“And the ones that don’t?” said Felicity.
“Then I hit them really hard with the science stick until they stop bothering people,” said Melody.
“What about those people who say the Carnacki Institute is nothing but a front for a far more insidious organisation?” said Felicity. “One that is answerable to no-one and follows its own rules and its own agenda?”
“What about them?” said JC. “Who are these people, exactly? And why are they saying these things?”
Felicity started to press the question, then stopped as Happy suddenly leaned forward across the table to interrupt her, staring unblinkingly into her eyes. He suddenly looked very focused and very dangerous.
“She doesn’t know, JC,” he said. “She doesn’t know who these people are or where her information comes from.”
“What . . . ?” said Felicity. She tried to carry on, but couldn’t, her gaze held helplessly by his.
“She doesn’t know who told her these things,” said Happy. “And it’s never occurred to her till now to question that. And the fact that she now realises she didn’t is scaring the hell out of her. Look at her notes, JC. There’s nothing on those pages about us. They’re everyday stuff: running times and schedules. Everything she’s saying . . . is coming out of her head.”
“Stop it!” said Felicity. “How do you know . . . What are you doing? What are you talking about?”
“Someone is using her,” said Happy. “To take shots at the Institute.”
“Interesting,” said JC. “What are you talking about, Felicity? Who wants you to ask these particular questions?”
“This is a trick!” said Felicity, spitting the words at him. “You’re playing games with me!”
“Someone is,” said JC.
“Has Something got to her?” said Melody, leaning forward across the table to look Felicity over carefully. “She seems normal enough . . . I wish you’d let me bring some of my equipment, JC, so I could run some proper tests on her. See if there’s anyone else inside her head apart from her.”
“Someone knew we were going to be here before we did,” said JC. “Which suggests that Felicity’s information came from inside the Institute. The Boss was right—someone high up is briefing against her. We did wonder whether this case might be some kind of trap, bait to lure us in . . . Now I’m wondering whether this is the trap. This interview. Designed to distract us and make us reveal things the public isn’t supposed to know. Only the situation here turned out to be far stranger, and more dangerous, than anyone suspected.”
“What are you talking about?” whispered Felicity.
“Forget the questions, Felicity,” said JC, not unkindly. “They’re not your questions anyway. You’re being used.”
“No I’m not! This is my show! No-one’s in charge of me but me!”
Her voice rose sharply, almost hysterically.
“Then where did you get your ammunition from, Felicity?” said JC. “Why are your notes not what you thought they were? Who first mentioned the Carnacki Institute to you?”
Felicity swallowed hard, then her head came up as she recovered some of her cold self-control. She met JC’s gaze defiantly. “A journalist never reveals her sources!”
“Especially when you have no idea who they are,” said Happy. “The inside of your head is a mess. Looking at it is giving me a headache.”
Felicity snarled at him, a raw, ugly animal sound. The sound of it, and the realisation that her audience had heard it shocked her, and she pulled her professionalism about her.
“Let’s go to the phones!” she said brightly. “It’s that time in the programme when you the listeners get your chance to ask the questions you want answered! So if any of you good people listening today have a subject you want to raise, or something specific you want to ask today’s guests, now is the time to phone in. You all know the number; but please remember I don’t have an engineer with me today to help field the calls, so if you find you’re having trouble getting through, please be patient. I’m doing this on my own. And already, we have our first caller! Go ahead, you’re on the air, on the Felicity Legrand Hour!”
She fumbled with the control panel before her, and the first phone call came in over the studio speakers, loud and clear.
“Hello, Felicity! I wanted to say, we all think you’re great! We love what you’re doing! Don’t you let those spooky bastards get away with anything!”
“Thank you, sir,” said Felicity. “Could you tell us your name, please?”
“Oh, yes! This is Gareth!”
“Do you have a question for the Ghost Finders, Gareth?”
“I wanted to say, I keep hearing noises in my house, at night!”
There was a pause, until they all realised he’d said everything he was going to say. Melody leaned forward to address the mike.
“Have you had your house’s plumbing checked recently?”
“Oh!” said the caller. “I hadn’t thought of that . . .”
“Moving on to the next caller,” Felicity said quickly.
“This is Father Xavier, of Stoneground Church,” said a calm voice. “I have been following the unusual events affecting Radio Free Albion almost from the beginning, and I am very interested in what you’ve been saying on your programme. I do not believe that what we’ve all been hearing are Electronic Voice Phenomena. I also do not believe that the dead rise up from their rest to play games with local radio hosts. No, it is my belief that Radio Free Albion has fallen under demonic influence. If you wish, I can perform an exorcism . . .”
“Thank you, Father,” said JC. “But should we decide that’s necessary, I think we’ll go with a professional.”
The next caller was an excitable young man with a high-pitched and very intense voice. He refused to give his name. “I want to know if, you are part of the same Carnacki Institute who were involved with cleaning up that nasty business at Chimera House in London, a few years back? And making all the evidence disappear? You know, when they were testing that new drug on human volunteers, and it all went horribly wrong? Was that you? I’ve been following some really fascinating discussions about the Institute, on some very well-informed conspiracy sites . . .”
