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“They’re bad people,” Happy said flatly. “There are lots of us in the Institute who believe the Project manipulate and even create hauntings, and bad places, for their own reasons. So they can take advantage of them. Sometimes what they’re after is obvious: Objects of Power, or Forces that can be captured and put to use. But sometimes . . . what they’re doing makes no sense at all, from the outside.”
“I’ve heard things, too,” said Melody. “Some of them eat ghosts. Don’t look at me like that . . . It’s what I’ve heard. They eat ghosts: memories, identities, maybe even souls for all I know. I never wanted to look into it that closely. People in the Institute don’t eat souls. Do they?”
“No,” said JC. “We still hang people for that. There are a lot of things Project agents do that we don’t. They have no morals, no scruples, no inhibitions, and less restraint. They know a lot of things we don’t because we won’t do what’s necessary to acquire such awful skills. The Crowley Project follow their own path, pursue their own ends, and all we ever need to know is which side they’re on, so we can safely take the other. They are the bad guys in any given situation. They don’t care about the dead or the living; they go after what they want, and to hell with whoever gets hurt or killed in the process.”
“Well, yes, but there’s more to them than that,” said Happy.
“No there isn’t,” JC said flatly. “You think there is because all those pills you take make you paranoid. Not to mention seriously weird.”
“All right then, tell me this,” Happy said defiantly. “Why are new bad places appearing so frequently these days? Why are there always more, no matter how many we defuse or shut down? I hear things; and I don’t just mean telepathically.”
“Go on,” said Melody. “Tell us, Happy. You always know the best gossip. And not because you’re a first-class telepath with no scruples and no life.”
“I shall rise above that,” said Happy. “Look; this is me, rising.”
“Get on with it,” said JC.
“Hey; I’m not the only one who thinks this! There are a lot of people at the Institute, really high-up and seriously co
“Maybe you should be taking more pills, not less,” said JC.
“Or,” said Happy, leaning forward, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper, “could it actually be even worse than that? Could it be that the highest levels of the Carnacki Institute have been doing things they shouldn’t? There are rumours . . . There are those who say that, possibly, there are people in the Institute on a much higher level than we have access to who approved an operation they shouldn’t have; and as a result, something really bad has happened, something that those very people are desperately trying to put right before anyone finds out . . . before the whole world falls apart. Could this whole situation, this unprecedented Code One Haunting right in the heart of London, be the result of a Major Working gone terribly wrong? And that’s why we’re here, rather than one of the A teams, because the Boss wants this handled quietly, by entirely expendable agents?”
“Okay,” said JC. “You’re really starting to worry me now.”
“Good,” said Happy. “Join the club. We’ve got our own badges and everything. Now take it a step further. What if there’s another group? Some third organisation that’s so secret even we don’t know about them, working in the shadows of the world for their own dark reasons?”
“Stop that,” JC said firmly. “Stop that right now before my brains start to leak out my ears. That way paranoia lies.”
“Welcome to my world,” said Happy.
“You’ve given me a headache now,” said Melody, accusingly.
“I’ve got a pill for that,” said Happy.
Melody let out a sudden bark of laughter. “Like I’d ever touch anything you use. I take my consciousness straight, not altered, thank you very much.”
Happy sniffed. “Don’t know what you’re missing.”
And then all three of them looked round sharply, staring into the right-hand tu
“Is it coming here?” said JC. “To this platform?”
Melody looked quickly across her sensor readings. “Coming right at us, JC. Damn, it’s moving fast.”
Happy stepped reluctantly away from the others, as though drawn to the dark tu
“It’s almost here. I can see a light, coming this way. The rail tracks are vibrating. I’d say this is almost certainly a real train. But it . . . feels wrong.”
“Then get the hell back here with the rest of us!” said JC.
Happy seemed to suddenly realise where he was. He sprinted back down the platform, not stopping until he was safely past JC and Melody, and had put the rack of instruments between him and the on-coming train. “Sorry about that,” he said breathlessly. “You can’t take as many pills as I do to make you brave and fearless without losing some of your self-preservation instincts. And they turn your piss orange.”
He broke off as the sound of the train grew suddenly louder—painfully, deafeningly loud. It filled their heads and shuddered in their bones, a far louder sound than any train should ever make. Like the roar of a great beast, it filled the station, harsh and threatening. JC realised he could feel it as much as hear it, a terrible presence that triggered a recognition in the darkest and most primitive levels of his mind, where the lizard brain had never forgotten how it felt to be hunted, to be prey. The whole platform shook, as though it was afraid of what was coming.
JC stuck his head right next to Melody’s and shouted in her ear. “Is this real? Is that a real train coming, or some kind of psychic projection?”
“Are you crazy?” she yelled back. “Listen to it! Doesn’t it sound real?”
“It’s too loud! It’s too loud, and I don’t trust it! What do your instruments say? Is it real?”
Melody checked her instruments, clinging to them for support. “It’s real enough! It’s showing up on all the sensors as a real moving physical object!”
“Of course it’s real!” yelled Happy, glaring at the tu
A burst of compressed air slammed out of the tu