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room have become so powerful, they’re probably resistant to open attack,” said JC. “No; we need something less direct. Lateral thinking caps on, everyone.”
    He walked around the room, looking at everything, thinking hard. The others looked at him, then at each other, and shrugged pretty much simultaneously.
    “This room is haunted,” JC said firmly. “By all the lost hopes and broken dreams of everyone who ever stayed here.”
    “So what are we supposed to do?” said Happy. “Call them all up and give them a big comforting hug?”
    JC turned abruptly to look at him, then smiled slowly. “Well, if you put it that way . . .”
    “Why do I give him ideas?” said Happy.
    “We can’t bring back all the people who stayed in this room,” said Kim. “The living and the dead . . .”
    “But we might be able to call forth the genius loci, the spirit of this place,” said JC. “What all the previous guests left behind, that’s still powering the testing ground. A . . . representation, of all those people. And then we comfort them.”
    “So the manager was right,” said Melody. “This is an exorcism, after all. Do we need to bring in a priest? I hate that. They’re always so smug about it . . .”
    “No,” said JC. “This isn’t about good and evil, Heaven and Hell. Just people. We know how to deal with people. Come on. We’ve melded our minds together before, to help others. And isn’t that why we got into this job in the first place? To help people?”
    “Speak for yourself,” said Melody. “I got into it for access to technology I couldn’t find anywhere else.”
    “I got into it for access to arcane and unnatural chemicals,” said Happy.
    “And I got into it for the glory,” said JC. “But that’s not how it is now, is it?”
    “Not always,” said Melody.
    “Go team,” said Happy.
    “Let’s do it,” said Kim.
    She stepped forward, slipping effortlessly inside JC, her ghostly form superimposing itself on his body and disappearing inside it as they joined together. The golden glow from JC’s eyes sprang up all around his body, like an all-over halo. A sane, healthy light, it pushed back the flat, ugly illumination of the room. JC reached out to Happy and Melody, and they each took one of his hands. The golden light leapt out to surround them, too. Four good friends; a team joined together on every level there was.
    They all concentrated on the same shared thought; and the golden light blasted out from them to fill the whole room. Slowly, a presence stirred. Room 418 was waking up from a long, deep sleep. Another figure was suddenly standing in the room, a basic human shape with no details, no identity . . . It walked slowly forward, and the group opened up to accept and encompass it.
    You’re not alone,
they said.
Someone knows, and understands. Someone gives a damn. And isn’t that all any of us really needs to hear?
    Comforted at last, the figure faded away slowly.
    The Ghost Finders let go of each other and stepped back. The golden light snapped off. Melody and Happy were still holding hands. Kim stepped out of JC.
    “Damn,” said Happy. “What were we mainlining there? It felt like . . . raw spiritual power. There isn’t a pill in the world that could match that.”
    “Are you ready to swear off the mother’s little helpers now?” said JC.
    “No,” said Happy. “Sorry, JC. I’m still going to need a chemical crutch to lean on. For what little time I’ve got left.”
    JC nodded. He’d been doing this job long enough to know some problems don’t have answers. Or at least not one you can easily live with.
    “Feel the difference in the room,” he said. “Like the calm after a storm has passed. It’s over. It’s gone.”
    “I am really not comfortable with all this touchie-feelie hippy crap,” said Happy. “You’ll be wanting me to hug some trees next.”
    “I think I preferred it when you weren’t talking,” said JC. “So much more