“After you,” said Happy.
“The Acquisitions!” JC said sharply. “That’s the answer! Objects of Power, right? Smash the cases, everyone, and grab anything that looks useful!”
“That really won’t be necessary,” said the Empty Librarian. Everyone stopped and looked at him. The empty suit of clothes didn’t seem at all worried.
“What?” said JC.
“Refreshing though your zeal to protect the Libraries is, before you go wild and start smashing all the exhibits, I feel I should point out that we here at the Libraries are perfectly capable of dealing with a rogue exhibit. Tommy Atkins! Your presence is required!”
The uniformed soldier appeared out of nowhere, standing before the display case. And then there was another soldier, standing on the opposite side. And then more, and more, dozens of Tommy Atkinses, surrounding the case in row after row. They didn’t raise their rifles; they simply glared at the blob in its case, concentrating their full attention on it. The blob faltered and fell back, falling in upon itself, until there was nothing left of it in the display case but a small ball of suppurating organic matter, barely moving at all.
“Of course,” said JC. “That. . thing, is just flesh. While Tommy Atkins, all of him, are pure spirit. It has no effect on them and no defences against them. They outnumbered it, and overwhelmed it, through sheer spiritual presence.”
“Yeah, more or less,” said Tommy Atkins. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to bayonet it. .”
He was the one they recognised, from outside the door. All the others had disappeared, gone in a moment. He leaned over the display case, wrinkling his nose at what remained of the blob. “You, behave yourself! Don’t make me have to come down here again. Or there will be trouble.”
He straightened up, nodded easily to the Empty Librarian; and disappeared.
Melody and Happy realised they were still holding each other. They quickly let go, stepped back; and then looked at each other. JC went for a little walk, to calm himself down. He was used to being the one who saved the day at the last moment; and he didn’t like being upstaged. And he was pretty certain his plan to use the Objects of Power would have worked, in a generally destructive kind of way. .
The Empty Librarian looked thoughtfully at the ghost girl Kim.
“You’re not the first restless spirit we’ve had down here, my dear; not by a long shot. Some field agents have difficulty letting go. . The filters keep most of them out, but you’re something different, aren’t you? I can see the mark of Strangeness on you, like your Mr. Chance. And your two other friends, of course.”
“Don’t tell them,” said Kim. “They don’t know. They don’t need to know, yet. It would only upset them.”
“As you wish, miss,” said the Empty Librarian. “Now, is there any way in which I can be of service to you?”
“Is there anything here especially suited to my. . special nature?”
“There are the Ghostly Reads, miss. The last aetheric remains, of books that no long exist on the material plane. Ghosts of lost books; perfect reading material for the not yet departed.”
“Show me,” said Kim.
But when the Empty Librarian led her to a collection of glowing, semi-transparent books on a dusty shelf, flickering like dying light bulbs, Kim found that although she could take the books off the shelf, and even open them and read them, they were all of them written in dead languages she couldn’t understand.
She went back to join the others and found JC glowering at the Empty Librarian.
“These are the Carnacki Institute Secret Libraries! One of the biggest repositories of hidden knowledge in the world! There must be something here that can help us!”
“JC. .” said Kim.
“No! I need to know this. I need to know why Outer forces brought me back from the dead!”
“Ah, sir,” said the Empty Librarian, not unkindly. “You don’t need books for that. You don’t need anything we have here. We deal only in the Past; and you are concerned with the Future. You need to get back out in the field, sir, take names, and kick bottoms, and get your answers direct from the horse’s mouth, as it were. You need to go to the source, sir.”
* * *
JC and his team sat quietly in the car, in someone else’s private parking place. Thinking, considering, what to do next. The sun was finally up, shedding a cold grey light across the Woolwich Arsenal. A few birds had started singing, in a half-hearted sort of way. People in uniforms came and went, but went nowhere near the car. Word had got around.
