Ghost of a Smile (20 page)

“Thank you, Happy,” said Kim.

“You have no idea how much that takes out of me,” said Happy, trying for a companionable grin and almost bringing it off. “JC! They really are getting awfully close now!”

“I'm on it!” said JC. “Time to go old school again . . .”

He slipped the brass knuckle-duster onto his left hand with the ease of long practice, transferred the silver dagger to that hand, then produced a phial of holy water from inside his jacket. He carefully unscrewed the metal cap, poured a generous amount over the brass and the silver, drank the rest to be on the safe side, and tossed the empty phial aside. He grinned nastily at the ghosts before him and went to work.

He strode right into the first rank of ghosts, cut them up and knocked them down. Being dead, they shouldn't have taken any damage or felt any hurt, but because they believed they had bodies, they did, with all their inherited limitations. JC punched them in the head with his blessed brass knuckles and cut their throats with his silver dagger, and the dead figures fell apart before him, dispersing back into the fog before they could even fall to the floor. But even as JC turned to new opponents, the old ones were already re-forming, re-created by the power of the ghostlight. JC fought on, not because he thought he could win, but because while the ghosts were concentrating on him, they would leave Kim alone.

And, hopefully, forget all about Melody.

But no matter how hard he fought, no matter how much he roared and struck about him, he couldn't hold them all. Some ghosts ignored him completely, heading straight for Kim, perhaps because she was dead but still acted as though she were alive. She still had the spark of life within her. She stared, horrified, at the ghosts advancing on her. She tried to back away, to pass through the wall behind her, and found she couldn't. The ghostlight was in control of local conditions. JC saw what was happening and tried to get back to her, but the ghosts surrounded him, reaching out to him with cold, dead hands. It was all he could do to keep them at bay.

“Happy!” he yelled. “Don't let them touch her!”

“Can't you exorcise them?” said Happy.

“Do these creeps even look like they believe in God?” said JC.

The ghosts swarmed all over him, even as he lashed wildly about him, the silver dagger tearing through ghostly flesh and the brass knuckles smashing ghostly bone. They laid their hands upon him, and he cried out despite himself. Cold, dead hands, drawing the living warmth right out of him, to feed their endless hunger for what they had lost. A terrible cold shuddered through JC, a physical and spiritual cold, which numbed his thoughts as well as his body. Frost formed on his clothes, then on his flesh. He struck out at the ghosts, with slow, sluggish movements, though there was hardly any feeling left in his hands any more. He was trying to force the ghosts back, so he could get to Kim. But they crowded in around him, pressing him from every direction at once, and all he could see were dead, hateful faces, hideous grins that showed teeth but no human emotion, and all he could feel were the cold, dead hands, falling on him from everywhere at once, leaching the living warmth out of him.

The golden light from his eyes didn't bother the dead at all. They sucked it right up.

Happy did his best to protect Kim, but the ghosts were closing in on both of them. He scowled till his head ached, concentrating on projecting a telepathic defence, a simple circle of sheer will-power, a line the ghosts could not cross, because he believed in the line more than they believed they could cross it. Happy truly was a powerful telepath, perhaps even more so than he allowed himself to know, but even so, he was only one man, and the ghosts were so many. The circle around Kim and Happy shrank, inch by inch, forced back by the pressure of so many dead minds, as the ghosts pushed remorselessly forward, wanting in. Happy stood between Kim and the ghosts, defying them to get past him, to her. Putting everything he had into her defence, and to hell with what that would do to him later. Cold, dead fingers reached out, and the defensive line shrank back before them, and Happy shivered, deep in his soul, from their proximity.

But he made them work for it, one step at a time. Because JC was trusting him to protect Kim, and though he would never admit it, Happy would fall in his tracks before he'd let JC down.

