Ghost of a Chance
Simon R. Green
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
ONE - OUT OF TIME
TWO - THE SCARIEST PLACE ON EARTH
THREE - GOING UNDERGROUND
FOUR - TWO MONSTERS AND A GHOST
FIVE - THE HORROR SHOW
SIX - ALL KINDS OF APPETITES
SEVEN - TO WAR WITH DEMONS
EIGHT - BLOODBATH
NINE - LITTLE BILLY HARTMAN GETS HIS REWARD
TEN - WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF?
ELEVEN - MORTAL AND IMMORTAL ENEMIES
Praise for the Novels of the Nightside
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNCANNY
“A fast, intelligently written tale that is fun to read.”
—The Green Man Review
JUST ANOTHER JUDGEMENT DAY
“Another unrestrained ride through the Nightside.”
—Monsters and Critics
THE UNNATURAL INQUIRER
“Sam Spade meets Sirius Black . . . in the Case of the Cosmic MacGuffin . . . crabby wit and inventively gruesome set pieces.”
—Entertainment Weekly
HELL TO PAY
“If you’re looking for fast-paced, no-holds-barred dark urban fantasy, you need look no further: the Nightside is the place for you.”
—SFRevu
SHARPER THAN A SERPENT’S TOOTH
“A captivating tale.”
—Midwest Book Review
PATHS NOT TAKEN
“An entertaining adventure.”
—Chronicle
HEX AND THE CITY
“[Green’s] style is unique, stylized, and addictive.”
—The Green Man Review
NIGHTINGALE’S LAMENT
“Strong horror fantasy.”
—The Best Reviews
AGENTS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
“If you like your noir pitch-black, then return to the Nightside.”
—University City Review
SOMETHING FROM THE NIGHTSIDE
“A fast, fun little roller coaster of a story.”
—Jim Butcher
Novels of the Nightside
SOMETHING FROM THE NIGHTSIDE
AGENTS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS
NIGHTINGALE’S LAMENT
HEX AND THE CITY
PATHS NOT TAKEN
SHARPER THAN A SERPENT’S TOOTH
HELL TO PAY
THE UNNATURAL INQUIRER
JUST ANOTHER JUDGEMENT DAY
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNCANNY
Ghost Finders Novels
GHOST OF A CHANCE
Secret Histories Novels
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TORC
DAEMONS ARE FOREVER
THE SPY WHO HAUNTED ME
FROM HELL WITH LOVE
Deathstalker Novels
DEATHSTALKER
DEATHSTALKER REBELLION
DEATHSTALKER WAR
DEATHSTALKER HONOR
DEATHSTALKER DESTINY
DEATHSTALKER LEGACY
DEATHSTALKER RETURN
DEATHSTALKER CODA
Hawk and Fisher Novels
SWORDS OF HAVEN
GUARDS OF HAVEN
Also by Simon R. Green
BLUE MOON RISING
BEYOND THE BLUE MOON
DRINKING MIDNIGHT WINE
Omnibus
A WALK ON THE NIGHTSIDE
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
GHOST OF A CHANCE
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / September 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Simon R. Green.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-44251-7
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Everybody knows there are bad places in the world.
Houses that make you walk by on the other side of the street. Bedrooms that no-one in their right mind would try to sleep in. The television screen that isn’t empty enough, the mirror with too many faces reflected in it, the voice in the night, and the dark at the top of the stairs. There are bad places everywhere, in crowded towns and empty fields. Places where there are no safety barriers, where the walls of the world have worn thin, places . . . where we know we’re not safe. It’s in these bad places that we see things we don’t want to see.
As I was walking up the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today.
I wish that man would go away.
Ghosts. They’ve been around as long as we have, in one form or another. Strange sights and sounds, visitations and wonders, spirits of cold earth and empty graves come back to trouble the living. Things that won’t lie down; and none of them bound by the laws of the living. The dead; and things that aren’t dead enough.
There are bad places in the world, but it isn’t ghosts that make these places bad; it’s the bad places that make ghosts.
As the world changes, so do the ways in which we see ghosts. From dark shapes in the night and ancestral revenants to lovers separated too soon and thwarted enemies; from stone tape recordings and electromagnetic phenomena to men and women caught in repeating loops of Time, like insects trapped in amber. Ghosts have always been with us, like guests reluctant to leave the party, like bad memories that won’t go away . . . Ghosts are nightmares of the Past, refusing to give way to the Present. Mankind’s dark side, Humanity’s unconscious.