JC turned suddenly, to look at Melody in the back seat. “Did you bring your lap-top with you?”
“Of course,” she said. “It’s in my back-pack.”
“Get it up and running,” said JC. “Can you get a signal here?”
“This lap-top could get a signal anywhere,” said Melody. “It’s very well trained.” She soon had it open on her lap. “All right, I’m signed in. What am I looking for?”
“Catherine Latimer,” said JC. “Dear old Boss of Bosses. Her fingerprints were all over what just happened. See if there’s anything new about her in the Carnacki files. See what people are saying about her.”
“No problem,” said Melody, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
“What’s going on?” said Happy.
“Damned if I know,” said JC. “But I’m starting to get a really bad feeling. .”
“Welcome to my world,” said Happy. “We have T-shirts and decoder rings and everything. And you don’t even want to know what the and everything involves.”
“Mouth is open, should be shut,” said JC.
“Yes, boss.”
It took a while, with Melody frowning more and more severely as she jumped from site to site, looking at things she definitely wasn’t cleared to know, but finally she let out a long breath and looked at JC.
“If the Carnacki Institute was a business,” said Melody, “I would say I was looking at a hostile takeover. Someone is trying to remove Catherine Latimer from her position as Head of the Institute, and replace her with someone else. Loyal to. . someone else.”
“Is that necessarily a bad thing?” said Happy. “Would be nice to have a Boss who didn’t make me want to wet myself every time she looks at me.”
“She may be an ogre,” said JC, “but she’s our ogre. And better the ogre you know. . Who’s plotting against her, Melody?”
“I can’t tell,” said Melody, scowling. “Whoever it is is hiding their tracks with great thoroughness, behind walls and walls of secrecy. There are lots of people involved in this, with a hell of a lot of the left hand not knowing what the right foot’s doing. . but this is all very definitely being organised by someone already deep within the Carnacki Institute. And, fairly high up. . Someone is quite definitely informing against Catherine Latimer, easing the path for whoever’s trying to oust her.”
And that was when Catherine Latimer’s grim face suddenly appeared on the lap-top screen, glaring out at them all. Melody made a loud squeak of surprise, then tried very hard to look as though she hadn’t.
“What the hell are you people doing, looking at things that are none of your business?” the Boss said loudly. “And what were you doing back at Chimera House? I didn’t authorise any return visit! Come and see me in my private office. And yes, that does include the ghost. Welcome back, Kim. It’s about time. Be in my office at 9:00 A.M. sharp! All of you! Or there will be trouble.”
Her face disappeared from the lap-top screen, and Melody quickly slammed the lid shut.
“Well,” said JC. “This should be interesting.”
“Have I got time to change my trousers?” said Happy.
THREE
INTERVIEW WITH A SCARY PERSON
Some days, it’s all hurry up and wait, JC decided. He and Happy and Melody sat together in the Boss’s outer office, on the uncomfortable visitors’ chairs provided. Deliberately designed that way, to keep visitors from feeling too important, or even welcome. It
was twenty past nine in the morning, and the Boss still wasn’t ready to meet them. The three of them had of course arrived at 9:00 A.M. on the dot because it was more than their lives were worth to keep Catherine Latimer waiting one moment if she wanted to see them. . But the Boss did like to keep people waiting, to remind them she was the Boss.
The Waiting Room was small, stuffy, and entirely windowless, tucked away in the back of Buckingham Palace. In a part of the building that didn’t officially exist. Dozens of portraits covered all four walls, without even the smallest space left for a clock or a calendar. All head-and-shoulder shots, of Carnacki Institute agents who had fallen in the field and never got up again-the Honoured Dead. The faces all looked worryingly young because few field agents ever survived long enough to reach retirement. Or even middle age. It wasn’t a job you did for the honour or the glory, and definitely not for the money; you did it because you believed it was a job worth doing. The job was its own reward because you certainly weren’t going to get any other kind.
