Ghost of a Chance g-1

by Simon R. Green

  Kim looked at him for a long moment, and he held her gaze steadily, reassuringly. Kim glared at the shimmering bars of her cage, and they quickly unravelled under the impact of her will, which was so much stronger than anyone had anticipated. She wasn’t lost and dreaming any more. Kim inhaled the ectoplasm, the blue-grey smoke disappearing into her mouth and nose in moments; and she was free again.

  For a moment, JC and Kim stood face-to-face, the living and the dead, looking into each other’s eyes, smiling at each other, not knowing what to say. They could both feel the powerful attraction burning between them. As though everything they’d ever done had been necessary steps to lead them to this place, this moment. As though the whole world was holding its breath, to see what would happen next.

  And then the unseen force seized hold of Kim Sterling and snatched her away again. She receded rapidly before JC, hauled backwards down the long corridor at impossible speed, while she kicked and struggled helplessly and screamed in horror and rage. She held out her arms beseechingly to JC, and he ran after her. He followed her retreating form through corridor after corridor, never looking back once. Because she needed him, and he needed her. Because it was his job.

  He knew he was abandoning Happy and Melody to their own devices, but he had faith in them. He hoped they’d understand. Understand that he had no choice in this. Love had come late in life to JC, and he was damned if he’d lose it.

  SIX

  ALL KINDS OF APPETITES

  Melody was fighting well, and Erik was fighting dirty, and it was still as near a draw as could be. Melody spun and pirouetted, her feet cracking out like the wrath of God Himself, and still she couldn’t seem to land a blow on the madly dodging and ducking Erik. He was panting hard by then, his face flushed an unhealthy shade of purple, and he was waving his Aboriginal pointing bone around with less and less accuracy; but the little creep wouldn’t go down. Melody finally threw caution to the winds, stepped inside his reach, and deftly kicked the pointing bone right out of his hand. Erik watched dumbly as it flew through the air, and Melody moved in to beat the crap out of him. Erik laughed breathlessly, right into her face, and his other hand came up holding his specially modified taser. He jammed the metal horns into her gut and hit the button.

  Melody convulsed, her whole body going into spasm after spasm as she was thrown backwards by the massive contractions in her muscles. She crashed to the platform, hitting it hard, and lay there, twitching and shuddering. Her eyes were wide, and drool ran from her slack mouth. Erik strolled unhurriedly forward to lean over her, studied her thoughtfully, and hit her with the taser again. She convulsed once more, arms and legs flailing while her back and the back of her head slammed against the unyielding platform. She made brief grunting sounds of agony, and Erik laughed happily.

  He set the taser’s metal horns against the trembling skin at Melody’s bare throat, then raised his voice.

  “Happy! If you don’t surrender to Natasha, right now, I’m going to give your little techno-geek girl-friend a full-scale shock, and you can listen to her brains frying.”

  Distracted, caught between two thoughts and intentions, Happy’s concentration was shattered; and Natasha slammed through his mental shields like they weren’t even there. Her thoughts overwhelmed his, and, in a moment, she had shouldered her way inside his mind and taken control. Happy didn’t even get a chance to cry out. He simply stood there before her, utterly still. A prisoner inside his own head. Natasha relaxed abruptly, like a runner at the end of a race. She breathed heavily and grinned widely, even as sweat ran down her face.

  It had been a near thing, much nearer than she’d expected. And it hadn’t been the pills, either; Happy was a lot stronger than he allowed himself to believe. It had been a long time since anyone had been able to match Natasha in a fair contest. Mainly because Natasha didn’t believe in fair contests; she believed in winning. She moved forward, kicking aside some feebly moving rose petals, so she could laugh right into Happy’s unmoving face.

  “Think you’re so good. Think you’re so big-time! I would have kicked your arse even without Erik’s distraction.”

