Simon Green - Spirits from Beyond

“I get it,” said JC. “You’re saying that maybe we had it wrong before. The storm wasn’t the cry of the blonde woman. Just the opposite. Everything that’s happening here, from the rooms to the blonde woman to the ghosts, was really a manifestation of the storm.”

He glared about him, into the shifting, overlapping layers of ghosts that filled the main bar from one end to the other. Rank upon rank of shimmering grey figures, some more human or more complete than others. All of them constantly moving and stirring, never still for a moment. There was a general air of. . restlessness, as though they were all lost, or searching for something they couldn’t quite remember. They walked through walls and furniture and even the far ends of the bar-counter.

Still more ghosts came walking in, through the walls and the windows and the closed main door. Some seemed as solid as any real person while others faded in and out, wisps of human-shaped mist. Some had strange lights inside them that came and went, while others seemed oddly out of focus, as though not entirely sure who they were.

“I’ve never seen this many ghosts in one place at once,” said Melody.

“Call Guinness,” said Happy. “And yet. . I have to say, JC; they’re not actually frightening, as such. And I am an expert when it comes to being frightened. They don’t feel. . threatening.”

And then he broke off and fell back a step. Some of the ghosts were starting to notice that there was one place in the bar they couldn’t get into. They’d been banging up against the perimeter of an invisible circle of reason for some time; but now more and more of them were turning their dead gaze on the one place they couldn’t go. They turned their heads to look in that direction, with their cold, unblinking eyes, and those on the perimeter crowded up against the invisible barrier. They pressed slowly forward, taking a slow, steady interest in the three living souls inside the circle. And not in a good way.

The ghosts could see them now.

The crash of voices shut off in a moment, replaced by an intent, watchful silence. The ghosts stopped moving. They stood still, staring into the circle. An army of ghosts, with only one thought and one interest in common. To get in.

“Still think they’re not dangerous, Happy?” said JC.

“Something’s changed,” said Happy. “I can feel it.”

“Why are they looking at us?” said Melody, one hand resting protectively on her lap-top. “What do they want?”

“What do ghosts usually want?” said JC. “The one thing they can’t have. Life. Rooms aren’t the only things with unnatural appetites.”

“You’re not making me feel any better,” said Happy. “I really don’t like being looked at like this.”

“But we’re protected!” said Melody, her voice rising. “We had to go through all kinds of training, at the Carnacki Institute, before they’d allow us to go out into the field. Reinforcing our auras against possession, putting in extra layers of psychic protection, so we’d be safe from. . Things like this!”

“You might want to mention that to these ghosts,” said Happy. “Because they don’t seem to know that.”

“It’s the bloody local power source,” said JC. “They’re drawing on it to sustain their existence. . Or, more likely, it’s using them to get at us. The local power source is the storm! Or it’s the rage that drives the storm. Or Something. I swear, this whole case makes my head hurt. . Either way, the Big Bad has tried every other way to get at us, so now it’s using the one thing the King’s Arms has more of than anything else-ghosts.”

“Yes, but they’re still just ghosts,” said Melody. “Like you said. We can handle ghosts. They can’t reach us inside this circle.”

“Maybe,” said JC. “Who knows what ghosts can do when you put this many of them together? When it comes to things like scientific reality, I don’t think things are as clear-cut here, as everywhere else.”

The ghosts were pressing really close now, right up against the edges of the circle. JC and Happy and Melody huddled close together, looking quickly back and forth to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them. The ghosts were looking right at them, with cold, empty eyes. The sheer presence of so much death in one place was almost unbearably oppressive. JC could feel his heart hammering in his chest. It was getting harder to breathe. Like he had to fight for every breath of air. Some of the ghosts put their hands against the invisible barrier of the circle and pushed. The lap-top burst into flames on the bar-counter, and the scanners exploded. The first ghostly fingertips pushed forward, through the barrier.

Some of the ghosts were smiling.

JC stepped forward, whipped off his sunglasses, and glared right into the faces of the ghosts nearest him. They recoiled, falling back as though thrust away by some unseen force, unable to bear the pressure of JC’s golden, glowing eyes. But others immediately pressed forward to take their place, stepping right through the retreating ghosts. None of them could actually meet JC’s altered gaze, but it affected some more than others. And he could only look in one direction at a time. The ghosts were surging forward from every side now, and the protective circle seemed to be shrinking. JC looked desperately back and forth; and the ghosts looked back at him.

“So many ghosts. .” said Happy. “I’ve never seen so many in one place, even in the oldest parts of London.”

“What’s calling them here?” said Melody.

JC put his sunglasses back on. “Can’t help feeling I’m getting less and less mileage out of my gaze.”

“Maybe the world’s getting used to it,” said Melody.

JC looked at her. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know!” said Melody.

“Whatever’s at the heart of what’s happening here,” JC said heavily, “we must be pretty close to finding it or it wouldn’t be trying so hard to stop us.”

“I don’t think so,” said Happy, slowly. “It doesn’t feel like that. . I may be wrong, JC, but it really doesn’t feel to me like we’re in any danger from these ghosts.”

JC looked at him. “They seem desperate enough to get in and get at us. Are you sure about this, Happy?”

“Of course I’m not sure!” said Happy. “There’s so much spectral information here, it’s swamping my Sight. But look at their faces! That’s not hate, or malevolence, or even revenge. That’s. . need, anticipation, maybe even hope. They don’t want to kill us; they want something from us. And you know what; I don’t see the blonde woman anywhere.”

“She isn’t a ghost, remember?” said Melody. “Though. . I suppose she could be orchestrating all this, from a distance.”

“Take a good look around, Happy,” said JC. “Are you sure you can’t See her anywhere?”

Happy snarled and shook his head. “I keep telling you; the aether’s so saturated with psychic energies, it’s like trying to look through thick fog.”

“You make this stuff up as you go along, don’t you?” said JC.

Kim suddenly reappeared, right there inside the shrinking circle with them, smiling brightly. Everyone jumped. Melody glared at her.

“How can you be in here, with us-in a circle of scientific reality? Not that I’m not glad to see you, of course, but. .”

“I can be here because I’m linked to all of you,” said Kim. “I belong with you. Your affirmation of my existence overpowers science’s need to deny me.”

“All right, now you’re making stuff up, too,” said JC. “Where have you been, Kim?”

“Searching,” Kim said cheerfully. “The ghosts didn’t want to hurt me; they wanted to point us in the right direction. There’s a power behind these ghosts that’s trying to distract you. Follow me.”