Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) (6 page)

She seemed to disappear within him, his form overlapping and enveloping hers; but her ghostly glow now surrounded JC. And nothing in the room could touch him. Flying objects actually changed direction in mid air, to go around him. He took off his sunglasses again; and his golden eyes glowed fiercely in the gloom. JC wore his ghost girl like spiritual armour, and wherever he turned his glowing gaze, objects fell out of the air, crashed to the floor, and did not move again. The poltergeist activity stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

JC and Kim, melded and merged together on many levels, turned slowly to look at the television screen. It still showed the four missing students running desperately through the living jungle, pursued by Something too horrible to look at that was slowly but steadily drawing nearer. JC and Kim looked at the screen with JC’s glowing eyes, and the image suddenly grew larger, until it was the size of the room. Like looking through a window into that awful other place. JC and Kim strode forward, through the enlarged television screen, out of this world, and into the other.

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The blood-red light was almost too fierce, even for JC’s altered eyes. The falling rain-drops hit him with the impact of bullets. The skin-covered ground heaved sickly under his feet, flushed and sweaty. The meat trees stank of carrion and the exposed guts of things. The air was full of screams and howls, of living things endlessly eating and being eaten. Nothing could touch or affect JC while he wore Kim like armour; but the terrible grinding oppression of the place was a burden on his thoughts, breaking his heart and cutting into his soul.

Dominic ran past, not even seeing JC in his panic. JC grabbed him by an arm, and hauled him to a halt. The student tried to break free, but JC made him stand.

“Dominic; it’s all right,” he said. “I’m the rescue party.”

One by one he grabbed the other students as they came to him, brought them to a stop and made them listen to his calming voice. They were all half-out of their minds, clinging to each other like traumatised children, barely able to grasp where they were or that their nightmare might finally be over. But they all slowly responded to a human face, and the firmness of his voice. Rotten, revolting creatures leapt and surged and postured all around them, menacing them with teeth and claws and other things; but none of the awful things wanted to get too close to the new arrival, with his potent aura. And not one of them could face his glowing, golden gaze.

The huge dark thing came crashing through the last few trees and halted abruptly, towering over the humans. It was a horrid mixture of a dozen different creatures, slapped haphazardly together, as though it had chosen all its favourite bits and pieces, then clapped them together. Its shape made no sense, an affront to all logic and reason. It stank of blood and guts and death. It had too many limbs, and far too many eyes, and it wore the entrails of its previous victims as clothing and trophies. It looked down on its human prey and smiled suddenly, its long face splitting open to reveal row upon row of jagged teeth.

“Hello, JC,” it said, on a waft of breath like a charnel-house. It had a voice like screaming women and troubled children, like a blade slicing through yielding flesh. “The infamous JC Chance himself. Well, well. I am honoured. Have you come to lead me back to your world, like the good little Judas goat you are?”

“Dream on,” said JC. “Kim, we are going!”

The ghostly aura leapt suddenly out to surround not only him but the four students as well. And suddenly they were all back in the lounge, on the other side of a normal-sized television screen.

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The aura shrank back to cover just JC again; and four confused and dazed spirits stumbled back to their bodies, still sitting round the coffee table. Kim stepped out of JC, to stand before him; and they smiled contentedly at each other. Dominic’s spirit stopped suddenly and looked back at JC.

“It knew your name,” he said. “How did that thing know your name?”

“I get around,” said JC.

Dominic went to join his friends as they clustered confusedly round the coffee table. Happy and Melody stood behind the equipment array, looking thoughtfully at JC and Kim.

“How . . . ?” said Melody.

“Hold everything!” said Happy. “Look at the television!”

They all turned to look. Blood-red light was blasting out of the screen as it bulged away from the set. The screen stretched impossibly wide, pushing forward, as though being forced out by some unbearable pressure from the other side. The television screen stretched and stretched, like a soap-bubble that wouldn’t break. Something huge and dark pressed up against it from the other side, the other place.

“It knows we’re here!” said Happy. “It’s coming through! You showed it the way, and it followed you! I can feel it . . . So hungry . . .
Get out of my head!
”

Melody worked her keyboards fiercely, then glared at JC. “It’s coming through; and I haven’t anything here that can stop it!”

“I can’t stand it!” said Happy, his eyes screwed tightly shut. “It’s inside my head, and it’s too big, too powerful. I can’t contain it . . .”

He scrabbled desperately in his pockets, pulling out a dozen pill boxes at once. He fumbled and dropped them, and they hit the floor and burst open, spilling multi-coloured pills everywhere. Happy cried out and dropped to his knees, scrabbling for his pills with both hands.