  Something in Happy’s inscrutable face still managed to suggest he rather doubted it. So Natasha took control of his right arm and his right hand, and made Happy punch himself repeatedly in the face. The sound of bone cracking into bone was shockingly loud in the quiet, and Natasha clapped her hands together delightedly as blood gushed from Happy’s nose and spilled from his rapidly swelling mouth. Happy hit himself again and again, and Natasha never got tired of it.

  “Look over here, Natasha!” said Erik, not wanting to be left out. “Look what I can do!”

  And when Natasha looked, he jabbed Melody in the gut with his taser and giggled as she jumped and kicked, her head jerking helplessly back and forth. The agonised sounds coming from her mouth were more animal than human.

  Natasha sniffed and looked at Happy. “You can stop that now. Just stand there till I have need of you.” She put a hand to her forehead. “You have no idea what it’s like inside that man’s head, Erik. So many chemicals, so many reactions, so many side effects . . . his thoughts rise and fall like tides, and his emotions surge back and forth like icebergs. It’s a wonder to me he still knows who he is. No, Erik; no more taser, no more playtime. Revenge is one thing, giving in to our baser natures is quite another. Control, Erik, control; discipline at all times. We must always be in control of our passions and not the other way round.”

  Erik raised an eyebrow, considered a very cutting comeback, then quickly decided against saying it. He put the taser away and recovered his pointing bone.

  “You’re no fun any more,” he said accusingly. “How else are we supposed to make them talk?”

  “Who cares what these two have to say?” said Natasha. “I doubt very much they know anything we don’t. No; we’ll use them as bait to get what we want, then kill them. That is what we’re here for, after all. Now, did you happen to see where JC went?”

  “Last I saw he was running for the exit,” said Erik. “Chasing that ghost woman.”

  Natasha frowned and tapped a single pink-leather-gloved fingertip against her lower lip. “Why would he abandon his fellow team members to go haring off after a ghost? I mean, what’s so special about her?”

  “Nothing I could see,” said Erik. “Maybe he fancies her.”

  “Oh please!” said Natasha, curling her upper lip magnificently. “One of us and one of them? I don’t think so. Necrophilia is so . . . tacky. And JC is, after all, a professional.”

  “You’re jealous!” said Erik delightedly. “You are!”

  “You want a slap?”

  Erik took a careful step backwards. Natasha turned her back on him cuttingly and considered the motionless Happy and the still-twitching Melody.

  “On the whole, I don’t think Vivienne MacAbre will be at all pleased with us if we give up now. We were sent down here to kill JC. Having to admit that we let him get away while we concentrated on these two lesser fish . . . would not go down well. So, we use them as bait, to draw him back.”

  “I could still make use of them,” said Erik, hopefully. “I have a full surgical kit in my back-pack. I could do all kinds of interesting things with them. Really. You’d be surprised.”

  “Quite possibly,” said Natasha. “But we don’t have the time. There’s something really big, and really powerful, down here in the dark with us, something Vivienne never even mentioned. And I want it.”

  “I don’t know,” said Erik. “That wasn’t the mission. You heard the cat head. Something very old. Something from the afterworlds.”

  “I know,” said Natasha. “I can feel it, like a constant pressure on my mental shields, trying to force its way in . . . It’s big, Erik, you have no idea how big. This could be the biggest catch of our career.”

  “Can you pinpoint its location?” said Erik, cautiously.

  “Not without giving the problem my full concentration,” said Natasha, gla
ncing at Happy. “He’s still fighting me, you know. Like a fox with his paw caught in a trap. The chase is over, but he still won’t admit it.”

  “We need more information on this . . . prize,” said Erik.

  “Big, powerful, and nasty,” said Natasha. “And not in any way human. What more do you need to know?”

  “Are you sure you aren’t just seeing your own reflection?” said Erik from a safe distance.

  Natasha was in such a good mood she smiled at him sweetly. “I shall make you suffer for that, little man, at some future time. For now, make yourself useful and consult your little cat computer. From the mental traces I’m picking up . . . I’d venture that what we have down here is almost certainly other-dimensional in origin.”

  “Oh crap,” said Erik.

