“This isn’t just a catacomb,” JC said slowly. “This is a maze. . Built, perhaps, to keep Something in. .”
“Or to keep Something out,” said Kim.
JC looked at her thoughtfully. “What is this place a home for, now?”
“The dead, mostly,” said Kim. “Those not departed enough.”
“Depends on whom you talk to,” Melody said sternly. “There are sites on the Net. .”
“And you’ve argued with most of them,” said Happy.
“I don’t necessarily believe everything I hear,” said Melody, ignoring Happy. “But there are some fascinating stories out there, concerning what lives or perhaps more properly speaking exists, down here in the Undertowen.”
“I know I’m going to regret saying this,” said JC. “But such as. .?”
“Some say. . the results of scientific experiments, run wild, having broken out of very secret laboratories,” said Melody. “Or, the abandoned offspring of Snake Deities and Alien Greys. Refugees from the Nightside, hiding out until the pursuit goes cold. The last surviving remnants of ancient races and species long thought extinct in the world above. The lost and the strayed, the forgotten and the damned.”
“Happy’s right,” said JC. “You will believe absolutely anything.”
Melody brandished her machine-pistol angrily. “At least I’m prepared!”
“You really think a gun is going to help you down here, in the place of the dead?” said Kim, not unkindly.
“Couldn’t hurt,” said Melody.
JC looked at Kim. “What, exactly, are we going to be facing?”
“The ghost of a dead god and what remains of his court,” said Kim. “But don’t press me for details. The Flesh Undying has been meddling here. There are rumours, in certain places, that these days the corridors are full of his creatures. The weaponised dead. .”
Happy leaned in close beside JC. “Remind me again why we wanted her back?”
* * *
The Ghost Finders walked on through the stone galleries, which slowly and subtly changed their shape and nature until the group realised they were walking through a dead grey forest, made up of twisted and distorted trees, looming above them, made of stone. Branches protruded stiffly, with no leaves anywhere. Mottled tree-trunks thrust directly up out of the grey stone floor, with no sign of roots. The stone trees were packed close together, with only a narrow, twisting trail to lead the Ghost Finders on. Happy leaned in close for a good look at one of the grey trees; and then never did that again.
“Fossilised trees?” said Melody, after a while. “How is that even possible? I mean, how old would trees have to be, before. .”
“Maybe there’s a Gorgon down here,” Happy said brightly.
“The trees continue because the Druids continue,” Kim said quietly. “Because this is the world they remember. From when they were alive. There are old sleeping powers here, and people. The Flesh Undying has promised to aid them if they will serve him. They know we’re here. They know we’re coming.”
“All right,” said JC. “How do we fight them?”
“We can’t,” said Kim. “But the ghost of the old god Lud, he can. If we can persuade him that such actions are in his best interests.”
“Marvellous,” said Melody. “What can we promise him that The Flesh Undying can’t? What does a dead god want, anyway?”
“Broad band?” said Happy.
“Come on,” said JC, “We can do this! Slapping down ghosts is our business.”
“You can be so cocky sometimes,” said Melody.
“I know!” said JC. “It’s one of my most endearing qualities.”
* * *
Kim insisted on taking the lead as they pressed on between towering stone trees, following a trail or direction only she could see. The moonlight that fell from no moon took on a blue-white, shimmering aspect, while the surrounding shadows seemed to grow deeper and darker all the time. The air smelled close and bad, as though something had breathed all the goodness out of it long ago. JC strode along beside Kim, quietly trying to get her to open up and answer some questions; but she had nothing further to say. Melody clung firmly on to her machine-pistol with one hand and hauled Happy along with the other. He kept wanting to go off and chase butterflies. But in the end, he was the first one to realise they were not alone in the stone forest. That something, or rather some large number of somethings, was following along with them. Sticking to the more extreme shadows, staying well out of sight; a presence more felt than properly observed.
