Ghost of a Smile (26 page)

The two men pushing the trolley took one look at what was heading their way, abandoned the trolley, and ran for their lives. Melody had a reputation for dealing very harshly with anyone who damaged her scientific instruments in transit. She threw herself across the piled-up equipment and hugged it all fiercely.

“It's all right, babies—mommy's here! Did any of the nasty men touch you, sweeties?”

JC looked at Happy. “There's something entirely not natural about how that woman relates to her precious toys. If she shows half that much passion in the bedroom . . .”

“Don't go there,” said Happy. “Trust me—you don't want to know.”

JC grinned. Then the smile faded from his face. “Look who's here,” he said, quietly.

Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked around as the revered and very-much-feared Boss of the Carnacki Institute, Catherine Latimer, her very own bad self, came striding out of Chimera House. She hit the crowd at full speed and kept going, expecting everyone who mattered to keep up with her. And, of course, they all did, if they knew what was good for them. She talked in half a dozen different directions at once, giving orders, making observations, motivating people with harsh language and sharp looks. She gave new instructions to a dozen departments and sent them off on urgent errands with her voice still ringing loudly in their ears. Catherine Latimer got things done because everyone under her was too scared not to do them on her behalf. She stopped briefly, to glare back at Chimera House as though it had done all this to personally annoy her, then gave her full attention to the second field team she'd called in, standing patiently to one side.

JC had spotted them the moment they arrived and had been careful to maintain a more-than-respectful distance. It was no secret that the new team were here to search the whole building from top to bottom, in case JC and his team had missed anything. Trust, but verify, while carrying a really big stick. The Carnacki Institute got through mottos like a dog gets through fleas, but this one suited better than most. JC looked the new team over thoughtfully. He knew them. Everybody did.

Latimer wasn't taking any chances—she'd brought in the Institute's longest-established and most successful A team. Really big hitters, with a nasty reputation, led by the living legend Jeremy Diego, along with his exotic telepath, Monica Odini, and the tech wizard, Ivar ap Owen. They'd solved more cases, put down more Bad Things, and kicked more supernatural arse than all the other field teams put together. Diego himself was efficient, glamorous, and almost unbearably arrogant. In other words, everything JC aspired to be.

Diego looked across at JC, and his gaze was only spared from being openly contemptuous by its basic lack of interest. JC made a point of smiling meaninglessly at Diego, as though he sort of recognised the face but couldn't quite put a name to it.

Diego wandered casually over to confront JC, who made a point of adopting an especially casual and unimpressed pose. The two team leaders nodded and smiled politely to each other, because other people were looking, but neither of them offered to shake hands. There were limits. Diego stuck his hands in the pockets of his long duster coat and made a point of looking JC square in the sunglasses.

“Anything in there we need to look out for?” he said casually. “Anything that was a little bit too much for you or might need another slap round the head to keep it quiet?”

“No,” said JC, smiling easily. “Nothing worth the mentioning. My team always takes care of business. Though if you could bring yourselves to clean up some of the mess . . . since you're there . . .”

“We'll run all the usual checks anyway,” said Diego. “In case you missed something. Better safe than sorry, eh?”

“Of course,” said JC. “It's always best to keep busy when there's nothing important left to do.”

By then, both men were being so laid-back it was a wonder they hadn't toppled over. Diego and JC exchanged quietly venomous smiles before Diego turned his back on JC and wandered unhurriedly back to his own team. Happy moved in close beside JC.

“You wouldn't believe what their team telepath Monica just thought at me! Some people have far too much imagination and not nearly enough inhibitions. You haven't got a notepad, have you, JC? I need to jot something down, while the details are still fresh . . .”

“Tempted?” said JC.

“With her?” said Happy. “I'd rather stick it in a blender. I've heard stories about her. Most of them end up with emotionally distressed young men being dropped off at hospital emergency rooms. Besides, Melody would tear me limb from limb. Or even worse, ask Monica to join us for a threesome. I don't know which option scares me more.”

