Spirits from Beyond

by Simon R. Green

  The streets didn’t stay empty for long. In fact, JC barely had Chimera House in his rear-view mirror before vehicles came pouring in from every side street at once, and the road filled up with regular early-hours traffic. Buses and taxis, newspaper deliveries and food trucks, and people coming and going as shifts ended and started. Almost immediately, JC was forced down to a merely legal speed and method of driving. There wasn’t enough room on the roads for anything else. JC scowled fiercely. Clearly someone had gone to great lengths to keep the traffic away from Chimera House and its environs, to make sure that what happened there would remain private, unobserved, and uninterrupted. But who had enough power, or influence, to shut down a whole section of London? Presumably someone inside the Carnacki Institute itself . . . JC made the mistake of musing on that one aloud and was immediately hit with loud reactions from the rest of his team.

  “I don’t care!” Happy said flatly. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. Don’t want to go to the Secret Libraries, either. Want to go home. My system’s crashing, I feel awful, and I am currently sweating chemicals so corrosive they will almost certainly eat holes in your leather upholstery. And I’m getting car-sick. Please can we go home? Pretty please? Can’t the Libraries wait?”

  “You used to say you would sacrifice a whole bus load of blind orphans for one peek inside the Institute’s Secret Libraries,” JC said calmly. “All those years of rabid paranoia, and saying the truth is out there . . . Well, the truth is out there, out in Woolwich Arsenal, and I’m taking you right to it. You always said They were out to get you; here’s your chance to get Their home address and personal-contact details. So you can sneak up on them and do appalling things in revenge.”

  “Let Them finish me off,” said Happy. “The way I feel now, it would be a mercy killing.”

  JC glanced at Melody in his rear-view mirror, expecting support; but she sat stiffly upright with her arms tightly folded, staring straight ahead and saying nothing. She was in a mood. She wasn’t talking to Happy, making that very clear by giving him as much space as possible on the back seat; and from the look on her face, she didn’t feel at all inclined to join in the conversation. JC sighed, quietly, and looked at Kim, who smiled sweetly back at him. She was currently manifesting as a Flapper girl, a bright young thing from the 1920s, complete with canary yellow dress, a long string of beads, and cute little cloche hat. Since Kim’s appearance was composed entirely of ectoplasm, she could change the details of her look on a whim and frequently did.

  “Nothing wrong with a visit to the Library!” she said brightly. “I’m sure it will be very educational!”

  “These are the Carnacki Institute’s Secret Libraries we’re talking about!” snapped Melody, unable to maintain her silence in the face of such open provocation. Melody lived for the opportunity to shove someone’s ignorance back in their face. “Nothing good or instructive is to be found there, only forbidden knowledge, all the nastier parts of the hidden history of the world, and things you’re better off not knowing. People can’t order you killed for things you don’t know about.”

  “Unfortunately, that turns out not to be the case,” JC said mildly. “The Flesh Undying wants us dead just for knowing it exists even though we don’t know what it really is or who works for it. I say ignorance is not bliss and is actually dangerous to our continued good health and existence. We need to know things, and we need to know them now. Information is ammunition. Remember?”

  “But, given that the Secret Libraries are in fact protected by large numbers of the British armed forces,” said Happy, “how are we going to get in?”

  “Oh, they’re much better defended than that!” JC said cheerfully. “Layers upon layers of psychic protections, backed up by wholly unnatural forces of a downright malevolent nature. Plus a whole lot of guns and booby-traps and bad shit. But not to worry, team, because I have a plan!”

  “This can only go well,” said Happy.

  He slumped back in his seat and gave all his attention to feeling miserable. JC studied him in the rear mirror. Happy really didn’t look well. He was going through hot and cold sweats, shaking and shuddering, and his face was the colour of a fish’s belly. Every now and again, he would glance out the car window and jump briefly as his mental control slipped, and he Saw something he didn’t want to. It was obvious the pills he’d taken were wearing off and kicking the crap out of his immune system on the way out of his body. He used to be able to cope with sudden changes in his brain chemistry; but that was before JC and Melody persuaded him to stop taking the pills. The road to someone’s hell is always paved with someone else’s good intentions.

