Simon Green: Ghost of a Smile

JC nodded for Happy to go keep Melody company, and the telepath moved quickly over to join her-and watch her back. Once Melody was immersed in recording something, she often became blind to more immediate dangers. And Happy also knew that JC wanted him to observe everything telepathically, from a safe distance. Just in case. Kim drifted quietly out across the open factory floor, not even bothering to walk, as she concentrated on the matter at hand. She faded away some more as she gave less thought to her manifestation and more to what JC wanted of her.

Everyone looked round sharply. Nothing obvious had changed, but the sense of presence, or someone or something watching from the darkness, was suddenly that much stronger. Tiley called Susan back to him, and they huddled together, holding each other’s hands. Melody bent over her instruments, rapt at what her sensors were picking up. Happy bit down hard on his lower lip, concentrating on his mental shields. All around the factory, the shadows were longer and deeper and darker. The quality of what light remained seemed subtly debased, stained, even bruised. Tension coiled on the air, gradually growing tighter. And JC… watched it all with an easy grin, like a ringmaster at his own private circus.

“Anything, Kim?” he said.

“Something, JC,” said the ghost. “There’s so much information in this place. Layers and levels, some recent and some old… some very old. Wait, I think I’ve made contact…”

And the machinery returned. The whole factory floor was suddenly blazing with light and packed with huge machines, all of them working, constantly moving, deafeningly loud. Parts rose and fell, other parts slammed together, and a work-force of hundreds moved around them, operating machines, darting back and forth, picking things up and conveying them away. It was terribly loud and unmistakably present, but still, somehow… distant. As though separated from this Time by some unimaginable direction. JC moved in close beside Tiley, so he could shout in his ear.

“This is the top layer of the stone tape, a recording, playing back. Past events soaked into their surroundings, emerging again in the Present. What you’re seeing is a vision, a portrayal of what used to be here. A true vision, of real events, but not real now. We can see it but not affect it.”

Graham Tiley shook his head numbly. “I remember this… I know these people! Men I worked with, men I knew… Faces I haven’t thought of in years, and old friends long dead… Am I in there, somewhere? They all look so young! I want to go to them, and talk to them, warn them of things that are going to happen…”

“But you can’t,” said JC. “Because they’re not really here. If you walked among them, they couldn’t see you… You’d be a ghost to them. An image, out of Time.”

“Some of them are going to die young,” said Tiley. “Some are going to be maimed, and killed, stupid accidents that could so easily be prevented. And I can’t help them. The Past can be cruel, sometimes.”

And then the huge machines, and all the work-force tending them, began to slowly fade away. The sound went first, the thunder of the machines growing steadily quieter, as though receding into the distance. Then the image itself grew thin and insubstantial and was gone. The top layer of the stone tape disappeared, as something else moved forward to take its place. New images began to form, out of the Past.

“It’s the next layer of the stone tape,” JC said to Graham. “The level below, from deeper in the Past. Pushing aside the more recent image to make itself known.”

“It’s rising,” said Kim. Her gaze was far away, and her voice didn’t sound entirely human. “Forcing the more recent Past aside. JC, Something’s coming…”

“Who?” said JC, quietly but firmly. “Tell me, Kim. Who is it that’s coming?”

“Living things, old things, summoned things,” said Kim, not even looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on something only she could see. “Power. Old power. Harnessed power… blood and death, set to unnatural purpose… Something very old was called up here, to do terrible things… and it’s still here!”

“Summoned?” said JC. “What was summoned up, Kim? And who summoned it? Why?”

“Retribution,” said Kim.

JC stepped forward and took off his sunglasses. Tiley and Susan both cried out as they saw why he wore them. Something had happened to JC on a previous case. Trapped on a hell train, surrounded by demons, fighting for his life and for Kim, when all seemed lost, Something had reached down from the Higher Dimensions and touched JC briefly. Giving him the strength he needed to save them both. Much of that strength was gone now, but his eyes still shone like the sun, glowing with a strange brilliance. JC saw the world very clearly now; and when he needed to, he could See a great many things that were usually hidden from the living. All the secrets and wonders of the invisible world.

It had taken him a long time to find sunglasses dark enough and heavy enough to hide his glowing eyes.

JC glanced at Graham Tiley and Susan, and they both shrank back from his illuminated gaze.

“Don’t worry,” he said easily. “Think of them as psychic searchlights.”

“Stop fannying around being pleased with yourself, and concentrate,” snapped Melody, not looking up from her display screens. “What do you See? The readings I’m getting are all over the place, and half of them don’t make a blind bit of sense. I’m getting energy spikes, electromagnetic radiation… I’m getting Time, I’m getting Deep Time… Whatever’s heading our way is rising up from the bottom of the stone tape, recordings laid down centuries before. And the power readings are right off the scale… as though something is riding on the stone tape, using it to break out of the Past and into the Present.”

“And that is never good,” said Happy. “I’d run if I thought it would do any good. Something’s definitely coming, JC, closing in on us, closing in…”

Dark shapes appeared out of nowhere, imposing their existence on reality, huge and threatening. They manifested up and down the whole length of the factory, snapping into existence in ones and twos, sticking to the shadows, keeping well away from what little light was left. Tiley held out his storm lantern, holding it high to cover himself and his grand-daughter in the soft yellow light… but the dark shapes ignored him, prowling round the exterior of the factory floor. They were slowly taking on shape and form, vicious and malevolent shapes, with teeth and claws and glowing blood-red eyes.

“Happy,” said JC, apparently entirely unconcerned by what was happening all around him, “are you by any chance picking up anything with that amazing telepathic mind of yours? Because if so, now would be a good time to share. What are these things? What are we dealing with here?”

“I’m getting hunger, and rage, and a hell of a lot of bad attitude,” said Happy, from where he was hiding behind Melody. “But you can probably tell that from looking at them. I can’t seem to fix on what they actually are; I think whoever summoned them imposed a shape and form on them. Melody, what are these things? Elementals? Animal spirits? Something from the Outer Circles?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” said Melody, her gaze flashing from one display screen to the next, her fingers stabbing at her keyboards. “The readings I’m getting are… confused, to say the least. All I can tell you is that whatever is behind these manifestations is old. Very old. Centuries old. Hell, they might even be Pre-human in origin!”

“I’m picking up human traits along with the animal,” said Happy, rubbing miserably at his head. “And not in a good way.”