Kim looked at Happy, and at JC, both of them fighting with everything they had, both of them dying by inches, all for her. She became so furious she forgot how frightened she was. She moved forward, through Happy, who smiled unexpectedly at a sudden feeling of peace and happiness and the smell of elderflowers, and then Kim went on, right into the midst of the ghosts. She blazed with a sudden light, fierce and incandescent, like a living star. It was the same golden glow that shone from JC's eyes, only taken up to the next level. The blazing light stopped the ghosts in their tracks and forced the curling fog back on itself. The dead withered, and retreated, turning their faces away from her, away from the proud, shining light, lurching back into the protection of the ghostlight, which in turn fell back, back . . . The ghosts abandoned Happy and JC, who stood utterly still, mesmerised, in awe of what Kim had become. JC stretched slowly, as the living warmth welled up in him again, and crusted frost cracked and fell away from him. He stumbled back to join Happy.

“I never knew she had so much life left in her,” said JC. “Where is all that energy coming from?”

“My love for you, darling!” said Kim, not looking back as she drove the dead before her, blazing with the light of worlds beyond ours.

JC smiled and nodded, and waved encouragingly to Kim; but he wasn't sure he believed that. When forces from the afterworld reached down to touch him, had they perhaps also touched Kim? And if so, for what purpose?

Kim was blazing so very brightly, and the ghosts had all disappeared back into the fog. But the ghostlight was no match for Kim's unearthly glow.

“That can't be good for her,” said Happy.

“She's strong,” said JC. “Stronger than she realises.”

Suddenly, the air-conditioners kicked in, sucking the fog out of the room. The air began to clear immediately, and, without the ghostlight to draw on, the ghosts quickly faded away and were gone, becoming shadows, and less than shadows. In a few moments, the fog had lifted, sucked entirely away, leaving behind a perfectly ordinary-looking, entirely empty floor. JC strode forward to join Kim. She was still glowing, but not as fiercely. She turned to meet him—a man with glowing eyes and a woman who glowed. Happy had to look away. It was too much for him, too much for any human to look upon. Or at least, that was what he told himself. He glanced back sharply as Melody came charging through the swing doors. She took one look at JC and Kim, staring into each other's glowing eyes, and looked away.

“Nice work with the air-conditioning,” said Happy.

“No problem,” said Melody. “I'm not entirely sure where the fog's gone, but that's a problem for another day.”

“And hopefully another team,” said Happy. “Because once I'm out of this building, they will not see my twitching arse for dust.”

Melody glanced quickly at the glowing couple. “Did I miss something?”

“Something,” Happy agreed.

They glanced cautiously at JC and Kim, surrounded by a golden glow, with glowing eyes only for each other.

“Makes you wonder if this is how we'll all feel, when we finally meet the New People,” said Happy.

SEVEN

They took their time, going up the stairs to the next floor. The mission and the building had taken a lot out of them. JC led from the front, as always, but even he had trouble maintaining his usual enthusiasm. He stopped little more than half-way up the stairs and sat down abruptly. The others immediately seized the opportunity to do the same. Kim hovered uncertainly beside JC, looking him over worriedly, and he gave her the best reassuring smile he could before leaning tiredly against the cold stone of the stairway wall. He looked down at Happy and Melody, sitting side by side some steps below, shoulder pressed against shoulder, their two heads tilted together. They looked even more tired than he felt. But they were all tired, battered, injured. They'd all spilled some blood. No time to rest and recharge their batteries, no time out to get their heads round everything that had happened. No-one said anything because there was still work to be done, so . . . what was the point? Even Happy had cut back on his usual whingeing, if only because he had more pride than to vent without good reason. Wasting a good moan on minor occasions would cheapen it. So he sat quietly with Melody, trembling and twitching occasionally from the psychic distress of his surroundings, while JC looked down at him and felt obscurely guilty for dragging him into a case like this.

JC probably could have kept going, but he made a point of taking a rest anyway because he knew the others would stay on their feet as long as he did, for pride's sake. So he sat down and took a breather, taking one for the team. And it did feel good . . . to sit, relax, breathe steadily, and take a short break from all the madness.

JC smiled down at Happy. “What's the matter with you, Happy? You're sitting slumped on that step like an old man.”

“I feel like an old man,” growled Happy.

“Don't you move, lover,” said Melody. “I'll get you one.”

