Melody decided she didn’t want to say anything about that and considered the door-handle before her. “Do you suppose it’s locked?”
“That door is only locked when it wants to be,” Happy said wisely.
JC gave up on the stairs and came back to join them, so he could glare at the closed door, close-up. “Come on, Happy, aren’t you picking up anything behind that door?”
“I keep telling you!” said Happy. “There is no room behind this door! A lot of what’s happening in this bloody inn is destructive energies and emotions, mixed and fused together, manifesting in physical ways . . . But what we have here is different. This is a predator from Outside that’s forced its way through some crack in the walls of the world. There’s nothing on the other side of the door, or at least nothing you or I could hope to recognise or understand. It’s out of this world. Like Kim said, there is no door there. Just something that’s learned to look like a door, for the same reason it learned to sound like a baby crying. To lure the food through and into its belly.”
“All right,” said JC. “This isn’t a haunted room, like yours. Or a receptacle for a piece of broken Time. This isn’t another side effect of the sacrificed victim, or the storm, or the local power source. This isn’t a room; it’s a Beast.”
“Finally, someone is listening to me!” said Happy. “Marvellous, wonderful; I may faint. Look! There’s Something in there, a really powerful Something. Possibly one of the Abominations from the Outer Rings. They’re always trying to get in at us.”
“But if it is some kind of Beast,” said Melody, “what’s it doing here? What does it want with us?”
“It’s hungry,” said Happy. “It’s always hungry.”
“So there’s absolutely no chance of getting any of its victims back?” said JC.
“No,” said Happy. “They’re gone. Not even any bones left . . .”
“Then there’s no need to play by the rules any longer,” said JC, rubbing his hands together. “No more Mister Nice Guy! Happy; what would happen if I were to open this door?”
“What do you think?” said Happy. “You might as well soak your arm in barbecue sauce and stick it down a lion’s throat. But you go right ahead if that’s what you want. I shall be right behind you. Way behind you, watching from the other end of the corridor.”
“Why not destroy the door?” said Melody. “Remove the Beast’s access to our world? I could shoot a whole bunch of really big holes through it.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” said JC. “Happy! Stay where you are!”
“My heart is currently brave, but my legs are still chicken,” said Happy. “Or, to put it another way—sensible. Bullets won’t do it, Mel.”
“Why not?” said Melody. “I have cursed and blessed bullets, along with ammo dipped in holy water, sacred blood, deadly nightshade, and fallen angel’s urine.”
Happy gave her a look. “Only you would have a gun with poisoned bullets. And it still wouldn’t work. The door isn’t the problem. It’s only the mask on the face of the creature.”
“If cold iron won’t do the job, what about fire?” said JC.
Happy beat a rapid tattoo on the closed door with both fists while he considered the point. “Might work,” he said finally. “Fire has . . . cleansing connotations. What did you have in mind?”
JC had already produced something from an inside pocket. He held it out, so they could all get a good look at it. Small and round, easily double the size of a cricket ball, it shone with an almost unbearable light.
“Is that . . . what I think it is?” said Happy.
“Oh yes,” said Melody. “I know my supernatural weapons. And for once, I am in complete agreement with you, Happy. Start running, and I’ll try to keep up.”
“How the hell did you get your hands on the Saint Ignatius Incendiary Grenade, JC?” said Happy.
“You didn’t get that from the Carnacki Institute warehouse, or even the armoury,” said Melody. “There’s only ever been one of those horribly nasty and destructive things; and I only ever saw it in the Boss’s office.”
“You stole that from Catherine Latimer’s very own private office?” said Kim, her eyes wide. “Good for you, JC! I am officially impressed. And a bit frightened.”
“The Boss will have a cow,” Happy said solemnly.
“Only if she ever finds out,” said JC. “And given the clutter in her office, that should take some time. As long as no-one here shouts their mouth off, we should all be perfectly safe. No point in worrying her, after all. She already has enough to worry about . . .”
