Ghost of a Smile
“I’ve never liked dogs,” said Happy.
“It’s the old stories, come to life,” said Tiley. “Only with more teeth and claws than I’d imagined . . .”
“Big, pointy teeth,” said Happy. “Really big, pointy teeth. Anyone got a ball to throw?”
“No-one move,” said JC, his voice carefully calm and easy. “Everyone watch everyone else’s back.”
“The stories say, to see the Black Dogge means you’re going to die,” said Tiley.
“Not on my watch,” said JC. “Sometimes, stories are only stories. Happy, concentrate on finding out what they want. Melody, I need more information on what these things are when they’re not being Black Dogges. And Kim . . . You can See things that are hidden from the living. Hidden even from my eyes. Try and find the ghost of the man who was killed here and started all this, Albert Winter.”
“They’re definitely not dogs,” said Happy, sounding almost surprised. “Not even a little bit doggy. Whoever summoned them up imposed the shape of the Black Dogges on them, to better control them. I don’t know what they were before. Melody?”
“Deep Time, definitely Pre-human,” said Melody. “You wouldn’t believe the tachyon discharges I’m picking up. Whatever they are, they’re from so far in the Past, I don’t think they even exist any more. I think . . . they’re trapped here.”
“I’ve found the ghost of Albert Winter,” said Kim. “He just appeared, along with the Dogges. Am I to take it that the theory of death by manifesting machines has been officially overturned?”
“It’s the Dogges,” said JC. “When in doubt, always go for the killer dogs with the huge claws and jaggedy teeth. Try and bring the ghost into focus, Kim. The rest of us will keep the Dogges occupied.”
“You speak for yourself,” said Happy. “If anyone wants me, I’ll be right here, hiding under the machinery.”
“You even look like touching my stuff, and I will have your balls off with a blunt spoon,” Melody said immediately.
“I want to go home,” said Happy.
One of the Black Dogges broke suddenly from the pack and headed straight for Melody’s workstation, racing across the concrete floor. Melody produced a machine pistol from somewhere about her person and opened up on the approaching Dogge. Graham Tiley and his grand-daughter cried out, and huddled together, while JC moved quickly to stand with them. Melody swept her gun back and forth, riddling the huge Dogge with bullets, the roar of the machine pistol shockingly loud in the quiet. The Dogge didn’t even try to dodge the bullets. They passed right through him, as though his huge shape was nothing but a shadow. The bullets flew on to blast holes in the wall behind. Melody kept firing until she ran out of bullets. The Dogge loomed up before her, and jumped right over her and her workstation, landing lightly on the floor behind. It ran on, then circled quickly round, to come at Melody and Happy again. Teeth showed in its great jaws as though it were laughing; but it hadn’t made a single sound.
Melody lowered her empty gun and looked at Happy. “Down to you then, lover.”
“What can I do?” said Happy.
“Come on . . . You took on Fenris Tenebrae, one of the Great Beasts, down in the Underground, and laughed in his face.”
“I was very heavily medicated at the time!”
“Come on, do it for me,” said Melody. “And there will be treats later . . .”
“Sometimes you scare me more than the ghosts,” said Happy.
“You know you love it,” said Melody. “Heh-heh.”
They turned to face the Black Dogge, racing silently across the concrete floor towards them. Happy stepped forward and glared right into the Dogge’s crimsoneyed face. He reached out with his mind, searching for whatever bound the Dogges to this place, so he could break it . . . but the sheer animal ferocity he encountered swamped him. He made a sick, pained sound, thrust the animal emotions aside, and made himself stand his ground. Melody needed him to do this. He thrust out a telepathic block, the psychic equivalent of throwing a brick wall in the creature’s way. And the Black Dogge lurched to a sudden halt as it slammed right into it. Happy advanced on the Dogge, one step at a time, and the Dogge backed away, one step at a time. Happy frowned till his forehead ached, hitting the Black Dogge with one telepathic assault after another, battering it with pure brute psychic force . . . and the Dogge kept retreating, until finally it broke, and turned, and fled back to its pack, still circling round the factory perimeter. Happy made a rude gesture after it and turned back to Melody, trying to hide how much he was shaking.