  “Precisely,” said Natasha. “We’re going to need a really sharp hook and a really strong line to haul this one in.”

  “We need reinforcements!” said Erik. “In fact, we need to get the hell out of here, right now, at speed, and put as much distance as possible between us and London, and let some other poor fool deal with it.”

  “Where’s your spine?” said Natasha. “This is our big chance to prove our worth to the high-and-mighty Vivienne MacAbre. If we deliver not only the heads of JC, Melody, and Happy, but also the tamed and caged remains of an other-dimensional Intruder, on a plate . . . she’ll make us an A team, with all their wonderful pay and privileges, on the spot.”

  “All right, I’m tempted,” said Erik. “But I’m not committing myself to anything until I’ve got some hard data to look at.”

  “Then unpack your cat thing and get this show on the road,” said Natasha.

  * * *

  Erik took his time unpacking his cat-head computer and making sure it was all functioning as it should be. Shimmering mechanisms of pure energy whirled and revolved, enforcing their strange designs upon the world; and then the cat head opened its eyes and spat fiercely. Erik tweaked one of its whiskers playfully and snatched his hand back before the teeth could reach him. He knelt before the computer, so he could look right into the cat’s slit-pupilled eyes.

  “There’s something down here with us,” he said bluntly. “What is it? What is it doing down here?”

  “It’s watching you,” said the cat head in its harsh, unnatural voice. “It knows all about you. It wants you.”

  “Who doesn’t?” said Erik. “But what is it, precisely? Demon, demiurge, one of the Great Beasts, perhaps?”

  The cat head considered the question for a long moment while its glowing mechanisms went quietly mad. “It’s not from around here,” it said finally. “From over the hill and far away. From out of the past, to put an end to the future. The wolf has come down upon the fold, and it’s bigger than anyone ever dreamed of.”

  “Forget the poetry,” snapped Natasha. “What does it want?”

  “Everything,” said the cat head, turning its eyes to look directly at her. “It’s going to eat you up.”

  Natasha glared at the head. “Technology should know its place. You watch your manners, kitty cat, or I’ll pluck out your whiskers.”

  “Please don’t threaten the machinery while it’s working,” said Erik. “And let us not get distracted, please.”

  “Well,” said Natasha, “the cat started it.”

  “We should have been told about this before we came down here,” said Erik.

  “What if . . . nobody knows, but us?” said Natasha, thoughtfully. “We could do anything we wanted, down here, and no-one could do anything to stop us.”

  “Let’s not lose track of what’s important,” Erik said stubbornly. “I am not going back to Vivienne MacAbre without, at the very least, JC’s heart and brains in my little collecting box. As ordered. I have to say, I am far more afraid of displeasing Vivienne than I am of facing some other-dimensional Intruder. I know what your problem is,” he said craftily. “All these manifestations down here are giving you an appetite. Why don’t you indulge yourself? Maybe you’ll think more clearly with a full stomach. So to speak.”

  “Don’t try to get round me, little man,” said Natasha. “The ghosts make me stronger. That’s all that matters.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Erik. “And you will need to be so very strong, for this.”

  Natasha turned to Happy, still standing absolutely motionless, where she’d left him. Blood continued to drip from his face. She smiled at him sweetly. “Work with me, little telepath. Lend me your energies. It’s time for Daddy’s bad little girl to go hunting again.”

  She reached inside him and drew on his power, despite everything he could do to stop her, sucking it right out of him. Natasha laughed out loud as new strength filled her from head to toe. Faces and figures flickered on and off before and around her, echoes of people and personalities soaked into the surroundings, imprinted on Time itself. They came and went like so many swiftly shuffling cards, until Natasha spotted one that appealed to her and pounced.

  A man appeared, standing stiffly on the very edge of the platform, his feet planted well past the yellow safety line. He was only a man, no different from many others, except that perhaps his suit was that little bit too hard worn, too shabby. He looked older than his years, beaten down and hard done by, and his hands were clenched into determined fists at his sides. His face was beaded with sweat and full of a great concentration. There was the sound of a train approaching, and the man’s head jerked round to look for it. The sound grew louder and louder, then the man threw himself forwards, into the path of the on-coming train.

