we could open the door to send it back, would what lives there take it back? Would they fight to keep it out?”

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” said Latimer. “We have to identify this Entity first, then decide what to do about it. There are options…”

“Really?” said Happy. “I would love to know what the options are for dealing with a Power and Domination from the Outer Reaches!”

“Am I going to have to get you a brown paper bag to breathe into?” said Melody.

“We’ve dealt with such threats before,” Latimer said firmly. “We identify it, contain it, then either destroy it or send it somewhere else. The Carnacki Institute has a long history of knowing what to do with Abhuman Monstrosities. Did any of you pick up a name from that memory, or a description…”

“I got something,” Happy said reluctantly. “But you’re really not going to like it.”

“There’s been precious little about this day I’ve enjoyed,” said Latimer. “What have you got?”

“Might be a name, or a description,” said Happy. “Or maybe even a warning… The Flesh Undying.”

There was a long pause as they all thought about that, none of them happily. Latimer shook her head slowly.

“Doesn’t ring any bells. I’ll have to do some research. Did any of you get a sense of time? How long ago did this incursion into our space happen?”

“Hard to say,” said JC. “I got the sense we were looking at an historical record, of something that happened years ago. How long have there been stories about something untoward going on behind the scenes? Of people working to destroy the walls of the world?”

“Decades,” Happy said immediately, taking an entirely inappropriate pleasure in presenting the bad news. “I’ve been saying all along, there are all kinds of stories, of varying reliability. I believe them all, of course, on general principles, but that’s just me

… We have to ask-how long has this thing had to build an army of followers, or fellow travellers, the dupes and the possessed? If they could get their hooks into someone like Patterson, the public face of the Institute… How long has he been secretly working against us? How many others like him are there? How deep has the infiltration of the Institute gone?”

“Okay, you’re scaring me now,” said Melody.

“Welcome to my world,” said Happy. “Cold and spooky, isn’t it?”

“As always, you think too small,” said Latimer. She wasn’t even looking at Happy, her gaze far away. “The question is how many of the secret organisations of this world might The Flesh Undying have infiltrated? Not only the Institute, but the Crowley Project, the London Knights, perhaps even the Droods… We’ve always suspected their power source originated in another dimension… If that’s the case, how do we warn people? Should we warn anyone and perhaps give away how much we know?”

“The rider was human,” said JC. “Or at least, was human once. He said we’d know his name… But he could have been saying that to mess with our heads.”

“He called me by my first name,” said Latimer. “Not many have ever done that… And there was something about the way he said it.. .”

“I was right!” said Happy triumphantly. “All along, I was right! You all said I was paranoid, well you didn’t say it, but I knew you were thinking it, when I told you Something was going on behind the scenes, but you didn’t believe me! You said I’d been working too hard, reading too many forbidden texts, taking too many of my little chemical helpers, but I was right all along! Forces from Outside are working to destroy the world, using traitors inside our organisations! Ow!”

“It was either a slap round the head, or a major tranquiliser,” said Melody. “And you’d probably have enjoyed the latter.”

“Quite right,” said JC. “You are enjoying this entirely too much, Happy. And anyway, it’s only one Force from Outside. Like the Boss said, the Carnacki Institute has a very successful history in dealing with such things.”

“Victors write the histories,” Happy said darkly, rubbing at the back of his head. “And they tend to leave out all the times when it all went horribly wrong.”

“If you don’t knock off the X-Files shit right now, I foresee a whole bunch of slaps in your immediate future,” said Melody.

“Sorry,” said Happy. “I’m not used to being right.”

“But… why would anyone, any human being, ally themselves with such a thing?” said JC. “Why aid something that wants to destroy the whole world?”

“Don’t be naive,” said Latimer. “Why do Satanists sign away their souls when they must know that Hell is real? For power, or money, or to be major players in the game. And most of them probably don’t know the whole story anyway. They could be lied to, manipulated, even possessed. Some people will always go where the power is, planning to jump off at exactly the right moment and avoid paying the bill when it comes due. Fools. We need to know a lot more about The Flesh Undying.”

“We don’t even know what it is!” said Melody. “What we Saw could have been a vision, or an interpretation, of what actually happened! We couldn’t even look at the thing directly!”

“Could be one of the Great Beasts,” said JC. “Or one of the Abominations from the Outer Rings… We need to consult the Institute Libraries, Boss, and not only the official ones. We need to see everything.”

“Ooh!” said Happy, brightening suddenly. “I’ve always wanted access to the Secret Libraries!”