JC pulled everyone in close and kept them moving. He trusted Kim’s sense of direction, but he still had to wonder if they were being herded. . Whatever was moving silently along with them between the grey trees felt bad. A threat to the spirit as well as the body. Something that served the kind of forces that could only be found in the dark. JC could hear them, after a while, moving in closer, behind and around them. Surrounding them, forever on the edge of vision, barely glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. Melody waved her machine-pistol around until JC made her lower it again. He didn’t want to start something he wasn’t sure he could win. Until finally the trees fell suddenly back to either side, revealing a huge open space before them-a vast natural amphitheatre. A carefully arranged setting for what was waiting for them.
The Ghost Finders came to a halt. JC looked up, half-expecting to see an open night sky above, complete with full moon. But there was only stone and gloom above. So JC had no choice but to look at the terrible thing sitting on its throne, before them.
Lud was huge. A massive, towering, mostly human figure, sitting unmoving on a throne so old. . that both Lud and his throne seemed impossibly ancient. And equally fossilised. Like the trees in his forest. JC had never seen anything, living or dead, as big as Lud. In his time, in his prime, Lud could have intimidated dinosaurs. His shape and proportions were subtly wrong, even disturbing to any normal human sense of aesthetics; but in the end the thing on the throne looked more like a man than anything else. Its skin was grey and dusty, like the trees. It almost looked like a statue, a nightmare carved in old stone; but it was clearly, unsettlingly, so much more than that. It had a huge, horned, almost skeletal head, with an elongated muzzle packed full of blocky teeth, and two deep, dark, empty eye-sockets. The horns looked more like branches than bone, and even more like branching antlers.
JC hated to think how big Lud would be if he ever rose from his throne again.
“He’s been dead for centuries,” Kim said softly. “And he hasn’t moved from that throne since the Romans left Britain.”
“But, he’s still. . here,” said Happy. “A physical presence; not just a spirit. Like you.”
“That is the ghost of a god,” said Kim. “The rules are different.”
“Rules?” said Melody. “There are rules? Who sets them?”
“Such things are decided where all the things that matter are decided,” said Kim. “On the shimmering plains, in the Courts of the Holy.”
“If anything, I think I feel even less confident than before you started explaining things,” said Happy.
“We’re currently standing under that part of London known as Ludgate,” said Kim. “Where St. Paul’s Cathedral is now. A Christian holy site, put in place over an old pagan site. They did that a lot, to hold the old things down. Lud’s Gate, where the first Wicker Men were ignited; whose awful burning light illuminated Druid Britain from coast to coast. And here before us, on his throne, all that remains of the old god Lud. People have attributed all kinds of stories and powers to him; sun god, warrior god, protector of his people during the long winter. . but Lud was here long before there were humans around to worship him. He chose to become a humanlike form, so humans could more easily worship him. He wanted to scare them, not scare them off. Lud isn’t even his real name. I don’t think anyone knows what Lud was, originally. Faith is fuel, to his kind. They feed on emotions, and death, and souls. You don’t think The Flesh Undying had the shape it doe
s now, the one we saw in the vision, before it was kicked out of the greater world it came from? No; it was forced into its present shape, contained by the physical limitations of this world, to punish it. Its shape and conditions are the true bars of its cage.”
She drifted silently forward, to stand directly before the throne, tilting her head all the way back to look up into Lud’s awful face, half-lost in shadows.
“Lud, forgotten now, no longer worshipped by anyone or anything, outside of London Undertowen. Oh yes, JC, there are those here who still look up to him. The Flesh Undying has given them new shape and power, so they can raise Lud from his long sleep. So The Flesh Undying can bargain with him. Appeal to him, as one outcast to another.”
“Hold it,” said JC. “Are you saying Lud came here, to this world, from some other place? Like The Flesh Undying?”
“They weren’t the first, and they won’t be the last,” said Kim. “Other-dimensional remittance men, slumming it in the lower dimensions. But it’s all conjecture. If Lud was forced through a crack in the sky, there was no-one human here to see it. This all happened long ago, before human history, let alone human civilisation.”
