Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

“You! Tiley! It’s your curse. Your family summoned up the Dogges, and your curse holds them here. Release Winter’s ghost from your curse, and the Dogges will be able to leave.”
    “I can’t!” Tiley said miserably. His dark face was wet with tears. “I’d free him if I could, but I don’t know how! I don’t remember what words called them, no-one does any more.”
    “Terrific,” said JC. “No, wait a minute . . . What did you say, Melody? Back before they were Dogges . . . They weren’t always like this! Whoever summoned them out of the Past imposed these shapes upon them! That’s the key!”
    He strode right up to the nearest Black Dogge. It snarled at him, growling so low he felt it in his bones as much as heard it. Great lips pulled back to show savage teeth in powerful jaws. Claws on huge front paws dug deep into the concrete flow as the Dogge tensed, ready to spring. JC leaned forward and thrust his face right into the Dogge’s, meeting the blazing blood-red eyes with his own glowing gaze; and then he spoke sharply to the Dogge.
    “Bad dog!”
    It looked at him. Its jaw snapped shut, and its head came up. No-one had ever spoken to the Dogge like that before. It stared at JC, fascinated. The other Dogges stopped in their tracks to stare at JC. And the ghost of Albert Winter was finally able to stop running.
    “Bad dog,” JC said firmly, holding the Black Dogge’s gaze with his own. “This is wrong! You were never meant to be like this. You are a dog, made to take the shape and form of a dog, and a dog was always meant to be man’s best friend. Some poor fool called you here and imposed this shape on you to follow the old stories; but revenge was never your true nature. You’re as cursed by this as your victims. But the man who summoned you here is long gone, and his need for revenge died with him. You don’t have to serve his anger any more. You don’t have to be like this, any more. You’re free to be . . . just dogs. Good dogs. Man’s best friend.”
    And the Black Dogge sat down on its haunches and nodded its great head slowly. Inwardly, JC breathed a deep sigh of relief. He hadn’t been entirely sure that would work. In magic, the true naming of a thing is the true nature of that thing. And so Dogge became dog. JC gestured at Graham Tiley.
    “That man there is a Tiley, descendant to the man who brought you here, and bound you in this form. He is ready to release you. Isn’t that right, Mr. Tiley?”
    “Yes,” said Graham Tiley. “The past, with all its crimes and all its revenges, should stay in the past. You’re not needed here any more, so run free, noble dogs.”
    The great dark shapes simply faded away, gone in a moment, gone back into the Past. The ghost of Albert Winter looked slowly about him.
    “Go to him,” JC said to Tiley. “Forgive him. And then show him the way to leave, through the Clear White Light.”
    “Of course,” said Tiley. “Maybe . . . he was the ghost I was looking for, all this time.”
    The old man walked steadily over to the ghost, and they talked quietly together, then the ghost faded away and was gone.
    Kim came over to join JC, appearing entirely solid and substantial again. “I do so love a happy ending, don’t you?”
    “Black Dogges, haunted factories, and it all comes down to people, in the end,” said JC. “Human is, as human does. For good and bad.”

TWO
    OUT OF THE ORDINARY
    Early evening outside Chimera House, a large and solid stone-and-glass business building tucked away in the heart of London’s business area. A night sky full of stars, a sliver of a new moon, and a cold breeze gusting through empty streets. No traffic, not a soul to be seen anywhere, flat amber light from the street-lamps falling on JC and Happy and Melody as they huddled resentfully together before the brightly lit windows of Chimera House. Two men, one woman, and a ghost unseen, all of them feeling distinctly hard done by.
    “It’s not fair,” said Happy, bitterly. “We’re guaranteed proper recovery time between assignments! They can’t throw us right back in the deep end just because we’re handy! All this extra stress is putting years on me. Of course, on me it looks good . . .”
    “Pause for hollow laughter,” said Melody. “What are we doing here, JC? I’m cold, I’m hungry, and I want to go to bed. If I don’t get some proper refreshment and some decent sleep soon, someone’s going to pay for it, and it sure as hell isn’t