Spirits from Beyond (27 page)

They could all see her for a moment, looking out through the wicker bars of her cage, a prisoner in the Wicker Man along with all the other dead sacrificial victims. And then she faded slowly away, lost among all the other ghost candles.

The huge Wicker Man creaked loudly as its great blocky head slowly turned to look down on the Ghost Finders. Its whole enormous structure stretched and groaned, as the Wicker Man raised its great green arm, wooden fingers slowly clenching into a jagged fist. The Wicker Man was alive.

“Look on the bright side,” said Happy. “At least it isn’t on fire.”

Two dark yellow flames appeared, burning fiercely in the blank face—fiery eyes for the Wicker Man to see them with.

JC glared at Happy. “You had to say it, didn’t you?”

They all scattered, as the giant Wicker Man surged forward, its huge bulk moving with impossible speed. The massive wooden fist came sweeping down and hammered onto the bare ground with such force that the earth split open from one end of the clearing to the other. All of the Ghost Finders were sent sprawling. They heaved themselves back onto their feet again, and JC yelled for everyone to run in different directions, so the Wicker Man would find it harder to target them. But Kim stuck by his side, refusing to leave him, and Happy and Melody wouldn’t be separated. They did move quickly away from JC and Kim, as the Wicker Man raised its terrible hand again, glaring down with its flaming eyes. And then it stepped forward on its great stocky legs, making the ground jump and dance as it strode forward to stand between the Ghost Finders and the King’s Arms.

Melody produced her machine-pistol and opened fire. Cursed and blessed ammunition stitched long ragged rows of holes across the wide chest, blasting the green threads apart; but the Wicker Man didn’t even shudder under the impact. Melody kept on firing anyway, raking the head and chest until she ran out of bullets. She lowered her gun, breathing hard, and looked at Happy.

“I can’t reach it!” he said, his hands clenched into desperate fists. “I’m not even sure there’s anything in there to be reached! It’s not a living thing, it’s a construct! A memory of the Past given shape and form and malice by the local power source! JC! Tell me what to do!”

“To start with, keep its attention!” said JC. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Whatever this idea is, I love it!” Happy said immediately. “You have my full and total support! Go ahead and—Oh bloody hell, it’s moving again!”

The Wicker Man stooped forward, bending right over, its massive hands opening as they reached out to grab the Ghost Finders. Its huge feet stamped down hard as it moved, so that the bare earth jumped under JC’s feet as he ran for his life, Kim hovering at his side. Melody and Happy ran in the opposite direction, trying to distract the Wicker Man. The great jagged hands swept back and forth but couldn’t find anything. JC couldn’t help noticing that the Wicker Man’s movements were becoming more supple, more sure. As though it was leaning how to move, how to be alive. He stopped where he was, took a deep breath, and concentrated. Kim hovered at his side, smiling bravely, trying to be supportive. JC put his head back and addressed the heavens, trying very hard not to look at the storm circling overhead.

“Move, JC!” yelled Melody. “It’s coming your way!”

“I am calling for help!” said JC. “You said it was no coincidence that we were sent here; and I think you’re right. We’re here because of our experiences with old Druid ways, down in London Undertowen, and because we’re the only ones who can stop this. Because we have a trump card. Before the old god Lud left this reality, he said he owed us one last favour; and I’m thinking this is the time to call it in. So, Lud! Are you listening? We need your help, right now!”

“No need to shout,” said Lud. “I’m dead, not deaf. And I’ve been waiting for your call.”

He stood towering above them, facing off against the giant Wicker Man, who seemed frozen in place. If JC hadn’t known better, he’d have said it was shocked. The Wicker Man was huge; but Lud was massive. A great old god from when the land was young, Lud stood a hundred feet tall and more, looming over the Wicker Man; and he didn’t look like a fossilised statue any more. His dark, leathery skin gleamed with vitality, and his huge, horned head rose grandly into the night sky. His eyes glowed with the same golden gleam as JC’s. Lud looked down and smiled slowly, showing huge, blocky teeth.

“I knew you’d need me here, for this one last unfinished thing from my Time. Go to the inn. Do what needs to be done. And I will buy you some time.”