“If you don’t ring off right now,” said Happy, “the Men In Black will come round and take away your computer and tell the whole world what kind of porn you like to watch.”
The line went dead. The next voice to phone in was that of an old woman, quiet and wavering but very sincere.
“That voice . . . the one who called in, and talked to Captain Sunshine, earlier . . . I don’t know who it was, but I do think it sounded very familiar. That’s all I wanted to say.”
“Thank you, caller,” said Felicity. “Is there anything you wanted to ask . . .”
But the old woman was gone. And although Felicity sat crouched over her control panel, there was only the quiet hiss of an open, empty line. There were no more callers. Felicity couldn’t believe it.
“That’s it?” she said loudly to her audience. “I go to all the trouble of assembling three of the most important people you’re ever likely to encounter, right here in my studio, and you don’t want to talk to them? Come on! Don’t let me down; ask them something! Don’t you have anything to say?”
“Is there anybody out there?” said Melody. “Is anybody still listening?”
The quiet dragged on.
“Apparently not,” said JC.
“Something’s here,” said Happy.
And again, there was something in his voice that brought all their attention back to him. He was sitting very still, looking at nothing, a terrible helpless despair stamped on his face. Melody leaned in close.
“Are you sure, Happy?”
“It’s here . . .” said Happy. “Listening . . . Talk to me, you son of a bitch.”
A voice came through the studio speakers, across the open phone line. Felicity looked sharply at her control panel because she hadn’t touched it. The new voic
e was smooth and horribly sweet, like an angel who’d learned to take a delight in the slaughter of innocents.
“Hello,” said the voice. “Is there anybody there? It’s time to pay the piper even if you don’t like the tune.”
“Cut the crap,” said JC. “You want to talk to us, this is your chance. Get on with it.”
“Hello, JC. You’re looking good. Love the shades. It is time we talked, isn’t it? We have so much to say to each other.”
“This voice,” Felicity said quietly. “It isn’t coming in over the phone. I’ve shut all the lines down, but it’s still coming through.”
“Told you,” Melody said to JC. “I don’t know what kind of carrier signal the voices are using, but it isn’t radio or phone.”
“Of course not,” said the voice. “I would never stoop to anything so crude.”
“That’s your voice, Mel,” said Happy. “That thing is speaking with your voice!”
“I have no voice of my own, so I must use what I can find,” said the voice.
“And that sounded like you, Happy,” said Melody.
“Shut up!” said Felicity. “All of you, shut up! This is my show, you don’t get to barge in and take over! Doing . . . stupid impressions!”
“Oh my sweet Felicity,” said the voice, sounding like Felicity Legrand. “I’m going to have such fun with you . . .”
“What do you sound like when you’re being yourself?” said JC, careful to keep his voice calm and unmoved. “Let’s hear what you really sound like.”
And then they all flinched back as a terrible blast of sound filled the studio. Animal sounds, mixed together; raw and vicious, harsh and brutal. The sounds of huge beasts and awful creatures, killing and being killed, living and dying, rutting and feasting. The sheer fury and ferocity in the sounds filled the studio, overwhelming everything. All the old animal instincts and impulses that mankind was supposed to have left behind and overcome, let loose, without conscience or restraint. Felicity lifted her control panel and slammed it down on the tabletop, again and again, smashing it to pieces . . . but the sounds went on. Growing slowly, steadily louder, as though the things responsible were drawing nearer.
Felicity clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop it! Stop it!”
Stop it stop it stop it, said the voice, rising over the massed animal sounds. It sounded like Felicity’s voice, driven quite mad. And then the animal sounds cut off abruptly, and a blessed peace and quiet fell across the studio.
“There’s nothing you can do to stop me,” said the voice. A completely neutral thing, lacking any trace of human personality. “I’m so close, now. So close you could almost reach out and touch me. Prepare yourselves; after all this Time, I shall have my revenge upon you.”
“Finally,” said JC, “we’re getting to something I can understand. Revenge is familiar ground to me. But revenge for what, exactly?”
“You know . . .” said the voice.
“Oh dear God,” said Melody. “Are you . . . the Flesh Undying?”
“What?” Felicity said feebly. “What’s that?”
“Hush, Felicity,” said JC, not unkindly. “Grown-ups talking.”
“The Flesh Undying?” said the voice. “I don’t know what that is. Must be part of your world. I am nothing you know or could hope to understand, with your limited human minds.”
“Why are you here?” said JC. “Why come to this radio station?”
“Because I knew you would be here,” said the voice. “Time looks very different, when seen from the other side. For me, the future is another direction to look in.”
“Are you saying, all of this, everything that’s happened at Radio Free Albion, was to get us here?” said JC.
“Cause and effect are of your world, not mine,” said the voice.
“But, the warnings . . .” said Melody.
“That isn’t me,” said the voice. “That . . . is my victims.”
“I don’t understand any of this,” said Felicity. “I feel bad. I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Dear Felicity,” said the voice. “You sound so pretty. I could eat you up. And I will!”
“Stick to the subject!” said JC. “Why us? Why is it so important to you that we’re here?”
