Sneaking back in had proved surprisingly easy. On any other day the massed forces of uniformed police and security guards would have intimidated him into a frozen panic; but not that day. He walked right past them, and they never saw him. Partly because he was, after all, a small and insignificant person, but also because Someone was looking out for him. He could feel it. Someone big and powerful was protecting him.
He walked right past them, right under their noses, and they couldn’t see him.
But once he was down in the tunnels, moving in scurrying little runs through the fiercely bright light, from shadow to shadow and hiding-place to hiding-place, things happened that destroyed what little confidence he had. Bad things. Billy saw bad things. He saw ghosts and monsters and horrible, impossible things, nightmares broken loose and running wild in the world; and he ran and ran until finally he saw the worst thing of all. The ghost of the beautiful woman he’d killed the day before. She looked just as beautiful, dressed in white like an angel, her hair the same colour as the blood that had spilled down her back when he pulled out the knife.
He crouched, in the deepest and darkest of the shadows, watching her with wide, confused eyes, scared out of his mind. He didn’t feel guilty, and he didn’t feel sorry; he knew now he’d only done what he’d done in the service of his Protector. But he was terrified that these big and important people, with their big and important voices, would tell the authorities what he’d done, then everyone would know. He’d be caught and punished and locked up in a cage, forever and ever. Billy had gone through most of his life afraid of being punished.
First, he spied on JC and his team, then he spied on Natasha and Erik, trying to figure out who they all were and what they were doing. Trying to figure out what he should do. He saw them do amazing and awful things, then he saw them fight each other, and he saw them working together. None of it made any sense to Billy. The ghost was there, too, acting like she was still alive; and once she turned her head and looked right at Billy. He shot off immediately, running and running and not looking back, and when he finally stopped to glance fearfully around him, he was on a platform he didn’t recognise.
He moved slowly, diffidently, down the platform. He was meant to be there. He could feel it. His unseen Protector had brought him there, for some important purpose. A train pulled into the station, moving smoothly and silently—a dream of train, come just for him. Billy made
(Except . . . Billy hadn’t wanted to hurt her. Not really. He never wanted to hurt anyone. At the last moment he had hesitated; and some other force had moved his hand. Hadn’t it?)
Billy stared in wonder at the candy-coloured train and was sure it was there to take him to a wonderful place, where he would find all the answers to all the questions that had ever troubled him. And in that place he would be made safe and happy and know pleasures he had only ever dreamed of before. Wriggling with excitement, little Billy Hartman walked confidently forward, and the brightly coloured car doors opened before him. He stepped on board and sat down, the doors closed silently, and the train took him away.
He passed through station after station, and many strange and wondrous sights revealed themselves to him through the car windows. Platforms made out of interlocked bones, the great curving station like a massive rib cage . . . huge plunging waterfalls of glistening solid crystal . . . rioting gardens full of huge flowers with thick pulpy petals and gasping pink mouths that sang sweet songs to him in high-pitched voices, like a choir of mice. Billy sighed and laughed and beat his hands together, almost drunk on the sheer splendour of it all.
The train slowed as it approached its final destination, and Billy cried out in joy, pressing his face right up against the window to better view the shining city spread out before him. Ethereal spires and massive golden domes, spiralling fairy towers connected by elegant walkways . . . and beautiful women everywhere, smiling at him. At him! Angels floated down shimmering paths and bowed their haloed heads to him. Billy was so happy he could hardly breathe. He had left the plain, hurtful, ordinary world behind him, at last. His Protector had rescued him and brought him there, to where he should have lived all along.
The train halted abruptly. The doors slammed open, and Billy hurried out onto the waiting platform, almost dancing in his eagerness to meet his Protector, and thank him, and start his new life. And then he stopped suddenly, and looked around him, confused. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong. The marvellous city was gone, the beautiful towers and the beautiful women were gone, and he was standing alone on a bare and empty platform. No name, no destinations, not even any posters on the walls. Billy looked back, and the brightly coloured train was gone, too. There weren’t even any rails. He’d been left here, alone, abandoned in an empty place. Billy started to cry.
It was cold, and getting colder. Billy hugged himself tightly as his breath steamed thickly on the still air. His teeth began to chatter, and his tears froze on his cheeks. Thick patterns of hoarfrost formed on the bare walls, horrid images like staring eyes and gaping mouths. Heavy jagged icicles hung down from the ceiling, like glistening stalactites. There was a sound; and Billy turned to look.
And when little Billy Hartman finally saw what it was that had been guiding and protecting him all this while, he screamed and screamed, until he tore out the lining of his throat, and blood sprayed from his mouth.
TEN
WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD WOLF?
Back on the southbound platform, Natasha was making herself useful. A quick spell (muttered under her breath in what sounded very like debased Coptic), and all the blood disappeared from everyone’s clothes, leaving them still battered and torn but comfortably dry and clean. And smelling not entirely unlike a country meadow. The blood basically leapt out of the clothing and ended up scattered in puddles all around them, steaming quietly. Everyone made polite, thankful sounds, while Natasha preened prettily.
“Oh, that old thing. I’ve had that spell in my repertory for years. Never leave home without it.”
Erik sniggered. “Now tell them what you had to do to acquire that spell. And what you did with the blood afterwards.”
“They don’t need to know that!” snapped Natasha. “It would only upset them. Why do you always have to spoil everything?”
Erik shrugged. “Stick to what you’re best at, that’s what I always say.”
Melody ignored them all. She didn’t approve of magic. She busied herself with her equipment, checking the most recent displays and frowning intently at the long-range sensor readings. All her instrument panels were lit up, blazing fiercely as new information flooded in. Melody stabbed fiercely at one keyboard after another, scowling at each monitor screen in turn, reluctant to admit she didn’t understand half of what her machines were telling her. Energy readings everywhere were off the scale, spiking and changing and disappearing even as she looked at them. Some of what she was seeing made no sense at all, as though the very laws of reality were becoming slippery and unreliable under the influence of some monstrous Outside will.
Tunnels, platforms, corridors—the whole station was crawling with unnatural manifestations. Ghosts, demons, other-dimensional creatures; some of them so strange, so alien, they barely qualified as life-forms at all. Life and Death weren’t as separate as they used to be, down in the Underground.
“Stop frowning like that, Melody,” said JC. “You’ll give yourself wrinkles. What’s up?”
“Do you want the bad news, the really bad news, or the
“All right,” said Happy, “you’ve got my attention. Are you sure about this, Melody? The sheer power involved would . . .”
“Of course I’m not sure!” snapped Melody. “I’ve never seen readings like this! I doubt anyone has. But I am
