Forces from Beyond (9 page)

“It’s . . . gone!” said the technician. “Just gone!”

The room went very quiet. The technicians stopped working. Nimmo looked at the blank viewscreen, then at the various pieces of equipment surrounding him. He seemed lost, unsure what to do.

“Did we get any real information before the submersible was destroyed?” asked JC. “Anything useful?”

Nimmo and Melody conferred quietly, studying the information streams and checking with the technicians, before reluctantly turning back to the others.

“The drone couldn’t get close enough,” said Nimmo.

“At least we can be sure that was the Flesh Undying,” said Melody. “We can find it again. It’s not like anything that big can uproot itself and move to some new location. For the first time, it’s vulnerable.”

The massive viewscreen exploded. Shattered in a moment by some unknown force, its shrapnel tore through Nimmo, killing him instantly. Blood, flesh, and splintered bone flew across the room. Happy started moving before Melody stopped speaking. Forewarned by some psychic insight, he threw himself at Melody and dragged her to the floor. Shrapnel blasted over their heads as they huddled together. All around the room, computers exploded one after another like a string of firecrackers, destroying the work stations and killing all the technicians. Their mangled bodies were thrown in all directions. Fires broke out, burning fiercely, jumping from surface to surface until the air shimmered from the intense heat. Kim stepped inside JC, and the golden glow leapt out to surround and protect them. Catherine Latimer grabbed Melody Chang and pulled her down to the floor. A tall bank of heavy equipment toppled over and fell on them.

JC produced the Hand of Glory from inside his jacket. He activated it with a Word of command, and eerie blue flames jumped up from each fingertip, rising straight up despite all the disturbances in the air. Everything slammed to a crawl as JC slowed the passage of Time, bringing it to an almost complete halt. He looked quickly around him. Shrapnel hung in the air like so many interrupted bullets, while fires bulged and flared with slow, malignant purpose. Protected by the Hand, JC moved carefully forward, forcing his way through the heavy resistance of the air. He set his shoulder against the falling bank of equipment as it hovered over Latimer and Chang, and threw all his strength against it. He couldn’t move it an inch. Weight and inertia kept it frozen in place. The golden glow surrounding JC became even more intense as he concentrated, setting all his strength against the bank of equipment. And slowly, inch by reluctant inch, it moved away from its intended victims.

The moment it was clear, JC stepped back, breathing hard. He was soaked with sweat, from his exertions and the increasing temperature in the room. The flames couldn’t reach him, but the heat was everywhere. He held up the Hand of Glory, and forced out several very old Words. Time speeded up just a little, as the Hand’s protection leapt out to cover the four people on the floor. JC grabbed Happy and Melody, and hauled them onto their feet. They looked around wildly, saw the Hand in his hand, and quickly understood. Latimer and Chang were already scrambling to their feet. Latimer seemed entirely unflustered. Chang started to say something angry, then bolted for the door. The others went after her.

They had to dodge around slowly moving shrapnel, still hanging in the air, and keep out of the way of the slowly rising and falling flames, while forcing their way through resistance from the heavy air. Time was not on their side. Something exploded behind them, and the pressure wave hit their backs like a hard shove. When they got to the door, it was locked. Chang tried to work the number pad, but the buttons wouldn’t depress. They were still stuck in Time. Latimer stepped past Chang and put her shoulder to the door. It jumped right off its hinges and out of its frame, falling heavily into the corridor beyond. Latimer hurried out without looking back, and the others went after her.

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Once they were all out in the corridor, JC blew out the flames on the Hand of Glory, and Time slammed back into its normal progress. More explosions tore through the room behind them, and a vicious blast of heat erupted from the open doorway. Happy and Melody and Chang jumped back from it; JC and Latimer didn’t. Thick black smoke filled the room and billowed out into the corridor. JC and Latimer picked the heavy door up off the floor and forced it back into its frame. Jamming it in place, sealing off the heat and smoke. And then everyone looked at everyone else.

“What the hell just happened?” said Natasha Chang.

“We were attacked,” said JC. “You must have noticed.”

“Not that!” said Chang. “How were you, the two of you, able to do that?”

“Sorry,” said Latimer. “There’s a limit to the information we’re prepared to share. You know how it is.”

“Hold it,” said Chang. “Where are my security guards?”

There was no sign anywhere of the half dozen armed men. The corridor was empty.

“They wouldn’t just abandon their post!” said Chang.

“Unless they knew what was about to happen,” said Latimer. “I told you. The Flesh Undying has agents everywhere.”

