Simon Green - Spirits from Beyond

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.