Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

have to,” said Happy. “I think the Beast brought us here to show us its true face.”
    “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” said Natasha.
    “To look into the eyes of a Great Beast is enough to destroy a human mind,” said Happy.
    “You really do have self-confidence issues, don’t you?” said Natasha. “Grow a pair, dammit. We’re trained agents! We can do this!”
    “Yeah,” said Erik, giggling. “Man up. What’s the matter with you? It’s only a big bad wolf.”
    “Okay,” said Happy. “You crazy people can go out first. I’ll be somewhere else. Hiding.”
    Natasha sniffed loudly, shouldered JC aside, and strode out through the waiting car doors and onto the deserted platform. JC hurried after her, not wanting to be left out of anything. Erik and Melody went next, and Happy brought up the rear, dragging his feet so much that Kim actually floated right through him to join up with JC.
    The station was so cold it hit them all like a blow and stopped them dead in their tracks. The freezing air cut at their exposed flesh like a knife, and breathing in the bitter air was enough to burn their lungs. The five living agents huddled together instinctively, crowding close to share their body warmth. Kim looked at them blankly. She didn’t feel the cold at all. Both ends of the platform had disappeared, swallowed up by darkness, and the only source of light spilled out from the car behind them. Only now it was a harsh yellow light, as though it had somehow gone off, gone rotten, become . . . spoiled.
    “This is what it will feel like at the end of the world,” said Happy. “When the sun has gone out, and Fenris Tenebrae has eaten the moon. When all the living things are gone, and nothing remains but the dark and the cold and the endless night.”
    They looked around, but nothing looked back. They were alone on what remained of the platform, in what remained of the light. Dust seemed to be falling, softly and silently, in endless grey curtains.
    And then Kim drifted slowly forward, untouched by the cold or the dark or the terrible foreboding of the place, and pointed out a small dark shape tucked away beneath the exit arch. JC made himself move forward to join Kim. There was someone sitting there, half-hidden in the shadows. A man, small and anonymous, curled into a foetal ball, staring straight ahead with fixed, unblinking eyes. His clothes were covered with a thick layer of frost, hard and unyielding to the touch, and he was locked so tightly into his state it was hard to see how he would ever rise from it again. He was still breathing. Small puffs of shallow breath steamed on the chill air. But his wide, staring eyeballs were covered over with fine misty patterns of frost.
    “He doesn’t even know we’re here,” said Kim. “But I know him.”
    “Is this the presence from the train?” JC said quietly. “The man who killed you?”
    “I never saw his face,” said Kim. “Just felt the sudden pain in my back. But yes; this is what’s left of him. The body his mind was driven out of.” She looked at JC. “I think the Beast showed him its true face; and this is what it did to him.”
    “But what’s he doing here?” said Natasha. She’d finally found the strength to move forward to join them. The others were coming, too, each at their own pace. Natasha prodded the unmoving body with the toe of her pink leather boot, and the small man rocked slightly in place, for a moment.
    “I think the Beast called him here,” said Melody. “Because it had no more use for him. It didn’t want one of its agents ending up in the Institute’s hands, or the Project’s. We might have got some answers out of him.”
    Erik crouched before the frozen figure, studying him with ghoulish fascination. “Fascinating . . . Almost cryogenically preserved. I really must send someone back for him when this is all over. I could have endless fun defrosting and dissecting him.”
    “He’s ours,” Melody said automatically. “Hands off.”
    “You wouldn’t even know what to do with him,” said Erik.
    “We’d do our best to treat him, restore him,” said Melody.
    “Exactly,” said Erik. “Look at his face. The despair, the horror. You think he ever wants to wake up and remember what he’s been through? If Kim is right, he’s half-way to being a ghost already. So let him go. At least I could have some fun with what’s left.”
    “You’re still assuming there’s going to be an afterwards,” said