Melody deliberately didn’t look at Happy. “You did this to yourself,” she said loudly. “After you promised me you wouldn’t. So don’t look to me for sympathy.”
“I thought you weren’t talking to me,” said Happy, managing a small smile.
“I’m not! I’m merely. . thinking aloud!” She glared at the back of JC’s head. “Why are we going to the Secret Libraries? All right, any other time I might have been. . interested, but why do we have to go there now?”
“Lud got me thinking,” said JC, bullying a black London taxi out of his way and openly intimidating a London bus. “The Druids knew a lot of things now lost to the world, but maybe some of them are retained on file in the Unofficial Record. Lud said he recognised something on me, from where I was altered by some force from Outside. Maybe the Druids had a name for it. .
“If not, the Faust said I actually died down there in the Underground, before the Outside brought me back. I want to know if that’s true. And if it is, I want to know a lot more about it. I want to know Who or What did it, and I very definitely want to know Why. Because there’s always a price to be paid. .
“While I’m busy doing all that, the rest of you can search the stacks for anything they might have on The Flesh Undying and its servants’ infiltration of the Carnacki Institute. And any of the other secret subterranean organisations. Bound to be something there even if they don’t know they’ve got it. .”
“You don’t want much, do you?” said Happy. “Pardon me if I admit noxious gasses.”
JC made a point of lowering all the windows. Bracingly fresh air rushed into the car from all sides.
“I thought Catherine Latimer was supposed to be carrying out her own investigation into potential traitors and double agents?” said Melody, drawn into the conversation in spite of herself. “Wouldn’t she have told us if her people had turned up anything? I mean, she is our Boss. In her own scary and very efficient way. She’s supposed to have our back on this.”
“Good point, well made,” said JC. “But I haven’t heard a single word from our revered Boss on this subject; and I don’t feel like putting up with that one moment longer. Not while The Flesh Undying and its rotten agents are taking open pot-shots at us.”
“How are we supposed to find something useful in the Libraries if all the Boss’s people couldn’t?” said Melody.
“You are supposing someone has actually looked,” murmured Kim; and everyone in the car sat quietly for a moment, considering that.
“A fresh pair of eyes is always useful,” JC said vaguely, swerving his car in and out of the packed traffic perhaps a little more casually than was safe or desirable. “Perhaps a pair of unprejudiced eyes will turn up something new. . Preferably something we can use as a defence. Or a weapon. Either way, I want answers. I demand answers! I need to know things for sure. Whether the Boss wants me to know them or not.”
“You’re starting to sound a bit like me,” said Happy. “Which is not necessarily a good thing. ”
“How are we going to get in?” demanded Melody. “You said it yourself: the Secret Libraries are surrounded by some of the most powerful, appalling, and openly distressing defences anywhere in the land. I’ve tried to hack their on-line presence any number of times, for the challenge, of course; and I never got anywhere.”
“The Boss provided me with password access after the events at Chimera House,” said JC. “What happened to Robert Patterson shook her.”
“You’ve had access all this time?” said Melody, her voice rising dangerously. “And you never said anything?”
“So the Boss isn’t the only one who’s been keeping things from us!” said Happy accusingly.
“Do I detect the sound of mutiny in the air?” said JC. “I’ll have any one keelhauled who dares dispute my authority! I was content to let the Boss do the hard work, digging up proof of hidden informants; but when someone aims the ghost of a dead god and his enfleshed followers at me, my patience evaporates. It is clearly time to take matters into our own hands.”
“You’re not wriggling out of it that easily,” said Melody. “Why did the Boss give you a password, and not us?”
“Because I’m team leader,” said JC.
“Only because we all voted, and you lost,” said Happy.
“Exactly,” said Melody. “Somebody had to take responsibility for our actions; and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be us.”
“I’ve missed all this jolly banter,” said Kim.
* * *
At the Woolwich Arsenal, JC parked his car in someone else’s private parking space. The car’s CD plates should ensure that no-one bothered it; and if someone was foolish enough to do so, the car was quite capable of looking after itself. In a thoroughly mean-spirited and unpleasant way. No-one messes with the Carnacki Institute. Dealing with the restless dead, the monstrous, and the demonic on a daily basis gives you a rather short temper when faced with more everyday annoyances.
The team disembarked from the car in their own various ways. Happy got out slowly and painfully, with many loud, creaking noises from his joints, and peered dubiously around him into the harsh electric light of the car park. He gave the appearance of something that had crawled out from under a rock and was seriously considering going straight back again. Melody kicked her door open, hauled herself out in one lithe movement, and glared about her in the hope that someone would come along and give her some grief. So she could cheer herself up by punching them repeatedly in the head. Kim floated through her door without opening it and drifted over to hover beside JC as he stood in front of the car and looked thoughtfully about him.
The Woolwich Arsenal was basically a collection of barracks and assorted anonymous military buildings, some more interesting to look at than others. JC gestured grandly at one particular structure, set a little away from everything else. Old brickwork, a slanting roof, and a single door with the word STORES set out in peeling paint.
“And there we are, children. The gateway to a place of wonders. Or so I’m told. I’ve never been inside the Secret Libraries, and I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who has. There’s always the chance that this is all one big con, a distraction from the real secret repository of hoarded knowledge. And all we’ll find down below is a collection of old Reader’s Digests and a bunch of Dan Browns. Still, on the chance that this is the Real Deal, act confidently, like we have every right to be there, and no-one will challenge us. Kim, I hate to say this. . but I think you’d better wait in the car. You do draw people’s attention. .”
“No-one will see me,” said Kim.
“This is a Carnacki Institute site,” JC said patiently. “They maintain all kinds of surveillance here, to keep out uninvited spirits.”
“But I am not any old ghost, darling,” said Kim. “No-one can see me now unless I want them to. Disappearing from the world’s eyes was one of the first things I had to learn when I went on the run. In fact, I learned many strange and unusual secrets on my travels. I am wise and wonderful and know many things, and don’t you forget it. You are my sweetie and my love, JC; but you are not the boss of me.”
JC shot a quick glance at Happy and Melody, but they were carefully looking somewhere else.
“Very well,” said JC. “On your own ectoplasm be it. But, we will talk about this later. .”
“Yes, dear,” said Kim, demurely.
“You’re not fooling anyone,” said JC.
“Hold everything, hit the brakes, go previous,” said Happy. “What did you mean when you said, ‘Act like we have every right to be here’? If the Boss gave you the password, then we do have every right to be here. Don’t we?”
“Oh, she gave me the word,” said JC. “Right there in her office. Made a big presentation out of it. I had to sign a whole bunch of very official papers first. She very definitely gave me the password. But whether she ever intended me to use it, that’s a whole different matter. For all I know, she changed the password the moment I left her office.”