Ghostfinders 03 -Ghost of a Dream

it! More than one way to skin a cat, or break a spirit.”
    Melody sat down on the floor beside the dying dupe and took her in her arms. She held her tightly, while the dupe shook and shuddered, slowly breaking up, losing basic coherence as ectoplasm leaked from everywhere at once. Melody didn’t know what to do. She’d never felt so helpless. But when the machines can’t help you, all that’s left is to be human. And care.
    “I’m so cold…” said the dupe. Her eyes weren’t tracking any more.
    “Hush,” said Melody. “Hush. It’s all right. I’m here.”
    Ectoplasm boiled off the dupe’s body, rising like a thin white mist, dispersing quickly on the still lobby air. Melody could feel the dupe’s form growing soft and vague in her arms. The dupe grabbed at Melody’s hand with her own. Melody took hold of it firmly, and it fell apart in her fingers. The dupe’s face fell in, collapsing. The eyes and the mouth were the last to go. The dupe’s lips moved.
    “Melody. Make him pay.”
    And then she burst. Great splashes of ectoplasm soaked Melody from top to toe. Her arms were full of a chalky, white, liquid mass, quickly falling apart into mists, which dispersed in the air and were gone. Melody was left sitting on the floor with empty arms. Her clothes were dry, all traces of ectoplasm gone. She got up, clambering awkwardly to her feet, and looked at the Faust with cold, cold eyes. He smiled easily back at her.
    “So,” he said. “Are we having fun yet?”
    “What are you?” she said. “Isn’t there anything human left inside you?”
    “Why should I settle for anything so small, so limited? I am the Faust. I’m everything that ever scared you, little girl, in one easy, soul-destroying package! Can I get a halleluiah?”
    Melody brought up her machine-pistol, and opened fire. The Faust stood sportingly still before her, soaking up every bullet that hit him. He didn’t so much as flinch while the bullets hit him, over and over again. The bullets punched into him, but he took no damage, and he didn’t bleed. Even the holes in the front of his nice suit healed themselves instantly. When Melody finally gave up, stopped shooting, and lowered her gun, the Faust coughed obligingly and spat the bullets out onto the palm of his hand. He let them drop, to jump and rattle loudly on the lobby floor.
    “I’m not soft, everyday flesh like you, little girl. Not any more. I am the new flesh, the better flesh, The Flesh Undying in the world of mortal men. The clue is in the name, really…”
    “I’ll kill you,” said Melody. “I will find a way to kill you.”
    The Faust ignored her, his perfect brow creased with a hint of concentration. “Door!” he said, finally.
    And a Door appeared in the lobby, appearing suddenly and silently out of nowhere. It looked like an ordinary everyday door except that it was hanging high up on the air, below the lobby ceiling. Entirely horizontal, facedown.
    “I think something terribly theatrical is needed here,” said the Faust. “I think this calls for…the Phantom of the Haybarn!”
    The Door dropped open, hanging down, and something dropped out of it like a bag of garbage. A dark shape that hit the floor of the lobby hard. But it didn’t break, and it didn’t cry out. Melody quickly covered it with her machine-pistol; and the Faust chuckled. At first, Melody couldn’t make out what it was—a hunched figure, crouching on the floor, hidden under a heavy black cape. It rocked back and forth, swaying this way and that; and then it rose suddenly upright and spun around to glare at Melody.
    A tall, stoop-shouldered creature, dressed in all the finery of the late nineteenth century, wrapped in a night-black opera cloak. Half his face was hidden behind a grubby, blood-stained mask. The features that could be seen were a sickly yellow colour, as though disfigured by a skin disease. And the eyes…were exactly like the Faust’s. Dark eyes, shark eyes. The creature’s filthy gloved hands dripped fresh blood, which smoked andstained the lobby floor. The Phantom of the Haybarn—a corrupted dream, a living nightmare. He stank of filth and blood and rotting meat.
    “What a pretty thing you are,” said the Faust. “My very own Phantom, for this tawdry little theatre. Go forth, my child, my own. Be bad. Be scary. Tear this place apart and everyone in it.”
    The Phantom lurched forward, heading for Melody. He looked human enough, but he didn’t move like a man. He