Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [15]
Finally, one of the shadows decided to step forward.
Erskine Morris whirled around to face it, almost losing his balance and cracking his shoulder against a pillar.
‘ Io Ordo Io,’ the shape said.
‘Hellfire and shite!’ Erskine immediately recognized the man from his clothes and his slightly portly frame; Monroe, the fool’s name was, one of Catcher’s arse-lickers from the Renewal Society. Monroe’s face was obscured, though, covered by a crude grey sackcloth mask which – in Erskine’s view – improved his appearance no end. ‘Good grief, man, do you not know that there are laws against this kind of thing?’
‘ Ordo Ordo Ordo Io Ordo,’ said Monroe, no doubt coating the inside of his cowl with a layer of blustering spittle.
‘And you can stop that, as well –’ Erskine broke off in mid-complaint as he noticed several other forms, breaking away from the shadows and stepping out in front of him. Most of them were immediately recognizable, despite their hoods, as spineless and unimportant members of the Society. Men who couldn’t even hold a bottle and a half of Wilkeson’s and stand up straight. Catcher wasn’t among them.
‘All right, where is he? Where is the odious little absurdity?’
‘ Ordo Io Io Ordo Io,’ the men told him
‘Damnation!’ Erskine took a few steps towards them, hoping that his sheer size would intimidate them, but they didn’t even flinch. ‘Enough of this. Where’s Catcher?’
‘ Ordo Ordo Io. ’
In fact, not only were they not moving away, but they were moving towards him. Erskine felt himself take an involuntary step back.
‘ Io Io Io Ordo Io Ordo Ordo. ’
‘Of all the childish, irrational...’
Another step back.
‘ Ordo Io. ’
‘Damnation!’
And another.
‘ Io Io Io Io Io Io Io Io -’
Erskine Morris turned on his heel, and stalked away down another roundelled corridor. He refused to look back over his shoulder, telling himself that it wasn’t important whether the idiots followed him or not. They were trying to rattle him, that was all. Trying to stop him asking questions about their poxy
‘inner circle’. As if they could. Hah! As if.
He asked himself why he was walking so quickly, and couldn’t think of a decent answer. Imbeciles and mystics.
Nothing a good, sound, rational mind couldn’t deal with. And now that good, sound, rational mind just had to find the exit, a drink, and Matheson Catcher, in that order.
Then he turned the next corner, and walked right into something large, alive, and impossible.
The night she’d met Samuel Lincoln, Roz had dreamt of spinning golden spheres, of stovepipe hats and civil wars and witch-doctors and flowers that never died. By the time she’d woken up, every detail of the escape plan had been considered, calculated, and filed in her memory.
The only way out of this place. The only way to let the Doctor know where she was. The only way to summon a Time Lord.
The hardest part of the plan had been getting hold of the gun. There were simpler weapons, easier ways of killing someone, but a gun just seemed right, the only tool for the job.
It was like preparing a magic ritual, thought Roz, where all the pieces had to be in place for the plan to work, and all the right props had to be used. Time-traveller’s voodoo.
She’d mingled with the people from the other ‘attractions’, drifting from whisper to whisper until she’d found someone who knew where to get hold of firearms, no questions asked. It had reminded her of one of the undercover operations she’d been involved in during her former life, and their unwillingness to talk reminded her that she’d never been any good at them then. The job had taken her the best part of a week.
The arms dealer had been a middle-aged man with vaguely Latin features, who seemed to talk to people without really noticing they were there. He’d struck Roz as the type who’d make a good narcotics dealer, a thousand years in the future, but the people of Woodwicke didn’t seem to understand the concept of