Doctor Who_ All-Consuming Fire - Andy Lane [22]
'And did you find anything?' I asked.
'No,' she said, and frowned, clutching again at her chest. Her face was redder than it had been when we entered. I ran through lists of symptoms in my mind, but I could make no specific determination without examining her more closely.
'Those words, do you remember them?' the Doctor asked.
'I'm not sure that I can,' she said. 'The librarian kept the card. They were more like groans than words.'
The Doctor was insistent. 'Perhaps you could try to recall them for me.'
She screwed her face up, and started to speak. Subsequent events have seared those words on my memory, and I reproduce them here as first I heard them.
'I-ay, I-ay,' she croaked in a hideous parody of speech. 'Naghaa, naghaighai! Shoggog fathaghn!'
A cold chill seemed to seep through my bones.
'Thank you,' said the Doctor. His face was sombre.
'The Library was a strange place,' she said, seemingly having to force the words out. 'And the approach to it was simply horrendous. Fortunately, having been around sailors for most of my life, and after what happened to poor Patrick, I always take precautions when I go out. I also found a number of guns amongst his possessions, and they make a most effective deterrent.'
A thin sheen of perspiration had appeared upon her brow. I was about to tactfully suggest that she should take to her bed whilst I attended her when the Doctor spoke.
'Have you ever seen anything out of the ordinary happen at the Library?'
'Oddly enough, I once saw a man eating books,' she said, with an effort. 'I was sitting at a table, checking the index of a large and rather fragile volume for any mention of the words in Patrick's nightmares, when a noise attracted my attention. I looked across to where a half-closed door hid a small side room. The gas-lamp in the room cast the shadow of a man over to the wall by the door, where I could see it. He was grotesquely large and rough of feature, if his silhouette was anything to go by. As I watched, he raised a book in his hand, looked at it for a long moment, and then seemed to eat it whole! When he lowered his hand, the book was gone. And it was not a small book.'
I had forgotten that my hand still rested upon hers, until a faint tremor alerted me to the fact that she was shaking.
'Mrs Prendersly' I said, 'I really think. .'
Before I could finish my sentence, Mrs Prendersly half-rose and opened her mouth. A tremendous gout of yellow flame leapt from it, singeing the Doctor's hair. He leaped backwards. Mrs Prendersly's eyes widened in agony and shock. Flames were licking around her mouth and bursting from the crown of her head. I could not move. The Doctor whipped off his coat and attempted to smother the fire, but the heat drove him away. I spotted a gasogene on the sideboard and ran to grab it, but when I turned back her body was a blazing mass of orange and red. I directed the jet of water upon the conflagration, but it was no use. I could still make out her face, that beautiful face, blistering and running like wax. Her arms were flapping about, dragging flames with them like a bat's wings. A heavy orange smoke filled the room and a roaring sound filled my ears. Somewhere in the background I could hear the maid screaming. Mrs Prendersly's face was just a Hallowe'en mask now, a hollowed-out pumpkin filled with fire. She crumpled to the carpet, her legs and arms like burned branches. Her chest exploded outwards in a ball of flame, leaving charred ribs sticking from a pile of ashes. The ruin of her head flared for a few moments longer, and then the fire vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. My hands, my face, my clothes: all were greasy and black. The Doctor's face was shocked and there were blisters on his hands. I could see a rough circle of soot on the ceiling, directly