“We are not the original owners of this world,” said Melody, unexpectedly. “We merely inherited it.”
“She reads a lot of H. P. Lovecraft,” said Happy, a bit apologetically. “I never read horror fiction. Gives me nightmares.”
“She could be right, this time,” said Kim.
“Oh thanks a bunch,” said Happy. “I may never sleep again.”
“Good,” said Melody, unfeelingly. “So I won’t have to put up with your snoring.”
“I do not snore!”
“Cut it the hell out, right now, both of you; or I will slap you both, and it will hurt!” said JC. “We are standing before the ghost of an old and very dangerous god. Keep the noise down.”
“Lud is the trap,” said Kim. “But he is also the way out of the trap. The Flesh Undying promised Lud that if he would destroy me, and all of you, then it would make Lud powerful again. Worshipped again. A force to be reckoned with in the world of men. Question is-is Lud desperate enough to actually believe that?”
“Kim,” JC said carefully, “I have to ask. How do you know all this? I mean, you’re talking about things that even the highest levels of the Carnacki Institute almost certainly don’t know about.”
“I have travelled in many places,” said Kim. “And I have witnessed many things. I will tell you everything, JC, eventually. When it’s safe. But right now, down here, I need you to trust me. So we can concentrate on what’s before us.”
“I trust you,” said JC. “If only because the thought of not being able to trust you scares me more than anything else.”
Kim laughed softly. “Dear JC, always so wonderfully practical.”
Happy put his hand in the air and waved it around. JC looked at him.
“What is it, Happy? Do you need to be excused? I don’t think there are any facilities around here. Use a tree. Take your pick. It won’t care. We won’t look. Though I can’t promise anything for what’s out there.”
“I have a question!” said Happy, with great dignity. “Why does the appallingly powerful Flesh Undying need help to destroy us? We’re only human. Apart from Kim, obviously. No offence. Have I said that before? Oooh. . flashbacks. .”
“He may be out of his skull, but he has a point,” said Melody.
“The Flesh Undying is stuck at the bottom of the ocean,” Kim said patiently. “To try anything directly would use up a great deal of power. So instead, it prefers to act in this world through agents. Like the Faust, or the Phantom of the Haybarn. Or the traitor who possessed Robert Patterson. Lud would make a far more powerful local agent. Even if he is much diminished from what he once was. Only a ghost of his former self. . As to why The Flesh Undying is so determined to wipe us out. I think it’s scared of us.”
“Us?” said Happy. “Really? Gosh; I do feel proud. .”
“But why us?” said Melody. “Out of all the Ghost Finders in the Carnacki Institute? I mean, remember poor Jeremy Diego and his team, back at Chimera House? Wiped out in a moment, without a second thought!”
“I think. . it’s because of what happened to me, down in the Underground,” said JC. “When Something reached down from Outside and touched me. And Kim.”
Happy looked at Melody. “I don’t feel touched. Do you feel touched? I don’t remember being touched even though we were both right there, alongside these two cocky drawers. .”
“On the other hand,” Melody said slowly, “did you notice. . when the four of us linked together, that time, our eyes glowed golden, too. That has to mean something.”
“I don’t feel different,” Happy said stubbornly. “I don’t want to be different. .”
“Even if it makes you stronger?” said Melody.
“Being stronger means they expect more from you,” Happy said wisely. “Like right here! We’re supposed to fight the ghost of a god? Come on! There aren’t enough chemical combinations in the world to make me that brave. Or that stupid.”
Melody sniffed and turned to JC. “He may be chicken, but he has a point.”
“I am not chicken! I am just survivally orientated!”
“The ghost of a god is so far above our pay grade we can’t even see that far from here,” said Melody. “This is not what we do! I am keeping my machine-pistol handy in case I need to shoot myself repeatedly in the head.”
