outside the car windows, and with no stations or landmarks to judge the train’s progress, it was hard to tell if it was moving at all. Or even if they were still underground rather than moving through some great night-dark sea.
Natasha and Erik sat side by side, not looking at each other. She seemed entirely calm and in control; he was keeping a watchful eye on every part of the car, in case something should jump out at him. Melody stood with her back to the car doors, arms tightly folded across her chest, glaring about her as though daring anything to try anything. Happy was too full of nervous energy to stay in any one place for long. He tried half a dozen seats, couldn’t settle, and finally skipped up and down the central aisle, humming tunelessly and occasionally breaking into a surprisingly accomplished soft-shoe routine. JC sat quietly, thinking and planning, and Kim did her best to sit beside him though she had a tendency to rise and fall in place when her concentration wandered. She studied JC with real concern, but he didn’t notice. He was working.
And then all their heads came up sharply as the darkness outside began to seep through the windows and into the car. Slowly and inexorably, it poured in like thick, dark syrup, as though the window-glass weren’t even there. The five agents moved quickly to stand together in the central aisle, as the darkness poured in from every side and dripped from the ceiling. None of them wanted to touch the stuff, and none of them wanted it to touch them. The darkness filled up both ends of the car, then spilled forward along the rows of seats. It was utterly dark, more like an absence than a presence, as though the agents and the slowly shrinking pool of light were the only remaining life in an endless, dark nothingness.
Natasha produced something small and round from a pocket and shook it hard. A soft, yellow organic light blazed from the ball in her hand, and where it touched the approaching dark, the light stopped the darkness dead in its tracks. Natasha waved the glowing ball back and forth, reinforcing the circle of light’s boundaries.
“Salamander ball,” she said succinctly.
“Bit small,” said Happy.
“Hell,” said Erik. “You only get two to a salamander.”
The yellow light sputtered, then faded quickly away to nothing. Natasha shook the ball hard, swore briefly, and threw the thing away.
“I think it was frightened,” said Happy. “Does anyone have anything else, and someone please say yes.”
Melody produced a chemical stick and waved it. A dull green light flared up.
“Oh wow!” said Happy. “We’re going to a rave!”
“You want a slap?” said JC. “You’re the telepath; is this darkness real, or a broadcast illusion?”
“It’s the dark,” said Happy. His voice was suddenly serious, and his face was like the melancholy clown whose eyes are always sad above the painted smile. “This is the real dark, the real thing, far more than just the absence of light. This is the living dark; and it’s hungry.”
“All right,” said JC. “Not as helpful as I’d hoped, but that’s Happy for you. Natasha?”
“It’s real,” she said flatly. “Real enough to kill us all. Or perhaps remake us in its image.”
The green light from the chemical stick was already guttering. Melody shook the stick savagely and said terrible things to it, but it died anyway. The darkness crept remorselessly in, from every side at once. Some of it had already crawled up the sides of the car and joined together on the ceiling, over their heads. There was a distinct chill on the air, as though the darkness was soaking up all the warmth in the car.
“This is not a natural darkness,” said Erik, his voice high and unsteady.
“Oh, you think?” Melody said harshly. She threw her useless chemical stick at the darkness, which swallowed it up in a moment. “What was your first clue? When it oozed right through the bloody windows? Of course it’s not natural!”
The five agents huddled together as the circle of light slowly contracted around them. Kim hovered beside them, glancing nervously at the dark ceiling. JC glared around him, his eyes glowing very brightly behind his sunglasses.
“Erik’s right,” he said abruptly. “This darkness may be real, in the sense that the Intruder created it and imposed it on our world; but it’s not a natural darkness. This is all more of the Intruder’s mind games to soften us up. Right, Happy, Natasha?”
“I don’t know,” said Happy. “I can’t tell. Maybe.”
“So help me, you take one more pill without my permission, and I will knock you down and stamp on your head,” said JC. “Concentrate! Is this darkness something the Intruder created?”
“Yes!” said Happy. “Has to be. Darkness doesn’t behave like this in the normal world.”
“Natasha?” said JC.
“If the Intruder made it, then it’s real enough to kill us,” said Natasha. “But that doesn’t make it
“Make a circle,” said JC. “Everyone hold hands. Kim, fake it. This is symbolic. We’re going to work together, join together, and repudiate this darkness through sheer will-power.”
“What makes you think that’ll work?” said Erik.
JC grinned. “Because I already did it once.”
They made a circle, standing very close together, hand in hand in hand. Kim stood inside the circle, both her ghostly hands on top of JC’s. The darkness was very close. There was no car left outside the circle of light. They stood alone, the living and the dead, surrounded by darkness. JC took off his shades, and his eyes were very bright.
“Be strong,” he said, and his voice was calm and comforting and very sure. “The darkness is not real, but we are. See the world as I see it, through my eyes.”
His eyes blazed up, as some last trace of the given Light shone through them. The darkness stopped, and even recoiled a little. A sudden charge went through the circle, racing through their joined hands. They all gasped and cried out, even Kim. And in that moment, the Light shone in all their eyes, bright and sharp and irrevocable; and the darkness could not stand against it. Fuelled by their joined strength of will, by their simple and brutal act of disbelief, the energy shot round and round the circle, growing stronger all the time. The six of them turned their heads and looked at the dark, and the darkness could not bear the Light that burned in their eyes. It fell back, rushed back, down the car and out through the windows; and suddenly the car was back again, just as it had been, and the only darkness was outside.
JC gently tugged his hands free from Natasha and Happy, and everyone else let go. The energy was gone, the circle broken, and everyone’s eyes were back to normal again. Except for JC, who calmly replaced his shades. Happy shook his head uncertainly as the others slowly resumed their seats.
“Wow—what a rush. Tell me that’s not how you feel all the time, JC; I’d be killingly jealous.”
“That was . . .
“It’s all to do with will-power,” JC said easily. “One of the first things they teach you at the Carnacki Institute.”
“I must have been off sick that day,” said Happy. “The only lesson that stuck with me was
“The Project believes in encouraging individual effort,” said Erik. “Along with basic and advanced treachery, back-stabbing, and general unpleasantness. Survival of the fittest. Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight.”
“No, I’m pretty sure that last bit is only you,” said Natasha. “Nasty little man.”
“Heh-heh,” said Erik.
“I think I’m going to go and sit by somebody else,” said Happy. And he got up and moved away from Erik to sit down beside Melody. Who immediately punched him hard in the arm.
“Ow!” said Happy. “What was that for?”
“For sneaking pills when you were expressly told not to. I’ll think of other things to hit you for later.”
Happy nodded unhappily. “I suppose a pain-killer is out of the question?” And then he broke off and looked round sharply. “Hold everything, go previous . . . I think the charge running through that circle flushed most of the chemical goodness out of my system. I haven’t felt this sober in years. I don’t like it. But I am definitely feeling things. Heads up, people; there’s someone else here.”
They all looked around, but there was no-one else to be seen. The darkness was back beyond the windows, where it belonged, and the car seemed perfectly normal.
“Are you sure?” said Melody. “It isn’t just . . .”
