“What? What have you done with it?”
“I sort of… lost it,” said JC.
“I will have your balls for this,” said Latimer.
“Melody, Happy,” said JC. “Do you have any weapons, legal or otherwise, about your person and please say yes.”
“I’ve still got my machine pistol,” said Melody. “But it’s out of ammo, remember? And there’s probably some useful things I could be doing with my instruments if I’d only had time to activate them.” She scowled. “I hate being caught unprepared.”
“She does,” said Happy. “She really does.” He stuck both hands in his pockets and glowered at the dead man. “And don’t look at me, either, JC. I’ve got nothing that could even touch Patterson. He’s got shields you wouldn’t believe. We are all seriously outclassed here.”
“You mean, like we were with the New People?” said JC.
“Well, no, not on that level,” Happy said immediately. “He’s a Power. They were more like gods.”
“We won out over the New People,” said JC. “So, we should be able to beat Patterson if we put our minds to it.”
“Confidence is a wonderful thing,” said Happy. “Where did I put my pills…”
And then he broke off, as he realised Patterson wasn’t looking at them. The dead man was giving his full attention to Kim. She rose and fell slowly in place, her eyes locked with his, unable to look away.
“Little ghost girl,” said Patterson. “You shouldn’t still be here. Flaunting your undecided status. You’re staying for him, aren’t you? He can’t ever love you, not really, because you’re not a real girl.”
“He knows me,” Kim whispered. “The thing inside Patterson. He can see inside me. I can hear him, he wants to do things to me. Awful things. Things he can’t do to the living…”
JC moved forward, deliberately putting himself between Kim and the dead man. He took off his sunglasses with a sharp flourish, and fixed Patterson with his glowing eyes. And for the first time, Patterson stopped smiling.
“Abomination,” he said tonelessly. “Unnatural thing. You don’t even know what you are, do you?”
“Leave the girl alone,” said JC.
“Or what?” said Patterson. “What will you do? What can you do? The terrible thing that reached down and touched you, and changed you, and gave you those eyes… wasn’t what you think it was. It can’t help you against me. You’re on your own here.” He was smiling again now. “You think you’re so important-the great white-suited ghost hunter-but what have you ever really achieved? The world still turns as it always has, and the night is still full of monsters. Like me.”
“Then why is it so important to you, to kill us?” said JC.
“You know too much,” said Patterson. “Far more than you were ever meant to.”
“Okay,” said Happy, actually brightening up a little. “Now that’s interesting. Which of the many things I know, or think I know, are important enough to kill me over?”
“Not now, Happy,” said JC.
“Yes, now! This is proof! If I’m worth killing, then at least some of the things I’ve always believed have to be true!”
“He sort of has a point,” JC said to Latimer, putting his sunglasses back on. “If we do know really important things… we should get a raise.”
“What do you want?” said Latimer. “Danger money?”
“Oh, please,” said Happy.
Patterson looked back and forth as they talked. He seemed to be having trouble accepting that he wasn’t holding their full attention.
“Keep him busy,” Melody said suddenly.
“What?” said JC.
“Patterson! Keep the dead man occupied! I’ve got an idea.”
She turned and ran, sprinting down the street. Everyone else stood there and watched her go. Happy looked longingly after her.
“Running away looks like a really good idea to me. Wish I’d thought of it first.”
“Stand fast!” JC said immediately. “She’s not running out on us. She’ll be back.”
“You think she has a plan?” said Happy.
“Hopefully.”
“A cunning plan?”
“Let’s not set our hopes too high.”
Happy sighed heavily. “What if we all ran in different directions at once?”
“We can’t abandon the Boss,” said JC. “The dead man would kill her in a moment if we weren’t here to protect her.”
“Well, yes,” said Happy. “But you say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I am still here!” said Latimer. “I can still hear you! There will be discussions about this later.”
Happy looked down his nose at her. “I never liked you. I’m only still here because of the principle of the thing, so shut your cake-hole and let us concentrate.”
Latimer looked at JC. “When did he grow a pair?”
“My little boy is all grown-up,” said JC. “I couldn’t be more proud. Now do as the terrified but still somehow holding his ground telepath says, and keep the dead man occupied while Happy and I try to think of something. You might try asking him why he hasn’t killed us yet, a question that has been much on my mind.”