“You shouldn’t have left the door open, JC,” said the voice. “Be seeing you . . .”
They all waited, looking quickly around the cramped studio; but it seemed the voice had said all it had to say. Melody turned to Happy.
“Is it gone?”
“I’m not sure it was ever really here,” Happy said thoughtfully. “Or at least, not as such . . . It was superimposing its presence on our world, from outside. But . . . I think it can still see and hear us, from wherever it is.”
“Or maybe, whenever it is,” said JC. “I don’t think Time and Space mean the same things to it as they do to us. Given that we’ve already decided the warning voices are coming back in Time, from the future . . . Maybe that’s where our enemy is, too. Or will be.”
“What are you all talking about?” Felicity said hysterically. Her face was stark white and beaded with sweat, her eyes bulging half out of their sockets.
“Easy, Felicity,” said JC. “Breathe deeply. Concentrate on what’s right in front of you. Don’t upset the listeners if anyone out there is still listening . . . Hello, audience! Don’t worry! This is all . . . weird phenomena. It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Leave it all to us; and we’ll clear everything up, so you can have your nice radio shows back again. Felicity Legrand is fine; she doesn’t feel like saying anything for the moment. So now the show is going to close. This is JC Chance, Ghost Finder supreme, saying, Good night! And may the spiritual provider of your choice go with you.”
Melody found one of the Captain’s old singles, and put it on. The Doors, “People Are Strange.” Melody looked at JC.
“By the time that record’s finished, Jonathan should have taken the hint and shut down the broadcast. He did say he wanted to close the station down early . . .”
Felicity stood up abruptly, staring defiantly at all of them. “I don’t believe this!” she said flatly.
“Don’t believe what?” JC said politely.
“Any of it!” said Felicity. “I don’t believe in the supernatural, or ghosts, or voices out of nowhere, or . . . or whatever that voice was pretending to be! You . . . You fixed that! You set it all up in advance, somehow! To distract me from all the legitimate questions I was going to put to you!”
“Sorry,” said JC. “But no, we didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you!” Felicity said viciously. “I’ll never believe you!”
“Whatever helps you through the night,” said Happy.
Felicity turned her back on them all and went to storm out the studio. Only to stop suddenly, as she discovered the door was gone. The only entrance and exit to the main studio had silently disappeared, and where it should have been there was nothing but an unbroken stretch of bare, plastered wall. Felicity looked at it for a long moment, then slammed both hands flat against the wall, as though she thought she could push through it. She cried out, in a loud, harsh voice, and beat her fists against the wall; and her wordless cries sounded like someone driven past their mental limits. JC nodded to Melody, and she went over to Felicity, put a hand on her shoulder, and pulled her gently away from the wall. JC moved forward to take her place. He studied the featureless wall, then ran his hands slowly over the bare plaster. It felt very smooth and perfectly ordinary. As though it belonged there and always had. Happy came forward to stand beside JC.
“It’s not an illusion, JC,” he said quietly. “Not a vision, or any kind of telepathic broadcast. Someone has interfered with the physical reality of our world. It would seem our unknown enemy is still here, messing with us. Moving around behind the scenes of the world, rearranging things for its own amusement. Which would suggest . . . it’s getting stronger as it draws nearer.”
“From the future?” said JC.
&
nbsp; Happy shrugged. “Or from some other place, some other dimension. The Outer Reaches? The Shoals? The voice said, you left a door open, JC. Does that suggest anything to you?”
JC scowled at the blank wall. “Nothing specific. Could be something left over from any number of old cases. You know as well as I do, this world is riddled with weak spots. Where the dimensional barriers have grown thin, from different worlds rubbing up against each other.”
“Or because someone poked a hole right through them,” said Happy. “I first raised that point back during the Fenris Tenebrae case, down in the London Underground. You didn’t want to believe me then.”
“I didn’t know about the Flesh Undying and its agents, then,” said JC. “It all seems so long ago now . . .”
“Could that case have anything to do with this case?” said Melody. She’d settled Felicity quietly into a chair and now came forward to join the discussion.
“Who knows?” said JC. “That kind of serious shit is way above our pay grade. Usually. For all we know, the voice is messing with us. Trying to make us look in the wrong direction. It’s not like we have any shortage of old enemies, after all.”
“But most of our old enemies are dead,” said Happy. “Or worse than dead. This is either something we didn’t kill or something we couldn’t kill.”
“You’re sounding very lucid, Happy,” said JC.
“Make the most of it,” said Happy. “It won’t last.”
“What are we dealing with here?” Melody said impatiently. “What could be this powerful?”
“Only one thing it could be,” said Happy. “It’s a Beast.”
They all looked at each other for a long moment, then JC shook his head.
“Let’s be practical. If we can’t leave through the door, there’s still the window separating us from the outer studio. Smash the glass, and we can . . .”
He broke off, as Felicity cried out suddenly from behind them. When they looked back at her, she was pointing a quivering finger at the separating window. And when the Ghost Finders turned back to look, the window was still there, it hadn’t disappeared like the door had . . . but the view beyond the glass had changed. The outer studio was gone, replaced by something else entirely.