  Melody deliberately didn’t look at Happy. “You did this to yourself,” she said loudly. “After you promised me you wouldn’t. So don’t look to me for sympathy.”

  “I thought you weren’t talking to me,” said Happy, managing a small smile.

  “I’m not! I’m merely . . . thinking aloud!” She glared at the back of JC’s head. “Why are we going to the Secret Libraries? All right, any other time I might have been . . . interested, but why do we have to go there now?”

  “Lud got me thinking,” said JC, bullying a black London taxi out of his way and openly intimidating a London bus. “The Druids knew a lot of things now lost to the world, but maybe some of them are retained on file in the Unofficial Record. Lud said he recognised something on me, from where I was altered by some force from Outside. Maybe the Druids had a name for it . . .

  “If not, the Faust said I actually died down there in the Underground, before the Outside brought me back. I want to know if that’s true. And if it is, I want to know a lot more about it. I want to know Who or What did it, and I very definitely want to know Why. Because there’s always a price to be paid . . .

  “While I’m busy doing all that, the rest of you can search the stacks for anything they might have on The Flesh Undying and its servants’ infiltration of the Carnacki Institute. And any of the other secret subterranean organisations. Bound to be something there even if they don’t know they’ve got it . . .”

  “You don’t want much, do you?” said Happy. “Pardon me if I admit noxious gasses.”

  JC made a point of lowering all the windows. Bracingly fresh air rushed into the car from all sides.

  “I thought Catherine Latimer was supposed to be carrying out her own investigation into potential traitors and double agents?” said Melody, drawn into the conversation in spite of herself. “Wouldn’t she have told us if her people had turned up anything? I mean, she is our Boss. In her own scary and very efficient way. She’s supposed to have our back on this.”

  “Good point, well made,” said JC. “But I haven’t heard a single word from our revered Boss on this subject; and I don’t feel like putting up with that one moment longer. Not while The Flesh Undying and its rotten agents are taking open pot-shots at us.”

  “How are we supposed to find something useful in the Libraries if all the Boss’s people couldn’t?” said Melody.

  “You are supposing someone has actually looked,” murmured Kim; and everyone in the car sat quietly for a moment, considering that.

  “A fresh pair of eyes is always useful,” JC said vaguely, swerving his car in and out of the packed traffic perhaps a little more casually than was safe or desirable. “Perhaps a pair of unprejudiced eyes will turn up something new . . . Preferably something we can use as a defence. Or a weapon. Either way, I want answers. I demand answers! I need to know things for sure. Whether the Boss wants me to know them or not.”

  “You’re starting to sound a bit like me,” said Happy. “Which is not necessarily a good thing. ”

  “How are we going to get in?” demanded Melody. “You said it yourself: the Secret Libraries are surrounded by some of the most powerful, appalling, and openly distressing defences anywhere in the land. I’ve tried to hack their on-line presence any number of times, for the challenge, of course; and I never got anywhere.”

  “The
Boss provided me with password access after the events at Chimera House,” said JC. “What happened to Robert Patterson shook her.”

  “You’ve had access all this time?” said Melody, her voice rising dangerously. “And you never said anything?”

  “So the Boss isn’t the only one who’s been keeping things from us!” said Happy accusingly.

  “Do I detect the sound of mutiny in the air?” said JC. “I’ll have any one keelhauled who dares dispute my authority! I was content to let the Boss do the hard work, digging up proof of hidden informants; but when someone aims the ghost of a dead god and his enfleshed followers at me, my patience evaporates. It is clearly time to take matters into our own hands.”

  “You’re not wriggling out of it that easily,” said Melody. “Why did the Boss give you a password, and not us?”