The oldest portraits were oil paintings, moving steadily on through daguerreotypes to sepia prints, and all the way up to the latest digital photos. You posed for your official portrait the day you were accepted into the fold because you might not get another chance. The only thing all the portraits had in common was that none of the faces were smiling. They were all the same size, the same frame, with no names and no histories. Not even a Lest We Forget. The Carnacki Institute didn’t encourage sentimentality. Perhaps because everyone involved knew that tragedy came as standard.
JC looked around the room, from wall to wall. As far as he could make out, there was no obvious progression, from past to present. No obvious pattern or design to the layout. Except that they were always in different places every time he visited. JC was convinced the portraits changed their positions all the time, when no-one was looking. Possibly fighting out savage alpha-dominance clashes, like antlered stags butting heads, for superior position or prominence. JC decided that coming up with ideas like that was a sign he’d been sitting there far too long.
JC and Melody and Happy sat side by side, hiding their impatience as best they could because it didn’t do to show weakness in the face of the enemy. Melody was playing a game of Angry Chavs on her phone. Happy was scribbling frantically in his private note-book, trying to get down everything he’d seen and heard and read in the Secret Libraries before he forgot it. So he could go on all his favourite conspiracy sites, boast of his new knowledge, and win all the arguments. Or at the very least, start a few new ones.
JC looked thoughtfully at the heavily reinforced steel door at the back of the Waiting Room. The only entrance to Catherine Latimer’s personal and very private office. The door was tall and broad and looked solid enough to stop a tank moving at speed. Happy had studied the door once, with his Sight cranked all the way open, and had to be carried out of the Waiting Room crying, with a headache that lasted for days. The Boss’s office was protected on levels that didn’t even bear thinking about.
The most obvious line of defence was Catherine Latimer’s private secretary, Heather. Who sat happily at her desk, day in and day out, typing away and running interference for the Boss, so the rest of the world didn’t bother her unnecessarily.
Heather was already there on duty when the three field agents arrived and gave every indication of having been there for some time, despite the early hour of the morning. She was always just Heather; if she had a surname, no-one knew, for security reasons. Or possibly because she liked messing with people’s heads. JC sometimes wondered if she ever went home.
Heather was a calm, easy-going, professional type, pleasantly pretty in a blonde, curly-haired, round-faced way. She dressed neatly rather than fashionably and looked like she would have trouble bench-pressing a bench. But you could only get to the Boss if you could get past Heather; and that didn’t happen. Heather was rumoured to be the most heavily armed person in the entire building, which took some doing, and more than ready to use excessive force on anyone who gave her any lip. Or tried to get past her without an appointment. As far as JC could see, she only ever stopped typing to ceremonially move a piece of paper from the in-tray to the out-tray. JC had never seen either of the trays empty.
Melody looked up from her game abruptly to glare at JC. “Correct me if I’m wrong, which I’m not, but we are an A team these days, aren’t we? One of the most successful field teams in the entire Carnacki Institute? Then why are we being kept waiting out here like errant schoolchildren summoned to see the Headmistress?”
“We are here because the Boss wants us here,” said JC. “And we are sitting patiently and very definitely not complaining because the Boss is Catherine Latimer. Voted most scary person in the entire world seventeen years running by anyone who knows anything about anything.” He looked across at Heather. “You work with the Boss every day, Heather. Do you find her scary?”
“Hell yes,” said Heather, not looking up from her typing.
Melody sniffed loudly and gave JC her best meaningful stare. JC sighed, inwardly. He knew it wasn’t going to do any good, but sometimes you had to do things anyway, to keep your team quiet. He gave Heather his best ingratiating smile.
“You’re looking very yourself today, Heather. Is that a new hairstyle? And wonderfully efficient, as always.”
“Don’t waste your famous charm on me, JC,” said Heather, still not looking up from what she was doing. “It’s no use asking me about anything because I don’t know anything.”
