Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

coming . . .”
    “Who?” said JC, quietly but firmly. “Tell me, Kim. Who is it that’s coming?”
    “Living things, old things, summoned things,” said Kim, not even looking at him. Her gaze was fixed on something only she could see. “Power. Old power. Harnessed power . . . blood and death, set to unnatural purpose . . . Something very old was called up here, to do terrible things . . . and it’s still here!”
    “Summoned?” said JC. “What was summoned up, Kim? And who summoned it? Why?”
    “Retribution,” said Kim.
    JC stepped forward and took off his sunglasses. Tiley and Susan both cried out as they saw why he wore them. Something had happened to JC on a previous case. Trapped on a hell train, surrounded by demons, fighting for his life and for Kim, when all seemed lost, Something had reached down from the Higher Dimensions and touched JC briefly. Giving him the strength he needed to save them both. Much of that strength was gone now, but his eyes still shone like the sun, glowing with a strange brilliance. JC saw the world very clearly now; and when he needed to, he could See a great many things that were usually hidden from the living. All the secrets and wonders of the invisible world.
    It had taken him a long time to find sunglasses dark enough and heavy enough to hide his glowing eyes.
    JC glanced at Graham Tiley and Susan, and they both shrank back from his illuminated gaze.
    “Don’t worry,” he said easily. “Think of them as psychic searchlights.”
    “Stop fannying around being pleased with yourself, and concentrate,” snapped Melody, not looking up from her display screens. “What do you See? The readings I’m getting are all over the place, and half of them don’t make a blind bit of sense. I’m getting energy spikes, electromagnetic radiation . . . I’m getting Time, I’m getting Deep Time . . . Whatever’s heading our way is rising up from the bottom of the stone tape, recordings laid down centuries before. And the power readings are right off the scale . . . as though something is riding on the stone tape, using it to break out of the Past and into the Present.”
    “And that is never good,” said Happy. “I’d run if I thought it would do any good. Something’s definitely coming, JC, closing in on us, closing in . . .”
    Dark shapes appeared out of nowhere, imposing their existence on reality, huge and threatening. They manifested up and down the whole length of the factory, snapping into existence in ones and twos, sticking to the shadows, keeping well away from what little light was left. Tiley held out his storm lantern, holding it high to cover himself and his grand-daughter in the soft yellow light . . . but the dark shapes ignored him, prowling round the exterior of the factory floor. They were slowly taking on shape and form, vicious and malevolent shapes, with teeth and claws and glowing blood-red eyes.
    “Happy,” said JC, apparently entirely unconcerned by what was happening all around him, “are you by any chance picking up anything with that amazing telepathic mind of yours? Because if so, now would be a good time to share. What are these things? What are we dealing with here?”
    “I’m getting hunger, and rage, and a hell of a lot of bad attitude,” said Happy, from where he was hiding behind Melody. “But you can probably tell that from looking at them. I can’t seem to fix on what they actually are; I think whoever summoned them imposed a shape and form on them. Melody, what are these things? Elementals? Animal spirits? Something from the Outer Circles?”
    “Beats the hell out of me,” said Melody, her gaze flashing from one display screen to the next, her fingers stabbing at her keyboards. “The readings I’m getting are . . . confused, to say the least. All I can tell you is that whatever is behind these manifestations is old. Very old. Centuries old. Hell, they might even be Pre-human in origin!”
    “I’m picking up human traits along with the animal,” said Happy, rubbing miserably at his head. “And not in a good way.”
    “Could these be sendings, from the Great Beasts?” said JC. “The Hogge, or the Screaming Hives?”
    “Okay,” said Happy. “I just did something in my trousers. I am leaving now. Try to keep up.”
    “Stand still!” snapped JC. “You want them to notice you?”
    “Definitely not connected to the Great Beasts,” said Melody. “No trace of the subtle energies normally associated with the Outer