Ghosts of War: A Tale of the Ghost Read online

  The Ghost still gripped the raptor's brass, skeletal arms in his gloved fists. Its feet were wedged against his belly. He took a deep breath and stepped over the edge of the building.

  He heard Ginny scream as he toppled backward, pulling the raptor down with him. The creature screeched as its shredded wings beat ineffectually at the air, trying to slow their descent. He clutched it tight, using his momentum to somersault in the air, twisting so that the raptor was beneath him.

  Almost serenely, the Ghost freed one hand, allowing the raptor's free hand to rake at his chest. He reached inside his coat, his fingers closing around the ignition cord. He pulled it sharply and his rocket boosters fired, kicking them both forward, pushing them on toward the ground.

  The raptor thrashed and bucked, trying to regain control, but it was trapped, its talons lodged in the fabric of the Ghost's jacket, one of its arms still clutched tightly in his left fist. Without its wings, its propellers alone were no match for the momentum and the downward thrust of his rockets.

  The tarmac was fast approaching. Gritting his teeth, the Ghost released his grip on the creature's other arm, grabbing for its ankles and wrenching its talons free from his midriff. He let go, bringing his arms up and twisting his body away from the ground.

  He almost miscalculated, and for a moment he thought he was going to be dashed across the street, but at the last minute he managed to pull up, the thrust of his rockets carrying him in a sharp arc across the ground and then up again, hurtling back into the sky.

  The damaged raptor, however, wasn't so lucky. Freed with only seconds to spare, with no time to try to right itself and unable to spread its now-defunct wings as a brake, it slammed into the road with a terrific crash.

  The Ghost veered away into the night sky, gasping for breath. He felt light-headed with the exertion; tasted the gritty, metallic tang of adrenaline on the back of his tongue. His heart was pounding in his ears.

  Twisting his body, he swooped low, drifting over the site of the impact, scanning the road for any signs of the raptor.

  The shattered remains of it lay scattered all over the street below: in the road, on the sidewalk, in the gutter. The raptor had fractured with the impact, spilling cogs and bits of engine housing, broken limbs and the tattered remnants of its wings. The Ghost felt relief wash over him.

  He descended slowly in a plume of orange flame, still wary, still tensed and ready for whatever might happen next. Beneath him, on the sidewalk, the broken torso of the raptor still twitched and jerked maniacally, as if in the throes of death. The Ghost set himself down beside it, cutting the fuel line to his rocket canisters with a sharp pull on the cord inside his jacket.

  It had been utterly smashed, dashed across the tarmac by the tremendous force of the fall. One gangly brass arm now hung limply from the aperture of its shoulder, clicking and tapping against the paving slabs with every spasm. The other limb had been lost entirely, scattered somewhere across the road. Likewise, both of its legs and one wing, reduced now to stumps and gaskets, cracked pistons and fragments of claw. The engine casings housing the turbines on its shoulders had both split apart, although one propeller still turned, futilely churning the air as if trying, ineffectually, to drag the creature away.

  The Ghost dropped to his haunches, staring into the creature's up-turned face. The red lights behind its glassy eyes glowed with vehemence. Its head turned slowly toward him and its broken left arm twitched. He could sense it was still trying to get at him, even now, reduced to this. Whatever malign force was motivating it was utterly relentless.

  He studied its chest plate more closely. It was largely intact, even after the fall. It was fashioned to resemble a human rib cage, with thick, brass ribs that curved round to protect the delicate machinery inside. Through the gaps between the ribs he could see whirring cogs and coiled springs, ticking levers and tiny golden chains. The machinery of life; the engine that animated this monstrous thing.

  There was a small panel in its chest, too—an ornately inlaid door right above where a human heart would reside. Cautiously, the Ghost ran his fingers over the engraving, tracing the pictograms with his gloved fingers. They were unusual, and he could tell they were ancient in origin, like the symbols he had seen on the Roman's marble gateway at the Metropolitan Museum, before everything had turned to shit, before Celeste…

  The Ghost could see no handle, no obvious way of opening the little door. He applied pressure, and the panel depressed, clicking open and folding back to reveal the cavity behind. The raptor emitted a shriek of rage, and its torso went into spasms again as it protested at his invasion, but there was little it could do to prevent him.