He strode forward and grabbed hold of the Wicker Man with his great clawed hands. The Wicker Man grabbed onto the god, and the two huge figures struggled together, staggering back and forth across the clearing, striking at each other with terrible blows that could have toppled hills. Lud was bigger and stronger, but every time he tore into the Wicker Man, its dark green body stitched itself back together again. They swayed back and forth, their great feet stamping on the bare earth with such force they cracked it apart. The old god Lud struck down the Wicker Man with savage force; but it always rose again, re-formed and remade by the power of the storm circling above it.

JC led his people back to the King’s Arms, dodging this way and that to avoid being trodden on; and then they all stopped as a grey army of ghosts came pouring out of the inn, passing through the walls. JC braced himself, but the ghosts swept right past him, their dead gaze set on the two huge fighting figures. They swarmed up and over the Wicker Man, clinging to its arms and legs, struggling to hold it back and slow it down. Because they saw at last a chance to be free from the old power that held them. Lud laughed aloud, and hit the Wicker Man’s blunt head so hard his fist buried itself deep inside.

JC gathered up his people and ran back inside the King’s Arms.

* * *

Inside the bar, everything seemed perfectly calm and normal. All the ghosts were gone. But from outside there still came the roar of the storm and the sound of two giant things crashing together. JC looked quickly around the main bar, then up at the ceiling. He pointed a triumphant finger at the long, exposed, oaken beams.

“There! That’s it! Brook said those beams were the oldest surviving parts of the pub . . . I’m betting they were taken from the original oak tree the Druid priests used for their sacrifices, the bastards. God knows how much death and blood that wood soaked up in its time.”

“So if we destroy the beams, we destroy the one remaining physical link between Past and Present!” said Melody.

“Seems a bit obvious,” said Happy. “Are you guys sure about this?”

“Of course I’m not sure!” said JC. “I’m guessing! It’s a wild stab in the dark, which is what you’ll be getting if you don’t stop arguing! Have you got a better idea?”

“Never liked those beams,” said Happy.

The storm was growing louder. JC moved quickly over to the nearest window and looked out. The great circling storm was descending out of the night sky, lowering onto the great heads of the Wicker Man and the god Lud as they crashed back and forth in the clearing. JC didn’t wait to see what would happen when the storm reached them. He turned away from the window, glared about him, and gestured for Happy and Melody to help him drag one of the tables beneath the oak beams. The three of them pulled it into place, clambered up onto it, and tried to pry the old beams loose. Only to discover the beams had been very firmly fastened in place long ago, with heavy copper nails. They all tugged and pried at the beams but couldn’t budge them.

Kim ghosted up through the table and hovered above it, studying the beams at close range. And then she smiled coldly, and wagged an authoritative finger at them.

“Behave yourselves and stop being a pain. Or there will be trouble.”

There was a slight pause, and one by one the copper nails rose out of the beams. They squealed loudly as they rocked back and forth, forcing themselves out of the wood. JC looked at Kim.

“Another little trick that you picked up on your travels?”

Kim smiled dazzlingly. “You’d be amazed what I can do when I put my mind to it.”

The last of the nails fell away, but the beams remained stubbornly in place. JC and Happy jumped down from the table, grabbed up heavy fire-irons from the open fire-place, then scrambled back up onto the rocking table again. Melody nodded approvingly as Happy handed her a heavy iron poker. The three of them attacked the oak beams with their new tools, forcing them deep into the wooden sides; and one by one they prised the heavy beams loose and sent them crashing to the floor.

By the time the last one fell away, JC and Happy and Melody were soaked with sweat and breathing hard. They had to help each other down from the table and lean on each other for support as they got their breath back.

“I did not sign up for manual labour,” said Happy. “If I wanted to work hard for a living, I’d have my head examined.”

They all looked round sharply. The storm was upon them. The roar of wind and rain was suddenly deafening, almost drowning out the sounds of battle still going on outside. The glass in the windows shattered as the wind ripped the wooden frames out of the old stone wall. The main entrance door was blown right off its hinges and fell clattering to the floor. Heavy rain blasted into the inn through the ragged openings where windows had been, almost like a storm at sea. For the first time, there were great long rolls of thunder, and jagged bursts of light from heavy forked lightning. The storm had arrived; and it wanted in. That old rage, which would not be denied.

“All right!” said Happy, flinching away from the rain spraying in. “We’ve got the beams! What now?”