“I’ll think about it,” said Latimer. “Letting you run loose in those stacks would probably be more dangerous than anything The Flesh Undying would come up with.”

“I resent that,” said Happy.

“I notice you’re not denying it,” said JC.

“All right!” said Latimer, “Very much against my better judgement, I will authorise you to enter the Secret Files. But no-one is to know what you’re looking for. Anything you sign out will be under my name, which should keep anyone else from looking at it, and I will expect to see full reports from each of you on whatever you discover.” She looked at all three of them in turn, and her eyes were very cold. “I’m trusting you in this because I have no choice. You are not the team, or even the individual agents, I would have chosen for a matter as important as this, but… it’s clear I don’t know my own people as well as I thought I did. You’re all new to the Institute, and to field work, so hopefully that means you haven’t been got at yet. You did good work against Fenris Tenebrae. I haven’t forgotten. I do wish you had more experience. Then I wouldn’t feel quite so guilty about kicking you in the deep end to play with the sharks.”

“We may not have the experience,” said JC. “But we’re sneaky.”

“Oh we are,” said Happy. “Really. You have no idea.”

“Right,” said Melody, smiling in a really quite unpleasant way.

But Latimer was looking at JC thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you check in with the Institute before you started this case? You know that’s official procedure.”

“Because of Patterson,” said JC. “We all knew him, trusted him. Never liked the man, but we were all aware of his long service. And he was one of yours. We were used to hearing your words, from his lips. Never occurred to any of us that he might be speaking off his own bat.”

“Yes,” said Latimer. “He always was one of my favourites.”

“He called you ‘Grandmother,’” Happy pointed out.

“You should still have followed the official protocols,” said Latimer, ignoring Happy.

“It was an emergency,” said JC. “Not the first time we’ve been dropped into a case without a proper briefing, because there wasn’t the time.”

“I’m going to have to lay down some new guidelines,” said Latimer. “Backed up by heavy fines, demotions, and the threat of actual physical violence. It’s the only way to get anything done.”

“I have to ask,” said JC. “Don’t we have compacts, agreements, with… well, other Forces and Powers? Other organisations? People, and others, who operate in the same field as us, that we could turn to for help and support in an extreme situation like this?”

“We can’t talk to anyone about this!” Latimer said immediately. “If any of them were to discover that the Institute has become… compromised, they’d stop cooperating with us, stop sharing the kind of information we need to be able to do our job. And since we can’t know how deep or how far this infiltration has spread… we can’t risk sharing what we know with the wrong people. I won’t even be able to report all of what’s happened here at the next Summit Meeting.”

“Hold everything!” said JC. “The next Summit Meeting? This is the first I’ve heard about any Summit Meeting! Who, exactly, does the Carnacki Institute hold Summits with?”

“Yeah!” said Happy, annoyed at JC for getting in first.

“We hold a Summit twice every year, in neutral territory,” Latimer said calmly. “And you didn’t know because you didn’t need to know. The Institute meets with representatives from the Crowley Project and certain others. We’ve been holding these very cautious arm’s-length little get-togethers for many years. Because for all their bad intentions and very real threats to the world, the Project still needs a world to live on. Which means that sometimes we find ourselves on the same side, opposed to some Force or Entity that wants to destroy the world. Something too big for either of us to combat on our own. As you found out, when you teamed up with those two Project agents down in the Underground.

“A lot of groups and organisations, and certain vested interests, send delegates to the Summit Meetings. The Droods, the London Knights, the Regent of Shadows. Hadleigh Oblivion turned up one year, not long after he was made Detective Inspectre. Shadows Fall usually sends Old Father Time, but once we got Bruin Bear and the Sea Goat. We had to lock up all the silver cutlery. And the expensive wines. And send out for more food for the buffet. Damn, that Goat can put away pizza.” She stopped, to smile a surprisingly gentle smile. “Bruin Bear, on the other hand, was a real sweetie. I always loved his books, when I was a child.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” said JC. “I’m still not happy with these meetings being kept secret. What purpose do they serve?”

“Keep your enemies close and your friends closer,” said Latimer. “Because you always know where you are with your enemies… but your friends and allies can always surprise you.”

“So what do you talk about?” said Happy, actually bobbing up and down on the spot in excitement at discovering something even he hadn’t suspected.

“We have many things in common,” said Latimer, not giving an inch. “Enemies in common. Just like in the Underground. And I should point out that I am quite capable of reading between the lines of an official report and noting the points where you were deliberately vague or even evasive about what actually happened. The Summit… is necessary. To pool our resources, to share useful information. Of course, there’s always a certain amount of deliberate disinformation going on, from all sides, where we spread a little false information around, to see who’ll bite and who already knows better. The Summit has always served many purposes.”