“Not even a hint as to what’s going on?” said JC. “For old times’ sake?”
“What old times?” said Heather.
“How soon they forget,” said JC.
Happy looked up from his scribbling. “You must know something, Heather. You run the Boss’s appointments book. Can’t you at least tell us what kind of mood she’s in? Are we in trouble? Answer the second question first.”
“She’ll tell you herself,” said Heather. “When she’s ready.”
And then she stopped typing and turned around in her chair to look at them thoughtfully, catching them all by surprise.
“I did hear,” she said, “that Kim is back.”
“Yes,” said JC. “She is.”
Heather waited a moment, until it became clear JC wasn’t going to say anything else. “Then why isn’t she here with you?”
“Sorry,” said JC. “That’s strictly need-to-know.”
Heather gave him a long, hard look and turned her attention to Happy. “I did also hear that you are back on the mother’s little helpers again.”
“You leave him alone!” Melody said immediately.
“It’s all right, Melody,” said Happy. “I can look after myself.” He smiled easily at Heather. “You do realise, I could slip absolutely anything into your coffee mug. And you’d never know until it was far too late.”
Heather looked at him coldly and moved her coffee mug to the other side of her desk.
They all looked round as the outer door flew open, and a thoroughly annoyed middle-aged man in a very expensive three-piece suit burst in. He stomped over to Heather’s desk and scowled at her, conspicuously ignoring the three waiting field agents. He had the look of a man who had lunched not wisely but too well, on many occasions, and for some reason had stretched his remaining thinning hair across his bald pate in a tragically unconvincing comb-over. His face was flushed, his eyes were blazing, and he had a mean, pinched little mouth. He planted both hands on Heather’s desk, so he could lean forward and glare right into her face.
“I am the newly appointed Minister for Supernatural Affairs!” he said loudly. “As in appointed first thing this morning! I didn’t even know we had a Ministry for Supernatural Affairs! I was promised Education, or Health, one of the big sexy top jobs, come the next reshuffle of the Cabinet. And this is what I get! Well, if the Prime Minister thinks he can shut me up by pushing me out into the backwaters, he’s got another think coming! I know how to get noticed. . If I h
ave to run this half-baked Ministry, whatever it is, I will put my personal stamp on things! Oh yes. . I’ll reorganise this place till people’s heads spin and get everyone doing things my way! Till they’re afraid to do anything without checking with me first! I demand to see Catherine Latimer, right now, so she can brief me. And so I can brief her on all the changes that will be taking place around here!”
Heather smiled at him, politely, not budging an inch. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t need an appointment! I am the newly appointed Minister, and I am in charge of this. . Department, or whatever it is.”
“No, Minister,” said Heather. “You answer to Catherine Latimer, not the other way round. It’s a common misconception, among the newly appointed. The Boss will call you in when she needs to speak to you. Go back to your office and wait.”
“Now you listen to me, young lady, this is precisely the sort of attitude I intend to put a stop to!” The Minister’s voice was rising sharply now. “All Departments in this Government answer to the Ministers of the elected Government, not to some jumped-up civil servant!”
“Not here,” said Heather. “The Carnacki Institute was founded on the orders of Her Most Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth I, in 1587. So we are therefore a Royal Prerogative, and not a Government Department. Which is why we’re situated here, in Buck House. Strictly speaking, we answer to the sitting Monarch, not the Prime Minister. Because all successive Governments have preferred it that way. Don’t ask; don’t want to know. Your Prime Minister really doesn’t like you any longer, does he? Or he would have warned you. .”
“This is worse than I thought,” said the Minister. “I know all about career civil servants and their own private fiefdoms. . Well, if this is a fiefdom, it’s going to be my fiefdom! Following my orders! This kind of sloppy thinking and wilful independence has no place in modern Government! Now you do as you’re told, young lady, if you like having a job! I demand to speak to Catherine Latimer, immediately!”
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