“Kim,” JC said carefully, “I have to ask. How do you know all this? I mean, you’re talking about things that even the highest levels of the Carnacki Institute almost certainly don’t know about.”
“I have travelled in many places,” said Kim. “And I have witnessed many things. I will tell you everything, JC, eventually. When it’s safe. But right now, down here, I need you to trust me. So we can concentrate on what’s before us.”
“I trust you,” said JC. “If only because the thought of not being able to trust you scares me more than anything else.”
Kim laughed softly. “Dear JC, always so wonderfully practical.”
Happy put his hand in the air and waved it around. JC looked at him.
“What is it, Happy? Do you need to be excused? I don’t think there are any facilities around here. Use a tree. Take your pick. It won’t care. We won’t look. Though I can’t promise anything for what’s out there.”
“I have a question!” said Happy, with great dignity. “Why does the appallingly powerful Flesh Undying need help to destroy us? We’re only human. Apart from Kim, obviously. No offence. Have I said that before? Oooh. . flashbacks. .”
“He may be out of his skull, but he has a point,” said Melody.
“The Flesh Undying is stuck at the bottom of the ocean,” Kim said patiently. “To try anything directly would use up a great deal of power. So instead, it prefers to act in this world through agents. Like the Faust, or the Phantom of the Haybarn. Or the traitor who possessed Robert Patterson. Lud would make a far more powerful local agent. Even if he is much diminished from what he once was. Only a ghost of his former self. . As to why The Flesh Undying is so determined to wipe us out. I think it’s scared of us.”
“Us?” 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 have been a bad way to go. . They’ve been nothing but old bones for centuries, haunted by an undying hatred for those who lived on, in the world above. Now these old bones have been given new life, wrapped in new flesh provided by The Flesh Undying. So they can have their revenge at last.”
“Revenge on whom?” said Happy. “The Romans are gone!”
“But we are their inheritors,” said Kim.
“So, essentially, these are the ghosts of old Druids,” said JC. “We can handle ghosts.” He stepped forward and challenged the approaching figures in a loud and carrying voice. “What is it you want? Speak up! I’m listening!”
And all the grey dusty figures stopped moving, standing very still, right at the edge of the open amphitheatre. And when the answer came, it seemed to come from all of them at once. A single dry and dusty voice, still packed full of hatred after all the centuries.
“We will have our vengeance for what was taken from us. We will make a Wicker Man here and burn you alive in it, as a sacrifice, to make Lud strong again. We will have power and life again, and leave this place for the sun and light of the forests. We shall rule all the peoples of this land, as we did before, and we shall burn out everything that does not follow Druid ways. We shall serve Lud, and he will serve us, and it will be a glorious time of blood and slaughter. We shall take your precious civilisation and nail its guts to the old oak tree.”
“Long-winded buggers, aren’t they?” said Happy. “I’ll bet they’ve been rehearsing that for ages.”
“Your time is over,” JC said steadily, to the dusty figures. “You must know that; or what are you still doing down here? You wouldn’t even recognise the world above, now.”
“With Lud awakened and empowered, we shall leave the Undertowen and rise up,” said the mass whispering voice. “We shall set bale-fires from one end of this island to the other, and delight in the screams of our enemies as they burn. We remember what it is to be Druid; and we will make the world remember.”
Happy moved in beside Kim. “You brought us down here. You must have a plan. How are we supposed to stop this?”
“You can’t,” said Kim.
“What?” said Happy.
“Our only chance is to make a deal with the ghost god Lud.”
“Everyone stand back,” said Happy. “I’m going to dig a way out.”
“Stand still,” said JC.
“I need another pill,” said Happy.