“Bastards!” said Chang. “I’ll have their balls for this.”

“It knew,” said Melody. “The Flesh Undying . . . it knew we were watching. Not just the submersible—us!”

“Presumably why it tried to kill us,” said JC. “How powerful must it be, that it could strike at us over such a distance?”

Happy cried out suddenly, grabbing at his head with both hands. Melody was quickly there at his side, supporting him.

“What is it, Happy? What’s wrong?”

“Psychic attack,” he said sickly. His face was white with shock, but his eyes were very dark. “The Flesh Undying is reaching out, trying to locate us. I’m shielding us as best I can, but . . .”

“What pills do you need?” said Melody.

“It’s the drugs that have messed up my abilities,” said Happy. “My brain chemistry is wired like a weasel on speed, just to keep me focused. I told you, Mel; I’m damaged goods, now. Chang, can you . . . ?”

“No,” Natasha Chang said immediately. “My shields were put in place; I don’t control them. And I doubt even they can keep out a monster like the Flesh Undying.”

JC looked at Latimer. “You and I, we have certain advantages. We could . . .”

“No we couldn’t,” said Latimer. “We’d blaze too brightly, give away our position. The Flesh Undying would find us in a moment.”

“What are you talking about?” said Chang. “And why is he glowing like that?”

“Isn’t it in our files?” said JC, unable to resist.

“We have to hide,” said Latimer.

“Where?” said Happy. “If I can’t shield you, who can?”

“People,” said Latimer. “The convention. We can hide in plain sight, among the convention-goers. That is why I arranged for us to meet here, while the convention is in session. We dive into the crowd and we’re invisible. The Flesh Undying won’t be able to pick out a few individual minds among so many. Move!”

“Yes, Boss,” said JC.

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They ran through the empty corridors of the Conference Centre. Catherine Latimer led the way, showing quite a remarkable turn of speed for a woman of her advanced years. They crashed through the doors of the dealers room, then stumbled to a halt. The great hall was just as packed as the last time they’d seen it, but no-one was moving. The crowds stood motionless and utterly silent in the aisles between the stalls and tables, and not one person looked around at the sudden entrance. The newcomers remained by the doors, huddled together for comfort in the face of something they didn’t understand.

“Why is it so quiet?” said Melody. Whispering in spite of herself.

“Quiet as the grave,” said JC.

“You had to say that, didn’t you?” said Happy. “But you’re right. I’m scanning the whole room and I am telling you . . . there’s no-one here. Not a single living soul.”

“What do you mean?” said Chang. “I can see them! Or is this some kind of illusion?”

“They’re dead,” said Happy. “Every single one of them. We’re looking at a roomful of ghosts.”

“Can you sense the Flesh Undying?” said Latimer. “Is it still trying to find us?”

“No,” said Happy, frowning. “It’s gone. That’s odd . . .”

“How can they all be ghosts?” said Melody, peering uneasily about her. “I mean, they all look fine. Except for the whole not moving or speaking thing. No-one looks hurt or damaged. How could this many people have all died at the same time?”

“That’s it,” said Kim, stepping out of JC. The golden glow died away as she looked steadily around her. “Everyone here died at exactly the same moment. I can tell. They all died so suddenly they haven’t realised they’re dead yet. They’re still caught in the moment, waiting for someone to tell them what’s happened and what they’re supposed to do. Which means . . . it’s up to me.”

She walked forward, into the great crowd of ghosts, and heads slowly began to turn as the dead became aware of her presence. Of someone just like them. She smiled reassuringly about her, and the dead men and women moved back, to open up a narrow corridor for her to walk through. And just like that, Kim was moving in a new direction, that the living standing by the doors could see but not understand. A new way, a new path, leading away from the world. A door appeared in the far wall. A very ordinary-looking door, with a glowing sign above it, that said simply
EXIT
.

Happy started to go after Kim, drawn towards the door; and then stopped himself. He looked at Melody and smiled briefly. He wasn’t ready to go. Not yet.

The exit door swung silently open as Kim approached it, and an unearthly light shone out. The living people at the entrance doors had to turn their faces away, but the silent dead stared into the light with an almost palpable yearning. It called to them—calling them home, at last. Kim stood before the open door and looked in; and then stepped back to stand beside it. She gestured for the ghosts to go through, and those nearest started forward. One by one, every dead man and woman in the room filed through the door and into the light. Taking their time because they had all the time in the world now. When the very last ghost had passed through, disappearing into the light, the exit door closed itself and disappeared. With the light gone, the living standing by the entrance doors were able to look back into the room again. It was just as silent; but now the aisles between the stalls and tables were full of dead bodies, lying sprawled and motionless on the floor.