“Brass,” Happy said solemnly. “Solid brass. It’s a wonder to me they don’t clang together when you walk down the street, JC.”
“Why, thank you, Happy,” said JC. “That’s got to be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.”
“Well, there’s a mental image I wasn’t expecting to take home with me,” said Melody.
“But what does this Saint Ignatius thingy do?” said Kim, leaning in for a closer look at the shimmering thing in JC’s hand.
“It goes bang, in a fiery and spiritually cleansing way,” said Happy. “And when JC decides to try it out, we should all be somewhere else, a very long way away from here. Or at the very least, hiding behind something heavy.”
“You should all be perfectly safe . . .” said JC.
“You see, it’s the word should that worries me,” said Happy.
JC looked at Kim. “Actually, you probably should back off, to the end of the corridor. Or, down the stairs. The Saint Ignatius Incendiary Grenade was designed to wipe out everything of a supernatural nature. As well as burning down the house.”
“I’ll go with you,” Happy said to Kim. “Only to keep you company.”
“Me, too,” said Melody. “Since I know for a fact that no-one ever worked out the full blast range on one of these things. First rule of engineering; beware prototypes. Along with, avoid anything made by an engineer who doesn’t have all his own fingers.”
“All right, go,” said JC. “You’re making me nervous.”
Happy and Melody and Kim retreated to the furthest end of the corridor, while JC sniffed loudly and held his head up, humming a merry tune to show how unconcerned he was. He tossed the grenade gently in one hand and looked firmly at the closed door before him.
“Pay attention, door! This should light you up nicely and leave nothing behind but some consecrated ashes. Or something very like ashes. Maybe I’ll make an egg-timer out of you.”
He went to pull the pin on the grenade, and the door swung open before him, falling back to reveal something the human mind simply couldn’t cope with. JC cried out despite himself, staring into what lay beyond—a man transfixed by the Medusa’s gaze. And somehow, he couldn’t seem to let go of the grenade. Kim shot down the corridor at inhuman speed and slapped a ghostly hand over JC’s eyes, putting her supernatural self between JC’s eyes and the unearthly sight that held him.
JC fell back a step, grinned quickly at Kim, and went for the grenade’s pin again. A great sucking vortex opened up beyond the door, pulling him in. JC grabbed onto the door-frame with his one free hand, holding himself in place by brute strength. Kim stood her ground, bewildered, her ghostly form unaffected by the physical force. A howling wind shot down the long corridor as all the air was sucked into the room’s vortex. Happy and Melody were yanked off their feet and went tumbling down the floor as though it were a cliff-edge.
JC clung doggedly to the door-frame with his one hand, trying desperately to pull his other hand back so he could pull the pin on the grenade; but the pull of the vortex was too great. His feet shot out from under him, and he hung horizontally on the buffeting air. Only his single handhold kept him from being hauled in. Kim tried to help, but her hands went right through him.
Happy and Melody were thrown this way and that as they came sprawling and somersaulting down the landing, trying to hang on to each other while also grabbing at anything within reach to slow
them down. Melody managed to grab onto the top of the stairs, while Happy shot straight past her. They cried out to each other as Happy was sucked up into the air, shooting towards the open doorway like an arrow from a bow. He slammed right through Kim’s ghostly form, and on into the doorway. He grabbed the other side of the door-frame with both hands and jerked to a sudden halt. He swore harshly at the sudden pain in his hands but hung on, his legs flailing out before him, opposite JC. The two of them flapped like flags in a howling wind.
Melody lost hold of her grip on the top of the stairs and came tumbling down the corridor again. She kept grabbing handholds of the carpeting to slow her down, but the material only tore and came away in her hands. The last stretch of carpet simply disintegrated, and she shot straight through the open doorway. Happy let go of the door-frame with one hand and grabbed onto her. He pulled her to him with all his strength, a few agonising inches at a time, until he could hug her to him with one arm. The impact had almost torn his shoulder out of its socket. Melody clung desperately to him. Happy’s one remaining hold was already weakening as the implacable force pulled both of them in. Bit by bit, his fingers were losing their grip. The air blasting past him was growing faster and thinner, and harder to breathe.