“My hero,” said Melody.
“You have no idea how close to the wire that came,” said Happy. “It feels like my brains are leaking out my ears.”
“What makes you think you have any?” said Melody.
Happy glared at her. “Everyone’s got ears! I think I’d like to go home and lie down now, please!”
“Later, lover,” said Melody. “I’m a bit busy right now.”
The Black Dogges were still circling, still closing in relentlessly. JC turned to the old man.
“Talk to me, Mr. Tiley. Tell me the legend of the Black Dogges. The stories everyone tells. Including the not-at-all-nice bits you don’t normally admit to in front of strangers.”
“It goes back years,” Tiley said slowly. “Long before there ever was a factory here. On this place, back in the eighteenth century, there used to be an old manor house. The Winter family lived in that house and owned most of the land around. There was a quarrel, so they say, between the landed gentry Winters and a local working family, the Tileys. A quarrel, over a woman. A rape, they say, though most of the names and details are lost to us.”
“I never heard any of this,” said Susan. “You never told me any of this before, Gramps. Mum and Dad never said anything . . .”
“It was an old story,” said Tiley. “You didn’t need to be burdened with it. Sometimes, the past should stay in the past, so the rest of us can get on with our lives.”
“The story,” prompted JC. “The quarrel between the Winters and the Tileys. What came of it?”
“No justice then, for poor working folk,” said Graham. “No law, for poor black folks. So the head of the Tiley family at that time, he used the old knowledge to curse the Winters. He used the old forbidden words, and the Black Dogges came, to harass and hound the Winters to their deaths. Don’t ask me what kind of curse; that part of the story is long lost. Perhaps deliberately lost. The Dogges bedevilled the Winter family, and even people connected to the Winters. The Dogges followed people down lonely roads, late at night, speaking prophecy, always bad, always true. Other times, they chased men and women till they fell, then tore them apart. They came and went, and no-one could stand against them.
“They travelled the whole district, making the Winters’ life a misery, until finally the family left the house, and the area, and spread themselves across the country. The Dogges couldn’t follow, they were bound to the place of their summoning. But with no Winter left to torment, they appeared less and less, and finally vanished. The story continued, as stories do, changing down the centuries till the original details were forgotten. But we remembered. We Tileys. The manor house was torn down. The factory came much later, still owned by the Winters, from a distance.
“There were still sightings of Black Dogges, or stories of sightings, but no-one really believed in them any more. A different world, now. And then . . . he came back. The fool. Albert Winter. He was going to sell the land the factory stood on, but he wanted to see it for himself first. I wrote to him, telling him not to come, but of course I couldn’t say why, only that it was dangerous . . . So he came back. To where his old family home used to stand. And the Dogges came back.
“They woke up, they rose up, and they chased him till he died of it.”
“Oh, Gramps,” said Susan. “You should have told me.”
“I should never have brought you here, child,” said Tiley. “But I never really believed, till now . . . I believed
in the Clear White Light.”
“You should have told me! It’s my family, too! I had a right to know!”
“I wanted to protect you! The curse should have died long ago. It shouldn’t still have a hold over the Winters, and the Tileys.”
JC moved away, to talk quietly with Kim. She was hovering a good foot above the floor, her shape so thin and insubstantial it was barely there, just a young woman made of flickering light. JC had to say her name several times before she finally turned her head to look at him.
“Kim,” said JC. “If the Dogges are still here, then the shade of Albert Winter must also still be here. Show him to me.”
