Forces from Beyond (2 page)

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THE PAST ISN’T OVER; SOMETIMES, IT ISN’T EVEN PAST

It isn’t ghosts that make places bad; it’s the bad places that make ghosts. And, sometimes, other things.

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Ghosts hang around hotels like moths drawn to a light. All those empty rooms aren’t nearly as empty as people like to think. Managers understandably don’t like to mention the unfortunate fact that not every guest who checks in will check out alive. People die in lonely, characterless rooms all the time, so when entering a hotel room, the question shouldn’t be: Has anybody died in that bed? Try instead: How many? Bodies are carried out on stretchers and smuggled down the back stairs in the early hours of the morning, out of sight of paying customers, more often than you’d think. Death from causes natural and unnatural . . . heart attack, erotic misadventure, suicide, and murder . . . Hotels have seen it all. Ghosts linger on in some rooms like a bad smell or a stain that won’t wash out. And then it’s time to call in the professionals.

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The Ghost Finders came to the Acropolis Majoris Hotel in the early hours of the evening, in the dying days of autumn. The lowering sky had a bruised, sullen look, the gusting wind muttered bad things under its breath, and the air had a bitter chill. Not a good time to be out and about, even in the bright and cheerful seaside city of Brighton. The Acropolis Hotel was nowhere near the beach, or the famous pier, or any of the things tourists like to see. Instead, it was tucked away in a labyrinth of shadowy back streets, well off the main drag. A spillover hotel, where people reluctantly ended up when there were no rooms left in bigger, better establishments.

The Ghost Finders took their time, standing on the opposite side of the street to study the hotel’s grubby facade and less-than-inviting ambience. Not a big building, but more than old enough to be steeped in bad incidents and sad memories. Something had happened here, something was waiting . . . like a troll under a bridge or a land mine under a welcome mat. Ghosts mostly prefer to lie in wait and make the living come to them. After all, they have all the time in the world.

JC Chance stood proud and poised in his exquisitely cut white suit, his head held high and his shoulders squared, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Tall and lean, and perhaps just a little more handsome than was good for him, JC had pale, striking features and a rock star’s mane of long jet-black hair. He also had the smile of a man who knew things, and not particularly nice things, at that. As head of this particular field team, he could always be relied on to rush in where angels feared to show their faces, looking eagerly around for some trouble to get into. He wore extremely dark sunglasses at all times, for a very good reason.

Melody Chambers stood slouched at his side, scowling and tapping her foot impatiently. Wherever she was, she always gave the impression she didn’t want to be there. Conventionally good-looking in a stern sort of way, Melody wore her auburn hair scraped back in a tight bun and glowered at the world through heavy glasses with very sober frames. Gamine thin, she burned with fierce, nervous energy and wore her bad temper openly as a badge of pride. She tended to look like she was only moments away from attacking people at random, just on general principle. She dressed for comfort rather than style—jacket and jersey, jeans and work boots. Melody had heard of fashion and wanted nothing to do with it. Her scientific equipment lay piled up on a motorised trolley that hummed busily at her side like an eager dog.

Happy Jack Palmer, who’d embraced self-medication as a marginally preferable alternative to self-harming, stood a little to one side. Short and stocky and prematurely balding, he wore scuffed jeans and shoes, a grubby T-shirt, and a battered, black leather jacket held together by heavy staples and patches of duct tape. Normally, he would have been the first to say something cutting and inappropriate about their current location; but not this time. He stood quietly, looking at the world with eyes that had seen too much, for far too long.

“I can’t believe the Boss sent us here,” JC said finally. “We’re only supposed to get the most important and significant cases.”

“You mean the most dangerous,” said Melody.

“Same thing,” JC said easily. “Give me action and excitement, death and glory, every time!”

“I’ll settle for the glory,” said Melody.

JC ignored her with the ease of long practice. “I mean, look at this place! It’s a dump. In fact, it would need a serious upgrade and a major face-lift before it could properly qualify as a dump! You couldn’t expect any self-respecting ghost to show up here.” He paused, to look down his nose at the various pieces of high tech on Melody’s trolley. “Odds are you won’t need half of that.”

