“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.”
“My girl-friend is not your servant,” said JC; and his voice was very cold and very dangerous.
Catherine smiled calmly at him. “You both work for me, Mr. Chance. You are all my servants until I tell you otherwise. In the name of a greater good, of course.”
“Whose greater good?” said JC.
“You see?” said Catherine. “You’re learning.”
“It’s all right, JC,” Kim said quickly. “I went into this with my eyes wide open. I wanted to help. By helping her uncover the traitor, I’m helpin
g you. I’m protecting her so she can protect you, and Happy and Melody, from the Flesh Undying and its agents.”
“The main traitor has to be someone high up in the organisation,” said Catherine. “And it bothers me that I can’t tell who. That I can’t see it for myself, for all my knowledge and expertise and altered sight. It has to be someone I know, someone close to me. Someone I think I can trust. Working against me, undermining my decisions and sabotaging my operations . . . Trying to get me removed, so I can be replaced by someone who serves the Flesh Undying. Not only to stop me interfering with . . . whatever it is it’s trying to do, but because it knows I will eventually locate and destroy it. The Flesh Undying sees our world, our whole reality, as a prison. A cage. And it is perfectly ready to destroy everything if that’s what it takes for it to break free.”
“Why do people serve it, knowing that?” said Kim. “I’ve never understood that.”
“Presumably they have some plan to control the Flesh Undying; or at the very least make some kind of deal with it,” said Catherine. “Damned fools . . .”
JC looked at Kim. “And you didn’t tell me about any of this because?”
“You were safer not knowing,” Kim said steadily. “You couldn’t accidentally give away what you didn’t know.”
“We don’t keep things as important as this from each other!” said JC.
“Really?” said Kim. “Since when?”
JC nodded, stiffly. Some conversations you know aren’t going to go anywhere good. “All right,” he said. “How’s it going, being the Boss’s superspy?”
“Nothing useful, so far,” said Kim.
JC wasn’t sure she was telling him the truth, or even part of the truth, but he didn’t want to challenge her in front of Catherine Latimer. So he turned back to the Boss and folded his arms tightly across his chest in a way he hoped suggested he’d put up with quite enough and had no intention of being pushed any further.
“Talk to me,” he said. “Why are we here? What did you bring me all the way here, to tell me?”
“I’ve been feeling . . . troubled,” said Catherine, meeting his gaze unflinchingly. “How do you think I’ve lived so long and stayed so vital? Because that’s what the forces from Outside wanted. They altered me for their own reasons because they have a purpose in mind for me. Just as they do for you, and probably all the others like us.”
“But who, or what, are these Outside forces?” said JC. “What is it they want from us? What do they need us to do that’s so important and so dangerous we had to be . . . changed, transformed, so we could achieve it? And how do we know these forces are any better, any more trustworthy, than the Flesh Undying?”
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to work out the answer to those questions,” said Catherine Latimer. “And I’m no wiser. Or at least, no better informed. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“Have they ever . . . contacted you?” said JC. “Asked you to do things, for them?”
“No. I think I might feel happier if they had. At least then I might have some clue as to their wishes. Or true nature. That’s why I joined the Carnacki Institute in the first place, all those years ago. Why I worked so hard to become the one in charge of everything. So I could have access to all of the Institute’s records. All its official and unofficial resources. And much good that has done me.”
“Then why have you stayed on as Boss for so long?” said Kim.
“Because I decided it was a job that needed doing,” said Catherine. “A job important enough, and necessary enough, that I wouldn’t have felt right leaving it to anyone else.”
“Maybe that’s what They wanted,” said JC. “For you to become head of the Carnacki Institute. The right person, in the right place.”
“I don’t think They think that small,” said Catherine Latimer. “And besides, I’m still waiting to find out what the price will be. There’s always a price to be paid, for every gift. And the greater the gift, the greater the price.”
She set off again, striding briskly along, and JC and Kim had to hurry to catch up with her. Kim was careful to walk in the space between JC and Catherine, so the people coming and going all around them wouldn’t bump into her unknowing, and walk right through her. She hated that. It made her feel . . . unreal. Occasionally, someone would walk right at them, clearly intending to walk through the apparent open space between JC and Catherine; but somehow they always stopped, at the last moment, and decided to walk around them instead. Even though it was clear from the look on their faces that they had no idea why. Kim carefully linked her insubstantial arm through JC’s, so they could at least seem to be walking arm in arm. JC kept his arm carefully crooked, so that she could, and pretended not to notice Kim was walking an inch or so above the ground.
