Simon Green - Ghost of a Chance

“Okay,” said JC. “This we can deal with.”

“And the other-dimensional nasty?” said Melody.

“We’ll get to it,” said JC. “After we’ve kicked the Project agents out of here.”

“I love it when he gets all confident,” Happy said to Melody. “Don’t you just love it when he gets all confident? Doesn’t it make you feel all safe and protected?”

“The hell train was sent to break our nerve, undermine our confidence,” JC said patiently. “But in the end, it doesn’t matter what’s behind this haunting. If it’s come into our world, it has to obey our rules. It can’t operate here unless it’s taken on a material form; and if it’s material, we can kick its arse.”

“I knew it,” said Happy, rolling his eyes. “He’s going to walk up to an other-dimensional entity and look for an arse to kick. I want a transfer to another team. Do you know if the Foreign Legion’s hiring?”

“You don’t speak French,” said Melody.

“I’ll learn!”

“Hush, man,” said JC imperiously. “Your leader and commander is talking. Even if we are dealing with some Force or Power from the afterworlds, whatever it is must be using someone or something from our dimension as a focus, an entry point into our plane of existence. Some original event that roots the haunting in this station. So all we have to do is identify and locate the focal point, deal with it, and we can shut this whole mess down. Melody?”

“I’m working on it,” said Melody. She felt rather better, now that she had a definite goal to pursue. “I’m getting so many readings, it’s hard to tell what’s significant and what isn’t . . . I’ve never seen so many manifestations in one location. This place must be lousy with ghosts at the best of times.”

JC looked at Happy. “Well?”

“Don’t push me!” he snapped. “I’m trying! But the aether’s so full of psychic information it’s practically saturated. There’s too much going on; it’s like a thousand signals all broadcasting at once and bouncing around inside my head.”

“Try,” said JC.

“Bully! I need my pills.”

“Then take some,” said JC. “Do whatever you have to, to put your thoughts in order. Because you’re no use to me like this.”

“JC!” said Melody, turning away from her keyboards to glare at him. “You know what too much of that stuff does to him! Those pills are killing him by inches!”

“Yes,” said JC. “I know. But we all do what we have to. Needs must when the Devil drives, and all that. A few for now, Happy. Just enough to let you function.”

“You ruthless little shit,” said Melody. And she turned her back on both of them and concentrated on her machines.

“You’re a good man, JC,” said Happy, fumbling a handful of bottles from out of his pockets and peering myopically at the handwritten labels. “I don’t care what anyone else says.”

He finally selected one particular bottle, smiled cheerily in anticipation, got the cap off with only a little effort, and knocked back two little green pills. He dry swallowed hard, considered, then took one more before replacing the cap and making the bottle disappear. He stood very still, contemplating what was going on inside him, then his lips widened into a smile like a death’shead grin.

“Oh yes . . . This is the stuff to give the boys! It’s bad down here, but I’m the baddest thing in this station! Yes yes yes!” He broke into a soft-shoe routine, lost interest, realised JC was looking at him steadily, and giggled briefly. “On the job, JC! Oh yes! I’m getting something. I’m picking up all kinds of psychic traces, but only one original to this location that’s recent enough to qualify as a probable focal point. God, I feel lucid. Something happened right here, on this platform, within the last few days.”

“Are you . . . all right, Happy?” said Melody. “You don’t look too good.”

“I feel fine! Fine!”

“The sweat is pouring off your face, Happy,” said JC. “And your eyes . . .”

“I am in the groove!” said Happy. “Now shut up and let me work. Oh, I’m on fire now! Someone died here. Murdered. A young woman . . . robbed of so many years, so much future life. That’s a great source of power for whoever was responsible, all those potential years. Murder magic. Necromancy. Bad stuff.”

“Can you reach her?” said JC. “Can you contact her? Bring her here, make her manifest for us?”

“She’s coming,” said Happy. His face was flushed, he couldn’t stop grinning, and his eyes were fever bright. “Our life energies are drawing the murdered girl here. We blaze so brightly to her dead eyes, and so she comes to us out of the dark like a moth to a flame, or a child to a familiar, once-loved place. She’s almost here. Be gentle with her, JC. She doesn’t understand that she’s dead. She’s trapped in a half-way state, caught up in a dream that never ends. Never really aware of where she is, or what’s happening. Don’t try to wake her, JC. That would be cruel.”

He’d barely finished speaking when a young woman appeared suddenly out of nowhere, right there on the platform before them, standing with her back to them as though waiting for a train. She stood on the very edge of the platform, lost in her own thoughts, occasionally looking down the tracks at the tunnel-mouth, waiting for a train that would never come. She didn’t seem to notice JC or Happy or Melody. JC moved slowly, cautiously, forward until he was standing beside her, a polite distance away. She didn’t look at him. JC looked at her.

His first thought was how beautiful she was. A pre-Raphaelite dream of a woman in her late twenties, with a huge mane of glorious red hair tumbling down around a high-boned, sharply defined face. Her eyes were a vivid green, and her mouth was a bright red dream, with a smile tucked away in one corner. She wore a long white dress that clung tightly here and there to show off a magnificent figure. She seemed calm enough, real enough . . . so full of life, with so much still to live for. All the things she might have done, all the things she might have achieved . . . For a moment, JC couldn’t speak, overwhelmed with pain and rage at what had been done to her, at what she’d been so cruelly deprived of. He made himself look away and glanced back at Melody.

“Use the database of missing persons,” he said quietly. “Find her. I need to know her name, and exactly what happened. I need to know everything about her.”

“Way ahead of you,” said Melody. “I’m looking at the police report now, but there’s not much in it. Only the bare facts of her murder, death from a single stab wound . . . no witnesses, no suspects. Nothing here to suggest she was anyone important.”

“They’re all important,” said JC. “All the people, all the victims, who end up as ghosts. That’s why we do this.”

“This is an unusually strong manifestation,” said Happy. “Try talking to her, JC. See if she’ll answer you.”

“What’s her name?” said JC. “Do we at least have a name for her?”

“Kim Sterling,” said Melody.

JC moved in close beside the ghost, and she turned her head slowly to look at him with her lost, dreamy eyes.

“Kim,” said JC. “Kim, what are you doing here?”

“I’m an actress,” she said, in a warm sweet contralto voice. “On my way to an audition. It’s a good part, come right out of the blue; and I have a good feeling about it. This could be my big break, at last. I could really shine, in a role like this. I wish the train would come. It feels like I’ve been standing here for ages.”

JC didn’t have the heart to tell her that the train would never come, for her. Kim smiled at him suddenly.

“Do I know you? You look nice. Kind.”