He finally selected one particular bottle, smiled cheerily in anticipation, got the cap off with only a little effort, and knocked back two little green pills. He dry swallowed hard, considered, then took one more before replacing the cap and making the bottle disappear. He stood very still, contemplating what was going on inside him, then his lips widened into a smile like a death’shead grin.

“Oh yes . . . This is the stuff to give the boys! It’s bad down here, but I’m the baddest thing in this station! Yes yes yes!” He broke into a soft-shoe routine, lost interest, realised JC was looking at him steadily, and giggled briefly. “On the job, JC! Oh yes! I’m getting something. I’m picking up all kinds of psychic traces, but only one original to this location that’s recent enough to qualify as a probable focal point. God, I feel lucid. Something happened right here, on this platform, within the last few days.”

“Are you . . . all right, Happy?” said Melody. “You don’t look too good.”

“I feel fine! Fine!”

“The sweat is pouring off your face, Happy,” said JC. “And your eyes . . .”

“I am in the groove!” said Happy. “Now shut up and let me work. Oh, I’m on fire now! Someone died here. Murdered. A young woman . . . robbed of so many years, so much future life. That’s a great source of power for whoever was responsible, all those potential years. Murder magic. Necromancy. Bad stuff.”

“Can you reach her?” said JC. “Can you contact her? Bring her here, make her manifest for us?”

“She’s coming,” said Happy. His face was flushed, he couldn’t stop grinning, and his eyes were fever bright. “Our life energies are drawing the murdered girl here. We blaze so brightly to her dead eyes, and so she comes to us out of the dark like a moth to a flame, or a child to a familiar, once-loved place. She’s almost here. Be gentle with her, JC. She doesn’t understand that she’s dead. She’s trapped in a half-way state, caught up in a dream that never ends. Never really aware of where she is, or what’s happening. Don’t try to wake her, JC. That would be cruel.”

He’d barely finished speaking when a young woman appeared suddenly out of nowhere, right there on the platform before them, standing with her back to them as though waiting for a train. She stood on the very edge of the platform, lost in her own thoughts, occasionally looking down the tracks at the tunnel-mouth, waiting for a train that would never come. She didn’t seem to notice JC or Happy or Melody. JC moved slowly, cautiously, forward until he was standing beside her, a polite distance away. She didn’t look at him. JC looked at her.