Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [45]
‘It’s sniffing me,’ Fitz whispered. ‘Look.’
The creature did, indeed, appear to be sniffing, despite its lack of a nose: although whether it was exploring Fitz’s own smell, or just the swirl of fear-generated pheromones in the night air, she wasn’t sure. A young man behind the creature decide to chance it, hoping to get a blow in while the thing seemed occupied, and ran forward with a chair from some bar or restaurant raised over his head. But it was as if the creature had eyes in the back of its head: without turning, it simply swung its hamlike arm backwards – to a degree that Trix didn’t think was physically possible – and swiped the man and his chair back into the crowd. The circle of people took a couple of wary steps back.
‘Did you see that?’ Fitz said in wonderment. ‘The degree of rotation in that shoulder joint.’
‘Just what I was thinking,’ Trix said drily. ‘Now get back here before it does the same thing to you.’
80
But Fitz just took another step forwards.
‘Can you understand me?’ he asked the night beast, just loudly enough for Trix to hear. There was a mutter from the crowd. The creature straightened up, and – Trix could have sworn – its eyes darted around the swarms of people that watched it, as if weighing up whether to answer Fitz. Trix wondered just how long the mob would give the creature before they overcame their fear and piled on to it. Its casual demolition of the man with the chair had made them think twice, despite its apparently calm state now, but she feared that if Fitz carried on his Doctor Dolittle act and the thing stayed quiet, the crowd might get a bit braver. She scanned the faces at the front of the crowd – almost all men – young, angry men, some armed with bits of wood or bottles. Behind them were the slightly more timid – or cautious – ones, who still wanted to feel like they were in on the action. There was something sweaty and ugly about a mob like this, and despite the warm evening air, she felt a chill stroke her skin as she looked at them. One face stood out to Trix – a young woman wearing a big coat despite the weather, and a large, floppy hat a bit like a beret. But it wasn’t so much that she was a woman that caught Trix’s attention, nor the fact that she seemed unseasonably dressed (although that, in itself, was odd).
It was the expression on the woman’s face that was curious. Her eyes were narrow and intense, and they darted from the creature to Fitz and then back again, as if assessing their relationship. The woman watched as Fitz took another step towards the creature, pulled his hands out of his pockets, and slowly raised a palm to the creature. There was still a gap of a yard between them, and a gentle murmur spread through the crowd. Again, the night beast leaned forward to sniff. And again, someone decided to try to sneak up on the creature. But Fitz spotted him.
‘No!’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t!’
The man was pulled up short by Fitz’s imperious tone, and looked to his friends for support. But they shook their heads and the man reluctantly lowered the bottle he held. The creature twitched slightly, as if responding to the attacker’s change of mind, and took a step forward, towering over Fitz.
Gently, it leaned down and sniffed at his palm. The creature raised its head until it was level with Fitz’s and stared into his face.
Out of the corner of her eye, Trix saw the woman in the crowd moving around to get a better view, pushing her way through. Her gaze shifted around the crowd, and fixed on Trix’s for a few moments before looking guiltily away.
Trix wasn’t sure what was going to happen now: Fitz and the creature seemed to be involved in some sort of bizarre love-in, and the crowd around them looked like they weren’t going to stand there for much longer without doing something. There was a nasty, sour tension in the air, and Trix wished that Fitz would just walk away. But she knew that if he did, the crowd would 81
be on the creature in an instant. They’d seen that it wasn’t the violent, unreasoning slaughter-machine that they’d originally