Spirits from Beyond by Simon R. Green Read Free Book Online Page A

said Happy. “Really? Gosh; I do feel proud . . .”
    “But why us?” said Melody. “Out of all the Ghost Finders in the Carnacki Institute? I mean, remember poor Jeremy Diego and his team, back at Chimera House? Wiped out in a moment, without a second thought!”
    “I think . . . it’s because of what happened to me, down in the Underground,” said JC. “When Something reached down from Outside and touched me. And Kim.”
    Happy looked at Melody. “I don’t feel touched. Do you feel touched? I don’t remember being touched even though we were both right there, alongside these two cocky drawers . . .”
    “On the other hand,” Melody said slowly, “did you notice . . . when the four of us linked together, that time, our eyes glowed golden, too. That has to mean something.”
    “I don’t feel different,” Happy said stubbornly. “I don’t want to be different . . .”
    “Even if it makes you stronger?” said Melody.
    “Being stronger means they expect more from you,” Happy said wisely. “Like right here! We’re supposed to fight the ghost of a god? Come on! There aren’t enough chemical combinations in the world to make me that brave. Or that stupid.”
    Melody sniffed and turned to JC. “He may be chicken, but he has a point.”
    “I am not chicken! I am just survivally orientated!”
    “The ghost of a god is so far above our pay grade we can’t even see that far from here,” said Melody. “This is not what we do! I am keeping my machine-pistol handy in case I need to shoot myself repeatedly in the head.”
    JC looked steadily at Kim. “She may be a girl science geek with a weapons fetish, but she has a point. This is so way outside my experience, I don’t even know where to start.”
    “Good thing you’ve got me, then,” said Kim, smiling widely. “I know where to start. We start with Lud.”
    “Heads up, people!” said Happy. “Enemy forces on the move!”
    “Where?” said JC, glaring quickly about him, into the gloom between the stone trees.
    “Everywhere!” said Happy. “Whoever or whatever was following us is now closing in from all sides. I don’t see a possible exit route anywhere, and I am looking really hard!”
    They came forward, out of the dark, from every side at once. The last Druids, emerging from the shadows of London Undertowen. Thousands of them, stalking forward, as grey and dusty as the trees through which they moved. Some of them were splashed with blue woad. For old time’s sake. Human in size and shape, they no longer moved like anything human. They had spent far too long down in the Undertowen, in the dark. In the dead forest. Their flesh glowed unnaturally pale, like mushrooms. Their puffy faces held no human emotions. And their eyes were deep, dark, empty sockets, like their god. They carried weapons carved from human bones—ugly, brutal, deadly things.
    “All that remains of the original Druids, driven underground by the invading Roman forces, two thousand years ago and more,” said Kim. “The Romans built London over the catacombs, at least partly to keep the Druids down here.”
    “So the catacombs were built to contain the Druids?” said JC.
    “No,” said Kim. “The catacombs came first. They were expanded and strengthened to keep the Romans out.”
    “I’m getting seriously confused here,” said Melody, sweeping her machine-pistol steadily back and forth, to cover the nearest approaching figures. “What exactly are we dealing with here? Two-thousand-year-old Druids? Are they dead, or liches, or ghosts? They can’t still be alive after all this time, can they?”
    “They don’t feel human,” said Happy. “As such. And I can’t get inside their heads . . . It’s as though they’re all wrapped inside something. Something that reminds me very much of The Flesh Undying, and I do wish it didn’t.”
    “The Druids died out down here long ago,” Kim said steadily. “Nothing to eat and drink but each other. Must