Kim came back to join the others, walking on the air a few feet above the bodies. She settled on the floor in front of the small group, most of whom regarded her with a new respect.

“Did you call that door?” said JC.

“No,” said Kim. “It came for them.”

“You looked through the door, into the light,” said Happy. “What did you see?”

“I don’t remember,” said Kim. “I don’t think I’m allowed to.”

JC looked about him. “So many dead people . . .”

“What killed them?” said Melody.

“The Flesh Undying,” said Happy. “This was the psychic attack I felt. It wasn’t aimed at us. It was never aimed at us.”

“But why kill all these people?” said Melody. “They didn’t know anything about the Flesh Undying! They didn’t know anything about anything!”

“To get at us,” said Latimer. “It couldn’t hurt us, so it hurt those it could. To show what it can do and to punish us for daring to go after it.”

“You mean this is all our fault?” said Melody.

“No,” Happy said immediately. “This is what it would do to everyone. What it will do unless we stop it.”

“Hold up,” said JC. “Where’s Natasha Chang?”

They all looked around, but she was gone. Slipped away while no-one was looking.

“Gone to report to her people, no doubt,” said Latimer.

“What do we do?” said JC.

“I have to report back to Institute Headquarters,” said Catherine Latimer. “Because you can be sure there will be repercussions. For a failure this bad.”

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MEET THE NEW BOSS

The best way to hide a thing is to place it behind something extremely visible. And distracting. Which is why there is an office that doesn’t officially exist, down a corridor you can’t get to, tucked away at the back of Buckingham Palace. It’s been the Head of the Carnacki Institute’s very private office for as long as the Palace has been there. Before that, the office was somewhere else. Presumably somebody knows where; but if they do, they aren’t telling. The current office is centuries old, not a place where you’d expect to find sudden and unexpected change. But when Catherine Latimer returned to Institute Headquarters, the day after the Brighton debacle, she found the door to her office wouldn’t open to her. She had to ask her own secretary, Heather, to buzz her through. Which Heather did with a certain self-satisfied flourish.

Latimer gave her secretary a long, searching look, then strode into what used to be her office. To find someone else sitting in her chair, behind her Hepplewhite desk, already looking very much at home. Latimer scowled. She knew Hillary Allbright: young, ambitious, and an almost entirely political creature. Allbright gestured briefly for Latimer to seat herself on the visitor’s chair and busied herself sorting through a huge pile of paper-work. Latimer sat down, slowly and thoughtfully. She knew a palace coup when she saw one. The speed with which Allbright had been put in place made clear to Latimer just how long her enemies had been planning this. All they needed was the opportunity, which Latimer had handed to them on a plate.

Hillary Allbright was a large, heavy-set woman in her late twenties, dressed in the tweeds-and-pearls style of the old country-side set. She had a plain face, a fierce eye, and a predator’s smile. Somewhere along the line, someone had persuaded her to dye her hair blonde to soften her image. It hadn’t worked. Allbright was all business, with no time for frills and fancies. Because she was the kind of person who saw such things as weaknesses. Latimer sat back in her visitor’s chair and took out her long ivory cigarette holder.

“Please don’t smoke in my office,” said Allbright, without looking up from what she was doing.

“Go to hell,” said Latimer. She lit her cigarette with her monogrammed gold lighter, inhaled deeply, and savoured the moment. She looked around her. “There used to be an ash-tray . . .”

“I know,” said Allbright. “I got rid of it.”

Latimer tapped cigarette ash onto the floor. Allbright winced, despite herself. Latimer did her best to appear calm and relaxed, on the extremely uncomfortable visitor’s chair. She’d designed it that way to keep visitors in their place. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. Allbright continued sorting through her papers, giving every appearance of being very busy with something far more important than her visitor. Another old tactic that Latimer had used.

She looked around what used to be her office, taking in the shelves full of old books and files, the familiar comfortable surroundings, and all the assorted souvenirs from days when she’d still been active in the field. She hadn’t realised how out-dated most of them seemed now. Antiques and curios, from another age. She wondered if she’d be allowed to take any of her things with her when she finally left. Probably not; the Institute never let go of anything it had put its mark on. Latimer looked at her office and wondered just when it had become so small and confining.

