Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

and quickly intervened. “Hello? Still lots of vampires all around you, and the blood is rising! Get away, you. Shoo.”
    A vampire snapped at her foot, dangling directly above the blood, and its jaws slammed harmlessly together.
    JC glared about him, thinking hard. The vampire sharks were still circling, though at a slightly wider radius, made wary by their failures. Why were they so determined to attack?
    “Happy, these vampires are swimming in blood. Any idea why they’re so keen to taste ours?”
    “Apparently there’s nothing like the real thing,” said Happy. “The need to hunt and feed from the source is built into them at the genetic level. I really think we need to get out of here, JC.”
    “I’m working on it!”
    JC’s gaze fell upon the far tunnel-mouth, three-quarters full of blood. No way out that way . . . but it did give him a sudden inspiration.
    “Listen,” he said urgently. “I fought and banished a whole army of demons on a hell train, and once it was empty, the train let Kim and me off at this station. The train then disappeared. Vanished. It could still be out there, somewhere in the Underground system . . . If we could summon it back here, maybe we could use it to escape!”
    There was a pause, as everyone considered that.
    “Have you got any other ideas?” said Happy.
    “It could work!” said JC.
    “Yeah, and monkeys could fly out of my butt writing Shakespeare’s plays as they went!” said Natasha.
    “It’s our only chance to get out of here,” said JC.
    “It’s a great idea!” said Erik. “I love this idea! I want to marry this idea and have its babies! But could we please get a move on because the blood really is getting very close to my chin now!”
    “Serves you right for being such a short-arse,” said Melody. “JC, how the hell are we supposed to control a hell train? One that presumably works for, and takes its instructions from, the same Intruder that’s trying to drown us all in blood?”
    “I’d bet Happy’s and Natasha’s minds against a hell train any day,” said JC.
    The two telepaths looked at each other.
    “Might work,” said Happy.
    “Agents of the Institute and the Project, working together in common cause, against a common enemy?” said Natasha. “If word of this ever gets out, I’ll never hear the end of it. Still, needs must when the Devil vomits in your shoes. Let’s do it. But I want a piece of the Intruder just as badly as you do. If we get out of this alive, we go after it together. Fair shares for all. Yes?”
    “Works for me,” said JC.
    Happy and Natasha forced their way through the blood, to stand facing each other. The vampire sharks were still circling, drawing steadily closer as hunger drove them on. Erik stabbed at one of them with his pointing bone, and the creature immediately rolled over onto its back and sank beneath the waves. Blood churned and frothed around it as the others moved in. Melody gaped at Erik.
    “How did you get that bone out of my pocket?”
    “Heh-heh,” said Erik.
    “We can call the hell train,” Happy said to Natasha. “But will it come? I don’t think we have the power to compel it, even working together.”
    “You want power, I got power,” said Erik. “Or rather, my marvellous machine does. Excuse me . . .”
    Another vampire shark blasted up out of the blood, rising high into the air to crash down on the group from above. Erik shot it down with his pointing bone, and it was already dead in mid air when JC backhanded the body away. It landed some distance away, and several of the creatures went after it.
    “How can they still be hungry?” said Melody.
    “Flesh is good, but it doesn’t satisfy,” Happy said absently. “They want blood. Our blood. Hot and spurting, right from the source.”
    “We’ve killed enough of them! Why don’t they take the hint and go away?”
    “Feel free to ask them,” said JC. “Erik, get your damned machine out.”
    “Way ahead of you,” Erik said smugly.
    He eased the cat-head computer out of his back-pack. The pack was soaked in blood, but the machine was untouched. Erik held it carefully out before him, above the surface of the rising blood, and turned it on. The three Institute agents watched with varying degrees of horror and disgust as the cat head opened its eyes wide and howled miserably.
    “It’s crying,” said Happy. “The whole thing, not only the cat head. It’s alive and crying all the time.”
    Erik smiled modestly, as