  “Because I’m team leader,” said JC.

  “Only because we all voted, and you lost,” said Happy.

  “Exactly,” said Melody. “Somebody had to take responsibility for our actions; and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be us.”

  “I’ve missed all this jolly banter,” said Kim.

  * * *

  At the Woolwich Arsenal, JC parked his car in someone else’s private parking space. The car’s CD plates should ensure that no-one bothered it; and if someone was foolish enough to do so, the car was quite capable of looking after itself. In a thoroughly mean-spirited and unpleasant way. No-one messes with the Carnacki Institute. Dealing with the restless dead, the monstrous, and the demonic on a daily basis gives you a rather short temper when faced with more everyday annoyances.

  The team disembarked from the car in their own various ways. Happy got out slowly and painfully, with many loud, creaking noises from his joints, and peered dubiously around him into the harsh electric light of the car park. He gave the appearance of something that had crawled out from under a rock and was seriously considering going straight back again. Melody kicked her door open, hauled herself out in one lithe movement, and glared about her in the hope that someone would come along and give her some grief. So she could cheer herself up by punching them repeatedly in the head. Kim floated through her door without opening it and drifted over to hover beside JC as he stood in front of the car and looked thoughtfully about him.

  The Woolwich Arsenal was basically a collection of barracks and assorted anonymous military buildings, some more interesting to look at than others. JC gestured grandly at one particular structure, set a little away from everything else. Old brickwork, a slanting roof, and a single door with the word STORES set out in peeling paint.

  “And there we are, children. The gateway to a place of wonders. Or so I’m told. I’ve never been inside the Secret Libraries, and I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who has. There’s always the chance that this is all one big con, a distraction from the real secret repository of hoarded knowledge. And all we’ll find down below is a collection of old Reader’s Digests and a bunch of Dan Browns. Still, on the chance that this is the Real Deal, act confidently, like we have every right to be there, and no-one will challenge us. Kim, I hate to say this . . . but I think you’d better wait in the car. You do draw people’s attention . . .”

  “No-one will see me,” said Kim.

  “This is a Carnacki Institute site,” JC said patiently. “They maintain all kinds of surveillance here, to keep out uninvited spirits.”

  “But I am not any old ghost, darling,” said Kim. “No-one can see me now unless I want them to. Disappearing from the world’s eyes was one of the first things I had to learn when I went on the run. In fact, I learned many strange and unusual secrets on my travels. I am wise and wonderful and know many things, and don’t you forget it. You are my sweetie and my love, JC; but you are not the boss of me.”

  JC shot a quick glance at Happy and Melody, but they were carefully looking somewhere else.

  “Very well,” said JC. “On your own ectoplasm be it. But, we will talk about this later . . .”

  “Yes, dear,” said Kim, demurely.

  “You’re not fooling anyone,” said JC.

  “Hold everything, hit the brakes, go previous,” said Happy. “What did you mean when you said, ‘Act like we have every right to be here’? If the Boss gave you the password, then we do have every right to be here. Don’t we?”

  “Oh, she gave me the word,” said JC. “Right there in her office. Made a big presentation out of it. I had to sign a whole bunch of very official papers first. She very definitely gave me the password. But whether she ever intended me to use it, that’s a whole different matter. For all I know, she changed the password the moment I left her office.”

  “Terrific,” said Melody. “What do we do if the password doesn’t work?”

  “I shall be sprinting for the car,” said Happy. “Try to keep out of my way, or I will run right over you.”

  “You faced down the ghost of an old god,” said JC. “Are you really worried about getting past the one uniformed soldier they’ve got guarding the door?”

  “If you could See the kind of defences and protections surrounding that building, you would wet yourself,” Happy said firmly. “There are booby-traps set in place that could turn you inside out and play you like a concertina. There are others that could blow your soul right out of your body. This place is more private than a very private place with extraordinarily private tendencies.”