“Hush, babies,” Melody said fondly to her equipment. “Nasty man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

JC sniffed loudly. “Given the general ambience, you could fend off any ghosts you found here with a balloon on a stick and some harsh language. Oh well: onwards! Wait a minute, hold everything. Where’s Happy?”

They both looked around quickly as they realised the telepath wasn’t with them any longer.

“Oh bugger, he’s wandered off again,” said Melody.

She spotted him half-way down the street, ambling aimlessly through pools of street-light and deep, dark shadows with equal disinterest. Melody hurried off after him, took a firm hold on his arm, and hustled him back to the Acropolis Hotel. He didn’t seem to care where he was. JC studied him expressionlessly.

“Happy, are you with us?” he said finally. “Ready to go to work and kick some ectoplasmic arse?”

Happy didn’t answer. There was nothing in his face to indicate he’d even heard the question. JC looked at Melody.

“I saw him last week, and he wasn’t this bad. When did he stop talking?”

“He’s been saying less and less for some time now,” Melody said reluctantly. “Withdrawing inside himself, away from the pressures of the world. It’s not easy being a Class Eleven telepath.”

“I thought the pills helped with that,” said JC.

“He’s been taking them too long,” said Melody. “Built up too much of a tolerance. The doses he has to take now would kill anyone else.”

“What use is he like this?”

“He knows who he is and who I am,” said Melody. “He can still function, still do his job when he has to.”

“Dear God . . .” said JC.

“It’s not going to be a problem!” Melody said fiercely. “He’s still in there!”

“I suppose I shouldn’t complain,” said JC. “His not speaking might actually be an improvement when it comes to dealing with members of the general public.”

He was trying for a lightness of touch but couldn’t quite bring it off.

“Where’s Kim?” said Melody, just a bit pointedly.

“Around,” said JC. “She’ll turn up, when she’s needed. Come on, let’s go talk to the hotel manager and get this show on the road. Shouldn’t take us long to deal with whatever’s bothering them here; and then we can go for a play on the Pier! I love the Pier.”

“Of course you do,” said Melody. “It’s cheap and tacky, just like you.”

JC strode determinedly through the front door. Melody fired up her trolley, and it putt-putted importantly along at her side as she followed JC in, still gripping Happy firmly by the arm. The lobby of the Acropolis turned out to be surprisingly large and airy, and only a bit shabby. JC had no trouble identifying the manager, pacing impatiently up and down with a face so full of troubles there wasn’t room for anything else. Stocky and middle-aged, with neatly arranged hair, he wore a suit that had once been too good for him but now looked distinctly hard-worn. The only other staff was a faded, middle-aged woman, at Reception. She took one look at the Ghost Finders and busied herself with some vital paper-work.

The manager rushed forward to grab JC’s outstretched hand with both of his, smiling weakly, fixing JC with desperate eyes. The manager looked like he was carrying all the cares of the world and getting really tired of it. He went to shake Melody’s hand, then quickly gave that up as a bad idea once he took in her expression. Melody did have people skills; she just mostly couldn’t be bothered. The manager looked doubtfully at Happy and turned quickly back to JC.

“You are them? The Ghost Finders?”

“That’s us!” said JC. “If it moves and it shouldn’t, we have the answer.”

“I’m Stefan Garth, owner and manager of the Acropolis. Thank you so much for coming! I’m at my wits’ end, trying to cope . . . Excuse me for asking; but is this all of you? I was expecting a more substantial response . . .”

“Trust me,” said JC. “We’re all you need.”

Garth took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh of qualified relief. Some of the weight seemed to come off his shoulders. “I’ve been trying to get help for ages,” he said tiredly. “No-one would listen when I tried to tell them about the Bad Room. No-one would believe me when I told them one of my rooms was killing people. The authorities didn’t want to know; friends and family were sympathetic but unhelpful; and when I went to the media, they just made fun of me. Luckily, only the local news ran the story, or it could have been very bad for business. But, finally, I told someone who knew someone at the Carnacki Institute. I was so happy, so relieved, when they assured me they’d send their very best people to deal with the situation . . . You’re sure you can help?”

