Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [102]
‘Doctor!’ Victoria sobbed with relief and would have flung herself forward had not Pan clamped his forearm tighter around her throat.
‘Victoria! Oh my word, you’re safe!’ The Doctor held out his arms and trotted towards her, then just as quickly scampered back again, as Pan swung the Luger to cover him.
‘Well, ain’t this just too sweet to bear,’ the mercenary said. Then he saw the figure of the Krallik and swore profusely. He moved further into the room, craning his neck to get a better view of the Krallik. ‘What are you?’ he said in almost amused disbelief, although disgust was creasing his face.
‘You’re a beauty, ain’t ya?’ He shot a quick look at the Doctor. ‘This for real?’
‘If you mean is this the Krallik, then yes... in a way...’
‘Screw me. Does it speak? I mean, it’s holding a candle...’
The Krallik said nothing. The flames from the smouldering curtain played on the gruesome white missionary face, lit up the brown merchant’s arms, flickered on the smooth, stitched whore’s hands.
‘I came all the way for this?’ Pan raised the Luger, sighted it on the Krallik’s pale forehead. The fish-dead eyes held his without emotion, without anything. ‘Locate and terminate, baby. Always do as I’m told, especially when the target’s as beautiful as your good self.’ He fired.
Click.
Pan laughed. ‘Well, ain’t that good timing? But it still ain’t your lucky day, freak.’ He chucked the empty Luger, pulled a machete from his belt. He went for the Krallik in a fluid violent lope, spun like a vicious ballet dancer, swung, connected... lop! The Krallik’s head arced across the room, plonked onto the bamboo flooring, rolled, stopped.
Pan waited for the still seated figure to topple. ‘There,’ he said, unsurprised when it didn’t. ‘Told you that thing wasn’t real.’
The headless body of the Krallik remained on the stool, the candle still held in the slender female hand. The hand twitched, spasmed, the candle light rippled, stabilised again.
Pan whirled with the same agility he’d displayed in decapitating the Krallik, and the point of the machete was under Wemus’s chin as the guide was still halfway across the room in a lumbering attack.
‘Gotta be quicker. You’ve just got to be.’ He tickled Wemus’s throat with the blade until blood began to trickle, pushing him backwards.
Wemus stumbled over the bisected body of the young rebel on the floor. He flailed backwards as he fell, and his right arm rocked one of the Mumis on its stool.
Pan grunted. Firelight glimmered on the two green snakes twisting and coiling as they sank their fangs into two different parts of his neck.
Rock-a-bye, baby in the tree top, rock-a-bye, baby let my rage stop. They always told me I was bad, mama. Especially you. Had to live up to the rep, right? What you gonna do?
Find a way, I mean everybody’s got to find a way in life, ain’t that right? Mine just happened to be a bad one, that’s all.
Born to be bad, bad to the b-b-b-bone. Sometimes there ain’t always a reason for it. You done one thing for me though, mama – you gave me her. Beautiful cliche blonde. Even had the eyes so, so blue. Nose a little big, skinny too, but what did that matter? I loved you, you bitch. When we made love, you used to say you loved me too.
And that word never meant anything to me. Before you.
After you. Only with you.
My sister, my whore.
The Mumi was still again, its motion sensors detecting nothing within immediate attack range. Pan, green and twitching, lay on the floor below. The machete was still in his right hand, and now it lifted with one final act of aggression as a convulsion shook his entire body. The weapon clattered to the floor and Pan twitched no more. The Piper at the Gates of Dawn tattoo seemed eerily to move in the crawling shadows cast by the candle.
Wina gingerly helped Wemus climb to his feet and together they withdrew as far from the Mumis as was possible in the chamber. The curtains heaped on the floor were just smouldering now, the fire having practically burned itself out.
The Doctor picked up the severed head of the Krallik. A large blob