  “Do I need to give you a paper bag to breathe into?” said JC.

  “Couldn’t hurt,” said Happy.

  JC led the way across the half-empty car park, heading straight for the nondescript building ahead of them. He had a strong feeling of being watched by cold unfriendly eyes. But then, he often did. He squared his shoulders and put a bit of a swagger into his walk. Never give them an inch, or they’ll walk all over you. He strode straight up to the single uniformed soldier standing in front of the only door and nodded to him briskly. He could hear the rest of his team shambling to a halt behind him but didn’t look back. The soldier gave every appearance of being as ordinary as the door and building he guarded: average height and weight, with a face you wouldn’t look at twice . . . but his smile and his eyes were very cold.

  JC gave the solider his best charming smile, to no obvious effect. JC carefully avoided looking at the soldier’s rifle, which happened to be pointed right at him, and glanced back at his team-mates. Melody was scowling, Happy was sweating, and Kim was smiling sweetly.

  “Step forward, children, and make a good showing. Allow me to present to you . . . the official guardian of the Carnacki Institute Secret Libraries. Not just any British soldier; this is Tommy Atkins. He’s not real, as such, but don’t hold that against him. Mr. Atkins here is the ghost of every British soldier who ever fell in battle, defending his country; with some stain still on his character. This is his last chance to do penance and make amends for his sins, before he moves on.”

  The team took it in turns to blink at Tommy Atkins, who looked calmly back.

  “And you know all this how, JC?” murmured Melody.

  “The Boss told me,” said JC. “I think we can all guess why.”

  “So,” Happy said carefully to Tommy Atkins, “you’re not only you; you’re a whole bunch of you. Are you all volunteers?”

  “That’s the idea, sir,” Tommy Atkins said easily. “Each of us stepped forward, grateful for one last chance to put our papers in order. You’ve heard of the Unknown Soldier? Well, we’re the Known Soldier. Guilty as charged, every one of us, for sins small and large.”

  “How many of you are there?” said Melody.

  “As many as needed, to do the job, miss,” said Tommy Atkins. “We take it in turns to stand guard, do our duty, protect the contents of the Secret Libraries. Until we’ve done enough to put things right and move on; and then the next man steps up. We will guard this door till Judgement-Day, if need be. Never any shortage of Tommy Atkinses.”

  “The very best kind of guard,” JC said cheerfully. “N
ever gets tired, never sleeps, never loses concentration. Because he’s dead and therefore beyond such weaknesses.”

  “Professional soldier, that’s me, sir,” said Tommy Atkins. “Now and forever; or at least until my time’s up. Now, sir, I’m all for a nice chat now and then, but either you present to me the proper password, or I’m afraid I will have to blow several large holes through you.”

  “Of course,” said JC, still carefully not looking at the soldier’s rifle. He presented his left hand to Tommy Atkins, palm down, and carefully pronounced a certain Word. A glowing eye appeared on the back of JC’s hand. It swivelled around to look at Tommy Atkins, blinked once, then disappeared. The soldier nodded briefly and lowered his rifle. He looked thoughtfully at the rest of the team.

  “They’re with me,” JC said firmly.

  Tommy Atkins nodded again, turned around, and pushed open the door to the building. Nothing showed beyond it but a dim, unwavering light. JC glanced at the back of his hand, but the eye had already disappeared.

  “Hell of a library stamp,” muttered Happy.

  “Shut up,” muttered Melody.

  JC led the way in, and they all took turns to shuffle sideways past Tommy Atkins. He seemed solid enough, but up close he still made the hair rise on the back of their necks. Apart from Kim, of course. Tommy Atkins looked at her thoughtfully.

  “Pardon me, miss; but you are a ghost, aren’t you? Yes, thought so. Not the first I’ve let go past, and won’t be the last, probably. They say there are books down there that only the dead can read. Probably just as well. But you watch yourself down there, miss; there are much worse things than dangerous books in the Secret Libraries.”