Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

unhurriedly around the entrance lobby, frowning as she forced her telepathy into every psychic nook and cranny. Her gaze shot suddenly to one side, and she advanced remorselessly on one corner. And then she stopped as Erik hissed her name, and a ragged man appeared suddenly in the lobby with them. He shuffled slowly around, ignoring the coins on the floor as though they weren’t there, and perhaps for him they weren’t. He looked like one of the homeless, tall but stooped, a ragged man in ragged clothes, wrapped up in a long coat stained with damp and mould. He had long, matted hair and a filthy beard, and his eyes were dull, preoccupied with cold and hunger and memories that wouldn’t go away. He slowly made a full circle of the lobby, shuffling right past Natasha and Erik without even seeing them. Until, slowly, he seemed to become aware that he was not alone. His head came up, and his dull eyes fixed on Natasha. He didn’t seem at all surprised to see her, or even to care that much. He held out one filthy hand, mutely asking for money.
    “He’s not real,” said Erik. “He’s a ghost.”
    “Thank you, I had worked that out for myself,” said Natasha.
    “Is he aware?” said Erik, professionally interested. “Or is this only a stone tape, a psychic recording?”
    “Oh no,” said Natasha. “There’s still some of him here. I can pick up some of his thoughts, rattling around inside his head. He had a name once, and a family and a job; but he lost them all. He ended up on the streets, begging for small change, but he was never very good at it. He died here, in that corner, locked in overnight and overlooked by everyone. Would you like to know his name?”
    “No,” said Erik. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t matter. This is a simple haunting, stirred up by our presence, or perhaps the workings of my little computer. He isn’t what we’re here for.”
    “Hush,” said Natasha. “I told you I was hungry.”
    She advanced slowly on the homeless ghost, which stood there, staring at her dully like an animal that had been beaten into submission. It wasn’t until she was right before him that he seemed to become aware of the danger he was in. He looked at Natasha with growing horror but couldn’t seem to move. Natasha licked her lips.
    “You don’t even know you’re dead, do you? How . . . delicious.”
    She locked his gaze with hers, reaching out with her mind, forcing him to see her clearly through sheer force of will. The ghost’s face twisted with horror, and he began to howl, a wordless scream of helpless dread. The cry of someone who knows no-one will come to save him. The ghost could see Natasha for what she was; and it terrified him. He drifted slowly backwards, not even moving his feet, and Natasha went after him. She stalked him all around the lobby, for the fun of it.
    Until, finally, she lunged forward and locked her mouth on his, blocking off his howl. Living lips clamped down on a dead mouth, and he hung helpless before her as she sucked him dry, eating up every last trace of energy and consciousness that remained to him, and savouring it all. Bit by bit he faded away, becoming increasingly insubstantial as there was less and less of him, until not even a trace of the ghost remained. Natasha straightened up, licked her lips slowly, and laughed almost drunkenly. She looked sideways at Erik, backed up against the far wall, and sniggered at him.
    “You don’t know what you’re missing, little man. You must learn to develop a taste for the good things in life. Ooh . . . I’m Daddy’s bad little girl . . . Such a little terror. Are you excited, Erik? Did that turn you on? It did, didn’t it? You’d love me to do that to you, wouldn’t you, Erik? And maybe one day, I will. But I guarantee you won’t like it one little bit.”

FIVE
    THE HORROR SHOW
    “If we’re not alone down here,” said JC, “it’s got to be field agents from the Crowley Project. Has to be. There aren’t many people brave enough or crazy enough to go chasing after ghosts in the dark heart of a Code One Haunting unless they expected to get something out of it. Project agents would brave the fires of Hell itself to snatch away a single burning coal if they thought there was money or power or one-upmanship in it.”
    Typically, Melody didn’t want to believe it.
    “It could be commuters, travellers, left over from this morning,” she said. “Couldn’t it? Trapped down here and overlooked when the