But Happy had already stopped listening to her. He’d spotted thick mats of blue moss growing over most of a nearby wall. In fact, there were heavy splashes of the stuff all over the place. It looked moist, and springy; and JC thought the moss might even be breathing, rising and falling very slowly. Happy darted forward to study the nearest patch of blue moss, pushing his face right into it.
“I know what this is!” he said loudly. “I’ve read about it, in the kinds of magazines you never find in supermarkets . . . Supposedly, whoever eats or smokes this stuff is supposed to receive visions of Heaven and Hell. And a chance to have actual conversations with the inhabitants of both places.”
“Are you intending to try it out?” said Melody, pointedly.
“No,” said Happy, backing away reluctantly. “I have enough problems as it is. Besides, you should never talk to the dead. You can’t trust anything they say. They always have their own agenda.” He stopped and looked back at Kim. “No offence.”
“Dear Happy,” said Kim. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Happy said earnestly. And then his head came up suddenly, and he turned his back on the blue moss to stare out into the surrounding gloom. “Heads up, people! Company’s coming!”
JC looked quickly about him. The pale moonlight that fell from nowhere stretched away in all directions but didn’t reveal much.
“What’s coming?” he said. “And from which direction?”
“From everywhere,” said Kim. She was glowing more brightly now, her face eager and intent. “Hold your ground, guys. And don’t do anything to draw their attention.”
Melody pulled Happy over to stand at her side and held her machine-pistol at the ready. JC stood beside Kim, who didn’t even look at him. Someone was coming, or Something; JC could feel it, like a pressure on his skin. Something unnatural, from out of the dark.
They came from every direction at once, emerging from the tall arches or appearing suddenly out of narrow stone corridors, glowing faintly like poisoned candles. Walking in silence, drifting along as though blown by an unfelt wind, staring straight ahead and saying nothing. Walking the low road, the paths of the dead, driven by needs and purposes that only the unliving could understand. Ghosts of dead soldiers, in uniforms from armies across the ages; deserters from every force that ever marched through the streets of London. Ghosts of plague victims, dumped in mass graves and unmarked burial pits. Still huddled together for comfort, even in death. The marks of the plagues that killed them still vivid on their faces, like deadly kisses. Ghosts of small children, worked to death in sweat-shop businesses, or abandoned to die cold and alone, in the streets and back alley-ways where civilised people never went.
All the ghosts London doesn’t want to remember.
And all the Ghost Finders could do was stand very still and watch the dead file past, disappearing back into the dark. The ghosts didn’t even look at them. When the last of them was finally gone, JC turned almost angrily to Kim.
“There must be something we can do to help.”
“You can’t,” said Kim.
“But there were children!” said JC. “There shouldn’t be children in a place like this. I won’t stand for it!”
“London is a city built on the dead,” said Kim. “You know that, JC. You’d need an army of exorcists, working in shifts for years, to wipe London clean of its past. And even then, a lot of those ghosts would almost certainly come back again. Because they’ve nowhere else to go, or because they’re not ready to let go. Ghosts are all about unfinished business, and this many ghosts, together . . . They have a spiritual weight, a spectral impact on their surroundings, that is way beyond our understanding. And a purpose beyond our comprehension.”
“But . . . there were children,” said JC. “That’s not right. We can’t just leave them down here, in the dark.”
“I love it that you care,” said Kim. “And it’s sweet that you feel the need to Do Something . . . but you can’t help those who don’t want to be helped.” She looked briefly at Happy, then stared out into the dark again. “We have to keep moving, JC. There are far more dangerous things in the catacombs than ghosts.”
“Could any of them help us?” said Happy. “With whatever it is we’re here to fight? I need information, and clarification, and possibly a very big stick with nails sticking out of it.”
“This isn’t like you, Happy,” said JC. “It’s an improvement, but it isn’t like you.”
“There is thunder and lightning in my veins,” said Happy. “And a lion growling in my heart. Point me at something, before it wears off.”