A part of her wanted to fight the regime change; but she knew was there no point. An open attack wouldn’t get her anywhere. Her enemies would be ready for that. Allbright must have extensive high-level support or she wouldn’t be here. Still . . . Latimer smiled slowly. There were still things she could do. To make clear her . . . extreme displeasure.

Allbright finally assembled her papers neatly, levelling the edges just so with her thumbs, and looked directly at Catherine Latimer. Her voice was calm and even and utterly implacable.

“This is not a meeting to discuss your leaving. That decision has already been made, at a much higher level. We’re here to discuss the manner in which you will leave office. It doesn’t have to be unpleasant. Cooperate, and you will be allowed to retire in peace and obscurity. You are guaranteed an entirely reasonable pension; you could even write your memoirs. As long as you don’t expect anyone to publish them. However, if you cause us even the slightest inconvenience, have no doubt that you will be forcibly removed from this office, taken away in handcuffs, and imprisoned somewhere very secure and highly unpleasant. For whatever remains of your life.”

Latimer smiled for the first time. “Take me out of here by force? I really would like to see somebody try that. You don’t get to be my age without learning some very nasty ways to defend yourself. But let’s take a step back, shall we? You said, decided at a higher level. Which is interesting. Who is there who considers themselves higher than the Head of the Carnacki Institute? We’re not a Government Department, after all; we are a Royal Charter. Have been since 1587. Technically speaking, I only answer to the Queen.”

“Not any more,” said Allbright, and she didn’t even try to hide her satisfaction. “Her Majesty has been persuaded to allow the Carnacki Institute to be taken in house, at long last. There’s no room left in modern Government for rogue operations. We all have to be answerable to someone.”

“Yes,” said Latimer. “We do, don’t we?” She looked thoughtfully at Allbright, tilting her cigarette holder at a defiant angle. “So you’re my replacement. The new Boss of the Carnacki Institute. Just another civil servant.”

“You brought this on yourself!” said Allbright. Two spots of sullen colour had appeared in her cheeks. “You lost grip on things. Took your eyes off what really matters. Ignored the business and politics of running a large operation, so you could pursue your own private interests. And see where that’s led you . . . a bloody massacre right in the middle of a celebration of the Institute’s public face! Have you any idea how difficult it’s going to be, covering up the circumstances of so many innocent deaths?”

“It’s not that difficult,” said Latimer. “I’ve had to do it any number of times. There’s always some useful terrorist bogeyman to blame it on. It’s not even the most unpleasant part of the job. Just logistics.”

Allbright snorted loudly. “Under your leadership, possibly.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised they chose you,” said Latimer. “I have followed your rapid progress, up through the ranks. Naked ambition, red in tooth and claw. Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight, and all that. But this . . . this is quite a jump. Given that you have no actual field experience, I can only assume it’s your office skills and political connections that brought you here. Clearly, someone has faith in you. I would have gone with someone more accomplished, more qualified; but, of course, that kind of person wouldn’t have been so easy to control. Do you even know who’s pulling your strings?”

Allbright smiled coldly. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised someone your age has grown paranoid and deluded.”

She made a point of looking around the office and turning up her nose at all the old trophies from Catherine Latimer’s past. The goldfish bowl half-full of murky ectoplasm, in which the ghost of a goldfish swam solemnly backwards, blinking on and off like a faulty light bulb. A lady’s elbow-length evening glove, in sheer white silk, nailed firmly to a wooden base under a glass jar. The Haunted Glove of Haversham, responsible for strangling seventeen young debutantes in 1953. The glove’s fingers still twitched whenever anyone looked at it. A small silver compact from the 1960s, innocent enough until you raised the cover and looked into its mirror. Where something horrible scrabbled forever against the other side of the glass, fighting to break through, to get out.

“I mean,” Allbright said finally. “Is there anything here that isn’t ancient history? You live in the past, Latimer, hoarding your old triumphs so you don’t have to think about today’s problems.”

“I see,” said Latimer. “It’s
what have you done for us recently
, is it?”

“The job is about dealing with what’s in front of us,” Allbright said sharply. “Things have changed since your day. It’s not just ghosts in white sheets, rattling chains in country-houses. New problems require new ways of thinking, new solutions. Your old-fashioned methods are now officially at an end. I will take us forward, into the twenty-first century.”

Latimer sat back in her chair and regarded Allbright thoughtfully, casually allowing her cigarette smoke to drift in Allbright’s direction.

“You have no idea what’s really going on,” she said finally. “Or why you were selected to take over this job. But I know. You have no idea of what you’re getting into; but you’ll find out.”

