Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) (21 page)

“He said,
They took them back
,” said JC, as steadily as he could. “I’m assuming that means the forces from Outside who gave me these new eyes decided they wanted them back. Because I didn’t see something I should have?”

“I hate this!” said Melody. “I hate this . . . What good does it do to see the future if we can’t change it?”

“You know what?” said JC. “I have had enough of cryptic warnings. There must be something we can do, or what would be the point of contacting us? So why not simply tell us what to do?”

“Because they don’t know who might be listening,” said Happy.

“We have to do something!” said JC.

“We will,” said Happy. “I think that’s the problem.”

He pushed Melody gently away from him. She grabbed hold of his hand and wouldn’t let go. Happy opened the door, and they left the studio. JC went back to get Felicity Legrand. She flinched away from him, but he coaxed her up out of her chair and got her moving towards the door.

“Please,” she said, pitifully. “Please, I don’t want to . . . I don’t believe . . .”

“I know,” said JC. “You don’t want to believe any of this is real. Neither do I. But I don’t think that’s an option, now.”

“Fight the future,” Happy said loudly from the outer room. “It’s not only a T-shirt.”

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TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE

Happy and Melody went striding down the long landing, side by side, keeping a watchful eye on every door and opening they passed, both of them looking as though they would very much like something to jump out of the shadows, so they could punch its head in. Which was really nothing new where Melody was concerned, but JC considered it a vast improvement on Happy’s part. Unless it was all down to the pills, of course. JC followed on behind Melody and Happy, leading Felicity by the hand, coaxing her along. Her face was worryingly blank, her wide eyes lost and far away. She seemed to take no notice at all of her surroundings, but now and again she would jump, skittishly, for no reason and hang back, shaking her head. And then JC would have to murmur soothingly to her to get her moving again.

The landing seemed very still and very quiet, with all its doors safely and securely closed; but JC didn’t trust any of it. It was normal behaviour hiding something else. The mask on the face of the monster. JC couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was being watched. Or that, at any moment, the landing might disappear, like the door in the studio. It was a disturbing feeling, to know you couldn’t rely on your surroundings to stay your surroundings. That you couldn’t rely on anything . . . A door might become a window to some horrible other place. The floor might turn into mists, leaving you to fall all the way down to the reception area. Nothing could be trusted to be what it seemed. JC managed a small smile at that last thought. He should be used to that after so many years working for the Carnacki Institute.

He gave Felicity’s arm a reassuring squeeze and hurried her along. There was no response, nothing to indicate she even knew he was there. He pulled her a little closer and tried to get her to move a little faster. The sooner they were all safely back on the ground floor, the better. He couldn’t throw off a terrible suspicion that when they got to the end of the landing, the staircase wouldn’t be there. That they’d keep hurrying down the landing and getting nowhere, forever. He clamped down hard on the feeling.

They reached the head of the stairs without any further incident. Happy and Melody led the way down, glaring fiercely about them, with JC and Felicity close behind. Their feet clattered loudly on the bare wooden steps. Normally, JC wouldn’t have given a damn; but now it felt like a really bad idea to be doing anything that might attract unwelcome attention. He moved his sunglasses down his nose, so he could look about him with his glowing golden eyes, but couldn’t See anything out of the ordinary. He pushed the sunglasses back into place, cutting off the golden light; and only then remembered that Felicity was so close she could have seen his eyes. But she was still staring straight ahead, paying no attention at all to him, or their surroundings. In fact, he was pretty sure that if he let go of her arm, she would stop moving and stay where she was. JC was starting to feel a bit guilty about her condition. He should have realised sooner that someone as set in her beliefs as she was would react badly when suddenly presented with hard evidence that the world wasn’t even remotely what she thought it was. And never had been. It’s always the more solid minds that crack first, the ones with less yield in them.

He should have done more to protect her. That was what he was here for, after all.

| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

When they all finally burst through the rear door and back into the reception area, everything seemed perfectly fine. Still, and calm, and at peace. Apart from the people waiting there, who jumped half out of their skins when the door slammed open. Sally was back behind her desk, Jonathan and Tom were sitting side by side in two chairs they’d dragged together, and Captain Sunshine was standing by the open front door, staring out at the world, finishing off the last half-inch of his funky hand-rolled. They all quickly calmed down again; but they all looked like they’d been prepared to run like hell if the new arrivals had proved to be anyone else.

