Doctor Who_ Christmas on a Rational Planet - Lawrence Miles [75]
Two streets away, houses were being searched and looted, windows smashed and doors broken down. Around the corner, an alleyway was burning, fire creeping towards the heart of the town like a spark on a fuse. But here, there was a carnival; a carnival of the lost and the scared and the unwanted, defying the rationalists’ ‘new order’ in the only way they could. The last dance. The party at the end of the world.
The idea was ludicrous, of course.
Samuel Lincoln crawled out of a side-street, following the sounds of music, and saw what was happening on Burr Street.
Five minutes later, he’d learned how to dance.
Daniel Tremayne had forgotten how to run. The process involved moving your feet in a particular sequence, he knew that much, but the details wouldn’t come to him He tripped and stumbled along the street, Forrester gripped his hand, tugging him upright whenever he fell. Half the journey was made on his knees.
At last they came to a halt, in the shadow of a law office at the end of Hazelrow Avenue; Daniel couldn’t read the plaque on the front door, but any building that big and ugly and pompous just had to be a law office. Across the street, a rain-sodden man with wide eyes and a torn topcoat was yelling something about the end of the world, banging on the doors of houses like a drunkard. There was an overturned carriage by the side of the road, horse and owner long since fled.
‘I think we’re okay,’ said Forrester, checking the street behind them. ‘What happened back there must have distracted him He isn’t coming after us.’
Distracted? Was that all she could say? Daniel could still smell lightning in the air, and he tried not to look down at his shirt. It had been a good shirt, taken from a tailor’s workroom in Dill Village, from right under the owner’s nose. Now it was covered with tiny spots of black and pink. Marks of burning, and something that was almost like candle-fat.
‘We’d better move carefully, all the same. Catcher’s a grade-one psycho. You heard those voices of his. Creepy.’
Daniel tried to concentrate on what she was saying.
‘Voices?’
‘Yeah. That "remove the agent of Cacophony" thing.’
Daniel hadn’t heard any ‘voices’, and he wondered if Forrester had special witch-hearing. ‘This is getting out of hand, Danny.
You see that smoke over those rooftops? The town’s going up in flames. We’re going to have to put a stop to this.’
‘Stop. Hah.’ Daniel slumped to the ground, resting his back against the carriage. ‘Catcher’s got a gun. I saw someone go up against two Italians with guns, once. They put bullets through all his wrists and ankles. Just left him lying there.’
‘All smiles, aren’t you?’ Forrester started scratching at her wrist, as if she had a rash there. ‘People are getting hurt here, Daniel. A long time ago, I swore an oath to stop people getting hurt. At least, unless it was me doing the hurting. And I’ve got a kind of responsibility to this town, okay? Even if I can’t stand the damn place. Let’s just say I’ve done things here I want to make up for. Besides, we don’t need guns.’
Her hand slipped into her pouch.
‘We’ve got this,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Matheson Catcher, but SORRY IS NOT A RATIONAL WORD. He knelt, ashes staining his pantaloons.
On the floor beside him, the shape of the electro-static galvanistic rifle started to blur and spread, melting into a silver smudge and seeping into the dust. As if Catcher no longer had the will to keep the weapon in one piece.
Catcher stared at the body of Isaac Penley in front of him.
A trunk, a blue-black stump. There were pieces of horror scattered around the saloon. ODDS AND ENDS. Catcher reached out, touching the scorched flesh. BITS AND BOBS.
He started collecting