  The Ghost leaned forward and peered inside the compartment and almost recoiled at what he saw. A bird—a blackbird, still twitching and writhing against its terrible bonds—had been trapped inside the cavity, its wings pinned to a panel within a carefully painted red circle. Its head bobbed nervously and it opened its beak, but no sound was forthcoming. Its once-black feathers were now dowdy and gray.

  Around the outside of the red circle, esoteric runes and pictograms had been etched in intricate detail, tooled with precision into the brass backing plate. By the bird's feet, which hung limply, as if its legs had been broken, was a yellowing paper scroll, tightly wound and bound with coarse string. It, too, was pinned to the hardwood panel.

  The shell of the raptor jerked again, and the creature emitted a throaty shriek.

  The Ghost reached inside the cavity, took the bird's head between his thumb and index finger, and with a sharp gesture, snapped its neck. It was the only peace he could offer the creature.

  The raptor's torso jerked again in response. Rocking back on his haunches, the Ghost watched with interest as the once-burning lights in the raptor's eyes now dimmed and flickered out. The head dropped to the sidewalk with a clang, and the remains of the brass creature lay motionless.

  The Ghost reached for the scroll and withdrew it from the raptor's chest. He untied the string and unfurled the yellowing paper. It seemed old, and one edge was ragged, as if it had been torn from an old book. It contained more diabolic symbols: a pentagram scratched crazily in thick, black ink. The signs of the zodiac, rendered in immaculate, intricate detail in a wheel all around the five-pointed star. The page was covered, too, in mathematical equations, numbers written in haphazard fashion at each point of the star or scrawled in the margins in a thin, spidery hand. These had been added later; they were not original to the book from which the page had been removed.

  Frowning, he slipped the scroll into the pocket of his trench coat. Were the raptors really powered by some sort of terrible, demonic enslavement? Was it somehow eking away the bird's life force as a kind of fuel, taking it for its own? He didn't know. He was prepared to believe it, though. These days, he mused, he was prepared to believe almost anything.

  The Ghost turned at the sound of footsteps on the sidewalk behind him, moving at a run. Ginny, and Donovan. Both of them were panting for breath. They must have taken the stairs down from the roof.

  The Ghost stood and smiled at Donovan, clapping him on the shoulder as the inspector bent double, trying to catch his breath. “You're alive, then,” Donovan said between gasping breaths, as if he'd expected to find quite a different sight waiting for him at the foot of the apartment building.

  The Ghost laughed. “More or less,” he said. He helped the other man upright. “Some good shooting up there, Felix.”

  Donovan nodded, chuckling between sharp intakes of breath.

  Ginny stepped forward, still clutching the Ghost's twin pistols, allowing them to hang nonchalantly from her fingers. She moved closer, pressing herself against him, looking up at him as she slipped the firearms back into the holsters on either side of his waist. The Ghost met her gaze. Something—he wasn't sure exactly what—passed between them. Understanding, respect…he didn't know. Something. She held him in a clinch.

  “Not quite the party I was expecting this evening,” sh
e said brightly, “but all the same, I've had a swell time.” There was a gleam in her eye, and she couldn't contain her laughter. The Ghost wondered if it was as much relief that had made her giddy—elation that the whole thing was over. But he suspected not. Ginny was too savvy for that, too worldly. To her, the entire episode had probably seemed like one big adventure.

  The Ghost leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead and then spun her around to face Donovan, holding her by the shoulders. The fur collar of her coat was soft and springy beneath his gloves. “Felix, this is Ginny Gray.”

  Donovan, standing with his hands on his hips, burst out laughing with sheer incredulity. “I thought you said she was staying in the car!”

  “She was,” he replied, his hands still on her shoulders.

  Ginny offered Donovan a wry smile.

  “Anyway, we already met,” said Donovan, still grinning. “While you were taking the short way down, Miss Gray and I had plenty of time to get acquainted.”

