Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [85]
‘Leave for where?’ said Ace. She pulled on a robe and knotted it around her waist, striding out of the bathroom after the Doctor.
Vincent lay in the drained bathtub, eyes rolling under closed pale eyelids, snoring faintly.
* * *
In the living room all the windows had turned to mirrors. It was dark outside now, full night. Ace felt the jetlag and the night on the airport floor catching up with her. Her shoulder was aching in earnest. Her feet were wet on the Persian carpet and she was beginning to feel how cold the house was, a chill settling on her after the shower and the exertion of saving the boy.
‘You said we’re going to leave soon. Where are we going?’
‘New York,’ said the Doctor.
‘Fair enough. Who is the tumescent adolescent upstairs?’
The Doctor perched on the arm of an old sprung armchair. He reached down under the fat dusty cushions, as if he was looking for something. ‘I’ll tell you all about him.’
‘Good.’
‘I’ll tell you about him very, very soon.’
‘Very, very good.’
‘But first I’d best tell you about someone else.’ The Doctor tugged something out from under a cushion in the armchair. He passed it to Ace. It was a thin magazine, printed on cheap paper. The title was Seeing.
‘What is this?’
‘Turn to page twenty‐seven,’ said the Doctor. ‘Do you see the photos?’
On page 27 was an article entitled ‘A Doorway to Other Worlds?’ Three large photographs were set above the text. Ace didn’t need to do more than glance at them. ‘It’s this house. Someone’s been up on the hillside.’ She looked at the photographs and estimated the position of the photographer. ‘Up in our orchard with a long lens.’
‘That’s right, it was me,’ said the Doctor. ‘I wrote the article as well.’
‘“A Doorway to Other Worlds?”’ said Ace.
‘That publication is what you might call a fanzine. It is sold to a certain, small, specific audience.’
‘The Crows,’ said Ace. ‘The Witchkids, that lot.’
‘Young people who are adopting new belief systems. A blend of ecological activism with older ways of thinking.’
‘What you’re talking about is black magic,’ said Ace.
‘Sorcery, to be more accurate,’ said the Doctor. ‘In any case, that article was written to appeal to a special kind of individual. It was calculated to attract their attention to this house and to provide them with just enough information to find it.’
‘Find it?’
‘We have a battle to fight, Ace. The boy in the bathtub is part of it. But so is this other person. They are vital to my plan. I put information into that magazine that would act as a lure to someone with a certain profile of beliefs and obsessions. Exactly the kind of person who would be most useful to us. Think of it as a kind of job advertisement.’
‘I don’t suppose you want to tell me a little more about the applicant.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor. ‘They are likely to be violently opposed to the destruction of this planet. They will be full of anger and aggression, coupled with a belief in supernatural forces. Of course, as a result of this, the person is likely to be somewhat unstable.’
‘Oh boy,’ said Ace. She sat down in the armchair beside the Doctor. ‘Unstable and potentially dangerous,’ she said.
‘Potentially very dangerous.’
‘Well, thanks for telling me. I don’t suppose I’ve got a day or two to catch up on my sleep?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Okay. When is he turning up?’
‘It may be a she instead of a he,’ said the Doctor. ‘And she’s already here.’
‘Here in the sense of here in the general neighbourhood?’
‘Here in the sense of upstairs in the bathroom.’
* * *
Justine wasn’t sure if the boy in the bathtub was alive or dead. She leaned over the bathtub and reached out to check for a pulse in his throat. As she did so the boy’s hand drifted up blindly and collided with her own. Justine didn’t flinch. She watched pale fingers open and slowly close around hers. She felt the chill in those fingers.
And then she felt something else.
Vincent’s eyes wouldn’t focus properly. He closed them again. The enamelled iron bathtub was cold and hard against his body, but in a strange way it was comfortable. He felt