“I say we take a tip from the Wicker Man,” said JC. “Burn the bloody things and destroy the physical link forever!”

“In here?” said Melody. “We light this much wood up, and we’ll all go up with it!”

“Not if we set a few alight, to get the pile started, then run like hell,” said Happy, judiciously. “I’m really very good at running like hell.”

They all looked up suddenly, open-mouthed despite themselves, as the ceiling lights rocked madly back and forth. And then, with a great creaking and groaning, the whole upper floor of the King’s Arms was torn away and thrown behind the inn, landing with an impact that shook what was left of the building. And then the whole ceiling was ripped away, revealing the Wicker Man standing over them, holding what was left of the disintegrating ceiling in his great green hands. The fires that were its eyes blazed fiercely. The wind and the rain blasted into the bar, immediately soaking JC and Happy and Melody to the skin. And then two massive hands grabbed the Wicker Man from behind. The Wicker Man dropped the ceiling and staggered backwards, as Lud hauled it away from what was left of the King’s Arms.

“Out!” said JC. “Everybody out of here, right now, before this mess collapses on us!”

“Way ahead of you, boss,” said Happy.

* * *

Back out in the clearing, the storm no longer hung overhead. It had come down to earth, at last, unleashing all the rage it had contained for so long. Gale-force winds blew so hard, JC and Happy and Melody could barely stand up straight and had to cling to each other to keep from being blown away. Rain hammered down with such force, it bounced back from the bare-earth floor of the clearing. Thunder roared, and forked lightning split the sky.

Lud had forced the Wicker Man to its knees and was happily tearing it to pieces. He’d already ripped off one of its arms. It lay twitching on the ground. Lud grabbed the square, featureless head with both hands, digging his clawed fingers in deep. The Wicker Man lurched back and forth but couldn’t break free. Lud roared triumphantly and ripped the head right off the green shoulders, crushing it beneath his hands. The two flaring eyes went out. The body stopped struggling and was still. And it seemed to JC that some of the strength went out of the storm.

The ghosts fell away from the motionless body of the Wicker Man, no longer needed. They stood in long ranks, unmoved and unbothered by the wind and rain, glowing fitfully like candles in danger of going out. They looked at the Ghost Finders. Waiting to see what they would do. Lud threw away the crushed wicker head and nodded familiarly to JC.

“So much evil done, in my name,” he said. His voice wasn’t all that loud, but it rang out easily over the storm. “All because I wanted to be worshipped . . . Nothing like dying to give you an appreciation for life. All life. I am leaving this world now, and it is only right I take some of this old evil with me.”

He disappeared, with a great flash of otherworldly light; and when the glare died away, he was gone, and so was the Wicker Man. The wind dropped away, some, and the rain wasn’t as bad. JC grinned. He’d suspected that the storm had placed a lot of its power in the Wicker Man.

Happy looked at JC. “What do we do now?”

“Give me a minute,” said JC. “I’m thinking . . .”

“I don’t think we have a minute!” said Melody. “The oak beams are still back in the inn. Should we drag them out here and burn them?”

“In this rain?” said Happy.

“Oh, I think they’ll go up easily enough,” said Melody.

“No,” said JC.

Melody looked at him. “No? What do you mean, no? It was your idea!”

“I think I’ve had a better one,” said JC. “Fire is the old way. The Druid way. And I have had enough of that old evil.”

He looked out across the clearing. Where the Wicker Man had been, the blonde woman stood in her white shift, untouched by the storm. JC walked over to stand before her, smiling reassuringly.

“Go,” he said kindly. “Go. There’s nothing holding you here any longer. This is still a place of power, the local power source; so use it to do something right, at last. Let your rage go. Let the storm go . . . And be at peace, at last.”

The blonde woman considered his words; and then nodded slowly. She rose into the air, light as a moonbeam, until, finally, she hung in the night sky, high above the clearing. Glowing bright as any star. One by one, the ghosts rose after her, taking the rain with them. The rain-drops reversed direction, falling upwards. The wind slowed, and calmed, and died out. The storm was gone. After so many years, only the rage had kept it going. One by one, the ghosts winked out, like blown-out candles. Until only the blonde woman remained. She looked around slowly, saying good-bye to the land and people she had looked over for so long, then . . . quietly and without any fuss, she was gone.