Ghost of a Chance (27 page)

“All right,” said JC. “This is an invitation. The Intruder sent this train to bring us to it. No more games, no more attacks . . . But why? Because we’ve proved we can handle anything it can throw at us? Because we’ve proved ourselves worthy? Or because it’s so much stronger on its home ground . . . Could it be that it’s afraid there’s something we could do, to drive it from our plane, if it doesn’t deal with us first? Is it because the Light reached down and touched me, or because we have Kim now?”

“Questions, questions,” said Natasha. “At the Project, we prefer direct action.”

“Shoot first and ask questions later,” said Erik. “Preferably through a medium.”

“We can’t answer questions without new data,” said Melody. “And we have to do something, while we still can. This thing’s power levels are already off the scale. I think it’s getting ready to spread its influence beyond this station.”

“You mean through the rest of the Underground?” said JC.

“I mean through the rest of the city,” said Melody. “And then across the worlds. Rewriting the rules of our reality to make a new world, more like its home dimension. I don’t think there’d be much room for Humanity in a world like that.”

“We have to warn people,” said Happy. “Contact the Boss, call for help . . . Get some of the A teams down here, with serious firepower. This has got way too big for us.”

“You heard the Boss,” said JC. “None of the A teams can get here in time. There is no-one else. Just us.” He looked at Natasha and Erik. “I hate to ask, but I think at this point I’d even welcome help from the Project. Is there any chance . . .”

“No,” Natasha said reluctantly. “By the time we convinced the Project, it would be too late. Our current Head, Vivienne MacAbre, isn’t as trusting as we are.”

“I’ve heard of her,” said Happy, unexpectedly. “Does she really eat white mice for breakfast?”

“So they say,” said Erik. “Baby mice, stuffed with hummingbirds’ tongues. On little toast soldiers. Of course, that’s only when she isn’t feasting on the hearts of our enemies. Vivienne’s always been a traditionalist at heart.”

JC looked at Melody. “What do your machines make of this train? Is it real or something created by the Intruder?”

“I can’t tell,” Melody said helplessly. “With the power levels the Intruder’s generating, the question’s pretty much meaningless. It can make things real just by thinking about them.”

Happy strode up to the car and kicked the open doors. “Feels real.”

“Oh hell,” said JC. “You’ve taken some of mother’s little helpers, haven’t you?”

“Oh yes!” said Happy. “And I feel great!”

“Wonderful,” said JC. He considered the train for a long moment. “It’s real enough. It’ll get us there. Because the Intruder wants to meet us in person. Well, I want to meet the Intruder. So let’s go.”

He stepped into the car through the waiting doors and looked quickly around to assure himself it really was as empty as it appeared. Kim floated in after him, comforting him with her presence as best she could. She knew he was remembering another train, and another car, and what had happened to him there. JC took off his sunglasses and looked up and down the length of the car; but even his new eyes couldn’t detect any booby-traps or hidden evils. He glanced briefly at Kim.

“I’m fine. You?”

“I’m fine, JC.”

“Can you see anything? Sense anything? Anything the Intruder wouldn’t want us to know about?”

“This isn’t a train,” said Kim. “It’s the Intruder’s idea of a train. A new-made thing, based on the hell trains it used to abduct the commuters earlier. There’s no driver in the engine; the train knows where it needs to go. The Intruder’s becoming stronger all the time . . . its thoughts and intentions can take on shape and form now.”

“All the more reason to brace it in its lair now,” said JC. “Before it becomes so strong it can bring us to it just by thinking about it.”

He gestured sharply to the others still hesitating on the platform, and one by one they entered the car. Natasha made a point of striding fearlessly through the open doors. Erik scurried in after her, trying to look in every direction at once. Happy positively bounded on board, smiling foolishly. Melody gave her machines a last farewell pat and stepped through the doors as though it were just another train. Happy slipped his arm through hers and beamed at her chummily. Melody pulled her arm free and slapped him round the head. The doors slammed together abruptly, and the train moved off, leaving the platform behind.

The train ride was unnaturally smooth and easy. The engine was utterly silent, the car didn’t rock in the least, and once it entered the tunnel-mouth, the train never once deviated from its path. No jolts or turns, no corners, no other platforms; only a straight line through an endless, impenetrable darkness. Not one trace of light outside the car windows, and with no stations or landmarks to judge the train’s progress, it was hard to tell if it was moving at all. Or even if they were still underground rather than moving through some great night-dark sea.

Natasha and Erik sat side by side, not looking at each other. She seemed entirely calm and in control; he was keeping a watchful eye on every part of the car, in case something should jump out at him. Melody stood with her back to the car doors, arms tightly folded across her chest, glaring about her as though daring anything to try anything. Happy was too full of nervous energy to stay in any one place for long. He tried half a dozen seats, couldn’t settle, and finally skipped up and down the central aisle, humming tunelessly and occasionally breaking into a surprisingly accomplished soft-shoe routine. JC sat quietly, thinking and planning, and Kim did her best to sit beside him though she had a tendency to rise and fall in place when her concentration wandered. She studied JC with real concern, but he didn’t notice. He was working.

And then all their heads came up sharply as the darkness outside began to seep through the windows and into the car. Slowly and inexorably, it poured in like thick, dark syrup, as though the window-glass weren’t even there. The five agents moved quickly to stand together in the central aisle, as the darkness poured in from every side and dripped from the ceiling. None of them wanted to touch the stuff, and none of them wanted it to touch them. The darkness filled up both ends of the car, then spilled forward along the rows of seats. It was utterly dark, more like an absence than a presence, as though the agents and the slowly shrinking pool of light were the only remaining life in an endless, dark nothingness.