“Take her!” Happy yelled to JC.
And with the last of his strength, Happy threw Melody at JC. Immediately, he was ripped away from the door-frame, and fell and fell into the depths of the room that wasn’t a room.
JC grabbed hold of Melody with the arm holding the grenade, and pulled her to him. She wrapped her arms around him, even as she craned her neck round to look after Happy.
“JC!” yelled Happy, falling away into an unimaginable distance. “Throw the bloody grenade!”
Melody pulled the pin from the grenade JC was holding, and he threw it after Happy with all his strength. Both objects seemed to drop away in a direction that made no sense, growing smaller and smaller. Melody let out a single cry of despair. JC hugged her to him with his free arm. He’d lost one friend; he was damned if he’d lose another. His fingers locked down on the door-frame with desperate strength, and he hauled himself back, inch by inch. He could hear Kim calling out, encouragingly, but he couldn’t spare the strength to turn his head. He caught one last glimpse of Happy, a very small thing, falling away forever, and the grenade rushing ahead of him.
JC forced himself, and Melody, back through the doorway. When she got close enough, she grabbed the door-frame, too, with both hands. Until they were both back out onto the landing, and the door slammed shut behind them. The unbearable suction of the vortex and the roaring wind both cut off in a moment, and JC and Melody fell to the floor. They lay there together, clinging to each other. Both of them crying, harshly, for the good man they’d lost. Kim stood over them, crying her own silent tears.
After a while, JC and Melody sat up, still leaning on each other. Melody cried bitter tears, while JC sat there, exhausted. Kim crouched beside them, wanting to help, trying to comfort them with her presence. Melody turned her face away from both of them, refusing to be comforted.
“After all the things I said to him,” she said, “He gave his life for me without a thought, without a single hesitation.”
And then the door to the hungry room reopened, and Happy came flying back through it at speed. He shot across the corridor, slammed into the far wall, and crashed to the floor. The door slammed shut behind him; and then they all heard a massive explosion, from somewhere far and far-away. An inhuman scream seemed to issue from everywhere at once, then cut off abruptly. The door was gone, leaving behind nothing but a stretch of unremarkable wall. Happy sat up slowly. He was laughing, shakily. Melody pushed JC away from her and scrambled across the floor to take Happy into her arms. She pushed her face into his shoulder, still sobbing.
“I thought I’d lost you,” said Melody.
“I thought I’d lost me,” said Happy. “But apparently the many changes I’ve made to my basic body chemistry made me . . . unacceptable. Bloody thing spat me out! Hah! These Other-dimensional entities think they’re so smart; if it had had any sense, it would have kept me and spat out the grenade!”
“Welcome back,” said JC. “I really wasn’t looking forward to finding something good to say about you at your eulogy.”
Melody stopped crying, sniffing back the last few tears. She pushed herself away from Happy and looked at him directly. “Are you saying it puked you out?”
“Well, yes,” said Happy. “Nothing like the supernatural, to make clear your true place in the scheme of things.”
* * *
It took a while before they all stopped laughing. Finally, they got to their feet again, all of them leaning on each other for support. Kim beamed on them all fondly while they got their breath back and looked around. JC stretched slowly, flexed his aching hands, then looked firmly back down the corridor in a let’s-get-back-to-business sort of way.
“One last job, then hopefully we can get the hell out of here,” said JC.
“I’ve always admired your optimism,” said Happy.
“I’m going to try to release the ghost girl Lydia,” said JC. “I can’t help feeling that she’s at the back of everything that’s happening here. Okay; I want all of you to go back down to the main bar. Too many of us at once would only upset her. Happy, find Brook and bring him back up here, to Lydia’s room. He probably won’t want to come, so feel free to be very firm.”
“I’ve still got my gun,” said Melody. “He’ll do what he’s told.”
Kim planted herself in front of JC and fixed him with her best wide-eyed stare.