England’s dreaming . . .
And so, in this brave new twenty-first century, don’t expect gho
sts to be limited to old manor houses or abandoned rectories. The modern idea of the bad place, the genius loci, the setting that disturbs and troubles us, has moved on. These days you’re more likely to see ghosts in empty car parks, in shut-down factories, or in an underpass with a bad reputation. Places where it can get very dark and very dangerous, and no-one with any sense goes there alone.
There are such things as ghosts whether you believe in them or not. Tapping on your window late at night, waiting patiently to be noticed at the foot of your bed, stubbornly refusing to lie down. And that’s where the Carnacki Institute comes in. The Institute exists to investigate, interpret, and hopefully Do Something About all the many mysteries and strange supernatural events that flare up every year. All the things that shouldn’t happen but unfortunately do. The Institute’s field agents are trained to deal with spooks and spirits, poltergeists and demons, Timeslips and other-dimensional incursions. They are ghost finders, and when they find them . . . they step on them. Hard.
Of course, not all ghosts are dark forces, intent on Humanity’s ruin. Some are poor lost souls, trying to find their way home. And they . . . can be the most dangerous of all.
ONE
OUT OF TIME
These days, ghosts turn up in the damnedest places.
It was a cold night under a cold sky, in a supermarket car park a short distance outside the Georgian city of Bath. The supermarket was shut, the car park was deserted, and all the normal people had gone home to sleep the sleep of the just, or at least the weary. A great open space, now, with its carefully laid-out parking bays, half a dozen cars parked haphazardly across the asphalt. A dozen or so abandoned supermarket carts stood forlorn and forgotten in the night. Nothing moved in the surrounding empty fields, not even a breath of wind; and only the faintest of sounds made it all the way from the distant city. Nothing of interest here, nothing to see; except for the three figures standing together in the middle of the car park, looking expectantly about them like theatre patrons waiting for the play to begin.
No lights in the closed supermarket. There was only the harsh yellow glare of the car-park lights, left on as a favour to those who waited, and the blue-white glare of the full moon, sailing high in the star-speckled sky. A cold wind gusted suddenly out of the east, adding a distinct chill to the hour before dawn. Scattered litter tumbled end over end across the great open space, like mice suddenly disturbed in a dark basement. The two men and one woman ignored the wind and the chill as they waited for something to come out of the darkest part of the night and do its best to scare them.
“How much longer are we going to stand around here, freezing our nuts off?” said Happy Jack Palmer.
“Until something ghostly shows up and justifies our expense claims,” JC Chance said cheerfully. “If not tonight, then perhaps tomorrow night, or the night after that. It is, after all, the suspense and uncertainty of things that makes life worth living.”
“I’d hit you if I dared take my hands out of my pockets long enough,” Happy said darkly. “What, exactly, are we supposed to be looking for?”
“I wish you’d, just once, read the briefing files, ” said Melody Chambers, not looking up from the equipment she was casually assembling in a semicircle before her. “No-one’s seen anything, as such, but there have been hundreds of reports from people using this car park after dark: feelings of unease, panic, even outright terror . . . and a very definite sense of being watched by unseen, malevolent eyes. People are afraid to come here any more, even in broad daylight.”
“Ah,” said JC. “The usual.”
“Why can’t ghosts manifest during working hours?” said Happy, a bit wistfully. “It’s not as if there’s any rule that says ghosts can’t appear in daylight. I think they do it to be spiteful.”
“That’s right, Happy,” said JC. “They’re only doing it to annoy you.”
Happy scowled fiercely. “I am not an early-morning person! I have been up for twenty-seven hours straight, and I’m not even getting overtime! Somewhere there is a hotel bed calling my name, and I wish I were in it.”
“So do we,” said Melody. “If only so we could get a little peace and quiet. I’ve known poltergeists that were less of a nuisance than you.”
“Can’t we at least order some pizza?” said Happy. “I’d kill for a meat feast with a stuffed crust.”
“Hush, man,” said JC, peering about him into the gloom with lively enthusiasm. “If you want to find ghosts, you have to go where ghosts are. Logic. You can’t expect to find Jaws in a swimming pool.”
“I want to go home,” Happy said miserably.
“You always want to go home,” said Melody. “How you ever got the nickname Happy is beyond me. I can only suppose your school was an absolute hotbed of irony.”