They all managed some kind of smile, but none of them had the energy to laugh. JC adjusted the sunglasses over his glowing eyes, to make sure none of the light was escaping. The glasses weren't in any way magical, or scientifically augmented, and shouldn't have made any difference to the glow in JC's eyes, but they did. They toned things down, made the glare bearable to those around him, and helped him see the world more clearly. JC assumed it was a psychological thing and made a point of never testing it. No-one should have to see the world too clearly for too long. He nodded to Kim.

“That was some display you put on back there, sweetie. I didn't know you could glow like that.”

“Neither did I,” said Kim. “Until I had to. It disappeared the moment the ghostlight disappeared. I haven't tried to call it back. I'm not sure that would be safe. I'm not blind to how it affected Happy and Melody. Besides, it made me feel . . . uncomfortable.”

“Did it hurt you?” said JC.

“No,” said Kim. “Quite the opposite.”

There was a long pause as they all considered the implications of that, in their various ways. There was something of an uncomfortable gap now, between JC and Kim, Happy and Melody. Even if none of them were ready to acknowledge it yet. Between those who glowed, and those who didn't. Happy finally broke the quiet, if only because silence bothered him more than uncomfortable truths.

“It does feel good, to sit and rest,” he said. “A little downtime, between all the ghosts and ghoulies. I only hope there aren't any long-leggity beasties up ahead. I've never liked things with too many legs. Don't like the way they move . . . All very well for you to smile, JC, the rest of us haven't got your energy.”

JC nodded slowly. “Say it, Happy. It's all right. Say what's bothering you.”

“How am I supposed to know what you're thinking? I'm just the team telepath. And you, it would seem, are so much more now. Certainly more than me. I can't do the things you do. Are you the team psychic now?”

“I don't know,” said JC. “Most of the time I'm me, same as I always was.”

“And sometimes your eyes blaze like the sun,” said Melody. “And the monsters run screaming from you.”

“You're different,” Happy said bluntly. “Ever since you got those eyes. It's like you can do anything.”

“Trust me, that's not the case,” JC said carefully. “It might seem that way, but I'm as vulnerable to the bad things as you. In case you didn't notice, I was taking the same beating as you from those cold-hands ghosts. I could have died back there if Melody hadn't taken control of the air-conditioning and saved the day.”

“It's me, isn't it?” said Kim, sitting in mid air now, hugging her knees to her chest. “You're afraid of me, aren't you? Please don't be afraid of me. I may be a ghost, but I'm a nice ghost. Like Casper, in the cartoons.”

“Casper the dead baby?” said Happy, smiling a bit. “I always thought that was a really creepy concept.”

“I don't know where that light came from, or why it chose me,” said Kim, peering at him from over her knees. “And I don't think I want it to happen again. What use is a gift you can't control?”

“You were changed, along with JC, down in the depths of Oxford Circus Tube Station,” Melody said stubbornly. “And it's not fair! Happy and I were down there, too, fighting the good fight, and we didn't get anything!”

“We got each other,” Happy said diffidently.

“Don't interrupt me when I'm on a roll!”

“Sorry, dear.”

“I've got a pair of trousers I could lend you,” JC said solemnly. “Since you don't seem to be wearing them at the moment.”

“Are you kidding?” said Happy. “She scares the crap out of me!”

“I thought you two were having lots and lots of sex?” said Kim.

“What's that got to do with anything?” said Happy.

“Stop trying to distract me from feeling unappreciated and hard done by!” snapped Melody. “Why didn't we get a special gift?”

“We are not worthy,” Happy said solemnly.

“I will slap you in a minute, and it will hurt,” said Melody.

“Trust me—if you want this gift, you're welcome to it,” said JC. “I can see the world more clearly than I ever did before, but that's not always a good thing. You wouldn't believe some of the things we share this world with. We walk in dreams and nightmares, in beauty and horror, and the sheer pressure of it all is more than my eyes can bear. And did you know, I can't see colours any more? Except when I take my shades off? When I wear my sunglasses, which is most of the time, for my own sanity . . . all I see is black and white. Makes me wonder what else I've lost, as the price for this special gift.”