“Heads up,” said JC. “Here comes trouble . . . Melody! Stop caressing that computer and get over here! I think the Boss would like a word with us.”

Melody came hurrying back to join JC and Happy. She knew the value of a united front against danger and had always been very big on safety in numbers. If only so there was someone else to hide behind when the shit started flying. The nurse saw Catherine Latimer striding forward and retreated quickly into her ambulance, locking the door behind her. JC would have joined her if he'd thought it would do any good. Meetings with the Carnacki Institute's Boss rarely went well when he and his team were involved. Somehow, JC knew she was already working on a way to blame the whole mess on him.

The Boss crashed to a halt before JC and his team, who all made a point of nodding casually to her in a totally unimpressed sort of way. Latimer considered each one of them in turn with a cold and very direct gaze. She wasn't all that impressive, physically, but her sheer force of personality more than made up for that. Medium height and sturdy, she wore a superbly tailored grey suit and smoked black Turkish cigarettes in a long ivory holder. She had to be in her seventies and looked like she'd fought for every inch of it. She was the most impressive, efficient, and downright dangerous woman JC had ever met. He spent a lot of time avoiding her, which most of the time she seemed to appreciate.

“I am here,” said Catherine Latimer, the Boss, in an even more than usually harsh and clipped voice, “because the first I knew anything about this mission was when you phoned in to say it was all over. It would seem Patterson set the whole thing up himself and ran it personally from behind the scenes. I'm still having trouble accepting that Robert was a traitor. I've known him for years, man and boy. His father was one of my best field agents, back in the eighties. I trained Patterson personally, pushed him up the promotions ladder as fast as I could . . . I had such plans for him. He would have gone far, the fool.”

“It's always the ambitious ones you have to look out for,” Happy said wisely, as the Boss paused for a moment, lost in thought. She glared at him.

“When I want your opinion, I'll have my head examined!” She switched her glare to JC. “Was it really necessary to kill him?”

“Yes,” JC said steadily. “He betrayed every one of us, put all of Humanity at risk by dealing in things he didn't understand and couldn't control. And he boasted that he and his secret backers were planning to do even worse things in the future. He had to die.”

“Did you make him understand that we would have given him full immunity, and round-the-clock protection, in return for information?” said the Boss.

JC met her gaze steadily. “He was more afraid of his own people than he was of us.”

“It's true,” said Happy. “He said he'd rather die than betray them. He did. I was there.”

The Boss looked at Melody. “Do you have anything useful to add?”

“He wasn't the man you thought he was,” said Melody, as kindly as she could. “He wasn't the man any of us thought he was.”

The Boss nodded slowly. “I want every bit of information you have about this secret organisation Patterson answered to. Every word he said about them. I want fully detailed reports from all three of you on my desk before the end of day.” She looked back at Chimera House. “These . . . New People. Were they really living gods, or the final destiny of human evolution? I would have liked to have seen them. It's not often you get to see something completely new, in this business.” She looked back at JC and his team. “You got lucky. You do realise that, don't you? This could all have gone horribly wrong, in so many appalling ways. But, still—you did good. Well done. Don't even think of asking for a raise.”

She drew heavily on her ivory holder, and blew a thick cloud of aromatic smoke out onto the early-morning air. “How could something as important, as extreme as this, have got so far completely undetected by anyone in the Institute? Patterson wasn't that high up, or that connected . . . He couldn't have managed all this on his own. You're sure he didn't mention any other names . . . Of course not. You would have said.”

JC could have said something there but didn't. Happy and Melody took their cues from him.

“Reports,” the Boss said savagely. “Extremely detailed reports. And God have mercy on your souls if they aren't in on time.”

She turned her back and strode off, to organise things and shout at people a lot. JC, Happy, and Melody all breathed a little more easily, and moved away to find somewhere quiet, and private, so they could talk. Once they were safely away from the crowds, Kim manifested again, a vague impression on the air, an outline of a young woman in pastel colours, so the others could see and hear her. She hated to be left out of things just because she was dead.

