Ghost of a Smile

  “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. Fitti
ng 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 & Space & 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?”