Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

then humped slowly across the floor like so many flat red slugs. And a slow, terrible pressure built upon the air, as two minds slammed together, and neither would give an inch.
    Melody forced Erik back step by step, dodging his increasingly wild attacks with contemptuous ease. She was right on top of him, and enjoying the chance to try out for real the shokotan karate she’d only ever practiced in the gym. But though she danced and punched and kicked with dazzling speed, somehow Erik continued to evade her, constantly backing away, staying just out of reach. He didn’t have any fighting skills of his own, but sheer terror had given him amazing speed and reflexes. He kept stabbing at her with his pointing bone, but Melody never gave him a chance to draw a bead. Behind her, posters on the walls burst into flames or exploded into multi-coloured confetti under the bone’s malign influence. Melody spun and kicked, and Erik retreated, and neither dared break off long enough to try something else.
    Erik was outraged. There’d been nothing about this in the briefings. Girl geeks weren’t supposed to suddenly turn into warrior women. It wasn’t fair. The blows and kicks got even closer, and he backed away even more frantically.
    Neither Happy nor Melody could break off from what they were doing to help JC, so it was up to him to break Kim free from her spirit cage. He stood before her, careful not to get too close to the shimmering blue-grey bars, and spoke gently to Kim, calming her. She’d been shocked right out of her deathly trance and, for the first time, seemed fully awake and aware. Her vivid green eyes fixed on JC, seeing him as real, and right before her. She looked at the bars of the cage, then past them at the world beyond, and fear and panic surged up in her as she realised she wasn’t where and when she thought she was. She started to fade away, retreating back inside, denying herself to deny the world; and only JC’s calm, coaxing, caring voice brought her back again. She clung to his presence like a lifeline, and he stood firm and steady before her.
    “Trust me,” he said. “I won’t let you down. I can get you out of the trap that holds you; but you have to work with me. We can do this if you work with me.”
    She thought he was only talking about the spirit cage. She nodded eagerly, and JC moved as close to the bars as he dared.
    “These bars are made of ectoplasm, drawn out of you by the Project woman. It’s yours; it belongs to you. So take it back. Concentrate, and take it back inside you, where it belongs.”
    Kim looked at him for a long moment, and he held her gaze steadily, reassuringly. Kim glared at the shimmering bars of her cage, and they quickly unravelled under the impact of her will, which was so much stronger than anyone had anticipated. She wasn’t lost and dreaming any more. Kim inhaled the ectoplasm, the blue-grey smoke disappearing into her mouth and nose in moments; and she was free again.
    For a moment, JC and Kim stood face-to-face, the living and the dead, looking into each other’s eyes, smiling at each other, not knowing what to say. They could both feel the powerful attraction burning between them. As though everything they’d ever done had been necessary steps to lead them to this place, this moment. As though the whole world was holding its breath, to see what would happen next.
    And then the unseen force seized hold of Kim Sterling and snatched her away again. She receded rapidly before JC, hauled backwards down the long corridor at impossible speed, while she kicked and struggled helplessly and screamed in horror and rage. She held out her arms beseechingly to JC, and he ran after her. He followed her retreating form through corridor after corridor, never looking back once. Because she needed him, and he needed her. Because it was his job.
    He knew he was abandoning Happy and Melody to their own devices, but he had faith in them. He hoped they’d understand. Understand that he had no choice in this. Love had come late in life to JC, and he was damned if he’d lose it.

SIX
    ALL KINDS OF APPETITES
    Melody was fighting well, and Erik was fighting dirty, and it was still as near a draw as could be. Melody spun and pirouetted, her feet cracking out like the wrath of God Himself, and still she couldn’t seem to land a blow on the madly dodging and ducking Erik. He was panting hard by then, his face flushed an unhealthy shade of purple, and he was waving his