“Don’t give the dead thing ideas,” growled Happy. “He’s probably got a very good reason, and I don’t want him doubting it.”
Latimer sniffed loudly. “I do not negotiate with monsters. And I am not helpless! I didn’t get to where I am in the Carnacki Institute without learning a few useful and really unpleasant tricks along the way… Like this one.” She glared at Patterson. “You! Dead thing! Pay attention! Whatever you are, within my old friend’s body. You think you’re so hard, cope with this!”
She slammed her wrinkled hands together while speaking aloud a Word of Power, and the ground shuddered under everyone’s feet. A harsh grinding noise filled the night air, and the ground tore itself apart. A huge split opened up, zigzagging its crooked way across the street between Patterson and the others, then the split widened abruptly into a crack, enlarging into a great crevice that opened up beneath the dead man’s feet. He fell into the wide gap without a sound, and it swallowed him up. Latimer brought her hands together again, and the two sides of the crevice slammed together. The loud, grinding noises stopped immediately, and the ground settled. The night air was still. All that remained of the crevice was a long, jagged crack in the street. JC looked at Latimer with new respect.
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Not many do,” said Latimer. “That’s the point.”
“And the dead man is toast!” said Happy, doing an ecstatic little jig on the spot. “He is flatter than toast! He is dead and very definitely departed.” He stopped dancing and nodded brusquely to Latimer. “I may be a little more respectful at future meetings. It’s possible.”
Then the ground shuddered under their feet again. They all looked down. The ground shook again, more insistently, then groaned loudly as the jagged split jerked itself apart, opening up foot by foot, until it was a crevice again. And from that crevice, up out of the dark, Patterson rose. He soared into the air, like a dark bird of ill omen, hanging in the air above them, held there in defiance of all natural laws by sheer force of will. The two sides of the crevice slammed together again, and Patterson sank slowly down to stand exactly where he had before. Unhurt, untouched, unruffled. He smiled condescendingly at Latimer.
“Is that really the best you’ve got?”
“There is no way you did that on your own!” snapped Latimer. “You had help. Powerful help. Outside help. Who are your masters? ”
Patterson nodded slowly. He looked heavier now, more solid. More real, as though he was several things in one place. The ground cracked and broke beneath his feet, as though he weighed more heavily on the world than a real thing should.
“Ah, Catherine,” he said. “I have always enjoyed our little chats. You’re quite right. I’m not alone. You have no idea who and what you’re facing.”
“Happy
,” JC said quietly, “I need you to look inside that thing’s head. No excuses. Get me some idea of what’s going on in there.”
Happy sighed, in his best put-upon way, and reached out to the dead man with his most powerful and subtle probe, only to recoil immediately, shaking violently.
“He let me See!” he said, breathlessly. “Just for a moment, just for a glimpse… Whatever’s riding Patterson was human once, but it’s a whole different thing now. Something horribly powerful. I couldn’t even look at it straight on! Man is not meant to look into the face of the Medusa…”
“It’s not Patterson,” said Latimer. “It doesn’t talk like him, or move like him. My dear friend is gone.”
“Oh, he’s still in here somewhere,” said the dead man. “So I can enjoy his suffering. He was never your friend…”
“Excuse me!” Latimer said sharply, “But I think I knew him better, and longer, than you ever did! He may have… drifted away, wandered off the proper path, but I have no doubt he would have found his way back, eventually.”
JC could have said something there, about Patterson, but he didn’t.
Latimer fitted one of her dark Turkish cigarettes into her long ivory holder, lit it with her monogrammed gold Zippo lighter, and blew a mouthful of smoke at Patterson. She looked him over disparagingly.
“You said… you enjoyed our little chats. So I do know who you really are. Do you really think you can hide from me?”
“Ah, Catherine,” said the dead man. “I’m afraid you’ve left it for too late. You never did appreciate me.”
Latimer blew a perfect smoke ring. “Why haven’t you killed us yet?”
“Because I’m having so much fun,” said Patterson.
“If we’re having a civilised little discussion before the slaughter,” said JC, “can I ask again-what is it we know that we’re not supposed to know?”
“I don’t know anything,” Happy said immediately. “I never know anything. I am famous for not knowing anything, so there is absolutely no point in killing me.”
“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. Fitting 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.
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