Doctor Who_ Father Time - Lance Parkin [91]
There was a flurry of movement behind the Deputy. The gun was being wrestled from him.
Miranda, with a look in her eyes... Debbie had never seen anything like it. Even in films, all those stories about soldiers out to avenge their brothers’ or their fathers’ deaths, there had been nothing to hint at the intensity.
‘She’ll kill him,’ Debbie whispered.
* * *
If Miranda turned her back on this man she’d get a bullet in it. If she stopped for a moment, he would take advantage. He was ancient – a pensioner, shorter, older, less fit than she was. But she didn’t feel like she was any better. He still had the gun, and every iota of his effort was dedicated to keeping it there.
His arm was high in the air, trying to keep the pistol out of her reach. As she jumped to grab it, and he ducked out her way, it struck her what this reminded her of. Netball. It must have looked like netball.
She had the height advantage. She clutched his wrist, tried to squeeze it, reminding herself that the tactic had worked with Ferdy. Unfortunately, the Deputy didn’t just disappear in a blue swirl.
So the Deputy was trapped here. He had nothing to lose.
Miranda was vaguely aware of her father edging forward. She wanted his help, she needed it, but she didn’t want to see him shot.
Her elbow came down to break the Deputy’s nose, but he was already sinking his teeth into her arm.
She shrieked – half pain, half battle cry – and the sound terrified her.
This wasn’t the way.
What would her father do?
Which one? The Doctor? John Dawkins? Whatever alien warlord it was that had butchered this man’s people?
Her father... the Doctor... he’d try to talk the Deputy out of it. He’d use reason. Show him the error of his ways, do the unexpected. But the Deputy was a fanatic – he’d travelled all this way, endured so much, simply to see her dead.
So she hesitated just for a moment, and the Deputy broke free, pushed her out of the way and levelled the gun at her.
The Doctor had been edging towards them. Now he stopped abruptly, the gravel of the driveway skittering.
‘Too analytical,’ she said quietly. ‘Too much thinking.’
She was still doing it. Wondering what the bullet would feel like. It would kill her – the Deputy would see to that – but would It hurt? The bullet would be hot, she thought, a piece of metal travelling that fast would generate friction. That had never occurred to her when she’d seen bullets fired on The A-Team. Would she be dead before her body hit the ground?
The Deputy smiled, knowing it was over.
The unexpected. It was her way out of this.
She screamed, the same scream she’d made when he’d bitten her. She leapt straight at him.
For an instant, the gun wasn’t where he needed it to be. She shoved into his shoulder. She’d always been stronger than she looked. She had the advantage, but she knew she could lose it in a fraction of a second.
She grabbed his hand, squeezed it against the gun he was holding in it until she heard bones crack, but didn’t let go, even when the gun was on the floor and the Deputy was crying out.
She put a leg on the ground between his legs and tripped him over, bent down for the pistol, brought it level with his head.
The Deputy’s eyes were wide.
‘Do it!’ he spat.
‘Don’t do it, Miranda,’ the Doctor shouted. ‘He’s beaten. Can you hear that? Sirens. The police are here.’
She could hear them. The new sirens, the American-style ones, not the old-fashioned waa-waa sirens. Her father was coming over.
‘I’m not a killer,’ she told the Deputy.
Her father was behind her, now. Debbie Castle was staying back.
‘The Doctor has taught you well – he’s kept you from your nature. You’re a monster. Your kind laid waste to the universe. You destroy worlds, you drain the life from whole galaxies. You can’t escape who you are. Kill me. Kill me, or I’ll kill you – it’s the only way this can end. Let me live and I’ll hunt you down.’
She shot him, twice, in the chest.
* * *
The Doctor couldn’t believe it.