“You don’t need your damned pills, Happy!” said Melody. “Just stop that bloody thing coming through!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” said Happy. But he didn’t look up from his precious pills.

JC looked at Kim, and she nodded quickly. She strode back into him again, and he glowed fiercely in the gloom. JC made a gun with his right hand and pointed the finger barrel at the bulging television screen.

“Bang,” he said.

The television exploded, throwing its insides across the carpet. The set was suddenly normal again; the screen nothing more than so many broken bits on the floor. The light fixture overhead snapped back on, filling the lounge with perfectly ordinary light. All the oppressive atmosphere was gone in a moment. Kim stepped out of JC. His glow flickered and went out, and he put his sunglasses back on.

“According to my instruments, everything here is back to normal,” said Melody, in an only slightly brittle voice. “No dimensional door, no strange energy readings; even the temperature is climbing back to what it should be.”

She left her array of equipment and knelt down beside Happy, to help him gather up his scattered pills. She didn’t say anything to him.

“Is it over?” asked the professor, looking dazedly around him. “Is it finally over?”

“For now,” said JC. “There’s a good chance the dimensional door has made a permanent weak spot here; but I’ll send you some Institute technicians to put in a patch. To be on the safe side.”

He stopped, as he realised Melody and Happy were back on their feet again and looking at him and Kim.

“Nice trick, the two of you working together,” said Melody. “How long have you been able to do that?”

“Not long,” said JC.

“We were . . . experimenting,” Kim said lightly. “And we discovered we could do all sorts of things, together. It’s the closest we can come to touching.”

“And you didn’t tell us about this before because?” said Melody.

“Didn’t think it was any of your business,” JC said steadily. “We weren’t sure it had any practical value. Until now.”

“We don’t keep secrets from each other!” said Melody.

“Since when?” said JC.

He looked at Happy, who nodded guiltily.

“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry about that. I sort of . . . lost it, for a moment there.”

“You could have got us all killed,” said JC.

“I know!” said Happy. “But, please, JC. Not now, okay?”

“We will talk about this,” said JC. “Later.”

And then they all looked round sharply, at a babble of raised voices from the four returned students at the coffee table. They were all up on their feet, waving their hands around and shouting excitedly at each other. It quickly became clear, from listening to the voices coming out of the faces, that something quite extraordinary had happened. The four spirits had been so dazed and confused when they returned, that somehow . . . they’d all ended up in the wrong bodies. And they really weren’t too pleased about it.

JC turned to smile at the increasingly horrified Professor Volke. “Well, Prof,” he said. “You wanted a psychological experiment . . .”

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JUST A WALK IN THE PARK

JC Chance and Catherine Latimer, field team leader and Boss of the Carnacki Institute, went walking together in the open air, in London’s Hyde Park. It was a bright, sunny day, and the venerable park was packed full of people making the most of the good weather, in a calm and easy blue-skied summer’s afternoon. Green lawns, neatly-turned-out paths, wide-branching trees . . . and happy, smiling faces everywhere. Most of whom paid little or no attention to the two very significant persons walking among them, strolling casually through the park.

JC’s rich white suit seemed almost to glow in the bright sunlight, and his good looks, rock-star hair, and very dark sunglasses, did draw the occasional admiring glance. Catherine Latimer was well into her nineties now, but she still went striding along with almost unnatural strength and vitality. Medium height and unrepentantly stocky, her grey hair cropped in a severe bowl cut, she wore a smartly tailored grey suit with sensible shoes. Catherine’s face was all hard edges and unflinching lines, but there were still traces left of what had once been handsome, even striking, features. Her cold grey eyes regarded the sunny day with open suspicion, as though expecting it to disappear suddenly and without warning, at any moment. Catherine Latimer was not a trusting person.

She smoked black Turkish cigarettes in a long ivory holder, apparently an affectation that went all the way back to her student days in Cambridge; and she ignored the occasional disapproving glance from passersby with magnificent disdain. She walked in a straight line, from one side of the park to the other, and it was up to everyone else to get out of her way. And they did. JC had to work hard to keep up with her.

“All right!” he said finally, feeling very strongly that he’d been quiet and courteous for as long as he could stand. “You called and said we had to meet urgently; so here I am. What are we supposed to be talking about? And why did we have to meet here, of all places?”

“There’s a lot to be said for the great outdoors,” said Catherine, not even glancing at him or slowing her pace. “Open spaces, and lots of people. Nothing like being part of a crowd to make you safely anonymous. And, there’s nothing like a great open space to make it a lot easier to see your enemies coming for you. We are talking here, Mr. Chance, because it’s safer and more secure than anywhere in the Carnacki Institute. Very definitely including my private office. It’s harder for us to be overheard here, amidst the clamour of so many other voices and minds, by anyone or anything. Besides . . . it does people like us good, to get out among the ordinary, everyday people. In the everyday world. We spend too much time operating in the dark and in the shadowy places. This world, and these people, are what the Carnacki Institute was established to protect. They are the important ones, the ones who really matter. And we forget that at our peril, Mr. Chance.”