Sally slumped back in her chair, scowling and pouting. The Captain turned unhurriedly away, to stare out at the world again. Jonathan rose quickly to his feet once he saw the state Felicity was in. He hurried forward to grab both of her hands, and JC stepped back and let him do it. Maybe she’d react better to Jonathan. Tom rose up out of his chair, studying Jonathan and Felicity with a distinctly odd look on his face. She didn’t react at all to Jonathan, even when he put his face right in front of hers. He said her name a few times, increasingly loudly, and turned to glare at JC.

“What have you done to her?”

“She’s in shock,” said JC. “Weren’t you listening to what happened, during her show? She saw a lot of things she really wasn’t prepared for. She’ll come out of it, eventually. She needs time, to . . . process what she saw. Come to terms with it. She’ll be fine.”

“Probably,” said Happy.

“You were supposed to be looking after her!” said Jonathan. “You were supposed to be protecting her. I should never have trusted you.”

JC looked at him. He’d never seen the station manager this moved by anything, including the otherworldly attacks on his station. But a threat to Felicity really got him going. Which was . . . interesting. Jonathan realised JC had nothing to say. He led Felicity away and sat her down on the nearest chair. She went with him, unaware and unresisting. As though she didn’t care where she was or what was happening. As though she’d simply withdrawn from a world that had become too complicated and too scary, and gone inside herself, to a place where nothing could hurt her. She sat in the chair Jonathan found for her, staring straight ahead; and if she saw anything at all, it didn’t seem to matter to her. Jonathan fussed around her, trying to make her comfortable.

Tom glared at Melody and Happy. Happy ignored him, and Melody glared right back at him. Tom turned his angry gaze on JC.

“I thought you were here to protect us from the bad stuff?”

“We do what we can,” said JC. “But in a dangerous situation, it’s inevitable that people will sometimes get hurt.”

Tom turned his anger on Jonathan. “I told you we should leave the station! It’s not safe here, for any of us.”

“She wouldn’t go,” said Jonathan, not looking away from Felicity. “And I couldn’t leave her here . . .”

Tom suddenly looked very tired. “Oh God, Jonathan, not again . . . Tell me you haven’t been sleeping with Felicity. You promised me! When I came here to support your new venture, you swore you’d put all that behind you. You promised me you wouldn’t sleep with the staff! After all the trouble that’s got you into before . . .”

“Hold on; wait a minute!” said Sally, sitting up straight behind her desk and looking searchingly at Jonathan and Felicity. “He’s been banging her? Jonathan? I thought he was gay!”

Jonathan looked away from Felicity for the first time. “Why on earth would you think that?”

Sally slumped back down in her chair and looked away, sticking out her heavily pierced lower lip. JC cleared his throat loudly, to get everyone’s attention. But Tom was the only one who looked at him. JC raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me, Tom, but I was given to understand that Jonathan’s previous rocky employment history was down to his fondness for the booze?”

“Yeah, well,” said Tom. “It was his fondness for . . . other things, that kept getting him into trouble. He was always a gentleman, always ready to take no for answer; but . . . there was always someone ready to say yes. Some bright young thing, headed for the top, looking for help and support from an authority figure. Usually someone with unresolved Daddy issues . . . Jonathan! You promised me it would be different, this time!”

“Yeah, well,” said Jonathan, looking briefly at Tom and smiling wanly, “I can resist everything except temptation. I usually tell people the booze story because that kind of bad behaviour is more acceptable these days. In fact, it’s almost fashionable. You’re nobody if you haven’t done rehab . . . Some forms of addictive behaviour are always going to be more . . . forgivable than others. I can honestly say, I never meant to hurt anyone. And if I was using Felicity, you can be sure she was using me.”

“Oh well, that makes it all right then, doesn’t it?” said Tom. “Jesus, Jonathan! That’s pretty cold-blooded . . .”

“No,” said Jonathan, “I was never cold-blooded. That’s always been my problem. I do care for her; in my way. Felicity? Felicity, can you hear me, love?”

