Whispers Under Ground

twelve.
    Lesley held out her hand, said the magic word and conjured a golf-ball-sized globe of light that hovered above her open palm. The magic word in this case was Lux and the colloquial name for the spell is a werelight – it’s the first spell you ever learn. Lesley’s werelight cast a pearly light that threw soft-edged shadows against the tunnel’s concrete walls.
    ‘Whoa!’ said Abigail. ‘You guys can do magic.’
    ‘There he is,’ said Lesley.
    A young man appeared by the wall. He was white, in his late teens or early twenties with a shock of unnaturally blond hair gelled into spikes. He was dressed in cheap white trainers, jeans and a donkey jacket. He was holding a can of spray paint in his hand and was using it to carefully describe an arc on the concrete. The hiss was barely audible and there was no sign of fresh paint being laid down. When he paused to shake the can the rattling sound was muffled.
    Lesley’s werelight dimmed and reddened in colour.
    ‘Give it some more,’ I told her.
    She concentrated and her werelight flared before dimming again. The hiss grew louder and now I could see what it was he was spraying. He’d been ambitious – writing a sentence that started up near the entrance.
    ‘Be excellent to …’ read Abigail. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    I put my fingers to my lips and glanced at Lesley, who tilted her head to show she could keep up the magic all day if need be – not that I was going to let her. I pulled out my standard-issue police notebook and got my pen ready.
    ‘Excuse me,’ I said in my best policeman voice. ‘Could I have a word?’ They actually teach you how to do the voice at Hendon. The aim is to achieve a tone that cuts through whatever fog of alcohol, belligerence or randomised guilt the member of the public is floating in.
    The young man ignored me. He pulled a second spray can from his jacket pocket and began shading the edges of a capital E. I tried a couple more times but he seemed intent on finishing the word EACH.
    ‘Oi sunshine,’ said Lesley. ‘Put that down, turn round and talk to us.’
    The hissing stopped, the spray cans went back in the pockets and the young man turned. His face was pale and angular and his eyes were hidden behind a pair of smoked Ozzy Osbourne specs.
    ‘I’m busy,’ he said.
    ‘We can see that,’ I said and showed him my warrant card. ‘What’s your name?’
    ‘Macky,’ he said and turned back to his work. ‘I’m busy.’
    ‘What you doing?’ asked Lesley.
    ‘I’m making the world a better place,’ said Macky.
    ‘It’s a ghost,’ said Abigail incredulously.
    ‘You brought us here,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, but when I saw him he was thinner,’ said Abigail. ‘Much thinner.’
    I explained that he was feeding off the magic Lesley was generating, which led to the question I always dread.
    ‘So what’s magic, then?’ asked Abigail.
    ‘We don’t know,’ I said. ‘It’s not any form of electromagnetic radiation. That I do know.’
    ‘Maybe it’s brainwaves,’ said Abigail.
    ‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘Because that would be electrochemical and it would still have to involve some kind of physical manifestation if it was going to be projected out of your head.’ So just chalk it up to pixie dust or quantum entanglement, which was the same thing as pixie dust except with the word quantum in it.
    ‘Are we going to talk to this guy or not?’ asked Lesley. ‘Because otherwise I’m going to turn this off.’ Her werelight bobbed over her palm.
    ‘Oi Macky,’ I called. ‘A word in your shell-like.’
    Macky had returned to his art – finishing up the shading on the H in EACH.
    ‘I’m busy,’ he said. ‘I’m making the world a better place.’
    ‘How are you planning to do that?’ I asked.
    Macky finished the H to his satisfaction and stepped back to admire his handiwork. We’d all been careful to stay as far from the tracks as possible but either Macky was taking a risk or, most likely, he’d just forgotten. I saw Abigail mouth Oh shit as she realised what was going to happen.
    ‘Because,’ said Macky and then he was hit by the ghost train.
    It went past us invisible and silent but for a blast of heat and the smell of diesel. Macky was swatted off the track to land in a crumple just the below the X in EXCELLENT. There was a gurgling sound and his leg twitched for a couple of seconds before he went quite still. Then he faded, and with him his graffiti.
    ‘Can I stop