“Listen,” said Happy, “I am a Class Ten telepath. If you could see the world as clearly as I do, you’d be clinically depressed, too. I want some of my little pills.”
“Not now,” JC said immediately. “I need your head clear and your thoughts sharp.”
“Spoil-sport.” Happy sniffed loudly, sulking. “Come on, JC, we’ve been here almost five hours now, and nothing’s happened. This place is as dead as my love life. Let’s call it a night. My stomach’s empty, my back is killing me, and my feet aren’t talking to me. All to investigate a ghost that may not even be here. I mean, be fair: a sense of unease and of being watched? You can get that in a public toilet.”
“Bear up,” said JC. “All in a night’s work for the intrepid heroes of the Carnacki Institute.”
Happy grimaced. “God, I hate it when you’re being this cheerful. It’s not natural. Especially given the nature of what we do.”
“Be strong!” urged JC, beaming even more brightly because he knew it got on Happy’s nerves. “Remember . . . when the Ghostbusters have a headache; when the Scooby gang are having a panic attack; when Mulder and Scully don’t want to know and the psychic commandos of the SAS are sitting in a corner crying their eyes out . . . Who do you send for? The specially trained field agents of the Carnacki Institute!”
“He’s quite right, you know,” Melody said coldly. “It isn’t normal to be that cheerful, at this hour of the morning. You haven’t been dipping into Happy’s pills again, have you?”
“I do so love to see the sun come up!” said JC.
“They’re not paying me enough for this,” growled Happy. “In fact, they couldn’t pay me enough for this. It’s only the general gloom and the opportunities for self-pity that keep me going.”
“Be quiet, you annoying little man, and let me concentrate on my instruments,” said Melody. “Or I’ll short-circuit your kirlian aura.”
Josiah Charles (JC) Chance looked fondly on his bickering team-mates, then turned his attention back to the shadows and the dark. JC was tall, lean. Full of energy, and far too handsome for his own good. Well into his late twenties, he had pale, striking features, a great mane of dark, wavy hair, intense eyes, a proud nose, and a mouth whose constant smile would have been more reassuring if it had touched his piercing gaze a little more often. He wore a rich cream suit of quite striking style and elegance, and wore it well. A born adventurer, risk-taker, and experienced ghost finder, JC Chance was the rising star of the Carnacki Institute; and he knew it. He knew more about ghosts, hauntings, and paranormal phenomena than any man should who hoped to sleep soundly at night. Fortunately, he also knew a lot of things to do about them. Really quite unpleasant things, sometimes, but that came with the job.
Melody Chambers was the main brain and science geek of the team, and therefore strictly responsible for all the marvellous new technology supplied by the Carnacki Institute. In fact, Melody had been known to slap people’s hands away if they even tried to touch her tech. She was very protective of her toys, even if she did tend to break them on a regular basis, usually by trying to get far more out of them than the design specs allowed. Pushing the very edge of her late twenties, Melody was pretty enough in a conventional w
ay, short and gamine thin, and burned constantly with more nervous energy than was good for her. She had a disturbing tendency to rush headlong into any situation that looked like it might promise her something, anything, that she hadn’t encountered before, armed with a complete willingness to kick the hell out of anything that proved even a bit stubborn. Melody Chambers wasn’t nearly scared enough of the dark, considering what she did on nights like this.
She wore her auburn hair scraped back into a severe bun, serious glasses with black plastic frames, and clothes so anonymous they actually sidestepped fashion or style. In her spare time, she enjoyed a sex life that would have scared Casanova out of his jockstrap. It’s always the quiet ones . . .
Then there was Happy Jack Palmer. Telepath, smart-arse, and full-time gloomy bugger. Closing fast on thirty, and resenting it bitterly, Happy was short and stocky, prematurely balding, and might have been handsome if he ever stopped scowling. He wore grubby jeans, a rude T-shirt, and a battered old jacket, and looked like you’d have to put him through a car wash to get the top layer of soil off him. He shaved when he remembered and enjoyed all the worst kinds of food, traces of which still showed on his jacket. He claimed to have a heart of gold. In a box, under his bed. The most reluctant hero ever accepted into the ranks of the Carnacki Institute, and owner of so many medical prescriptions he had to file them in alphabetical order to keep track, Happy had an unequalled talent for detecting the presence of things that most people wouldn’t even admit existed.