If she could, she didn’t react, or reply. Jonathan pulled up a chair and sat down beside her. He took one of her hands in both of his and talked quietly to her. Trying to reach her. Waiting patiently for her to come back to him.

“Anything been happening down here, while we were going through hell upstairs?” said JC.

Tom looked around him, realised no-one else was going to answer, and shrugged quickly. “It feels quiet enough in here, but I don’t trust it. I still think we should leave. All of us. While we still can.”

“You could do that,” said JC. “But I think . . . the voices would probably follow you.”

Everyone looked at him then, apart from Felicity.

“What?” said Jonathan.

“It’s clear the voices aren’t in any way linked to the radio station,” said Melody. She was back behind her precious array of instruments again, her gaze moving quickly from one readout to the next. Happy stood beside her, looking at nothing in particular. Melody ran her hands quickly over the keyboards, checking that everything was still as it should be. She talked on, without looking up.

“The voices you’ve all been hearing haven’t been coming in over the radio, or the phones. They’re coming directly to you. All of you. So if you did go, I think the voices would go with you. You couldn’t leave them behind or shake them off because it isn’t the radio station that attracted them in the first place. It’s you. The only hope you have to escape from what’s happening is to put a stop to it here.”

“Why should we believe anything you say?” Tom said challengingly. “After what you let happen to Felicity? Look at the poor cow . . . We all heard you! We heard what happened during the show! You threw Felicity to the wolves!”

“That’s not how it was,” said JC. “She was in no more danger than any of us; she couldn’t cope with what she saw. What she experienced. Not everyone can. There’s a reason why so few people become Ghost Finders.”

“And it has nothing to do with the appalling pay and conditions,” said Happy. “And rather more to do with the fact that most of us are half-crazy to begin with.”

“Really not helping, Happy,” murmured JC.

“I know,” said Happy. “It’s what I do best.”

“To hell with all of this!” said Tom. “I can’t believe anything you people say any more. I’m going! Right now! Don’t try to stop me . . .”

“If you run away now,” said Jonathan, quite coldly, “you might not have a job to come back to.”

Tom turned on the station manager, looked at him disbelievingly, then fixed him with a cold, withering stare. “You really think that is any kind of threat?”

Jonathan ignored him, giving all his attention to Felicity. She was sitting perfectly quietly, with her hands neatly folded in her lap, looking at nothing and ignoring everything. After what she’d been through, she wasn’t ready to come out and interact with the world, just yet. It was entirely possible, JC thought quietly, that she might never be willing to do that.

Melody finally finished checking out her instruments and shot a quick glance at Sally.

“Everything seems all right . . . Are you sure nobody’s touched anything?”

Sally sniffed loudly, and several of her facial piercings jangled. “Kim and I have been busy talking; but we took it in turns to keep an eye on your precious toys. No-one’s even been near them.”

“Kim?” said JC. “Where are you?”

“Right here, JC,” the ghost girl said brightly; and there she was, striding across the reception area to join him. The radio staff looked at her vaguely, only now realising that they hadn’t noticed her for a while. No-one noticed Kim unless she wanted them to. She moved in close beside JC, and they shared a quick smile.

“You all right, Kim?” said JC.

“Nothing can get to me, sweetie. You know that. How about you? It sounded pretty awful up there.”

“It was pretty bad,” said JC. “But we’ve known worse in our time. How much of it did you hear?”

“Enough,” said Kim. “I have to ask, JC . . . If you and Happy and Melody have all seen your future selves, why haven’t I?”

“Perhaps because you’re the only one of us who started out dead,” JC said quietly.

“Oh poo!” said Kim. “There’s always an excuse. You know I hate being left out of things.”

“Trust me,” said JC. “This isn’t anything you’d want to be a part of.”

“Well, if we’re not leaving, what are we going to do?” Tom said loudly. “The radio station’s shut down completely. Jonathan and I saw to that. Nothing going out, or coming in. Radio Free Albion is off the air. So what do we do now,
Mr. Expert
? All grab hands and hold a séance?”

“Probably not a good idea,” said Happy. “Not after what happened with the last one.”

“I would have to agree with that,” said Melody. “On the grounds that we clearly did as much harm as good . . .”

Sally sat up, suddenly interested. “Why? What happened? What did you do?”