  The Ghost smiled. He'd never intended for Ginny to get mixed up in all of this. Had he simply been showing off? He knew he should have left her behind at Long Island, at the party. He'd put her right in the line of fire. He didn't even know what she was doing there—why she'd come back, or why he'd felt the need to have her along. Yes, she'd talked him into it. But he'd allowed it to happen, and if he was honest with himself, he'd wanted it, too.

  In the end, he supposed, he was glad she had been there. If it hadn't been for her sharpshooting, he'd probably be dead, lying in the gutter across the street, torn apart by the raptors.

  “My God!”

  The Ghost turned to see Donovan standing over the shell of the ruined raptor.

  “Is that…?”

  “Yes. It's a bird,” the Ghost replied levelly. “It was still alive when I found it. I snapped its neck to put it out of its misery.”

  “And the raptor?”

  “The fall broke its body, but it didn't kill it. It only powered down when I broke the bird's neck.”

  Donovan frowned. “What are you saying? That the bird was somehow keeping it alive? Are you suggesting there's some sort of occult business going on here?” He almost spat the words with sheer distaste. “I thought they were just machines. If there's more to it than that…” He trailed off, his point made.

  The Ghost shrugged. “I don't know, Felix,” he replied noncommittally, but he could feel the pressure building in his chest, the horror of the situation creeping over him. Not again…

  Donovan turned the raptor's head with the edge of his boot. It lolled to one side on its damaged neck brace. “Vicious-looking thing,” he said, his voice low.

  The Ghost laughed. “I'll say.” He met Donovan's eye.

  “Are we any closer, Gabriel? Have we learned anything that might help us to discover who's responsible for these…abominations?”

  The Ghost shook his head slowly. “Nothing. Whoever's employing these things has been very careful to cover their tracks. There's nothing here that could be used to trace it back to its source. Unless I can figure out a way to follow one of them, we're out of luck.”

  He turned to glance at Ginny, who had lit a cigarette and was standing watching them, her head cocked slightly to one side, smoke riffling from her nostrils. “We'll have to study it properly, of course,” he continued, indicating the scattered remains on the ground. “It may be that something shows up under scrutiny, some component or part that we can trace back to its origin. But there's nothing obvious in the wreckage, nothing to even indicate what its real purpose might be.”

  Donovan shook his head. His exasperation was clearly evident by the manner in which he screwed up his face. “Or what it has to do with British spies,” he said, sighing. “I'll have it all taken back to the station for Mullins to go over.”

  “British spies?” chirped Ginny quizzically, glancing from one man to another, “Now this really is getting exciting.” She flashed a smile at the Ghost.

  “I'll tell you in the car,” he replied with a heartfelt sigh.

  By now, the sound of the explosion had begun to draw interest from the people living in the surrounding tenement blocks, and civilians were beginning to spill out onto the street, crowding around doorways, whispering in excited tones.

  Donovan's face creased in concern. “Gabriel, you'd better make yourself scarce. I'll look after things here.” He put a hand on the Ghost's shoulder, a gesture of friendship and solidarity.

  The Ghost nodded. “Ginny?” He took her by the hand, leading her toward the parked car. He looked back at Donovan as he opened the door to climb into the driver's seat. “Until tomorrow.”

  Donovan gave a brief nod of his head in acknowledgment.

  The Ghost slammed the door shut behind him, gunned the throttle, and eased the car off into the road. With a roar of the engine, they shot off into the night.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rutherford sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair and stared out the window at the teeming city below. He enjoyed watching the city come to life, the people slowly blinking their way out into the sunlight of a new day, the hiss of morning traffic, tires slick with the kiss of tarmac.

  New York wasn't so different from London, not really. People behaved the same the world over. That was something he'd learned over the years, throughout all his travels. Human beings were fundamentally the same. They had different quirks, yes, different personalities, but that was all gloss. Scratch it, and beneath it all, people were just people.

