Ghostfinders 01 - Ghost of a Chance

before Natasha. JC cried out and pulled the monkey’s paw from his pocket. Melody drew her machine-pistol, and Erik his pointing bone. And Happy threw both hands in the air and waved them vigorously as he yelled at the others.
    “Hold it! Hold everything! Look at the Wolf! ”
    Everyone hesitated, then turned and looked at the Wolf’s head. It was grinning mockingly, its wet red mouth stretched wide. Dead men’s blood drooled and dripped.
    “What about the Wolf?” snapped Natasha. “It isn’t doing anything.”
    “Exactly!” said Happy. “You’re about to destroy the one thing that gives it a hold on our world, and it isn’t even worried? If Kim meant anything at all to the Wolf, it would have acted to defend her. Probably turned us all into frogs or something, and I do wish I hadn’t said that out loud.”
    “He’s right,” said JC. “Kim isn’t the focal point.”
    “Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?” said Natasha.
    “No,” Erik said reluctantly. “The telepath’s right. The Wolf isn’t worried. Kim was only ever a decoy, a distraction. We’ve missed something. Damn. Damn! We’ve missed something important!”
    “Then why did he have me killed?” said Kim.
    “Because it was fun,” said the Wolf. And it laughed at them all.
    Melody stepped forward, trained her machine-pistol on the Wolf’s left eye, and emptied the whole magazine into it. The great manufactured head soaked up the bullets and took no damage at all. Erik stabbed his Aboriginal pointing bone at the huge Wolf face. The bone exploded in Erik’s hand, and he cried out in agony as jagged splinters were driven deep into his hand. He cradled the bloody mess against his chest and fell back, moaning.
    Happy cried out to Natasha. She looked at him, nodded quickly, and grabbed his outstretched hand. Their minds slammed together, and the combined strength of their joined thoughts struck out at the Wolf like a single shining lance. The Wolf opened its mouth, swallowed the attack whole, and took no harm at all. The head surged forward, its great jaws snapping at Natasha and Happy. They scrabbled backwards, letting go of each other’s hands.
    JC brandished his monkey’s paw and advanced on the Wolf’s head, holding the burning fingers of the modified claw out before him. It was a forbidden weapon because it could give a man the power of a god, for a while; but even it was no match for the Great Beast. It burst into flames, hot and fierce, and JC cried out and dropped it. He grabbed for it again, but already the paw was nothing but ashes smeared across the platform. The Wolf’s head surged forward again, pulling more of itself into the world, but JC stood his ground. He whipped off his sunglasses and stared right into the Beast’s huge eyes. The Wolf sneered at him.
    “My, what big eyes you have . . .”
    “And they help me see so clearly,” said JC. “Especially things that have been right under my nose all along. Kim isn’t the focal point of your haunting, and never was. There’s nothing of you in Kim. She’s a ghost, an unfortunate by-product of your actions. You’ve been waving her in front of me all along, to distract me. She isn’t the focus; her murderer is. That’s why you brought him here. By committing an act of murder in a certain place at a certain time, when the walls between the worlds were at their weakest, that act opened a door for you. Murder magic has always been a trait of your kind; you kill because you can’t create. In all the time you’ve been here, you haven’t made one new thing—only copies of existing things.”
    He turned abruptly to Happy and Natasha. “I need the murderer’s spirit. Find it. Kim said he was still here, with us. Find him and put him back in his head.”
    “He won’t stay long,” said Happy. “He’s too traumatised.”
    “Put him back together for a while,” JC said urgently. “I need to talk to him.”
    Happy and Natasha joined hands again, and concentrated. The Wolf cried out angrily, but no-one was listening to it. There was a sharp, cracking sound, and flecks of frost flew on the air as the frozen head turned slowly to look at Kim. The murderer blinked once, and his eyes cleared. He looked at Kim and tears started from his eyes, only to freeze before they were half-way down his cheeks. He worked his mouth, amid more harsh, cracking sounds, and Kim drifted forward to stand over him, to hear what he had to say.
    “I’m sorry,” he said, in a