“We're going to have to be very careful about what we say in our reports,” said JC. “And careful that they all agree with each other, in the things that matter. Because there's a lot we're going to have to leave out, or at the very least fudge around. We don't know how many other traitors there might be, hidden away inside the Carnacki Institute.”

“Are you saying we can't even trust the Boss?” said Happy, his eyes widening at the thought of trying to keep things from the dreaded Catherine Latimer.

“She's the Boss!” said Melody. “She's in charge of everything! If she's gone over to the dark side, we are all royally screwed!”

“I think we can still trust her,” JC said steadily. “If only because she's got too much pride to hide her dark side under a bushel. If she was the villain of the piece, she'd want everyone to know, and bow down to her. No—I was thinking more that whatever we tell the Boss might not stay with the Boss.”

They all paused to consider the implications of that, and none of them liked what they were thinking.

“We have to go our own way now,” JC said finally. “Follow the leads we've got and run our own very secret investigations into who's really who, and what's really what, inside the Carnacki Institute.”

“We can't trust anyone any more, can we?” said Melody.

“Welcome to my world,” said Happy. “Lonely, isn't it?”

“We only trust each other,” said JC.

“Situation entirely bloody normal,” said Happy. But he couldn't keep from grinning.

“Just because one conspiracy theory has turned out to be true, it doesn't mean they all are,” JC said sternly. “Let us all please concentrate on the matter at hand. The Carnacki Institute is far too important to the world to remain compromised in this way.”

“What is this other secret organisation?” said Melody. “We don't have a name, or a statement of intent.”

“They have got to be big,” said Happy. “And I mean really, really big to have the connections and resources to pull off something like this, right under the Boss's radar.”

“So how come no-one even heard a whisper?” said Melody. “You can't put something like ReSet together without making serious waves.”

“We did hear a whisper,” said JC. “Those agents from the Crowley Project, Natasha Chang and Erik Grossman. They said there were forces at work bigger than either the Institute or the Project. But we didn't believe them because Project agents lie like they breathe. They live to spread lies and paranoia. But now . . .”

“We have one end of the string,” said Happy. “I say we tug on it and see what unravels.”

“You are enjoying this entirely too much,” said Melody.

“My entire paranoid existence has been justified,” said Happy. “I am a deeply satisfied man.”

“We're not going to solve this mess overnight,” said JC. “We have to be in this for the long haul . . . all the way to the end. So we carry on taking cases, going on missions, as though everything were still normal. People . . . some people . . . are going to be watching us very carefully.”

“But . . . wouldn't it be safer to let it go?” said Kim. “I mean, what can the four of us do, against a secret society this big, this dangerous?”

“We go on,” said JC. “Because we have to. Because it's part of the job. And because no-one plays us and gets away with it.”

“Right,” said Happy.

“Damn right,” said Melody.

“Oh well, if you put it like that,” said Kim. “Kill them all, and let God sort them out.”

They walked away from Chimera House, putting it all behind them, for the time being at least. Happy looked sideways at JC.

“So,” he said casually, “did you really steal that Hand of Glory thing from the Carnacki Institute's Armoury?”

“You'd be surprised at what I've gotten away with, over the years,” JC said solemnly.

They all stopped abruptly as Kim clapped both her hands to her head and cried out in pain. The sound rose and rose, a miserable howl of horror and agony, filling the night, continuing on long after living lungs would have been unable to sustain it. She swayed on her feet, eyes clenched shut. JC stood before her, saying her name over and over, trying to make himself heard over the deafening noise she was making, reaching out but unable to touch or comfort her. Melody and Happy looked at each other, both of them lost for anything useful to do. Latimer came hurrying back to join them. And Kim stopped screaming as suddenly as she'd begun. The returning quiet would have been a relief, if it hadn't been for the horror and abject misery still filling her pale face.