Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

couldn’t really be bothered. The factory stood still and solid, holding darkness within.
    JC strode out across the car park, heading for the deserted factory like a general with a battle hymn in his heart. He was never happier than when he was throwing himself headlong into life-and-death action, with the world at stake and all to play for, best foot forward and damn the consequences. Which was why he’d had such a hard time finding partners who would put up with him. Most people had more sense. He stopped before the building and looked it over, his fists on his hips and a broad cocky grin on his face. JC loved a mystery, and a challenge, and a chance to kick the unearthly where it hurt.
    JC was tall and lean, loud and confident, full of energy and far too handsome for his own good. In his late twenties, he had a rock star’s mane of long dark hair, and a rich ice-cream three-piece suit of quite startling style and elegance. He also wore the heaviest, darkest sunglasses he could find, with good reason. Simply standing there in the wide-open car park, he looked like a sheriff come to clean up Tombstone.
    Melody Chambers trudged across the cracked concrete, pulling a trolley heaped high with her own very special equipment. Melody was the science geek of the team, and proud of it. She used technology as a weapon to beat the supernatural into making sense. She knew everything there was to know about fringe science and paranormal activity, and what she didn’t know she made up as she went along. She firmly believed in the iron hand in the iron glove approach, and only settled for poking ghosts with a stick when she didn’t have a better weapon to hand.
    Melody was pushing the edge of her late twenties, and pretty enough in a conventional sort of way. Short and gamine thin, she wore her auburn hair in a severe bun at the back of her head, so it wouldn’t get in the way. Melody was a very practical sort, first and always. She never bothered with make-up, and wore serious, no-nonsense glasses. Her jeans, sweater, and jacket were dark, practical, and anonymous. She kept several sets in her wardrobe, all exactly the same, so she didn’t have to waste time wondering what to wear. But even standing still beside her trolley, scowling impartially at JC and the factory, she blazed with repressed nervous energy waiting to be unleashed upon some poor unfortunate spirit.
    And, finally, there was Happy Jack Palmer, taking his time locking up the van and even more time slouching across the car park, to make it very clear to one and all that he didn’t want to be there. Happy had just turned thirty and was still bitter about it. He was the team telepath, borderline head-case, and dark cheerless pain in the arse. Because, as he was fond of saying, if you could see the world as clearly as he did, and all the weird and strange things we shared it with, you’d be clinically depressed, too. Happy could Gloom for England, and still take a Bronze in Dire Mutterings.
    He might have been good-looking if he ever stopped scowling, and he might have been tall if he ever stopped slouching, but the odds were against it. Prematurely balding and defiantly pot-bellied, he wore a faded T-shirt with the legend Go On. Ask Me About My Day. I Dare You , over a pair of distressed jeans that clearly hadn’t been threatened with a washing machine in recent memory. He wore slip-on shoes because he couldn’t be bothered with laces, and a battered leather jacket that looked like the animal who bequeathed its skin had known a really rough time even while it was still alive. Happy was a Class Eleven Telepath, and would cheerfully have lobotomised himself with a blunt ice-pick if he’d thought for one moment it would keep the voices out of his head.
    JC turned to Melody and beamed at her. “Have you got all your toys, Melody? I’m sure you could pack that trolley a little higher if you really tried.”
    “Eat shit and die, Chance,” said Melody. “You couldn’t do this job without me and my equipment, and you know it.”
    “And Happy, Happy, Happy!” said JC, ignoring Melody with the ease of long practice. “Have you locked up the Mystery Machine properly?”
    “I wish you’d stop calling it that,” said Melody. “It wasn’t that funny when we picked the bloody thing up from the rental place, and it’s grown exponentially less funny all the way here.”
    “I can think of worse things to call it,” said Happy. “It isn’t so much a