Ghostfinders 02 - Ghost of a Smile

more. It’s time for you to go.”
    He held up the Boojum, and JC produced his Hand of Glory. The two men said their activating Words, pretty much in unison . . . And the small black box and the small withered paw both vanished, gone in a moment, blinking out of existence simultaneously as two great powers cancelled each other out. Both men looked at their empty hands, and it was all very still and very quiet in the stairwell.
    JC launched himself up the intervening steps and threw himself at Patterson. They slammed together and wrestled fiercely in the confined space. Happy and Melody charged up the stairs, while Kim shouted fierce encouragement to JC. Patterson forced JC off him, with a great effort, and swung wildly at his attacker, who ducked aside at the last moment. Patterson’s strength and momentum carried him right past JC and over the stairwell’s railing, and out into the void. He grabbed the railing with a last desperate effort, and hung on to it with one hand, dangling over the long, long drop. He looked down, then up at JC. Happy and Melody crowded in on either side of JC, and the three of them looked at Patterson. Kim hovered above them all.
    None of them moved to help Patterson. Great beads of sweat appeared on his dark face as he hung helplessly, unable to pull himself back up. He glared up at them but said nothing. He wouldn’t beg. JC regarded him dispassionately, and when he finally spoke, his voice was so cold it actually shocked the others.
    “For all the people who died here, because of you. For all the lives you ruined, through the ReSet drug. For killing the policemen and the security men. For creating the New People and endangering the whole world . . . For being a traitor to the Carnacki Institute, and the whole of Humanity . . . It falls to me to pass judgement on you.”
    “JC?” said Kim. “What are you doing, JC? You can’t just kill him . . .”
    “Yes, I can,” said JC. “For all he’s done and all he’s made possible—yes, I can kill him.”
    “Hold it, hold it, take it easy,” Happy said quickly. “JC, I can see where you’re going with this, but don’t. We can’t kill the man. He knows things, JC. We need to know who he’s working for, if there are other traitors inside the Institute, and everything these people are planning!”
    “I’ll never tell,” said Patterson. He swung slowly from his single handhold, making no attempt to pull himself up. “I’d rather die than have them angry at me. There really are fates worth than death.”
    “You aren’t actually going to kill him, are you, JC?” said Kim.
    “For God’s sake, JC,” said Melody.
    “‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,’” said JC. “But he isn’t here right now, and I am.”
    He slammed his fist down on Patterson’s hand. The dark fingers sprang open under the impact, and Patterson lost his grip. He fell like a stone, screaming all the way down. JC watched him fall and wouldn’t let himself look away until he lost sight of the man in the gloom of the stairwell. The scream cut off abruptly, and JC finally turned away.
    “Damn, JC,” said Happy. “That was . . . hardcore. I’m not saying you were wrong, necessarily, but . . .”
    “You killed him,” said Kim, looking at JC as though she’d never seen him before.
    “It’s part of the job, sometimes,” said Melody. “We’re trained to kill the bad guys, if necessary. If there’s no other way.”
    “Yeah,” said Happy. “But there’s a difference between taking out a threat in the heat of the moment and a cold-blooded execution. I mean, I never liked Patterson, but he was one of us. Still a part of the Carnacki Institute.”
    “Yes,” said JC. “One of us. That’s why I did it.”
    He led the way up the last remaining set of steps, and one by one the others followed him up, all of them watching him thoughtfully, in their own ways.

    All too soon they ran out of stairs and stood together looking at the last set of closed swing doors. None of them made any move, for quite a while. JC finally reached out a hand to the doors, then snatched it away again as a great Voice was heard, filling the stairwell, filling their heads. Not a human Voice, not even human words, but still it seemed to JC and the others that Something called to them, summoned them, to come to the final floor and account for themselves.
    “What the hell was that?” Melody said hoarsely. “It was inside my head . . .”
    “It went right through all