Melody was losing something; or rather, something was being taken from her. She could feel it. The long, chalky, white tendrils were slowly coming together on the air before her, forming one huge pallid mass.
All these years I’ve been a Ghost Finder, Melody thought dazedly, and the first time I get to see some ectoplasm, it’s mine.
The white shape was almost human now. Standing upright, with arms and legs and a rough head bulging up from its shoulders. It slowly straightened up, on the other side of the wall of machines, and snapped into focus. Entirely human in shape and form, an exact duplicate of Melody, down to the smallest detail. Including her clothes. The dupe shook her head slowly, then glared at Melody.
“What the hell are you doing, behind my equipment? Get out of there!”
Melody’s first reaction was, My voice doesn’t sound like that. Followed by, Why did I ever think those glasses suited me?
“These are my machines,” she said coldly. “Because I am the real deal, and you are not. As far as I can tell, you’re made out of snot and mucus, and I’m not letting you get your nasty ectoplasm all over my nice clean instruments.”
“Girls, girls,” muttered the Faust. “Don’t argue. Or, on second thought, do. Argue! Dispute! Kill the unworthy duplicate who wants to take your place in the world. I’ll hold your coats if you like.”
“Shut up!” said Melody.
“Stay out of this!” said the dupe.
Neither of them spared a glance for the Faust; they were glaring at each other, eyes locked. The dupe snarled at Melody.
“I’m the real thing. I don’t know what you are.”
“You’re an ectoplasmic dupe,” said Melody. “Which is why I’m standing on the right side of the instruments.”
That threw the dupe for a moment, but she quickly shook it off. “That is a mistake, easily rectified.”
Melody sank down and shot up again with her machine-pistol in her hand, pointed right into the dupe’s face. “Yeah right. Let’s see you try, ecto-bitch.”
But the dupe had already brought up her hand, also holding a machine-pistol. She pointed it at Melody’s head. “Who are you calling a bitch, bitch?”
“Fight, fight, fight!” said the Faust, happily.
“Shut up!” said both Melodys, in perfect unison. And then they both stopped, looking at each other in a new way.
“He’s behind all this,” said the dupe. “He’s the enemy.”
“He wants me to shoot myself,” said Melody. “Because for all his fine words and grand claims…I don’t think he’s up to the task.”
“I don’t think we should solve this with guns,” said the dupe. “I don’t think we should give him that satisfaction.”
“Damn right,” said Melody. And she lowered her gun.
The dupe hesitated for a second, then lowered her gun, too. “Typical man, getting a woman to tear herself apart. But we’ve got to sort this out somehow. What do you suggest?”
“Put it to the machines,” said Melody. “They can scan us, right down to our DNA, and decide who’s who and what’s what.”
“Sounds good to me,” said the dupe. “If we can’t trust our instruments, what can we trust?”
She came behind the wall of equipment to stand beside Melody, who was already firing up the short-range scanners and putting them to work. It only took the machines a moment to study both women, inside and out, and come up with a definitive answer. That the dupe was the real Melody Chambers.
The dupe let out a long, slow sigh of relief, before turning triumphantly to face Melody. “See? When in doubt, put your faith in the machines.”
“Except when you know someone’s been messing with them,” said Melody. “Remember before the Faust made his big entrance?”
“No,” said the dupe. “No…”
Melody brought up her machine-pistol and put a single bullet through her duplicate’s forehead. The impact snapped the dupe’s head backwards and sent her somersaulting back over the wall of instruments to crash onto the floor beyond. Melody turned to the Faust.
“You bastard. Making me shoot myself. I couldn’t let her live; I could never trust her because she was your creation. Not really real…But damn you anyway for making me do it.”
And then she broke off as she heard low moans and scrabbling noises from the other side of the machines. Melody hurried out, to find her dupe lying sprawled on the floor, leaking a chilly white fluid from the small hole in her forehead and the larger hole in the back of her head. More ectoplasm was leaking from the dupe’s fingertips. Drifting on the air, slowly dispersing.
“You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy to kill yourself?” said the Faust. “You can’t kill ectoplasm by shooting it in the head. All you did was break the surface tension. Oh yes, you’ve destroyed your duplicate, all right…Now all you have to do is watch yourself die slowly. That’s me, you see, always two moves ahead.”
Melody ignored him, crouching at her duplicate’s side. The dupe looked up at her sadly.
“I’m sorry. He made me too well. I really thought I was me. I mean, you…And now I’m dying. I’m scared, Melody.”
“Don’t be,” said Melody. “I’m here with you.” She glared across at the Faust. “You worthless piece of shit. Don’t let her suffer like this. Do something!”
“I am!” said the Faust. “I’m enjoying it! More than one way to skin a cat, or break a spirit.”
Melody sat down on the floor beside the dying dupe and took her in her arms. She held her tightly, while the dupe shook and shuddered, slowly breaking up, losing basic coherence as ectoplasm leaked from everywhere at once. Melody didn’t know what to do. She’d never felt so helpless. But when the machines can’t help you, all that’s left is to be human. And care.
“I’m so cold…” said the dupe. Her eyes weren’t tracking any more.