  Perhaps, if there was anything different about the New Yorkers, it was their boundless sense of optimism, their hubris, and their belief that anything—absolutely anything—was possible. To them, it seemed, the world was wondrous and new, there for the taking. London, on the other hand, was so heavy with the weight of its own history that sometimes it seemed overbearing. To Rutherford it seemed that the people carried that weight around with them, right there on their shoulders. It was clear in the way in which they went about their business, heads down, avoiding contact with their fellow men. New Yorkers, in sharp contrast, walked around with their heads held high, as if anxious to face the day, as if they hadn't yet been worn smooth and morose by centuries of grinding history.

  America, to Rutherford, was such a young nation. Not simply in terms of its national history, but in terms of its outlook. This, he had decided, after years of living there, was absolutely a good thing. Yes, perhaps the people were a little naïve at times, but they still had enthusiasm for the world, a fundamental belief in humanity. Londoners, in Rutherford's experience, had given up on that long ago.

  Despite all of that, though, Rutherford loved his country, and he missed it dearly. He missed the winding, cobbled streets of the metropolis, the leaning buildings, the bustle of the markets. He missed the ramshackle old manor houses, ancient farms, and country lanes of the Home Counties. He missed the lush green countryside and the river Thames. He missed home. He had adopted America as his second home, but—and it was clear from the results of his encounter at the apartment the prior day—America had not adopted him.

  In the end, it mattered little. Whatever the case, he wasn't about to let a small group of egoists and madmen start a war between these two great nations. He might be working for the British government, and he would do whatever was necessary—but he was also working for the people out there, on the street below, the people who went about in blissful ignorance, their heads held high. He would not let them be worn down by another war, a needless war. He would fight that with every reserve of strength he had left.

  He turned to glance at the geisha girl on the bed. He had spent the night here, in a whorehouse, renting a room from the overbearing, odious madam below stairs. His options had been limited, and he'd needed somewhere he could keep a roof over his head without giving a name, without being asked any difficult questions. Of course, he'd had to rent a girl, too. But that was not something that had ever interested him.

  He glanced over at the bed. The cloc
kwork geisha lay draped across the silky sheets, propped up on the scattered pillows and clad only in a lace negligee, its metal legs curled beneath it like those of a cat.

  It was a bizarre creation: an automaton, its brass skeleton sheathed in supple leather to offer the illusion of flesh, its body shaped to resemble the curves of an Oriental woman. It was programmed for only one purpose—the pleasure of men—and although it gave every indication of life, it was, in truth, nothing but a lifeless machine, devoid of personality or intelligence. It operated, as far as Rutherford had been able to tell, on a repetitive cycle, trapped in an endless loop of depravity and manufactured desire.

  Its blank, porcelain face turned toward him as he looked on, and it beckoned to him with a single languorous gesture of its finger, calling him to its mechanical embrace. This…routine had gone on for hours. But of course, he had left her—it—there on the bed and had taken the chair by the window instead.

  Rutherford couldn't see what other men could possibly find attractive in these strange dolls. It wasn't even a real woman—and he had never had much interest in those, either. At least not in that way.

  More than anything, though, the sight of the thing filled him with a deep sense of sadness. It might not have been alive, but it was still a slave, still something that had been brought into the world to serve the needs of others in the worst possible way.

  Nevertheless, it was difficult not to admire the artifice that had gone into the creation of the nameless machine. It moved with a fluidity and grace that belied its true nature, giving the impression of life, if not the thing itself. If only such a creation could have been put to a better use. At least, he supposed, it wasn't a real girl who'd be pressed into such dreadful servitude.

  But the face—the blank, porcelain face. It haunted him: emotionless, terrifying, as if it reflected the emptiness within. He'd been unable to look upon it for long, unable to stop himself imagining the face of a real woman behind it, trying desperately to scream. And so he had sat by the window, holding vigil throughout the night, tired, weary, and alone. He must have slept at some point, he thought, but if he did, it could not have been for very long. He could feel the lethargy in his very bones, but he knew he had to keep moving, to stay alert, to watch every shadow or doorway. They were onto him now—that much was clear from the incident in Greenwich Village and the man he had regretfully been required to dispatch back at his apartment.