“There is a theory,” said JC, carefully not even glancing in Happy’s direction, “that somebody, or perhaps some group of somebodies, really high up in… some organisation, did something they weren’t supposed to, and it all went horribly wrong. As a result of which, the barriers between the dimensions were weakened. And that was why the door was able to open, and The Flesh Undying was able to come through…”

“Or even,” said Happy, determined not to be left out, “that these somebodies opened the door deliberately, hoping Something would come through that they could control!”

“Rubbish,” said Latimer. “Never happened. I would know.”

“Yes, well,” Happy said darkly. “You would say that, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t push your luck, Palmer,” said Latimer.

“You didn’t know about Patterson,” said Melody, and Latimer had no answer to that.

“Enough,” said JC. “We’re talking in circles, and getting nowhere. It’s late… or really early. It’s cold, and I’m tired. Time to go home, boys and girls.” He turned to smile at the dead body. “Sorry we’ve kept you waiting so long, Kim. It’s all right-you can come out now. Kim?”

There was no response from the dead man. Nothing to indicate there was anyone at home behind the unseeing eyes. JC strode up to Patterson, and thrust his face right into the dead man’s.

“Kim! Come out of there! You’ve held the fort long enough. There’s no way the rider’s going to come back now!”

There was still no response. JC grabbed the front of Patterson’s tattered jacket, took two great handfuls, and shook the dead man hard. The dead head lolled limply on its shoulders, rolling back and forth as though mocking him. The dead knees buckled, and the dead man crashed to the ground, the weight pulling JC down with it, for all his attempts to hold the corpse upright. JC bent over Patterson, still shaking him violently, screaming into the dead and unresponsive face.

“Kim! Stop messing around! You come out of there right now! Do you hear me! Kim!”

Happy and Melody stood close beside him but had enough sense not to interfere. There was as much anger as fear in his voice, and there was no telling who he might lash out at.

“JC,” said Happy, “she’s not in there. There’s no-one in there. The body is empty.”

“You’re wrong!”

“I’m not wrong, JC. If she were there, I’d be able to See her. No-one’s there.”

“You’ve got to be wrong…”

JC finally let go of the dead man and threw him away. Patterson lay sprawling on his back, staring up at the night sky with indifferent, empty eyes. JC sat down suddenly, as all the strength went out of his legs. He looked tired and confused and utterly bereft.

“Where is she?” he said. “What happened to her? You all saw her go into the dead man… Did the rider grab onto her, overpower her, take her with him when he left? Then why didn’t I hear her? She would have called out to me, I know she would… Or did the rider call something else, something far more powerful, to bear them both away? While we were all preoccupied, all too busy talking, to pay proper attention to her? Did they take her, and I didn’t even notice?”

His voice had risen almost to a scream, his face drawn and strained. Happy and Melody stood as close as they could, and shot a harsh warning glance at Latimer when it looked like she might say something.

“I didn’t detect anything,” Happy said carefully. “And if I didn’t, you certainly wouldn’t have. There’s no sign to show she was taken. She just… isn’t in there.”

JC glared at the dead body. “Give her back! Give her back to me, you bastards!”

The dead body lay there. JC’s hands clenched into fists before him, and when he spoke, his voice was cold, and hard, and little more than a whisper.

“I have to know. I need to know what’s happened to her. Where she is. I have to track her down, and save her, and bring her home. I can’t lose her, not so soon after finding her.”

“If there’s no sign she was taken, she might have… wandered off,” said Latimer.

JC stood up, brushing at his clothes in an absent, unthinking way. “No. She wouldn’t leave me. She wouldn’t.”

“So,” said Latimer. “You and the ghost girl are… emotionally involved. Even though you know such relationships are expressly forbidden. Because they never work out well.”

“Really not a good time to go into that, Boss,” said Happy.

“Right,” said Melody, in an only moderately threatening way.

Latimer looked at JC, standing alone, looking as though something had punched his heart out, and surprised them all by nodding.

“I have to get back to the Institute,” she said evenly. “I have to make a report… of some kind. You can all come in… when you’re ready.”

She walked away, back straight and head held high, not looking back. Happy and Melody watched her go.

“Kim is out there, somewhere,” said JC. “And I will find her.”

“Of course we will,” said Happy. “We’re ghost finders.”

“Damn right,” said Melody.