Doctor Who_ Foreign Devils - Andrew Cartmel [47]
All over her body the tiny drops of exudate appeared, milky and thicker and more sticky than sweat. Like sap, thought Zoe, her head swimming.
Celandine's hair was changing. Growing drier and straighter, its colour turning from blonde to the palest of white. Soon its texture was like dry fine corn silk. Her lovely eyes, once a penetrating deep blue had now deepened to black, with no distinction between iris and
pupil.
On her pale torso her navel vanished, growing shallow, then smoothing out and disappearing into the smooth white expanse of skin, as though smoothed away by the hand of an invisible sculptor. Carnacki's voice was shaking. 'She's half plant, half woman,' he whispered. Zoe felt pity for him as the man stated the obvious. She knew that Carnacki's attempt at analytical detachment was his only means of hanging on to his sanity, as he saw this happen to the woman he loved.
The plant thing's face had taken on some of the blankness and simple figured geometry of the petalled faces of the poppies. Her lips were a symmetrical slash of red. Her eyes gleaming black dots centred in moist white. Her white hair drifted and stirred, the finest of gossamer responding to the slightest air current. The flower smell was intoxicating, almost overpowering.
'I brought death,' said the plant thing. 'But I can bring life as well. My kiss brought your friend back to life.' She nodded at Jamie, who was trying, unsuccessfully, to rise from his bed among the poppies. Every time he managed to get to his knees, he sank down again. The Doctor stepped forward, fearlessly approaching the thing that had been Celandine Gibson. 'Careful Doctor,' said Carnacki, his voice trembling. 'What is she?'
The Doctor stood in front of the plant creature, smiling and bowing politely. 'Celandine is a medium. She is now possessed by the life force of a plant.' He turned back to the thing, confronting her unafraid, and addressed her as an equal. 'Isn't that correct?'
'I am the spirit of the poppy,' replied the petal face, speaking in its unearthly voice. 'I am responsible for the killings here. I have brought eternal sleep to the appointed ones.'
'You murdering fiend!' said Carnacki. He seemed to have finally accepted the distinction between the woman he loved and this thing that inhabited her body.
'Don't waste your wrath,' said the Doctor. 'She is neither good nor evil.' The Doctor turned to the plant woman. 'You're an impersonal force whose power has been misused by human beings.'
'Just like the blood of my pods,' it whispered.
'Opium you mean. Yes, exactly like opium. A substance which is neither good nor evil, but can be either depending on the will of the humans who use it.'
'Now my mission here is over,' said the plant woman. She closed her glistening black eyes. On the other side of the bower, Jamie lurched to his feet then sat abruptly back down again in a shower of petals. 'What happened to me?' he muttered. 'I was with this fella and he was being ever so pleasant and then all at once,' Jamie's voice grew hot with indignation, 'He stuck me with a needle!'
'Doctor look!' cried Carnacki. They turned to see that Celandine was growing unsteady, her knees sagging. Her eyes flickered shut. As she began to topple over, her appearance started to change. 'She's reverting, thank God,' said Carnacki. He plunged down beside her, up to his knees in poppies, and embraced her cool pale nudity. The faint greenish tinge that underlay the milky white of Celandine's skin began to disappear. Then the subtle hint of human colour began to assert