“Hush,” said Melody. “Hush. It’s all right. I’m here.”
Ectoplasm boiled off the dupe’s body, rising like a thin white mist, dispersing quickly on the still lobby air. Melody could feel the dupe’s form growing soft and vague in her arms. The dupe grabbed at Melody’s hand with her own. Melody took hold of it firmly, and it fell apart in her fingers. The dupe’s face fell in, collapsing. The eyes and the mouth were the last to go. The dupe’s lips moved.
“Melody. Make him pay.”
And then she burst. Great splashes of ectoplasm soaked Melody from top to toe. Her arms were full of a chalky, white, liquid mass, quickly falling apart into mists, which dispersed in the air and were gone. Melody was left sitting on the floor with empty arms. Her clothes were dry, all traces of ectoplasm gone. She got up, clambering awkwardly to her feet, and looked at the Faust with cold, cold eyes. He smiled easily back at her.
“So,” he said. “Are we having fun yet?”
“What are you?” she said. “Isn’t there anything human left inside you?”
“Why should I settle for anything so small, so limited? I am the Faust. I’m everything that ever scared you, little girl, in one easy, soul-destroying package! Can I get a halleluiah?”
Melody brought up her machine-pistol, and opened fire. The Faust stood sportingly still before her, soaking up every bullet that hit him. He didn’t so much as flinch while the bullets hit him, over and over again. The bullets punched into him, but he took no damage, and he didn’t bleed. Even the holes in the front of his nice suit healed themselves instantly. When Melody finally gave up, stopped shooting, and lowered her gun, the Faust coughed obligingly and spat the bullets out onto the palm of his hand. He let them drop, to jump and rattle loudly on the lobby floor.
“I’m not soft, everyday flesh like you, little girl. Not any more. I am the new flesh, the better flesh, The Flesh Undying in the world of mortal men. The clue is in the name, really…”
“I’ll kill you,” said Melody. “I will find a way to kill you.”
The Faust ignored her, his perfect brow creased with a hint of concentration. “Door
!” he said, finally.
And a Door appeared in the lobby, appearing suddenly and silently out of nowhere. It looked like an ordinary everyday door except that it was hanging high up on the air, below the lobby ceiling. Entirely horizontal, facedown.
“I think something terribly theatrical is needed here,” said the Faust. “I think this calls for…the Phantom of the Haybarn!”
The Door dropped open, hanging down, and something dropped out of it like a bag of garbage. A dark shape that hit the floor of the lobby hard. But it didn’t break, and it didn’t cry out. Melody quickly covered it with her machine-pistol; and the Faust chuckled. At first, Melody couldn’t make out what it was—a hunched figure, crouching on the floor, hidden under a heavy black cape. It rocked back and forth, swaying this way and that; and then it rose suddenly upright and spun around to glare at Melody.
A tall, stoop-shouldered creature, dressed in all the finery of the late nineteenth century, wrapped in a night-black opera cloak. Half his face was hidden behind a grubby, blood-stained mask. The features that could be seen were a sickly yellow colour, as though disfigured by a skin disease. And the eyes…were exactly like the Faust’s. Dark eyes, shark eyes. The creature’s filthy gloved hands dripped fresh blood, which smoked and stained the lobby floor. The Phantom of the Haybarn—a corrupted dream, a living nightmare. He stank of filth and blood and rotting meat.
“What a pretty thing you are,” said the Faust. “My very own Phantom, for this tawdry little theatre. Go forth, my child, my own. Be bad. Be scary. Tear this place apart and everyone in it.”
The Phantom lurched forward, heading for Melody. He looked human enough, but he didn’t move like a man. He swayed and lurched, as though something inside him was broken. He laughed breathlessly, and as he reached out to Melody, she could see that splintered claws had burst through the end of his gloves. He wanted to do things to her. Horrible things. And Melody knew he would take a long time with her before he finally let her die. She was also pretty sure the machine-pistol wouldn’t stop him.
So she did the sensible thing. She strode right up to the Phantom, kicked him so hard in the balls she lifted him right off the ground, ran past him, and fled through the swing doors, into the warren of theatre corridors beyond. She smiled as she heard choked, agonised sounds behind her; the Phantom, trying to force air back into his lungs.
She was already deep into the maze of corridors when she heard him coming after her.
The Faust nodded once and turned away, quietly satisfied at having ticked one small thing off his list. He looked up at the Door, still hanging open, hovering below the ceiling. He waved it away with a brief dismissive gesture, and the Door disappeared. The Faust looked quickly around the empty lobby, then he disappeared, too.
For a moment there was peace and quiet in the theatre lobby, then a figure stirred in the shadows. From where he had been watching all this time, unsuspected and unobserved, Old Tom, the caretaker, emerged into the light, shuffling out across the lobby floor. He stopped and looked at the doors where Melody and the Phantom had made their exit; and then he looked thoughtfully at the spot where the Faust had disappeared.
“You’re not one of mine,” Old Tom said finally. “So whose little ghost are you, I wonder? It doesn’t matter. You won’t get to spoil anything; I’ll see to that. I’ve still got a show to put on.”
And then he disappeared. And the lobby was finally empty and quiet.
