Simon Green - Ghost of a Dream

“These are my machines,” she said coldly. “Because I am the real deal, and you are not. As far as I can tell, you’re made out of snot and mucus, and I’m not letting you get your nasty ectoplasm all over my nice clean instruments.”

“Girls, girls,” muttered the Faust. “Don’t argue. Or, on second thought, do. Argue! Dispute! Kill the unworthy duplicate who wants to take your place in the world. I’ll hold your coats if you like.”

“Shut up!” said Melody.

“Stay out of this!” said the dupe.

Neither of them spared a glance for the Faust; they were glaring at each other, eyes locked. The dupe snarled at Melody.

“I’m the real thing. I don’t know what you are.”

“You’re an ectoplasmic dupe,” said Melody. “Which is why I’m standing on the right side of the instruments.”

That threw the dupe for a moment, but she quickly shook it off. “That is a mistake, easily rectified.”

Melody sank down and shot up again with her machine-pistol in her hand, pointed right into the dupe’s face. “Yeah right. Let’s see you try, ecto-bitch.”

But the dupe had already brought up her hand, also holding a machine-pistol. She pointed it at Melody’s head. “Who are you calling a bitch, bitch?”

“Fight, fight, fight!” said the Faust, happily.

“Shut up!” said both Melodys, in perfect unison. And then they both stopped, looking at each other in a new way.

“He’s behind all this,” said the dupe. “He’s the enemy.”

“He wants me to shoot myself,” said Melody. “Because for all his fine words and grand claims…I don’t think he’s up to the task.”

“I don’t think we should solve this with guns,” said the dupe. “I don’t think we should give him that satisfaction.”

“Damn right,” said Melody. And she lowered her gun.

The dupe hesitated for a second, then lowered her gun, too. “Typical man, getting a woman to tear herself apart. But we’ve got to sort this out somehow. What do you suggest?”

“Put it to the machines,” said Melody. “They can scan us, right down to our DNA, and decide who’s who and what’s what.”

“Sounds good to me,” said the dupe. “If we can’t trust our instruments, what can we trust?”

She came behind the wall of equipment to stand beside Melody, who was already firing up the short-range scanners and putting them to work. It only took the machines a moment to study both women, inside and out, and come up with a definitive answer. That the dupe was the real Melody Chambers.

The dupe let out a long, slow sigh of relief, before turning triumphantly to face Melody. “See? When in doubt, put your faith in the machines.”

“Except when you know someone’s been messing with them,” said Melody. “Remember before the Faust made his big entrance?”

“No,” said the dupe. “No…”

Melody brought up her machine-pistol and put a single bullet through her duplicate’s forehead. The impact snapped the dupe’s head backwards and sent her somersaulting back over the wall of instruments to crash onto the floor beyond. Melody turned to the Faust.

“You bastard. Making me shoot myself. I couldn’t let her live; I could never trust her because she was your creation. Not really real…But damn you anyway for making me do it.”

And then she broke off as she heard low moans and scrabbling noises from the other side of the machines. Melody hurried out, to find her dupe lying sprawled on the floor, leaking a chilly white fluid from the small hole in her forehead and the larger hole in the back of her head. More ectoplasm was leaking from the dupe’s fingertips. Drifting on the air, slowly dispersing.

“You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy to kill yourself?” said the Faust. “You can’t kill ectoplasm by shooting it in the head. All you did was break the surface tension. Oh yes, you’ve destroyed your duplicate, all right…Now all you have to do is watch yourself die slowly. That’s me, you see, always two moves ahead.”

Melody ignored him, crouching at her duplicate’s side. The dupe looked up at her sadly.

“I’m sorry. He made me too well. I really thought I was me. I mean, you…And now I’m dying. I’m scared, Melody.”

“Don’t be,” said Melody. “I’m here with you.” She glared across at the Faust. “You worthless piece of shit. Don’t let her suffer like this. Do something!”

“I am!” said the Faust. “I’m enjoying it! More than one way to skin a cat, or break a spirit.”

Melody sat down on the floor beside the dying dupe and took her in her arms. She held her tightly, while the dupe shook and shuddered, slowly breaking up, losing basic coherence as ectoplasm leaked from everywhere at once. Melody didn’t know what to do. She’d never felt so helpless. But when the machines can’t help you, all that’s left is to be human. And care.

“I’m so cold…” said the dupe. Her eyes weren’t tracking any more.

“Hush,” said Melody. “Hush. It’s all right. I’m here.”

Ectoplasm boiled off the dupe’s body, rising like a thin white mist, dispersing quickly on the still lobby air. Melody could feel the dupe’s form growing soft and vague in her arms. The dupe grabbed at Melody’s hand with her own. Melody took hold of it firmly, and it fell apart in her fingers. The dupe’s face fell in, collapsing. The eyes and the mouth were the last to go. The dupe’s lips moved.

“Melody. Make him pay.”

And then she burst. Great splashes of ectoplasm soaked Melody from top to toe. Her arms were full of a chalky, white, liquid mass, quickly falling apart into mists, which dispersed in the air and were gone. Melody was left sitting on the floor with empty arms. Her clothes were dry, all traces of ectoplasm gone. She got up, clambering awkwardly to her feet, and looked at the Faust with cold, cold eyes. He smiled easily back at her.

“So,” he said. “Are we having fun yet?”

“What are you?” she said. “Isn’t there anything human left inside you?”

“Why should I settle for anything so small, so limited? I am the Faust. I’m everything that ever scared you, little girl, in one easy, soul-destroying package! Can I get a halleluiah?”

Melody brought up her machine-pistol, and opened fire. The Faust stood sportingly still before her, soaking up every bullet that hit him. He didn’t so much as flinch while the bullets hit him, over and over again. The bullets punched into him, but he took no damage, and he didn’t bleed. Even the holes in the front of his nice suit healed themselves instantly. When Melody finally gave up, stopped shooting, and lowered her gun, the Faust coughed obligingly and spat the bullets out onto the palm of his hand. He let them drop, to jump and rattle loudly on the lobby floor.

“I’m not soft, everyday flesh like you, little girl. Not any more. I am the new flesh, the better flesh, The Flesh Undying in the world of mortal men. The clue is in the name, really…”

“I’ll kill you,” said Melody. “I will find a way to kill you.”

The Faust ignored her, his perfect brow creased with a hint of concentration. “Door!” he said, finally.

And a Door appeared in the lobby, appearing suddenly and silently out of nowhere. It looked like an ordinary everyday door except that it was hanging high up on the air, below the lobby ceiling. Entirely horizontal, facedown.

“I think something terribly theatrical is needed here,” said the Faust. “I think this calls for…the Phantom of the Haybarn!”

The Door dropped open, hanging down, and something dropped out of it like a bag of garbage. A dark shape that hit the floor of the lobby hard. But it didn’t break, and it didn’t cry out. Melody quickly covered it with her machine-pistol; and the Faust chuckled. At first, Melody couldn’t make out what it was—a hunched figure, crouching on the floor, hidden under a heavy black cape. It rocked back and forth, swaying this way and that; and then it rose suddenly upright and spun around to glare at Melody.