Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

.” JC murmured. “Play nice, or there will be spankings. Melody, could the presence of the Intruder in our world explain why I was touched by the Light? Was I granted this new strength to . . . even things out? Give us a fighting chance?”
    “Who knows why the gods do anything?” said Erik.
    “They are not gods!” Happy said immediately. “Don’t use that word. Never use that word. Just because they’re so much more than us, it doesn’t mean they’re gods.”
    “What difference does it make?” said Kim, puzzled.
    “Because you can’t fight gods,” said Happy.
    “We can fight things that think they’re gods,” JC said cheerfully. “Remember that being we encountered in the supermarket car park? Worshipped by generations of early Humanity; and we still kicked its arse and sent it home crying. Melody, could our Intruder be anything like that?”
    “No. That was a much more basic, even elemental, force. Not coherent enough even to have a name or identity. We’re faced with something far more sophisticated. A single entity, or presence, that can change our world simply by existing in it.” She looked at Happy. “Spell the word god with a lower case, and it’s a good enough term for what’s down here in the darkness with us.”
    Everyone looked at each other. No-one wanted to be the first to say anything.
    “We are not equipped to deal with a Great Beast,” Happy said finally. “Let’s be real here, people. Outer Forces like that are so far out of our league we couldn’t even see the league from where we are. We’re ghost finders, not god killers.”
    “What we need are better weapons,” said Natasha.
    “Bigger weapons. First rule of the Crowley Project: there’s nothing in supernature that can’t be taken down with a big enough stick. Maybe if we combined our resources . . .”
    “You’re seriously contemplating throwing down with a god?” said Melody.
    “We’ve been known to kill gods, at the Project,” said Erik airily. “Sometimes we eat them, too.”
    “You couldn’t even stand up to me,” said Kim. “And I’m only dead.”
    “Confidence is fun,” said JC. “Sanity is better. We need a plan.”
    “We need weapons!” said Natasha.
    “You can’t fight the Great Beasts!” said Happy. “They’re as much conceptual as anything, a horrible Idea from a higher plane, downloaded into physical form in our dimension. You can’t kill an Idea. The best we can hope for is to pry it loose from our plane and send it home with a flea in its ear.” He frowned, considering. “And we might be able to do that. So far, all the signs suggest our Intruder is following the standard pattern of any haunting, building everything from and around a single focal point.”
    “You’re talking about me,” said Kim.
    “We don’t know that for sure,” said JC.
    Happy ignored him, looking at Melody. “How far away from us is the Intruder, and please say lots.”
    “Hard to tell,” said Melody. “If I’m interpreting these readings correctly, and I’d be the first to admit that there’s a whole lot of guesswork involved . . . it seems our Intruder has added a whole new platform to this station. A half-way place, where its world butts up against ours. This new platform comes and goes, not always there, or at least, not always connected to our reality. It’s the Beast’s lair. Home for its new physical form. For whatever shape it’s taken in our world. We can only access this new station with the Intruder’s permission.”
    “Is it there now?” said JC.
    “Oh yes,” said Melody. “It’s driving my long-range sensors crazy. They don’t like the taste of it at all.”
    Kim looked round suddenly. “JC, something’s coming.”
    Everyone turned to look at her. JC moved over to stand beside her, but her gaze was elsewhere.
    “Are you sure?” said Melody. “There’s nothing on the monitors.”
    “Something’s coming,” said Kim, in a dreamy voice. “Something bad.”
    JC studied Kim, who was floating in mid air with her head cocked slightly on one side, as though listening to something only she could hear.
    “What is it, Kim? What’s coming for us? Where is it coming from?”
    Her left hand rose slowly to point at the far tunnel-mouth. Everyone looked into the darkness, but there was no roar of an approaching train, no pressure wave of disturbed air. Even the rail tracks were free of any vibration. Natasha and Erik stood close together. JC and Happy stared silently