NINE
OLD TRUTHS, COME HOME TO ROOST
Melody ran headlong through the narrow theatre corridors, not once looking back. She didn’t need to look back to know that the Faust’s Phantom was still hot on her trail. She could feel his presence behind her, feel his hot gaze on her back, feel his rotten breath on her neck…She pounded down the dimly lit corridors, arms pumping at her sides, not even trying to pace herself. She had to get to the others, had to tell them about the Faust…because they only thought they were dealing with a haunting. They didn’t know there was a monster in the house. In the end, she had to look back over her shoulder, because she couldn’t stand the tension any more; and, of course, he wasn’t there. Never had been. She made herself run a little faster anyway. She hoped she was going in the right direction. All the corridors looked the same to her. She felt like a mouse running a maze, with a cat at every exit. She took a sharp left turn without slowing and pounded down another long corridor that looked like all the others.
The Phantom burst out of a side passage and slammed right into her, lifting her off her feet as though she weighed nothing and throwing her hard against the far wall. She cried out miserably at the impact and tried to struggle; but he held her easily with one hand at her throat, her feet kicking helplessly several inches above the floor. She made herself fight him, flailing wildly; but her human strength was nothing compared to the Phantom’s. He pushed his masked face right into hers, smiling nastily with the revealed half of his face. Up close, the grubby mask smelled of rotting leather, while his half-face smelled of rotting flesh.
“You can’t outrun me, my sweet,” he said, and his voice was a low, hissing thing, full of venom. “I’ll always be able to run faster than you because I’m a made thing, not bound by human limitations. I was made to run down my prey, then do awful and unforgivable things to it. I was made to make you suffer, and to enjoy it. And I will! It’s good to have a purpose in life.”
Melody brought up her machine-pistol, stuck the barrel right under his jaw, and pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun was shockingly loud, and Melody cried out despite herself at the terrible sound and the blinding glare. The sheer velocity of the bullets slammed the Phantom’s head back. The repeated impacts broke his hold on Melody and drove him backwards. Melody half collapsed into a crouch before she got her strength and balance back, but she kept firing. The Phantom lurched and swayed this way and that, but she moved the gun with him. The bullets punched right through his formal clothes and cape, but he didn’t cry out, and he didn’t bleed. Melody quickly realised that the Phantom could heal as easily as the Faust who made him.
A sudden silence fell across the corridor as Melody ran out of bullets. The Phantom smiled at her. She looked blankly at the gun in her hand, as though it had betrayed her, and she shook the pistol for a moment, as though that would do anything. She had more clips for the gun, but they were all back in the lobby, in the arms cabinet. She looked at the Phantom, smiling at her like a shark that’s scented blood in the water; and she smiled back at him. He didn’t like that. He started towards her, and she went for him, throwing the empty gun into his face. He snatched the machine-pistol out of mid air and crumpled the metal in his inhuman grasp. And while he was preoccupied doing that, Melody punted him good and hard between the legs. The Phantom dropped to his knees, mouth stretched wide as he tried to force a scream through his constricted throat. Melody punched him once, in the side of the head, just to be sure, then ran on.
The Faust really shouldn’t have made you in his own image, she thought, as she ran. Given you two hostages to fortune…And you really should have been expecting that. Not terribly bright, this Phantom of the Haybarn.
She rounded the next corner at speed, and there, waiting for her was Old Tom, the caretaker. She stumbled to a halt, and he smiled benignly at her. He didn’t seem in the least surprised to see her. She struggled to get her harsh breathing back under control, so she could warn him about the Phantom; but he was already talking.
“You don’t want to go this way, miss. You want to go down there, round that corner, then it’s second on the right. Take you straight to the main stage area, that will. You can’t miss it.”
“Get out of here!” Melody said finally.
“What?”
“Get out of here! Get out of the theatre! There’s bad people here. Dangerous people.”
Old Tom smiled and shook his head. “Bless you, miss, I’m not in any danger. No-one’s going to hurt Old Tom. You follow the directions I gave you, and you’ll be fine.”
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He pointed out the direction to her. Melody looked, and when she looked back, he was gone. Not a trace of him anywhere. Melody scowled briefly, gathered up her strength, and ran down the corridor.
She finally saw a familiar set of swing doors up ahead of her, burst through them without slowing, and found herself back in the main auditorium. She stumbled down the central aisle, leaning on end chairs as she went, for support. Up on the stage, JC and Happy, Benjamin and Elizabeth and Lissa, were all standing together and arguing loudly. They broke off to look out at her, caught off guard by her sudden entrance. She stopped, and slumped down onto a padded chair for a moment, to get her breath back. She always felt a little safer when JC and Happy were around, though, of course, she’d never tell them that. It took encountering something like Faust and his Phantom to get her to admit it to herself. She glanced quickly behind her; but there wasn’t the slightest sound or sight of the Phantom. Yet. She forced herself up out of her chair and glared indiscriminately at everyone on the stage.
“You stay right where you are! I’m coming up! And I don’t care what you’re arguing about; I’ve had a far worse time than you have, so my problems are bound to be much worse than yours, so I am entitled to be in a very bad mood!”