Doctor Who_ Bunker Soldiers - Martin Day [50]
This time I was sure it was the creature. I could do nothing to avoid the beast, nor defeat it if it chose to strike. I sat and waited for the attack – perhaps it would be swift, and would mark my final liberation from the catacombs.
Accompanied by the rattle of claws on stone, a whisper of cold wind caressed the side of my face. The ‘angel’, it seemed, had passed within centimetres of me, but it didn’t attack, or speak, or in any way act as if it realised I was there.
I sat in the darkness, dumbfounded. If it wasn’t just an organic killing machine, why had it butchered Taras, his wife and Olexander with such gruesome efficiency? After its initial attack on me, why did it now seem to behave as if I didn’t exist?
As I pondered the beast’s motives, I remembered my earlier conviction that there must be other exits. Perhaps that was where it was heading now.
I jumped to my feet, feeling positive for the first time in hours, but scarcely believing that so evil a being could, perhaps, lead me straight to that thing that I most desired: a way out of the awful tomb in which I was trapped.
My ears, thank goodness, seemed suited to this realm of sensory absence: keeping a sensible distance between us, I followed what I assumed was the creature.
Whatever it was that I was following, it made no attempt to disguise its progress whereas before I would have sworn that it was keeping to a stealthy near-silence. The rattle of claws on the hard, stone surface set my teeth on edge, and also brought to mind the bodies I had seen. Three of them now, and each killed with a stomach-churning brutality. Olexander’s poor, noble attempt to reason with the beast seemed always doomed to failure – and yet the creature had spoken. It was capable of some form of self-expression. How had it described itself? An instrument of war?
I turned the phrase over in my mind. Perhaps it meant only that it was a biological expression of someone else’s hatred, no more or less morally responsible for its actions than one of the great horses that carried a knight into bloody battle.
Such speculation was pointless. I knew only that Yevhen had released something from a casket under the cathedral, and that, far from protecting the people of Kiev, the ‘angel’ seemed intent only on killing those it encountered. As if the city authorities did not have enough to deal with, with the Mongol hordes only a few days away!
I thought briefly of the Doctor, wondering if he was enjoying any sort of success within the Mongol camp. I somewhat wished he had changed his mind for nobler reasons than simply the preservation of the future we all knew, but, whatever the circumstances, I was glad that he had. I had the utmost faith in the old man – for all his incorrigibility, my belief in him burned in my heart like one of Olexander’s torches.
And then I thought of Dodo, still, I guessed, in the governor’s residence and thus at the mercy of Yevhen. I hurried my pace, impatient to be away from the catacombs.
I soon noticed the black nothingness of the tunnels becoming grey, the dim light hinting at walls and pillars and doors. In time I could see my own feet, the path before me –
and something tall moving through the remaining shadows.
And, ahead of that, there was a partly open door. Set into a wall, it burned like a beacon.
I could have wept for joy.
I watched as the disgusting creature made its way into the light, and then I waited. I did not want to emerge and find the dark angel waiting for me.
I fought a losing battle with my impatience – with my desperation to be out of these tunnels – and soon I found myself striding towards the doorway.
It was roughly hewn from what appeared to be oak, and probably about three-quarters of the size of a normal door. The great metal hinges were rusty, and a