Doctor Who_ Corpse Marker - Chris Boucher [47]
‘If you want me to switch it on,’ Padil panted, ‘We’ll have to stop for a moment.’ She was jogging to keep up now.
‘It is better if you do not run,’ Leela said, not slowing down.
‘Well slow down then.’
‘We are being shadowed,’ Leela said, keeping her voice matter-of-fact.
‘Shadowed?’ Instinctively Padil glanced round as Leela knew she would.
‘They are tracking on either side of us and there are three behind us.’
Again as Leela expected Padil looked back. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Do not look for them.’ Leela instructed. ‘Do not run. Do not touch the controls on the stun-kill. You must try to behave normally.’ To her relief Padil did as she was told. She might never make a warrior, Leela thought, but she was not stupid or cowardly. ‘I will tell you what to do and when to do it.’
‘I said it was dangerous out here at night,’ Padil remarked.
‘How many of them are there, do you know?’ She was still breathless but she was doing her best to control it now.
‘I counted seven.’ Leela said. They had reached the bend and were striding up the short banked curve. ‘Be ready.’
Seven?’ Padil sounded panicky. ‘How do we deal with seven?’
‘One at a time,’ Leela said, wondering if she had overestimated the woman’s courage after all. ‘If we do not panic.’
‘You think we can count on them being small and patient then?’
Leela smiled grimly. ‘I think we can count on them being vicious and stupid.’
‘Oh good,’ Padil said. ‘I was getting worried. Vicious and stupid, and in the dark. Sounds ideal. I’m glad I let you talk me into this.’
‘Be quiet,’ Leela said quietly. ‘I cannot hear them if we talk.’
‘Behave normally, you said,’ Padil muttered. ‘Normally I talk when I’m scared.’
They rounded the curve and there, fifty yards on in a murky pool of not very bright light, was the steep flight of narrow steps which climbed up to the next street level. Leela could see that the steps were defensible as she had hoped but there was an obvious problem. All three alleyways, the one they were on and the ones the predators were following on either side of them, met at the same point just in front of the steps. If the predators reached the steps first they would cut her and Padil off and trap them between two hunting packs. With a small jolt of surprise it flashed through Leela’s mind that this was why they had added a third individual to the following group. She realised this was the plan they had been working to all along. It seemed she had badly underestimated her adversaries. While she had been looking for a killing ground they had already chosen theirs. While she had been trying not to startle them into sudden action they had been doing the same to her.
‘We must run for the steps,’ she said softly. ‘Are you ready?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Do it now. Now!’ Leela said and set off sprinting through the dimness towards the light.
Padil’s reactions were slower and though fear drove her and she ran desperately she could not keep up. On either side Leela heard the predators react, giving up stealth and breaking into scrambling runs. With ten yards to go Leela knew she would not beat them to the steps. She eased her run, sacrificing flat-out speed for fighting balance, and pulled her knife. She was five yards short when the first of them burst out of the left-hand alleyway and leapt on to the steps. Another one came out of the right-hand alleyway and did the same. Leela ignored them both and swerved left. In the deep gloom and pale, reflected light in the alleyway she caught the second one of the pair by surprise.
His half-crouching run pushed his head forward exposing his neck. Leela slashed her knife up through his throat, the blow cutting so deeply that it reached and partially severed the spine.
The man crashed to the ground, flopping heavily against the wall and dropping the stun-kill and the sharpened cargo hook he was carrying.
Leela ducked back out of the alleyway as Padil arrived, panting. There were three of the nightstalkers blocking the steps now. They were all men, dirty and unshaven with long,