“Let me come, JC. I could help. Really I could!”
“Sorry, sweetie,” said JC. “But I’m pretty sure you’d scare her. She doesn’t know she’s a ghost.”
Kim nodded, reluctantly, and followed Happy and Melody down the stairs.
* * *
JC strolled down the left-hand corridor, all the way to the last door on the left. Lydia’s room, for so many years. He knocked politely, opened the door, and went in. The young suicide was still sitting in her chair, still reading the magazine she was always reading. She looked around, and smiled easily at JC.
“Oh, hello! It’s Mr. Chance, isn’t it? Any sign of Adrian?”
“Not yet,” said JC. “But I’m sure he’ll be along soon.”
“It’s all right,” said Lydia. “I’ll wait for him as long as it takes.”
JC heard footsteps outside in the corridor even though Lydia clearly didn’t. He stepped back through the door, and there was Happy, leading a visibly reluctant Brook down the landing. JC waited for them to join him, gestured for Brook to go in the room with him, then stopped Happy with a look.
“You stay here,” JC said quietly to Happy. “And don’t get distracted or go wandering off. I’m going to need you. Adrian, let’s go in.”
“I can’t,” Brook said miserably. “I just can’t.”
“You have to,” said JC.
“You don’t understand! I can’t bear to do anything . . . that might mean losing all I have left of her,” said Brook.
“She’s only here because of you,” said JC. “You’re holding on to her.”
“Please. Don’t say that.”
“If you love her, let her go,” said JC.
He took Brook firmly by the arm and took him into the end room. Lydia looked round again, her face lighting up as she expected to see her Adrian. Only to recoil a little at the sight of the old man with JC. It was clear she didn’t recognise Brook. Didn’t know him at all.
“Don’t be frightened, Lydia,” said JC.
“I’ve seen that man before,” said Lydia. “Is he a ghost? Why does he keep looking in at me?”
“I can’t stand this,” said Brook.
He tried to leave, but JC held on to him.
“Let me go!” said Brook.
“Happy!” said JC. “Get in here!”
The telepath slouched through the open doorway and smiled at
Lydia. She nodded back, uncertainly.
“This is a friend of mine, Lydia,” said JC. “Don’t worry; he always looks like that. Happy, it’s time to do the linking thing again. This time, I need you to forge a mental connection between Lydia and Adrian. Mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul, so that they can See each other clearly and know who they are.”
“You don’t want much, do you?” growled Happy. “I’m still recovering from suddenly not being dead after all. I swear, there aren’t enough pills in the world to make working with you worth it.”
He frowned hard, concentrating; and Lydia’s and Brook’s heads snapped round. They looked into each other’s eyes . . . and knew each other. After all the years apart, they were finally together again. JC could see it in their faces—a simple, wondering look of recognition. Two lost loves, separated by all the world and Time, brought together again at last. Lydia rose out of her chair and went to Adrian, and they looked at each other.
“I didn’t know you!” said Lydia. “You got old, Adrian . . .”
“You didn’t,” said Brook.
“How long have I been here?” said Lydia. “How long have I been waiting for you, Adrian?”
“Too long,” said Brook. “Do you remember . . .”
“What I did?” said Lydia. “Yes. I do now. Such a stupid, selfish thing to do. ‘This will show them; this will make them all sorry,’ I thought. All those years we could have enjoyed, together . . .”
“You can have all the Time there is, now,” said JC. “No more waiting. It’s time for you to leave this room, Lydia.”
“I won’t go anywhere without you, Adrian,” said Lydia. “I won’t be separated from you any longer.”
“Of course not,” said Brook. “You’re going, and I’m going with you.”
“I can’t ask that of you!” said Lydia.
“There’s nothing left to hold me here,” said Brook. “No family, no friends; all I ever really had were my memories of you. If I can’t be here with you . . . then I don’t want to be here.” He looked at JC. “I mean it.”
“Yes,” said JC. “I think you do.”
He nodded to Happy, who nodded slowly.
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