Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

when he got stuck in Rabbit’s hole. All the other Great Beasts must be laughing their socks off. I mean, yes . . . the head’s pretty good. I’ll give you that. All big and nasty and wild; but when all’s said and done, it’s still only a head. My old Gran’s got a stuffed fox head on the wall; and I can’t help thinking you’d look really good as a trophy in the Boss’s office. Make a hell of a conversation piece. Your time is past, Beast. No-one worships or fears you any more. We’ve moved on.”
    “I will make them fear me,” said the Wolf. “I will give them reason to worship me again.”
    It had a voice like tearing flesh and spilled blood, and howling in the night. All the cruel joy of the chase and the slaughter.
    “Nice speech,” JC said quietly to Happy. “But I think you’ve annoyed it enough now. Try and bear in mind that the Wolf is currently powerful enough to change our reality just by thinking about it.”
    “Trust me, that thought is never far from my mind,” said Happy. “Our only hope is to keep the thing occupied, hold its attention, while we think of something to do. Right?”
    “Good thinking, man,” said JC.
    “And?” said Happy.
    “I’m working on it,” said JC.
    “Terrific,” said Happy.
    “You know, you can let go of me now, Happy,” said Melody.
    “Oh, sorry,” said Happy, quickly removing his arm from around her shoulders.
    “That’s all right,” said Melody. “You knew how close I was to cracking. You held me together. And, you saved my life earlier. So, to say thank you, when all this nonsense is over, I am going to take you back to my place, throw you back onto the bed, and then do you and do you until you can’t stop smiling.”
    “If we survive,” said Happy.
    “Oh yes,” said Melody. “If we survive.”
    “I knew there had to be a catch in it somewhere,” said Happy.
    They grinned at each other.
    “Who are you chattering creatures?” said the Wolf, and his voice was like thunder, like lightning, like the storm that breaks the greatest of trees. “What are you, that you can bear my terrible gaze, my awful presence?”
    “We are the Carnacki Institute,” said JC.
    “And the Crowley Project,” said Natasha.
    “Agents trained and armed to stand between Humanity and all the Forces of the afterworlds,” said JC. “Now, are you going to leave quietly, or are we going to have to give you a good kicking, then boot your nasty arse out of here?”
    “He hasn’t got an arse,” said Happy.
    “Then we’ll improvise,” said JC.
    “Yes, let’s,” Natasha said cheerfully. “I do so love to improvise.”
    “Suddenly and violently and all over the place,” said Erik. “It’s an education just to watch her.”
    The Wolf looked at them. Whatever opposition Fenris Tenebrae had expected to face on the material plane, this clearly wasn’t it. Open insolence and defiance were new things to the Wolf, and it didn’t know how to cope. It tried another growl, an even louder one, but no-one so much as flinched this time. Happy actually faked a yawn. The Wolf closed its bloody mouth with a snap and fixed JC with a crafty, spiteful gaze.
    “You cannot make me leave this place, little thing. I have a hold on your world. I will not give it up, and you cannot make me. You cannot even hurt me, or you would have tried by now. You are nothing but a distraction, and I am done with you.”
    “We have your hold on the world right here,” said Natasha, gesturing at Kim. “You used her death to open a portal into our world, which means as long as her ghost haunts this station, you can’t be thrown out. She’s the focal point of everything that’s happened here.”
    “Natasha,” said JC. “Where, exactly, are you going with this?”
    “I would have thought it was obvious,” said Natasha. “What’s the fate of one dead person, compared to the whole world?”
    “No,” said JC. “There has to be another way.”
    “But there isn’t,” said Kim. She smiled gently at JC. “I’m dead. My life is over anyway. I won’t fight this, JC, and I won’t let you fight it either. It’s necessary.”
    “But I love you . . .”
    “And I love you. But love is for the living.” She looked at Natasha. “What are you going to do, exorcise me?”
    Natasha smiled. “No, dear. I eat ghosts.”
    She moved forward, still smiling, and JC stepped forward to block her way, his face cold, and very determined. And Kim walked straight through him, to stand