“I don’t think the whole of the Carnacki Institute working together has enough power to deal with the thing sitting on that throne,” said JC. “We can’t fight a god, and even if we did. . Hold it. Hold everything. Fighting. . is what The Flesh Undying wants. It wants us to fight because it knows we can’t win. That’s why he enfleshed the Druids-to distract us!”
“Trust me, it’s working,” said Happy. “I am feeling very definitely distracted.”
“So let’s try talking,” said JC. “Not with the dead Druids. All they have are old grievances, old hatreds, that they’d rather die than give up. . Happy, can you make mental contact with Lud?”
“Not on the best day I ever had!” said Happy, loudly. “That may be only the ghost of a god, but they key word there is still god! My brains would boil in my head and leak out my ears. Unless. .” His voice trailed off as he looked around at the others, his brows falling into a serious scowl. He took out a silver pill box. “I suppose. .”
“No!” Melody said immediately.
“Yes,” said JC. “Sorry, Melody; but we need our team telepath firing on all cylinders.”
Happy had taken a single pill out of the box, a long yellow-and-green-striped one. He rolled it back and forth between his fingertips, studying the pill thoughtfully. “Now this. . is the good stuff. I distilled it from some weird esoteric chemical traces I found in Chimera House, left behind by the passing of the New People.” He looked at Melody. “You never did appreciate my talents as a chemist.”
“Happy,” said Melody. “Please, don’t. .”
“It won’t put me in the same league as Lud,” said Happy. “Not even close. But it should hold me together long enough to get his attention.”
Melody glared at JC, her voice cold and fierce. “You don’t care whether he lives or dies, as long as he gets the job done!”
“I care,” said JC. “But the job has to be done.”
“This isn’t about the job!” said Melody. “This is all about your getting Kim back! Your unnatural girl-friend!”
“Right now,” said JC, “Kim, and what she knows, is the job. Because what she knows about The Flesh Undying might be enough to save the whole Earth, and everyone on it.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Happy said cheerfully. He dropped an arm across Melody’s shoulders, ignoring the stiff rejection he felt there. “We have to do this. We can’t get out of here, we can’t win the fight, and we don’t have any kind of future. . as long as The Flesh Undying is still out there. We have to work together to do this, all four of us. Like we did before, remember? And I have to be able to control the contact we’re about to make with the ghost of a dead god. And that’s a sentence I didn’t expect to be saying when I got up this morning. You mustn’t worry, Melody. Really. The pill will keep me sane. Or at least sane enough that you’ll still be able to shout at me afterwards.”
“If you want to help Happy,” said JC, “you need to work with us, Melody. Be his anchor; root him in the real world. Give him something to come back to.”
“There will be harsh words later,” said Melody, nodding reluctantly.
“No change there, then,” said JC. “Do it, Happy.”
Happy hesitated, then took out several more pill boxes. He spilled the contents onto his palm, rolling the multi-coloured pills back and forth, as though judging the best possible combinations, and the most bearable side effects. JC leaned in close beside Melody.
“Did you know he had that many pills on his person?”
“Of course not!” said Melody. “And he didn’t stop to load up before we left the apartment. Which means he must have been carrying them around for some time. Must have been planning to use them, for some time. Why didn’t I notice?”
“Because he didn’t want you to,” said JC. “He didn’t want you to worry. And I think he’s been waiting for the right moment, or the right excuse, to start using them again. Being a junkie comes as much from the soul as the body.”
He moved over to stand before Happy, who was bouncing lightly up and down on his toes, in a thoughtful sort of way. He put away all the pills but one, the original striped pill. And then he smiled easily at JC.
“This can only go well,” he said, and swallowed the pill. All the colour dropped out of his face at once, and beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.
“Damn. .” he said. “The dosage in that one is so strong it starts working almost before you take it.”
“How do you feel?” said JC.
“Good, good, good. .”
“What’s in that pill?”
“A bit of this, a lot of that, all of it entirely illegal, unethical, and unnatural,” Happy said rapidly. “Does you good on a spiritual level, with only the slightest chance that my liver will dissolve.”
“Are you sure you can link us all, to make contact with Lud?”
“Of course! Piece of cake. Don’t worry, JC. Over-confidence is all part of the ride. I couldn’t Do Something this dangerous and this scary if I were in my right mind; and neither would you. I’m not enough, you see, on my own. Never was. I need something to lean on. For a while that was Melody; but I always knew that wouldn’t last.”
“She didn’t know that,” said JC.
“Yes, she did,” said Happy. “I’m a telepath, remember?”
He reached out and pulled them all together. Four minds, not merged, but working in tandem. All their eyes burned golden in the gloom, then their whole bodies blazed with light. The Druids fell back, slowly and reluctantly, retreating into the protecting shadows of the stone forest. The four Ghost Finders, the living and the dead, turned to face the throne; and the dead god slowly lowered his head to look down on them. The Druids cried out, to see their old god move, for the first time in centuries. When Lud spoke, his voice reverberated in the heads and in the souls of all who heard him.
“At last,” said Lud. “A voice calls out to me. A human voice. . I remember the way things used to be, when all of Britain bowed down to me and burned for me. Life and death at my command, and at my whim. Worship to sustain me and purpose to give me a reason to go on. But all that passed, and I fell away, to become so much less than I was. Now. . I see the world above, and I see a world with no room in it for such as me. And there is nothing down here that I would wish to be a part of. So let me go. Break the chains that hold me to this city, this London, that I no longer recognise nor understand. Let me go wherever gods go when they die.”
“Fair enough,” said JC. He gathered up all the strength generated by the binding of the four Ghost Finders, locked in harness with him, and reached out in a direction he could sense, if not understand. A great Door appeared in the amphitheatre, beside the great throne. A Door into the Hereafter. And Lud stood up. He reached out a huge grey hand and ripped all the flesh off the Druids watching from the stone forest. The given flesh flew away from the old bones, burned in mid air, and was consumed long before it ever reached Lud. The new flesh that The Flesh Undying had provided. . gone in a moment, leaving nothing behind but old bones, lying scattered on the forest floor. Lud had taken the flesh of his worshippers and burned it in sacrifice to himself, to raise the power he needed, to do the thing he needed to do.
He opened the Door. It swung smoothly open before him, and a great light spilled out, forcing back the darkness. Lud shrunk suddenly, falling in on himself in fits and starts, until he was of a proper size to walk through the Door. The light was so bright that JC and Kim, Happy and Melody, had to turn their heads aside, unable to face it. The old god paused, on the very threshold of the Door, and looked back at them.
“I see the touch of Outside upon you all. Something reached into your world, from my homelands, and altered you according to its purposes. Something like me. That is what has made this moment possible. Like calls to like. . and pays its debts. I owe you a debt; so call on me, one last time, when you have need. . But beware gods bearing gifts; none of you were ever meant to burn this brightly. Be careful of what such a light attracts. .”