The people passing by still didn’t pay JC or Catherine much attention. They had no idea that very important matters were being discussed, right in their midst. JC looked at all the happy, shiny people, in their happy, normal world; and almost envied them. Almost. JC liked knowing things other people didn’t know, even if most of the things he knew weren’t particularly nice, or comforting. And he definitely liked being able to Do Something about the things he knew. And, of course, if he hadn’t been a Ghost Finder . . . he would never have met Kim. The one and only true love of his life. Now and again, he peered over the top of his sunglasses, concentrating on seeing the park and its visitors through his golden eyes; but he couldn’t detect anyone or anything threatening. Or even out of place. He said as much to Catherine, and she nodded briskly.
“I know. People have no idea what’s really going on; and they’re better off that way. It’s our job to keep them in happy ignorance of all the things that threaten them, so they at least can sleep soundly at night.”
“But maybe, if we trusted them . . .” said JC, “they could learn to defend themselves?”
“Look at them,” said Catherine. “Do any of them look like they could cope with that kind of knowledge? With knowing that their world is nothing but a fragile thing, under constant assault by forces beyond human comprehension? Do you really think they could stand the extensive training it would take before they could even hope to fight back successfully? No. They’re better off not knowing. We carry the burden, so they don’t have to.”
The three of them walked on a while, in silence. Catherine stared straight ahead, while JC kept a watchful eye on anyone who got too close, or even looked like they might. And Kim smiled happily at everyone even though they couldn’t see her, because . . . she was that sort of girl. Finally, JC broke the silence, which made him uncomfortable.
“I thought you didn’t approve of me and Kim, boss?”
“I don’t,” said Catherine, still not looking at either of them. “The living and the dead are not supposed to fall in love for any number of perfectly good reasons. You must know, both of you . . . there is no way your relationship can end well.”
“Come on,” said JC. “I have been altered by otherworldly forces, and she is mortally challenged. We have so much in common!”
“I think we’re a very post-modern couple,” Kim said cheerfully. “Opposites attract and complement each other. By being together, JC and I are making a positive statement!”
Catherine Latimer shook her head. “I have been head of the Carnacki Institute for too long. The world has changed so much . . . and I haven’t. Sometimes I’ll find myself watching some old black-and-white film, on late-night television; something from the forties or fifties . . . And that world looks more familiar, more comfortable to me, than the world I live in now. So many things I miss . . . and so few I value, now. I really think I would step down tomorrow if I thought there were anybody ready to take over. Or at least anyone I thought I could trust. But I can’t go . . . Not until I’ve put a name to the main traitor and made sure how deep the rot goes. Not until I can be sure of how badly the Carnacki Institute has been compromised. I have to stay in charge. I know I can trust me.”
“You know you can trust me,” said JC.
“Yes, I can,” said Catherine. “But not as head of the Carnacki Institute.”
“What?” said JC, bristling. “Why not?”
“Because you don’t have enough iron in your soul,” said Catherine Latimer. “Not yet, anyway.”
“Well,” said JC. “That’s something to look forward to . . .”
They walked on. Such a perfect summer’s day. Not a cloud in the sky, not a shadow out of place. Nothing to worry about . . . Except . . .
“Why did you want me to come here?” said JC. “What was so important that I had to drop everything and come all the way across London, and you had to leave your very safe and protected private office . . . so we could have this conversation? Was it only to tell me about what you’ve had Kim doing for you? Or to lecture us about our unnatural relationship again?”
“No,” said Catherine. She glanced at him; and her eyes flashed briefly golden again. “I wanted you to know you’re not alone.”
She increased her pace suddenly, leaving JC and Kim behind. JC stumbled to a halt and watched her go. Kim stayed with him, her arm still linked carefully through his. JC couldn’t help noticing that everyone in Catherine Latimer’s way seemed to step aside for her, without even noticing they were doing it.
“I can’t see anyone protecting her,” said JC, after a while. “Can you see anyone protecting her, Kim?”
“No,” said the girl ghost. “That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?”
Voices From Beyond (A Ghost Finders Novel) Page 6