* * *
Kim led the way, into the dark heart of the catacombs. The stone passageways radiated out before them, with doors and rounded openings and high stone arches leading off in every direction. They all seemed extremely real and solid, but JC wasn’t entirely convinced. He trailed his fingertips through the thick dust covering the walls, and rubbed the stuff between his fingertips. More dust rose with every footstep they took though it took its own sweet time about falling back down again. Couldn’t get much more real than dust . . . JC peered over his sunglasses, now and again, to check out his surroundings with his altered eyes, but it all looked exactly the same. The catacombs were certainly real enough to contain and guide him and his team.
At least he could hear his footsteps now, even if they didn’t seem to echo, along with Happy’s and Melody’s. Kim made no sound at all as she moved, even when her bare feet did seem to make contact with the floor. And she didn’t leave trails in the dust, like the others. JC kept a careful eye on the trail they left in case they needed to get the hell out in a hurry.
“The air down here smells bad,” said Melody, after a while. “Dry, and sour . . .”
“We’re a long way from the surface,” said Kim. “And I hate to think what else here has been breathing this air before us.”
“Oh, gross,” said Happy.
“Wish I still had my scanner,” Melody grumbled. “I’ll bet the carbon-monoxide levels are appalling.”
“Is it only me?” said Happy. “Or can anyone else smell blood?”
“We’re entering the oldest part of the catacombs now,” said Kim. “Built centuries before the Romans even thought of invading Britain.”
“Who by?” said JC.
“Good question!” said Kim. “I’m not sure there’s anyone still alive, or dead, or in between, that could tell you. We’re passing out of history and into legend. Into the place of myths and madness. I can say these are Druid things. Their subterranean galleries. Miles and miles of them . . .”
“The Druids were supposed to be all about the Nature,” said Happy. “Why would they bury themselves away down here?”
“To do the things their triple goddess wouldn’t approve of,” said Kim. “And given some of the things they got up to in the open, in the forests . . .”
“This isn’t just a catacomb,” JC said slowly. “This is a maze . . . Built, perhaps, to keep Something in . . .”
“Or to keep Something out,” said Kim.
JC looked at her thoughtfully. “What is this place a home for, now?”
“The dead, mostly,” said Kim. “Those not departed enough.”
“Depends on whom you talk to,” Melody said sternly. “There are sites on the Net . . .”
“And you’ve argued with most of them,” said Happy.
“I don’t necessarily believe everything I hear,” said Melody, ignoring Happy. “But there are some fascinating stories out there, concerning what lives or perhaps more properly speaking exists, down here in the Undertowen.”
“I know I’m going to regret saying this,” said JC. “But such as . . . ?”
“Some say . . . the results of scientific experiments, run wild, having broken out of very secret laboratories,” said Melody. “Or, the abandoned offspring of Snake Deities and Alien Greys. Refugees from the Nightside, hiding out until the pursuit goes cold. The
last surviving remnants of ancient races and species long thought extinct in the world above. The lost and the strayed, the forgotten and the damned.”
“Happy’s right,” said JC. “You will believe absolutely anything.”
Melody brandished her machine-pistol angrily. “At least I’m prepared!”
“You really think a gun is going to help you down here, in the place of the dead?” said Kim, not unkindly.
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Melody.
JC looked at Kim. “What, exactly, are we going to be facing?”
“The ghost of a dead god and what remains of his court,” said Kim. “But don’t press me for details. The Flesh Undying has been meddling here. There are rumours, in certain places, that these days the corridors are full of his creatures. The weaponised dead . . .”
Happy leaned in close beside JC. “Remind me again why we wanted her back?”
* * *
The Ghost Finders walked on through the stone galleries, which slowly and subtly changed their shape and nature until the group realised they were walking through a dead grey forest, made up of twisted and distorted trees, looming above them, made of stone. Branches protruded stiffly, with no leaves anywhere. Mottled tree-trunks thrust directly up out of the grey stone floor, with no sign of roots. The stone trees were packed close together, with only a narrow, twisting trail to lead the Ghost Finders on. Happy leaned in close for a good look at one of the grey trees; and then never did that again.
