Spirits from Beyond Read Online Free PDF Page B

London’s lost down in the Undertowen. Lost people, lost secrets, lost civilisations.”
    “Albino alligators!” Happy said brightly, smiling about him beatifically. “Grown from small pets flushed down toilets when they got too big.”
    “First, that’s an urban myth,” said Melody. “And second, it’s an entirely American urban myth. Alligators as pets never caught on over here because we are a sane people.”
    But Happy had already stopped listening to her. He’d spotted thick mats of blue moss growing over most of a nearby wall. In fact, there were heavy splashes of the stuff all over the place. It looked moist, and springy; and JC thought the moss might even be breathing, rising and falling very slowly. Happy darted forward to study the nearest patch of blue moss, pushing his face right into it.
    “I know what this is!” he said loudly. “I’ve read about it, in the kinds of magazines you never find in supermarkets . . . Supposedly, whoever eats or smokes this stuff is supposed to receive visions of Heaven and Hell. And a chance to have actual conversations with the inhabitants of both places.”
    “Are you intending to try it out?” said Melody, pointedly.
    “No,” said Happy, backing away reluctantly. “I have enough problems as it is. Besides, you should never talk to the dead. You can’t trust anything they say. They always have their own agenda.” He stopped and looked back at Kim. “No offence.”
    “Dear Happy,” said Kim. “You haven’t changed at all.”
    “Is that a good or a bad thing?” Happy said earnestly. And then his head came up suddenly, and he turned his back on the blue moss to stare out into the surrounding gloom. “Heads up, people! Company’s coming!”
    JC looked quickly about him. The pale moonlight that fell from nowhere stretched away in all directions but didn’t reveal much.
    “What’s coming?” he said. “And from which direction?”
    “From everywhere,” said Kim. She was glowing more brightly now, her face eager and intent. “Hold your ground, guys. And don’t do anything to draw their attention.”
    Melody pulled Happy over to stand at her side and held her machine-pistol at the ready. JC stood beside Kim, who didn’t even look at him. Someone was coming, or Something; JC could feel it, like a pressure on his skin. Something unnatural, from out of the dark.
    They came from every direction at once, emerging from the tall arches or appearing suddenly out of narrow stone corridors, glowing faintly like poisoned candles. Walking in silence, drifting along as though blown by an unfelt wind, staring straight ahead and saying nothing. Walking the low road, the paths of the dead, driven by needs and purposes that only the unliving could understand. Ghosts of dead soldiers, in uniforms from armies across the ages; deserters from every force that ever marched through the streets of London. Ghosts of plague victims, dumped in mass graves and unmarked burial pits. Still huddled together for comfort, even in death. The marks of the plagues that killed them still vivid on their faces, like deadly kisses. Ghosts of small children, worked to death in sweat-shop businesses, or abandoned to die cold and alone, in the streets and back alley-ways where civilised people never went.
    All the ghosts London doesn’t want to remember.
    And all the Ghost Finders could do was stand very still and watch the dead file past, disappearing back into the dark. The ghosts didn’t even look at them. When the last of them was finally gone, JC turned almost angrily to Kim.
    “There must be something we can do to help.”
    “You can’t,” said Kim.
    “But there were children!” said JC. “There shouldn’t be children in a place like this. I won’t stand for it!”
    “London is a city built on the dead,” said Kim. “You know that, JC. You’d need an army of exorcists, working in shifts for years, to wipe London clean of its past. And even then, a lot of those ghosts