“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?” said JC. “I always know it’s going to be really bad once you start lecturing me.”

“We’re all in trouble,” said Catherine. “That’s why I can’t trust my office any more.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you outside the Institute, before this,” said JC. “It’s occurred to me, more than once, that you live in your office.”

“Does feel like that, sometimes,” said Catherine. “I have a cot out the back, for emergencies. When there’s a real flap on, and I don’t dare leave for fear of missing something . . . But no; I do have a home, and a life, outside the Institute. Even if I can’t always give them as much time and attention as I would like.”

“Do you have . . . a family?” asked JC, tentatively. Because it felt like he was dipping a toe into unfamiliar and possibly very murky waters.

“This is an official discussion, about official Institute business,” Catherine said firmly. “Not a pleasant personal chat.”

“You know all there is to know about my life,” said JC, defensively.

“Which is as it should be.” Catherine allowed herself a small smile. “It is necessary that I know everything about you if I am to protect you properly.”

JC gave her a calm and easy smile of his own. “You only think you know everything about me.”

“Go on feeling that way,” said Catherine. “If it makes you feel better.”

JC looked around, taking his time, considering the wide-open space and the people milling around everywhere.

“Don’t you feel . . . vulnerable, out here on your own? Without your usual personal bodyguards and special protections?”

“I am perfectly capable of looking after myself,” Catherine said sternly. “I am quite possibly the most dangerous person you will ever meet, Mr. Chance, and have been for most of my life. Certainly long before I joined the Carnacki Institute. And anyway, I am always guarded and protected. Even if you can’t see who’s doing it. Especially if you can’t see them. In fact, if you could spot any of my people, I would have no choice but to fire them for seriously underperforming.”

JC fought down a suicidal urge to slap her round the back of the head, just to see what would happen. Some impulses should be suppressed immediately—as long as you still have any working self-preservation instincts.

Catherine Latimer stopped abruptly, and JC stumbled to a halt beside her. He looked quickly about him, but they didn’t seem to have reached any particular destination, anywhere special or significant. He let his gaze drift casually over the nearest people passing by, but they all gave every appearance of being ordinary people, going about their everyday business. Men in city suits, out for a brisk walk between important meetings. Families with loud and raucous children: picnicking and sunbathing, or throwing Frisbees for dogs who clearly hoped the afternoon would never end. Young lovers reclining on towels and blankets, wearing as little as they could get away with, casually entwined. And tourists of every stamp and nationality, come to see what there was to be seen and take photos of it. JC turned back to Catherine and gave her his full attention.

“Who do you trust to protect you, in these uncertain times?” he said, carefully. “When you know absolutely anyone in the Carnacki Institute could be a traitor or a double agent, or a servant of the Flesh Undying? Who can you rely on to have your back? Old friends, perhaps?”

“In our business, you learn never to rely on friends,” said Catherine. “They’re the ones you have to keep an eye on. You always know where you are with your enemies.”

“I don’t think I ever want to learn to think that way,” said JC.

“I used to feel the same, once upon a time,” said Catherine, surprisingly. “But it comes with the job, and the territory.”

She turned to face JC and considered him thoughtfully. And then, quite suddenly, her eyes blazed with a fierce, golden glow. A very familiar golden light, much like the one that issued from JC’s eyes when they weren’t hidden behind very dark sunglasses. The glare was only there for a moment, then the golden light snapped off, leaving Catherine Latimer regarding JC with her usual cool grey gaze. JC realised his mouth was hanging open and closed it abruptly. He swallowed hard, his mind trying to race off in a dozen different directions at once. A quick glance around was enough to confirm none of the people hurrying by had seen anything out of the ordinary. The golden glare had been meant for him alone.

“But . . . You . . . What the hell?” said JC.

“I learned long ago how to conceal my altered gaze,” said Catherine. “You will, too. You can’t go around in sunglasses all the time. It draws far too much attention. Suppressing the glare is quite a simple discipline. Even you could master it.”

“When were you touched by forces from Outside?” said JC, honestly shocked.

“That is a story for another time,” said Catherine.

“How many are there?” said JC. “I mean, how many, like us?”

“More than you’d think,” said Catherine. “Scattered across the world, in all kinds of organisations. The forces from Outside do so love to meddle. They hang around outside our reality like drunks outside a wine lodge. Drawn to Humanity like moths to a flame. Except we’re the ones who get burned.”