“Fossilised trees?” said Melody, after a while. “How is that even possible? I mean, how old would trees have to be, before . . .”
“Maybe there’s a Gorgon down here,” Happy said brightly.
“The trees continue because the Druids continue,” Kim said quietly. “Because this is the world they remember. From when they were alive. There are old sleeping powers here, and people. The Flesh Undying has promised to aid them if they will serve him. They know we’re here. They know we’re coming.”
“All right,” said JC. “How do we fight them?”
“We can’t,” said Kim. “But the ghost of the old god Lud, he can. If we can persuade him that such actions are in his best interests.”
“Marvellous,” said Melody. “What can we promise him that The Flesh Undying can’t? What does a dead god want, anyway?”
“Broad band?” said Happy.
“Come on,” said JC, “We can do this! Slapping down ghosts is our business.”
“You can be so cocky sometimes,” said Melody.
“I know!” said JC. “It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”
* * *
Kim insisted on taking the lead as they pressed on between towering stone trees, following a trail or direction only she could see. The moonlight that fell from no moon took on a blue-white, shimmering aspect, while the surrounding shadows seemed to grow deeper and darker all the time. The air smelled close and bad, as though something had breathed all the goodness out of it long ago. JC strode along beside Kim, quietly trying to get her to open up and answer some questions; but she had nothing further to say. Melody clung firmly on to her machine-pistol with one hand and hauled Happy along with the other. He kept wanting to go off and chase butterflies. But in the end, he was the first one to realise they were not alone in the stone forest. That something, or rather some large number of somethings, was following along with them. Sticking to the more extreme shadows, staying well out of sight; a presence more felt than properly observed.
JC pulled everyone in close and kept them moving. He trusted Kim’s sense of direction, but he still had to wonder if they were being herded . . . Whatever was moving silently along with them between the grey trees felt bad. A threat to the spirit as well as the body. Something that served the kind of forces that could only be found in the dark. JC could hear them, after a while, moving in closer, behind and around them. Surrounding them, forever on the edge of vision, barely glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. Melody waved her machine-pistol around until JC made her lower it again. He didn’t want to start something he wasn’t sure he could win. Until finally the trees fell suddenly back to either side, revealing a huge open space before them—a vast natural amphitheatre. A carefully arranged setting for what was waiting for them.
The Ghost Finders came to a halt. JC looked up, half-expecting to see an open night sky above, complete with full moon. But there was only stone and gloom above. So JC had no choice but to look at the terrible thing sitting on its throne, before them.
Lud was huge. A massive, towering, mostly human figure, sitting unmoving on a throne so old . . . that both Lud and his throne seemed impossibly ancient. And equally fossilised. Like the trees in his forest. JC had never seen anything, living or dead, as big as Lud. In his time, in his prime, Lud could have intimidated dinosaurs. His shape and proportions were subtly wrong, even disturbing to any normal human sense of aesthetics; but in the end the thing on the throne looked more like a man than anything else. Its skin was grey and dusty, like the trees. It almost looked like a statue, a nightmare carved in old stone; but it was clearly, unsettlingly, so much more than that. It had a huge, horned, almost skeletal head, with an elongated muzzle packed full of blocky teeth, and two deep, dark, empty eye-sockets. The horns looked more like branches than bone, and even more like branching antlers.
JC hated to think how big Lud would be if he ever rose from his throne again.
“He’s been dead for centuries,” Kim said softly. “And he hasn’t moved from that throne since the Romans left Britain.”
“But, he’s still . . . here,” said Happy. “A physical presence; not just a spirit. Like you.”
“That is the ghost of a god,” said Kim. “The rules are different.”
“Rules?” said Melody. “There are rules? Who sets them?”