“Of course!” JC said cheerfully. “We are the Pros from Dover; the A team, only with less guns. We know what we’re doing, and when we don’t, we fake it.”

The manager didn’t seem particularly reassured. He looked doubtfully at Melody, who scowled right back at him, and dubiously at Happy, who was smiling serenely at nothing in particular. The manager turned back to JC.

“Don’t you need a priest? For an exorcism?”

“That’s a more specialised procedure,” said JC. “Unless you’ve got hot and cold blood running down your walls, voices speaking in tongues on your internal phones, and a whole bunch of levitating beds . . . it’s unlikely to be a demonic presence. We are more your general practitioners. We make the bad things go away.”

“I’ll show you the room,” said Garth. “While it’s still light.”

“Let me guess,” said JC. “No-one goes there after dark.”

“I keep the door locked at all times,” said the manager. “So whatever’s in there can’t get out.”

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He led the way to the single elevator, on the far side of the lobby. Melody sulked at having to leave her precious equipment behind, but it clearly wasn’t going to fit in the elevator with them. Garth promised no-one would touch anything and even elicited a quick nod of agreement from the silent presence at Reception. So Melody just stuffed a few useful items into her pockets, said
Stay!
to the trolley, and hauled an unresisting Happy over to the elevator with her. Everyone waited for a while, then waited some more. The manager smiled weakly.

“Sorry . . . We’ve only the four floors here at the Acropolis, so there’s only the one elevator. It’s getting old and just a bit unreliable. But perfectly safe! Oh yes! Perfectly . . .”

“Speaking of safe,” JC said quietly, “Did you arm the defences on your trolley, Mel?”

“Of course! No-one touches my stuff.”

“Tell me you set them to non-lethal.”

“More or less.”

The manager appeared even more unhappy. Especially when he looked at Happy.

“Is he all right?”

“Sometimes,” said Melody.

“He’s a specialist,” JC said solemnly. “Best not to distract him while he’s thinking. About things.”

Perhaps fortunately, the elevator doors opened at that moment, and they all filed inside. The ascent to the fourth floor was quiet and uneventful, and the doors finally opened onto a perfectly-ordinary-looking corridor. Garth led the way, occasionally glancing back over his shoulder to reassure himself the others were still with him. All the doors on both sides of the corridor remained firmly closed. There was no-one about, not a sound to be heard. Even their footsteps on the faded carpet sounded flat and dull, oddly muffled.

“Are all the other rooms on this floor occupied?” said JC.

“Of course,” said Garth. “We do good business on the whole. Brighton is always very popular with the tourists, even at the end of the Season. It’s only the one room that’s gone bad.”

“Have any of your guests reported seeing or hearing anything unusual?” said JC.

“No,” said the manager, firmly. “Everything that’s happened has been limited to just this one room. No matter how bad it gets inside the room, whatever it is stays inside.”

“How bad does it get?” said Melody.

The manager shuddered, briefly. For a moment, it seemed like he might actually turn around and go back; but he squared his weary shoulders and kept going. He had the look of a man on his way to the dentist, or possibly the hangman. JC looked thoughtfully around him. There was no dread atmosphere in the corridor, no sense of unease, nothing in the least menacing. The carpet was a bit threadbare in places, and the whole place could have used a lick of paint and a touch-up; but that was it. Nothing to indicate a dangerous setting, nothing to warn about bad things waiting in the room ahead.

The manager finally stopped before Room 418. JC noticed immediately that the numbers added up to thirteen but decided it probably wasn’t a good time to point that out.

They all stood together, looking at the blank, coffee-coloured door. It stared right back at them, giving nothing away. JC listened carefully but couldn’t hear anything. Melody produced a hand-held scanner and ran it quickly over the door. A few lights flickered on the device, but that was all. Melody scowled and put the scanner away. Happy didn’t react to any of it. JC looked at Garth. The manager’s face was wet with sweat, and his hand actually shook as he produced a magcard and unlocked the door.

“The room is empty, right now?” said JC.

“Of course,” said Garth. He pulled his hand back from the handle, as though glad of an excuse to put off actually opening the door.