  His body all but exploded under the force of the impact, blood flying everywhere, and the remains were carried the length of the platform before finally slipping down to be finished off under the grinding wheels. There was nothing defiant or even meaningful about the suicide—only a small broken man, doing something pitiful. It was like looking at a child that had fallen and would never get up again.

  There was never any sign of the train itself, only the sound it made and the awful things it did to the fragile human body. The man was the subject of the haunting, nothing else.

  And then the man was back, unharmed, standing at the edge of the platform again, waiting for his train. Repeating the last few moments of his life, for all eternity. Trapped in the Hell he’d made for himself. Natasha and Erik watched the ghost kill himself several times until they grew bored with it.

  “Could be a stone tape,” said Erik, critically. “Nothing there but a recording. Want me to check it out with my little catty box of tricks?”

  “No need,” said Natasha. She was smiling, and it was not a nice smile. “This was a suicide, so some small part of him remains here still, trapped in the moment. A part of his consciousness, or his soul, whichever you prefer—forever here, eternally suffering. And I want it.”

  She strode forward, barely controlling her eagerness, and moved in right beside the suicide ghost, concentrating all her attention on him. And when she’d made herself as real to him as the on-coming train, she tapped him lightly on the shoulder, just as he was about to jump. He spun round, startled, and looked right at her. He looked into her eyes and screamed at what he saw there. Natasha enfolded him in her arms and clamped her hungry lips onto his screaming mouth, smothering the sound.

  Unlike the homeless man, the suicide ghost fought her savagely. He had chosen the manner and moment of his death, and he was damned if he’d have it stolen from him. He struggled in her arms and resisted her with all his will; but it didn’t stop Natasha, or even slow her down. Because she was a Class Ten telepath, and an experienced eater of souls; and he was nothing more than a sad little ghost. She ate him all up, every last bit of him, until there was nothing left in her arms. Natasha straightened up slowly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “Oh, you little tease,” she said thickly. “I do so love a bit of foreplay . . .”

  Erik applauded languidly. You couldn’t stay shocked all the time around Natasha; it wore
you out. “I do so love to watch a professional doing what she does best. Speaking of which. Perhaps now we can get on with what we’re supposed to be doing down here . . .”

  “No,” said Natasha. “I’m not done yet. He was fine for an appetiser, but I’m still hungry.” She jerked suddenly round to glare at Happy. “You! Stop fighting me! Or I’ll let Erik play with science girl some more. Now, work with me. Find me something more filling, more satisfying. Because you’re starting to look pretty tasty yourself, little man . . .”

  And then she broke off, looking round sharply. Something had changed on the platform; she could feel it. Even Erik’s head snapped round, looking for something he could sense, if not put a name to. Natasha looked slowly round her, then stopped as she realised something had changed in the poster on the wall beside her. It didn’t look like a poster any more. The gaudy colours in the painted advertisement had come alive, taken on depth and meaning and reality, like a window into another world. Natasha moved slowly back to stand with Erik, putting the cat computer between her and the strangely altered poster.

  Glorious country-side seemed to stretch away forever under a gorgeous summer sky. A peaceful scene, with wide green fields untroubled by any sign of civilisation. A long, green dream of England. Except for the young man, tall and lithe and almost unbearably handsome, in a stylish white T-shirt and smart new jeans, standing at his ease under the spreading branches of an old oak tree. Almost bursting with glamour and masculinity, handsome as the Devil and twice as smooth, the young man looked out over the country scene as though he owned it. Natasha was pretty sure the original poster had been a somewhat overdone ad for a new deodorant, the last time she looked; but it was alive now, and so was the young man. He turned his head, looked at Natasha, and smiled lazily. The smile of a man who knew he was handsome, and charming, the smile of someone who knew he didn’t have to try too hard. Exactly the kind of man Natasha would have enjoyed cutting down to size under normal conditions.