JC looked steadily at Kim. “She may be a girl science geek with a weapons fetish, but she has a point. This is so way outside my experience, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Good thing you’ve got me, then,” said Kim, smiling widely. “I know where to start. We start with Lud.”
“Heads up, people!” said Happy. “Enemy forces on the move!”
“Where?” said JC, glaring quickly about him, into the gloom between the stone trees.
“Everywhere!” said Happy. “Whoever or whatever was following us is now closing in from all sides. I don’t see a possible exit route anywhere, and I am looking really hard!”
They came forward, out of the dark, from every side at once. The last Druids, emerging from the shadows of London Undertowen. Thousands of them, stalking forward, as grey and dusty as the trees through which they moved. Some of them were splashed with blue woad. For old time’s sake. Human in size and shape, they no longer moved like anything human. They had spent far too long down in the Undertowen, in the dark. In the dead forest. Their flesh glowed unnaturally pale, like mushrooms. Their puffy faces held no human emotions. And their eyes were deep, dark, empty sockets, like their god. They carried weapons carved from human bones-ugly, brutal, deadly things.
“All that remains of the original Druids, driven underground by the invading Roman forces, two thousand years ago and more,” said Kim. “The Romans built London over the catacombs, at least partly to keep the Druids down here.”
“So the catacombs were built to contain the Druids?” said JC.
“No,” said Kim. “The catacombs came first. They were expanded and strengthened to keep the Romans out.”
“I’m getting seriously confused here,” said Melody, sweeping her machine-pistol steadily back and forth, to cover the nearest approaching figures. “What exactly are we dealing with here? Two-thousand-year-old Druids? Are they dead, or liches, or ghosts? They can’t still be alive after all this time, can they?”
“They don’t feel human,” said Happy. “As such. And I can’t get inside their heads. . It’s as though they’re all wrapped inside something. Something that reminds me very much of The Flesh Undying, and I do wish it didn’t.”
“The Druids died out down here long ago,” Kim said steadily. “Nothing to eat and drink but each other. Must have been a bad way to go. . They’ve been nothing but old bones for centuries, haunted by an undying hatred for those who lived on, in the world above. Now these old bones have been given new life, wrapped in new fle
sh provided by The Flesh Undying. So they can have their revenge at last.”
“Revenge on whom?” said Happy. “The Romans are gone!”
“But we are their inheritors,” said Kim.
“So, essentially, these are the ghosts of old Druids,” said JC. “We can handle ghosts.” He stepped forward and challenged the approaching figures in a loud and carrying voice. “What is it you want? Speak up! I’m listening!”
And all the grey dusty figures stopped moving, standing very still, right at the edge of the open amphitheatre. And when the answer came, it seemed to come from all of them at once. A single dry and dusty voice, still packed full of hatred after all the centuries.
“We will have our vengeance for what was taken from us. We will make a Wicker Man here and burn you alive in it, as a sacrifice, to make Lud strong again. We will have power and life again, and leave this place for the sun and light of the forests. We shall rule all the peoples of this land, as we did before, and we shall burn out everything that does not follow Druid ways. We shall serve Lud, and he will serve us, and it will be a glorious time of blood and slaughter. We shall take your precious civilisation and nail its guts to the old oak tree.”
“Long-winded buggers, aren’t they?” said Happy. “I’ll bet they’ve been rehearsing that for ages.”
“Your time is over,” JC said steadily, to the dusty figures. “You must know that; or what are you still doing down here? You wouldn’t even recognise the world above, now.”
“With Lud awakened and empowered, we shall leave the Undertowen and rise up,” said the mass whispering voice. “We shall set bale-fires from one end of this island to the other, and delight in the screams of our enemies as they burn. We remember what it is to be Druid; and we will make the world remember.”
Happy moved in beside Kim. “You brought us down here. You must have a plan. How are we supposed to stop this?”
“You can’t,” said Kim.
“What?” said Happy.
“Our only chance is to make a deal with the ghost god Lud.”
“Everyone stand back,” said Happy. “I’m going to dig a way out.”
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