“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 ca
n 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.
From New York Times bestselling author
SIMON R. GREEN
For Heaven’s Eyes Only
—A SECRET HISTORIES NOVEL—
I’m Eddie Drood, aka Shaman Bond, a member of the Drood family. We Droods have been holding back the forces of darkness for generations. It’s a hell of a job—and we’re good at it.
But right at this moment, the Droods have hit a bad patch, what with the death of our Matriarch and the discovery that she was killed by one of our own. It’s left us in more than a bit of disarray, I can tell you. And it goes without saying that those forces of darkness are wasting no time in taking advantage of the situation. There’s a Satanic Conspiracy brewing, one that could throw humanity directly into the clutches of the biggest of the big bads—forever
Things are looking grim—and here I am, not able to be of any help. On account of I’m dead.
penguin.com
M863T0411
Simon R. Green, Ghost of a Smile
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