Natasha produced something small and round from a pocket and shook it hard. A soft, yellow organic light blazed from the ball in her hand, and where it touched the approaching dark, the light stopped the darkness dead in its tracks. Natasha waved the glowing ball back and forth, reinforcing the circle of light’s boundaries.

“Salamander ball,” she said succinctly.

“Bit small,” said Happy.

“Hell,” said Erik. “You only get two to a salamander.”

The yellow light sputtered, then faded quickly away to nothing. Natasha shook the ball hard, swore briefly, and threw the thing away.

“I think it was frightened,” said Happy. “Does anyone have anything else, and someone please say yes.”

Melody produced a chemical stick and waved it. A dull green light flared up.

“Oh wow!” said Happy. “We’re going to a rave!”

“You want a slap?” said JC. “You’re the telepath; is this darkness real, or a broadcast illusion?”

“It’s the dark,” said Happy. His voice was suddenly serious, and his face was like the melancholy clown whose eyes are always sad above the painted smile. “This is the real dark, the real thing, far more than just the absence of light. This is the living dark; and it’s hungry.”

“All right,” said JC. “Not as helpful as I’d hoped, but that’s Happy for you. Natasha?”

“It’s real,” she said flatly. “Real enough to kill us all. Or perhaps remake us in its image.”

The green light from the chemical stick was already guttering. Melody shook the stick savagely and said terrible things to it, but it died anyway. The darkness crept remorselessly in, from every side at once. Some of it had already crawled up the sides of the car and joined together on the ceiling, over their heads. There was a distinct chill on the air, as though the darkness was soaking up all the warmth in the car.

“This is not a natural darkness,” said Erik, his voice high and unsteady.

“Oh, you think?” Melody said harshly. She threw her useless chemical stick at the darkness, which swallowed it up in a moment. “What was your first clue? When it oozed right through the bloody windows? Of course it’s not natural!”

The five agents huddled together as the circle of light slowly contracted around them. Kim hovered beside them, glancing nervously at the dark ceiling. JC glared around him, his eyes glowing very brightly behind his sunglasses.

“Erik’s right,” he said abruptly. “This darkness may be real, in the sense that the Intruder created it and imposed it on our world; but it’s not a natural darkness. This is all more of the Intruder’s mind games to soften us up. Right, Happy, Natasha?”

“I don’t know,” said Happy. “I can’t tell. Maybe.”

“So help me, you take one more pill without my permission, and I will knock you down and stamp on your head,” said JC. “Concentrate! Is this darkness something the Intruder created?”

“Yes!” said Happy. “Has to be. Darkness doesn’t behave like this in the normal world.”

“Natasha?” said JC.

“If the Intruder made it, then it’s real enough to kill us,” said Natasha. “But that doesn’t make it
real
.”

“Make a circle,” said JC. “Everyone hold hands. Kim, fake it. This is symbolic. We’re going to work together, join together, and repudiate this darkness through sheer will-power.”

“What makes you think that’ll work?” said Erik.

JC grinned. “Because I already did it once.”

They made a circle, standing very close together, hand in hand in hand. Kim stood inside the circle, both her ghostly hands on top of JC’s. The darkness was very close. There was no car left outside the circle of light. They stood alone, the living and the dead, surrounded by darkness. JC took off his shades, and his eyes were very bright.

“Be strong,” he said, and his voice was calm and comforting and very sure. “The darkness is not real, but we are. See the world as I see it, through my eyes.”

His eyes blazed up, as some last trace of the given Light shone through them. The darkness stopped, and even recoiled a little. A sudden charge went through the circle, racing through their joined hands. They all gasped and cried out, even Kim. And in that moment, the Light shone in all their eyes, bright and sharp and irrevocable; and the darkness could not stand against it. Fuelled by their joined strength of will, by their simple and brutal act of disbelief, the energy shot round and round the circle, growing stronger all the time. The six of them turned their heads and looked at the dark, and the darkness could not bear the Light that burned in their eyes. It fell back, rushed back, down the car and out through the windows; and suddenly the car was back again, just as it had been, and the only darkness was outside.

JC gently tugged his hands free from Natasha and Happy, and everyone else let go. The energy was gone, the circle broken, and everyone’s eyes were back to normal again. Except for JC, who calmly replaced his shades. Happy shook his head uncertainly as the others slowly resumed their seats.

“Wow—what a rush. Tell me that’s not how you feel all the time, JC; I’d be killingly jealous.”

“That was . . .
incredible
,” said Natasha.

“It’s all to do with will-power,” JC said easily. “One of the first things they teach you at the Carnacki Institute.”

“I must have been off sick that day,” said Happy. “The only lesson that stuck with me was
Don’t go up against the Great Beasts on your own.
Along with how to fill in next-of-kin forms.”

“The Project believes in encouraging individual effort,” said Erik. “Along with basic and advanced treachery, back-stabbing, and general unpleasantness. Survival of the fittest. Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight.”

“No, I’m pretty sure that last bit is only you,” said Natasha. “Nasty little man.”

“Heh-heh,” said Erik.

“I think I’m going to go and sit by somebody else,” said Happy. And he got up and moved away from Erik to sit down beside Melody. Who immediately punched him hard in the arm.

“Ow!” said Happy. “What was that for?”

“For sneaking pills when you were expressly told not to. I’ll think of other things to hit you for later.”

Happy nodded unhappily. “I suppose a pain-killer is out of the question?” And then he broke off and looked round sharply. “Hold everything, go previous . . . I think the charge running through that circle flushed most of the chemical goodness out of my system. I haven’t felt this sober in years. I don’t like it. But I am definitely feeling things. Heads up, people; there’s someone else here.”