Melody Chambers was the main brain and science geek of the team, and therefore strictly responsible for all the marvellous new technology supplied by the Carnacki Institute. In fact, Melody had been known to slap people’s hands away if they even tried to touch her tech. She was very protective of her toys, even if she did tend to break them on a regular basis, usually by trying to get far more out of them than the design specs allowed. Pushing the very edge of her late twenties, Melody was pretty enough in a conventional way, short and gamine thin, and burned constantly with more nervous energy than was good for her. She had a disturbing tendency to rush headlong into any situation that looked like it might promise her something, anything, that she hadn’t encountered before, armed with a complete willingness to kick the hell out of anything that proved even a bit stubborn. Melody Chambers wasn’t nearly scared enough of the dark, considering what she did on nights like this.

She wore her auburn hair scraped back into a severe bun, serious glasses with black plastic frames, and clothes so anonymous they actually sidestepped fashion or style. In her spare time, she enjoyed a sex life that would have scared Casanova out of his jockstrap. It’s always the quiet ones . . .

Then there was Happy Jack Palmer. Telepath, smart-arse, and full-time gloomy bugger. Closing fast on thirty, and resenting it bitterly, Happy was short and stocky, prematurely balding, and might have been handsome if he ever stopped scowling. He wore grubby jeans, a rude T-shirt, and a battered old jacket, and looked like you’d have to put him through a car wash to get the top layer of soil off him. He shaved when he remembered and enjoyed all the worst kinds of food, traces of which still showed on his jacket. He claimed to have a heart of gold. In a box, under his bed. The most reluctant hero ever accepted into the ranks of the Carnacki Institute, and owner of so many medical prescriptions he had to file them in alphabetical order to keep track, Happy had an unequalled talent for detecting the presence of things that most people wouldn’t even admit existed.