“Why did you want to speak to just me?” JC said suddenly. “And not the rest of my team? Don’t you trust them? Am I supposed to keep this from them?”

“You can tell your associates as much as you feel is safe,” said Catherine. “I’m sure you already keep some secrets from them, and vice versa. You are here, Mr. Chance, because since you have been touched and altered by Outside forces, certain others will find it harder to get inside your head and see what’s there. So I can tell you things, in the certainty that they are unlikely to go any further. Like my true nature. That puts you on a very short short list. You should feel honoured.”

“Oh, I do,” said JC. “Really. You have no idea how honoured. And more scared and less safe than I did before I entered this park to talk with you.”

“Good,” said Catherine, approvingly. “You see, you’re learning. It’s not that I don’t trust Miss Chambers and Mr. Palmer, or at least I don’t distrust them any more than anyone else who works for me; it’s that I can’t be as sure of their personal security as I can be with you.” She stopped, and her mouth pursed in a brief moue of distaste, as though she’d thought of something unpleasant. “The telepath—is he still . . .”

“Yes,” said JC. “Even more than before. I did think he was getting better; but apparently that was wishful thinking on my part.”

“Drugs are no substitute for proper mental discipline,” said Catherine. “He must learn to control himself or the drugs will control him. You do realise, the path he has chosen will not lead him anywhere good.”

“There’s nothing I can do!” JC protested. “I can see what the damned pills are doing to him. I’m not blind. But . . . he can’t function without them.”

“We all have the right to go to Hell in our own way,” said Catherine. “And one of the hardest things to learn is that you can’t help people who are determined not to be helped.”

“The pills are killing him by inches,” said JC. “I know that. So does he, and so does Melody. But I think taking them away . . . would be cruel. He sees so much more of the world than we do, even with our altered eyes. If we could see the world he’s forced to live in, we’d probably reach for the chemical lobotomy, too.”

“I see more than enough,” said Catherine. She raised her voice; urgently and imperatively.
“Ghost girl, come forth.”

And the ghost of Kim Sterling, who had merged with JC to hide within him before he entered Hyde Park . . . so she could listen and watch over him unobserved, had no choice but to step forward out of him and stand revealed before Catherine Latimer. Kim held her head high and glared right back at Catherine. The ghost girl glowed faintly in the bright sunshine. JC would have liked to glare at Catherine, too, but he was frankly flummoxed by the sheer power in Catherine’s voice. He could still feel it, ringing and reverberating on the air around them. A voice and a power that could not be disobeyed. JC looked quickly about him, again, but it was clear no-one else was reacting to Kim’s sudden appearance. No-one else could see her. Kim had learned to hide her presence from the world.

It had been her idea to hide inside JC during his meeting with the Boss. She hadn’t explained why she felt it was so important; and he hadn’t pressed her. Partly because he trusted her, and partly because there were a lot of things JC and Kim kept from each other. For their mutual comfort and protection. JC hoped that her reasons for keeping some things secret were as good as his.

Kim glowered at Catherine. “How did you know I was there?”

Catherine let her eyes flare briefly golden again. “There’s not much in this world that can hide from me, young lady. It’s the things I can’t see that I have to worry about.” She looked briefly about her. “It’s not only a bigger world than most people comprehend; it’s bigger than most people
can
comprehend. That’s why we exist; to protect them from all the things they don’t know they need protecting from.”

“You see almost as much as Happy, don’t you?” said JC. “How do you cope?”

“By seeing the beauty as well as the horror,” said Catherine, surprisingly. “There are amazing things sharing the world with us. Marvellous vistas and beautiful creatures, wonders and marvels, miracles and joys. All around us, every day. It’s not all monsters.”

“Will I be able to see these things someday?” said JC.

“If you last that long,” said Catherine. She turned her attention back to Kim. “You’ve made a good start, though. You’re not just another ghost, are you?”

“How did you know she was merged with me?” demanded JC. “I have a right to know!”

“Kim has been working directly for me, covertly, for some time now,” said Catherine, entirely unmoved by the obvious anger in JC’s voice. “Very much on the quiet: my own special secret agent, searching out the things I need to know, in the places only the dead can go. Searching for the identity of the main traitor working inside the Carnacki Institute.”

There were a great many things JC wanted to say about that, but in the end he settled for the most practical. “You trust Kim to do that?”

“I have to trust someone,” said Catherine. “I’ve always found the dead so much easier to deal with than the living. The dead may have their own agendas, but they do tend to be much less complicated. And far more biddable. You can make the dead do what you tell them.”