Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [44]
I changed direction and headed towards it, steeling myself to flee at the slightest motion. But the shape – a coloured, indistinct mass at first – was absolutely motionless, as unmoving as the great columns that supported the roof over my head. As I drew nearer, it resembled a random pile of rags; it was only when I came closer still that I realised it was a body.
I was making a habit of this.
It was a woman, dressed in what could best be described as medieval underwear. Her throat was in shreds as if some wild dog had killed her. On the peripheries of the main wound I noticed smaller rips and incisions that reminded me of my awful discovery of Taras’s body. Her body felt as if had been cut from melting ice; I drew back when my fingertips inadvertently brushed her cheek.
I stood, staring down at the unfortunate woman. How had she come to be here? Her bare feet were clean, so she had not walked into the catacombs. The small pool of blood under her back seemed to indicate that she had been brought here soon after death.
As to what had killed her... Even the Doctor claimed not to know what creature we were dealing with. But I didn’t think it was simple cynicism on my part to imagine that a second death implied many more to come.
‘Lord Jesus have mercy.’
The words, half-whispered behind me, came out of nowhere.
Shocked, I turned to see Olexander. He had a look of resigned horror on his face.
I am sorry to say that my surprise at seeing him, mixed with my anger at what I believed was his treacherous liaison with Yevhen, drove me into a fury. I grabbed the old man by the throat, almost knocking his lantern from his grasp, and spat into his face: ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Or words to that effect.
Olexander struggled from my grip, as shocked I think by the venom of my words as by my actions.
‘What do you mean?’ he croaked.
‘You said you were imprisoned by Yevhen,’ I said.
‘I was.’
‘But I saw you talking to him!’
Olexander looked at me with blank incomprehension.
‘You’re colluding with him, aren’t you?’ I continued, not realising that my awful descent into the catacombs, and my discovery of the corpse, had probably pushed me to the verge of hysteria. ‘Admit it!’
Olexander shook his head slowly. ‘You do not understand,’
he said. ‘Yevhen came to offer me my freedom – my return to the society that I miss.’
‘At a price?’
‘Everything Yevhen does has a price.’ The old man paused, looking around nervously. ‘He will ensure my release from prison on condition that I reason with the dark angel.’
‘The dark angel?’
‘The creature he has liberated from the casket. The supposed protector of Kiev, defender of our people.’
I pointed at the corpse, to the face puffed up with death and the hair matted with dry blood. ‘You want to reason with the thing that did that? The creature that killed Taras?’ I snorted. ‘I wish you luck!’
‘Perhaps together we might succeed. Perhaps this creature is rational.’
‘You’ve been sent down here to die,’ I said. ‘Don’t you realise? We’ve been locked in.’
Olexander nodded, as if he expected something like this from Yevhen. ‘Yevhen said I might succeed because of my knowledge of languages, of texts, of diplomacy and customs.’
‘I very much doubt this thing speaks any language you’ve ever heard of,’ I commented bitterly. ‘I’ll be surprised if it speaks any language at all!’
‘But we must try,’ continued Olexander. ‘We must point the angel away from us, and towards the Tartars.’
‘You really think it will listen? You really think it will apologise for what it’s done, then go off after the Mongols for you?’
‘I think we must try.’
I paused, trying to control my anger.
‘Why does Yevhen think this creature is down here?’ I asked in a quieter voice. ‘I found Taras’s body above ground.’
‘He believes that Bishop Vasil’s men took the corpse away.
Yevhen himself saw Taras die.