Kim nodded, painfully slowly, then raised one hand and pointed. JC looked, and there was Albert Winter. Running, still running, fleeing desperately from the Black Dogges that still pursued him, and always would. Ghost Dogges chasing their ghostly victim, forever. He ran and ran, staggering and lurching, running endlessly round the perimeter of the factory, and behind came the Dogges. They pressed in close, hurting and harrying him, driving him on. Sometimes he fell, and the Dogges would savage him, tearing away chunks of ghostly flesh with ghostly jaws, leaving wounds that healed immediately, so the man could be forced to his feet to be chased again. They would chase him forever, in a hunt that would never end.
Some curses are worse than others.
Graham Tiley and his grand-daughter could see it, too, now. Tiley cried out at the sight of it and had to turn his head away. Susan hugged him to her, glaring defiantly at the Black Dogges around them.
“We have to stop this,” said JC. “The Past should stay in the Past . . . Albert Winter, he’s the focal point! He’s why the Dogges manifested again. But to put him to rest, we have to stop the Dogges. Interrupt the curse. We have to save the ghost of Albert Winter!”
“I’d quite like to save us from the Dogges as well,” said Happy.
“Science can’t touch them,” said Melody. “I think the Dogges are older than Science. Or whatever these things were, before they were made into Dogges.”
JC looked at the old man. “You! Tiley! It’s your curse. Your family summoned up the Dogges, and your curse holds them here. Release Winter’s ghost from your curse, and the Dogges will be able to leave.”
“I can’t!” Tiley said miserably. His dark face was wet with tears. “I’d free him if I could, but I don’t know how! I don’t remember what words called them, no-one does any more.”
“Terrific,” said JC. “No, wait a minute . . . What did you say, Melody? Back before they were Dogges . . . They weren’t always like this! Whoever summoned them out of the Past imposed these shapes upon them! That’s the key!”
He strode right up to the nearest Black Dogge. It snarled at him, growling so low he felt it in his bones as much as heard it. Great lips pulled back to show savage teeth in powerful jaws. Claws on huge front paws dug deep into the concrete flow as the Dogge tensed, ready to spring. JC leaned forward and thrust his face right into the Dogge’s, meeting the blazing blood-red eyes with his own glowing gaze; and then he spoke sharply to the Dogge.
“Bad dog!”
It looked at him. Its jaw snapped shut, and its head came up. No-one had ever spoken to the Dogge like that before. It stared at JC, fascinated. The other Dogges stopped in their tracks to stare at JC. And the ghost of Albert Winter was finally able to stop running.
“Bad dog,” JC said firmly, holding the Black Dogge’s gaze with his own. “This is wrong! You were never meant to be like this. You are a dog, made to take the shape and form of a dog, and a dog was always meant to be man’s best friend. Some poor fool called you here and imposed this shape on you to follow the old stories; but revenge was never your true nature. You’re as cursed by this as your victims. But the man who summoned you here is long gone, and his need for revenge died with him. You don’t have to serve his anger any more. You don’t have to be like this, any more. You’re free to be . . . just dogs. Good dogs. Man’s best friend.”
And the Black Dogge sat down on its haunches and nodded its great head slowly. Inwardly, JC breathed a deep sigh of relief. He hadn’t been entirely sure that would work. In magic, the true naming of a thing is the true nature of that thing. And so Dogge became dog. JC gestured at Graham Tiley.
“That man there is a Tiley, descendant to the man who brought you here, and bound you in this form. He is ready to release you. Isn’t that right, Mr. Tiley?”
“Yes,” said Graham Tiley. “The past, with all its crimes and all its revenges, should stay in the past. You’re not needed here any more, so run free, noble dogs.”
The great dark shapes simply faded away, gone in a moment, gone back into the Past. The ghost of Albert Winter looked slowly about him.
“Go to him,” JC said to Tiley. “Forgive him. And then show him the way to leave, through the Clear White Light.”
“Of course,” said Tiley. “Maybe . . . he was the ghost I was looking for, all this time.”
The old man walked steadily over to the ghost, and they talked quietly together, then the ghost faded away and was gone.
Kim came over to join JC, appearing entirely solid and substantial again. “I do so love a happy ending, don’t you?”