Allbright stirred uneasily. Latimer thought for a moment she might actually have reached Allbright, made her think . . . but the new Boss just shrugged briefly, eager to move on.

“I’ve been going through your file,” she said. “It makes for fascinating reading.”

“You don’t want to believe everything you read in official, incomplete, and no doubt heavily redacted files,” said Latimer. “There’s nothing in my file that matters. I saw to that, long ago.”

“I’m frankly amazed you’ve been allowed to stay in office for so long,” said Allbright.

“What makes you think anyone had a choice?” said Latimer.

“You should have been forced to retire years ago!”

“Ah, the arrogance of youth,” said Latimer. “I remained in my post because I was good at my job. And because there was no-one else good enough to take my place. God knows I looked hard enough. I thought for a while it might be Patterson . . . but we all know how that turned out.”

“Whatever influence you might once have held, it’s gone,” said Allbright. “You have no friends left. Or at least, not anywhere that matters.”

“If you really believed that,” said Latimer, “you wouldn’t be so nervous.”

“I am not nervous!”

Latimer smiled, as Allbright slowly sank back into her chair again.

“You should be grateful you’re being allowed to retire,” Allbright said finally. “But even that is conditional. I want access to all your secret files, all the reports and information you never deigned to submit to the official archives. I want a full report on what really happened at the Brighton Conference Centre, including what you were really doing there. And, on behalf of the Government, I demand you return all the books you took out of the Secret Libraries, without proper permission! You had no right to remove important and valuable items from such a secure location for your own private business!”

“There are no secret files,” Latimer said calmly. “I’ve said everything about Brighton that I’m going to . . . And I never took any books out of the Secret Libraries.”

“You’re defying me?” said Allbright, her voice rising despite herself.

“I’m defying the people you represent,” said Latimer.

Allbright leaned forward across the desk with a satisfied look on her face. As though she’d expected nothing less.

“You must know this makes you look even more guilty. We know there are secret files; there must be. We know there was a Crowley Project presence at Brighton. We have a witness. And the books were taken out in your name. What makes you think you can stand against the new Head of the Carnacki Institute? Who do you think you are?”

“I’m Catherine Latimer!”

This time, it was Latimer’s turn to sink back into her chair. The two women regarded each other silently for some time.

“I could fight you,” Latimer said finally. “I do still have friends, contacts, influence.”

Allbright just smiled. The cold, secure smile of someone who knows they hold the winning hand. “Not inside the Institute. Even as we speak, a root-and-branch reorganisation is going on, from top to bottom.”

“A purge,” said Latimer.

“If you like. We prefer to see it as a weeding out of inefficient and disloyal elements. Anyone you might have looked to for help is already gone. You’ve been here too long, Latimer. Outlived all the people who owed you favours or were frightened by your reputation. You’re on your own now. You’re the past; and I’m the future.”

“Then God help us all,” said Latimer.

She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. Allbright was startled into reaching quickly for a desk drawer, in a way that suggested she had a weapon concealed there. Latimer leaned forward, and calmly stubbed out her cigarette on the Hepplewhite desk. And then she turned away.

“Where do you think you’re going?” said Allbright, her voice rising again. “You can’t believe you’ll just be allowed to walk out of here!”

“I don’t answer to jumped-up bureaucrats like you,” said Latimer. “Never have and never will.”

“You’ll answer to my superiors!”

“No,” said Latimer. “You’ll answer to mine.”

And just for a moment, she allowed the golden glow to shine from her eyes. The fierce otherworldly light that showed she’d been touched by Outside forces, long ago. The golden light blazed in the room, then was gone. Allbright’s jaw dropped, and she sat slumped in her chair. Looking honestly shocked as well as surprised. Catherine Latimer dropped her a sly wink.

“If I were you . . . I’d be wondering what else they didn’t tell you.”

She snapped her fingers imperiously, and a Door opened in the wall opposite her, which quite definitely hadn’t been there a moment before. Allbright’s hand went to the desk drawer again; and this time Latimer had no doubt she meant to use whatever she had there. So she turned to the display case beside her, knocked over the glass jar, ripped the Haunted Glove of Haversham free from the nails that held it to its wooden base, and threw the nasty thing right into Allbright’s face. The long silk glove writhed and twisted as it shot through the air, its white fingers twitching hungrily. Allbright had no choice but to put up both hands to protect herself as the Glove went for her throat. And while she was busy with that, Latimer strode across what used to be her office and stepped through the open Door. She paused on the threshold to glance back, just for a moment.