Simon Green: Ghost of a Smile

It was all over very quickly. In the end, Patterson stood alone, surrounded by the dead, with fresh blood dripping from his hands. He laughed soundlessly. And then he turned to look at Catherine Latimer.

He nodded cheerfully to her, and she stared back at him with stiff, frozen features. Patterson took a step towards her, and JC, Melody, and Happy immediately moved forward, putting themselves between their Boss and the dead man. Latimer started to say something, then stopped herself. They were following their training. Patterson studied them all thoughtfully.

“Who are you?” said JC.

Patterson stood very still, not breathing hard, not breathing at all. He nodded slowly to JC, still smiling his wide, wide smile, as though this was the finest thing ever, the most fun he’d ever had.

“You’d know my name if I said it,” the dead man said in a breathy, scratchy voice. “So I won’t say it.”

The voice grated on everyone’s nerves. It was only breath, moving over vocal cords. Nothing human in it at all.

“All right,” said JC. “Let’s try an easier one. What do you want?”

“I will kill you all,” said the dead man. “And you can’t stop me. You should never have come here. You should never have interfered.”

“I hate to be picky about this, oh high-and-mighty dead person,” said JC, “but you brought us here. Or at least Patterson did, presumably on your orders.”

“You were supposed to fail,” said the dead man. “I chose you, above all the other A teams, because you had the least experience. I had to get you in place before someone better turned up. You were supposed to walk in there, like good little sacrificial lambs, and fall to the New People. Or their creatures. The New People were taking too long. They needed a nudge, some exterior pressure, to get them moving. We arranged for their creation, you see, so they would damage reality… break it open from within. Smash the walls of the world.”

“You wanted the New People to destroy the world?” said Latimer. “Why?”

“The world doesn’t matter,” said Patterson. “It’s merely a cage, from which we will escape. The New People were only ever a means to an end.”

Latimer’s phone rang. Everything stopped for a moment, reacting to the harsh ringing tone. Latimer took out the phone and put it to her ear, never taking her gaze off the dead man before her. He looked vaguely annoyed at being interrupted but let her answer it. Presumably some reactions are ingrained, even on the dead.

“Yes, I know,” said Latimer. “Yes, I’m looking right at him. No! Stay where you are! That’s an order! Maintain the perimeter at all costs. Nothing else matters. Hold the line until I tell you otherwise

… or until it’s clear I’m no longer in charge. Then you take your orders from the Second In Command. God help you. Now don’t bother me again. I’m busy.”

She put the phone away. Happy looked at her, almost in shock.

“That’s it? Shouldn’t we contact Institute Headquarters, get some serious reinforcements down here, with really serious weapons?”

“By the time they could get here, this will all be over,” Latimer said flatly. “One way or the other.”

“You should get the hell out of here, Boss,” said JC. “You’re too valuable to the Institute to put yourself at risk.”

“Yes, I am,” said Latimer. “Good of you to remember that, for once. Unfortunately, my emergency teleport button isn’t working. It should have removed me to safety the moment it became clear brute force wouldn’t stop that thing but it would appear something… is blocking it. Which isn’t supposed to be possible. I can only assume Patterson betrayed us on a great many levels, sharing his insider knowledge with whoever or whatever is riding him now. I could run, I suppose but I doubt I’d get very far.”

“Typical,” Happy said bitterly. “The Boss gets an emergency teleport button, but we don’t. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an emergency teleport button.”

“I did,” said Melody. “I’ve been trying to hack its files for months, so I could build one of my own.”

“Oh, that was you, was it?” said Latimer. “We will discuss that later, young lady.”

“Excuse me,” said JC. “Do you think we could all concentrate on the matter at hand, pretty please? Namely, the dead man with the blood of many on his hands, standing right in front of us? And no, I wouldn’t try outrunning him, Boss. You saw how fast whatever it is moved. I suppose once you’re dead, human limitations don’t apply any more.”

“No,” said Kim. “They don’t. But there are other limits.”

JC looked at her. “Anything you can See, anything you can tell us, about the dead man?”

“He’s got one hell of an aura. Lots of purple. Just by being present, he’s burning up that body. Though probably not soon enough to do us any good. So much power… Whatever it is that’s riding Patterson, I don’t think it’s human. Or at least, not human any more.”

JC nodded quickly, as though that was nothing more than he’d expected, and turned his attention back to Latimer.

“Have you got any special weapons about you? Objects of Power, that kind of thing?”

“Not actually on me,” said Latimer. “Didn’t think I’d be needing them. I wasn’t even expecting to be up and about at this ungodly hour of the morning.”

“It’s a pity you haven’t got that Hand of Glory monkey’s paw thing any more,” Kim said artlessly. “I’m almost sure it would have helped.”

Latimer glared at JC. “I knew it! It was you! The moment I heard another of those things had gone missing from the Armoury, I knew it was down to you!”

“Another?” said Happy. “How many of those things have you got in storage? They’re dangerous and damned, and I think I’ll stop talking so you’ll stop glaring at me in that really quite scary way ooh look a sparrow.”

“Something else we should perhaps discuss at a later time,” said JC, ignoring Happy with the ease of long practice. “The point is, I don’t have it any longer.”

“What? What have you done with it?”

“I sort of… lost it,” said JC.

“I will have your balls for this,” said Latimer.

“Melody, Happy,” said JC. “Do you have any weapons, legal or otherwise, about your person and please say yes.”

“I’ve still got my machine pistol,” said Melody. “But it’s out of ammo, remember? And there’s probably some useful things I could be doing with my instruments if I’d only had time to activate them.” She scowled. “I hate being caught unprepared.”

“She does,” said Happy. “She really does.” He stuck both hands in his pockets and glowered at the dead man. “And don’t look at me, either, JC. I’ve got nothing that could even touch Patterson. He’s got shields you wouldn’t believe. We are all seriously outclassed here.”

“You mean, like we were with the New People?” said JC.

“Well, no, not on that level,” Happy said immediately. “He’s a Power. They were more like gods.”

“We won out over the New People,” said JC. “So, we should be able to beat Patterson if we put our minds to it.”

“Confidence is a wonderful thing,” said Happy. “Where did I put my pills…”

And then he broke off, as he realised Patterson wasn’t looking at them. The dead man was giving his full attention to Kim. She rose and fell slowly in place, her eyes locked with his, unable to look away.

“Little ghost girl,” said Patterson. “You shouldn’t still be here. Flaunting your undecided status. You’re staying for him, aren’t you? He can’t ever love you, not really, because you’re not a real girl.”

“He knows me,” Kim whispered. “The thing inside Patterson. He can see inside me. I can hear him, he wants to do things to me. Awful things. Things he can’t do to the living…”