“Black Dogges, haunted factories, and it all comes down to people, in the end,” said JC. “Human is, as human does. For good and bad.”
TWO
OUT OF THE ORDINARY
Early evening outside Chimera House, a large and solid stone-and-glass business building tucked away in the heart of London’s business area. A night sky full of stars, a sliver of a new moon, and a cold breeze gusting through empty streets. No traffic, not a soul to be seen anywhere, flat amber light from the street-lamps falling on JC and Happy and Melody as they huddled resentfully together before the brightly lit windows of Chimera House. Two men, one woman, and a ghost unseen, all of them feeling distinctly hard done by.
“It’s not fair,” said Happy, bitterly. “We’re guaranteed proper recovery time between assignments! They can’t throw us right back in the deep end just because we’re handy! All this extra stress is putting years on me. Of course, on me it looks good . . .”
“Pause for hollow laughter,” said Melody. “What are we doing here, JC? I’m cold, I’m hungry, and I want to go to bed. If I don’t get some proper refreshment and some decent sleep soon, someone’s going to pay for it, and it sure as hell isn’t going to be me.”
“You were all there when I got the phone call,” JC said patiently. “Which means you know as much as I do. The Boss wants us here, so we’re here.”
“Five hours on a train, and what kind of greeting do we get when we arrive at Paddington Station?” said Melody. “Big bunch of flowers, box of chocolates, and a hearty Well done? An air ticket to somewhere decadent? No, we get dropped right in it again. I could spit soot . . .”
“Please don’t,” said Happy. “It’s not a pretty sight.”
“You will observe,” said JC, “that our dear and much respected and even-more-feared divine Bossness is conspicuous by her absence. Which suggests that whatever we’ve been sent to tend to, it can’t be that important. Or she’d be here, bending our ears on the matter. However, given how unusual it is for us to be directed straight to a danger site, without even a quick stop-off for a briefing, it does suggest that whatever happened here . . . was not only really bad, but decidedly recent.”
“I love to hear him talk,” said Melody. “Don’t you love to hear him talk? He has such a way with words . . . Look, can’t we at least go inside? It’s bloody cold out here. I am freezing my tits off.”
JC looked at her. “You really want simply to walk in there? Into an unknown situation, with unknown dangers?”
“Yes! I’m cold!”
“What exactly did the Boss say to you?” said Happy, tactfully changing the subject.
“Directions on how to get here and orders to stay put for further instructions,” said JC. “And then she rang off before I could tell her to go
to Hell.”
Melody sniffed loudly. “You don’t actually expect her to turn up in person, do you? At this ungodly hour of the morning? Far more likely she’ll roust some poor unfortunate flak-catcher out of bed and send him down here for us to shout at. Hello . . . spot the expensive car.”
They all turned to look at the huge silver stretch-limousine as it glided down the empty street, then eased to a halt right in front of them, with a purr of its powerful motor. A uniformed chauffeur, complete with peaked cap and supercilious expression, jumped out from behind the wheel and hurried back to open the rear door. Out stepped Robert Patterson. Tall, black, expensively dressed in the best three-piece Saville Row had to offer. A shaved head, a noble brow, and a handsome face, elegant and dignified. Robert Patterson was the public face of the Carnacki Institute, on those rare occasions when it needed to talk with other parts of the Establishment. A product of Eton and Cambridge, ex-Guards and ex-Civil Service, Patterson didn’t normally lower himself to brief field agents. Certainly not out in the field. He had important paper-shuffling to be getting on with.
JC considered Patterson thoughtfully as the man stood silently, ignoring them as he gave complete concentration to checking that his cuffs were immaculate. For Patterson to appear there, in person, meant they had to be facing a very delicate situation. The kind of case in which very rich, very important, and very well-connected people were involved. So highly placed that even the Carnacki Institute had to tread carefully.
Patterson finally deigned to acknowledge the field agents, looking them over sourly. He didn’t seem to be any happier about being there than they did, which cheered them up somewhat.