Doctor Who_ Halflife - Mark Michalowski [73]
‘We’re in the Palace?’ said Calamee, a rather hurtful tone of disbelief in her voice, somewhere behind him.
‘Of course we’re in the Palace,’ replied the Doctor indignantly as he ushered her through. ‘I told you: the old girl’s rather good at these short hops.’
Calamee started to say something, but the Doctor shushed her, peering around in the gloom as his eyes acclimatised themselves. In the distance, and at quite some height, was a vague sliver of light – a partly opened door, he imagined. Yes, he could make out the steps that led up to it.
‘Can you smell that?’ he whispered.
There was an excited squeal from Nessus and the sounds of tiny paws skit-tering over the flags beneath their feet.
‘Nessus!’ hissed Calamee. ‘Come back!’
‘I think-he can smell it too.’
‘What?’
The Doctor didn’t answer – over on the far wall, he thought he could see something that looked like a switch, outlined faintly by the light from the door above it.
‘Stay here,’ he said, and gingerly made his way over. Moments later, the room was bathed in light from a single bulb high on the ceiling, and he turned to see Calamee staring in horror at something concealed behind a pile of plastic crates.
‘I think you’d better look at this,’ Calamee said.
Makeshift bars had been set in a doorway that led into another room. And lying on a pile of straw, just beyond those bars, was one of the night beasts.
Curled up on the creature’s chest was Nessus, looking up at them both with bright, happy eyes.
132
Chapter 15
‘The foot-stomping Tantrum Fairy was back.’
‘Nessus! Come out of there!’ pleaded Calamee, unable to believe that her pet was sitting on what, from all accounts, was one of the most vicious and fearsome animals on Espero.
‘Quite touching, really,’ said the Doctor, folding his arms insouciantly.
‘No it’s not bloody touching – it won’t be if that thing attacks him. Doctor, please – help me get him out.’
‘I don’t think it’s going to attack him, do you? Look at them, Happy as Larry.’
‘Happy as what?’
‘As a pig in shhhh. . . someone’s coming!’
Calamee felt the Doctor grab her arm and drag her back into the doorway to the room where the TARDIS had landed. She hadn’t quite got over the fact that it had landed inside the Palace. Presumably without drilling a hole through its roof. She wondered for a moment whether he was going to bundle her back in, and opened her mouth to protest – until she heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs.
She tried to peer around the Doctor, who was peeking through the crack he’d left in the door, but he seemed determined to hog the view. She could hear voices, whispers. Whoever had come into the cellar seemed as shifty as they were.
‘Who is it?’ she whispered in his ear, trying to get a look.
‘Considering how coincidence seems to follow me around,’ he replied wryly,
‘I shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s Fitz!’
Fitz had had a feeling about this. From the moment Sensimi had come back and woken him from his dream about the Doctor’s bottom, as they’d shiftily slipped through the Palace apparently trying to avoid everyone, right up to the moment they’d entered the cellar, everything screamed BAD. But he’d badgered Sensimi to tell him why she was so interested in him, and he could hardly bottle out now.
The huge pan of bloody meat on the floor at the foot of the steps didn’t bode well.
133
‘Cellars,’ he muttered to no one in particular. ‘Always with the cellars.
Doesn’t anyone do things in attics any more? And what’s that smell?’ he asked, realising that, along with the must and damp, there was another scent here – something warm and musky and alive. Quite pleasant, he thought.
He dipped his head casually towards his own armpit, wondering if he needed another bath.
‘You wanted to know,’ Sensimi said sullenly, crossing to a darkened doorway that seemed to lead into another chamber. ‘There. Now you know.’
She stood back, arms folded grumpily.
Behind the bars set wonkily into the doorframe was a dark, shaggy shape –
and it took Fitz a few moments to realise what it was. And what was sitting