“Such things are decided where all the things that matter are decided,” said Kim. “On the shimmering plains, in the Courts of the Holy.”
“If anything, I think I feel even less confident than before you started explaining things,” said Happy.
“We’re currently standing under that part of London known as Ludgate,” said Kim. “Where St. Paul’s Cathedral is now. A Christian holy site, put in place over an old pagan site. They did that a lot, to hold the old things down. Lud’s Gate, where the first Wicker Men were ignited; whose awful burning light illuminated Druid Britain from coast to coast. And here before us, on his throne, all that remains of the old god Lud. People have attributed all kinds of stories and powers to him; sun god, warrior god, protector of his people during the long winter . . . but Lud was here long before there were humans around to worship him. He chose to become a humanlike form, so humans could more easily worship him. He wanted to scare them, not scare them off. Lud isn’t even his real name. I don’t think anyone knows what Lud was, originally. Faith is fuel, to his kind. They feed on emotions, and death, and souls. You don’t think The Flesh Undying had the shape it does now, the one we saw in the vision, before it was kicked out of the greater world it came from? No; it was forced into its present shape, contained by the physical limitations of this world, to punish it. Its shape and conditions are the true bars of its cage.”
She drifted silently forward, to stand directly before the throne, tilting her head all the way back to look up into Lud’s awful face, half-lost in shadows.
“Lud, forgotten now, no longer worshipped by anyone or anything, outside of London Undertowen. Oh yes, JC, there are those here who still look up to him. The Flesh Undying has given them new shape and power, so they can raise Lud from his long sleep. So The Flesh Undying can bargain with him. Appeal to him, as one outcast to another.”
“Hold it,” said JC. “Are you saying Lud came here, to this world, from some other place? Like The Flesh Undying?”
“They weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last,” said Kim. “Other-dimensional remittance men, slumming it in the lower dimensions. But it’s all conjecture. If Lud was forced through a crack in th
e sky, there was no-one human here to see it. This all happened long ago, before human history, let alone human civilisation.”
“We are not the original owners of this world,” said Melody, unexpectedly. “We merely inherited it.”
“She reads a lot of H. P. Lovecraft,” said Happy, a bit apologetically. “I never read horror fiction. Gives me nightmares.”
“She could be right, this time,” said Kim.
“Oh thanks a bunch,” said Happy. “I may never sleep again.”
“Good,” said Melody, unfeelingly. “So I won’t have to put up with your snoring.”
“I do not snore!”
“Cut it the hell out, right now, both of you; or I will slap you both, and it will hurt!” said JC. “We are standing before the ghost of an old and very dangerous god. Keep the noise down.”
“Lud is the trap,” said Kim. “But he is also the way out of the trap. The Flesh Undying promised Lud that if he would destroy me, and all of you, then it would make Lud powerful again. Worshipped again. A force to be reckoned with in the world of men. Question is—is Lud desperate enough to actually believe that?”
“Kim,” JC said carefully, “I have to ask. How do you know all this? I mean, you’re talking about things that even the highest levels of the Carnacki Institute almost certainly don’t know about.”
“I have travelled in many places,” said Kim. “And I have witnessed many things. I will tell you everything, JC, eventually. When it’s safe. But right now, down here, I need you to trust me. So we can concentrate on what’s before us.”
“I trust you,” said JC. “If only because the thought of not being able to trust you scares me more than anything else.”
Kim laughed softly. “Dear JC, always so wonderfully practical.”
Happy put his hand in the air and waved it around. JC looked at him.
“What is it, Happy? Do you need to be excused? I don’t think there are any facilities around here. Use a tree. Take your pick. It won’t care. We won’t look. Though I can’t promise anything for what’s out there.”
“I have a question!” said Happy, with great dignity. “Why does the appallingly powerful Flesh Undying need help to destroy us? We’re only human. Apart from Kim, obviously. No offence. Have I said that before? Oooh . . . flashbacks . . .”