Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [22]
But Bobby Prescott was going to have a victory. He was going to win a last fight. He readied himself, to confront the fear. He began to fight the fear.
He could feel himself winning already. The kid was close now. Freckles on his pale face, a ring of acne around his mouth. Little wispy moustache. The knife was beginning to enter Bobby Prescott’s throat but all he felt was a warm flash of pleasure. He’d applied his willpower and he already knew that he was going to win. His breathing was beginning to ease already and his body, pressed against the hard edges of the library steps, eased too.
He relaxed, drifted away.
The fear flared one last time.
Died.
Now Bobby Prescott wasn’t afraid of anything. He was grinning with satisfaction as the tip of the knife slowly cut into him, the kid holding the knife getting excited but beginning to get into it, his hand steady. He was going to really go for it any second and drive the blade right in. Bobby Prescott just grinned up at the kid as the kid began to kill him.
‘That’s enough,’ said the small man.
Bobby Prescott had been aware of the small man for some time, standing there at the edge of his vision, but he had dismissed him as an irrelevant piece of phenomenon, background noise. The important thing had been Bobby Prescott’s last fight. But now the kids holding him were loosening their grip, letting go at the man’s command.
Bobby Prescott’s concentration began to unlock. His mind began to come back from the death‐place he’d prepared for it. The knife was moving away from him, coming back out of his throat, blood on the tip of it, the kid’s hand still tight around the handle, reluctant. But moving. Bobby Prescott began to let himself think again. His memory unfroze and he could remember that the small man had come out of the glass doors and down the steps towards them. He had come out of the library, just a small man holding a big black envelope in one hand.
And now he was giving them orders, the kids, the Crows. Giving them orders and moving his hands, the envelope jabbing as he spoke. And the kids, the little animals with their bicycles and their helmets and knives, were obeying him.
* * *
The smell of the books hit Bobby Prescott even before his eves adjusted to the darkness. ‘I’m afraid the lights are dead in here,’ said the small man, walking somewhere in the shadows just in front of him.
‘They’re dead everywhere in the library. They have been for a long time,’ said Bobby Prescott. ‘Years. Ever since the big riots.’ He could see now. There was enough light coming in from the tall library windows to make out the wreckage of the front desks, the shelves which had once held the latest magazines. The disembowelled overturned shape of a Xerox machine. But Bobby Prescott could have closed his eyes and still found his way through here. The smell of the books brought it all back to him.
He remembered the first time he’d ever come into this library, with the man he’d called Uncle Max. Uncle Max was there on business, looking up something to do with human anatomy, and he’d let Bobby wander off. The little boy had seen a book on a shelf, too high for him to reach, and a lady, one of the librarians, had fetched it down for him. It was the first book Bobby Prescott ever read. He couldn’t remember the title, but he could still close his eyes and see the cover, and he could tell you the story.
‘How’s your neck?’
Bobby Prescott felt a flash of irritation. He’d forgotten about the wound. It was only a small cut, but now that the little man had reminded him about it, it began to sting like a bitch. He licked his fingers and rubbed