Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [109]
‘We’re not planning to bring any mementoes to the surface. No, no, we’re not. Let them rest. Let them rest in peace.’
* * *
Somewhere, sometime
Swoomsh.
Swiiiiiish.
Over the magical scrawls on the floor. Back and forth in time to a silent, chaotic rhythm, never tracing the same pattern twice. Swoomsh. Swiiiiiish.
A bright dance of sparks across the surface of the jet‐black glass. A single claw of electricity jumping down to scar the pentagrams and the sacred names. Shcrakakak. Swiiiiiish.
Dark liquid drips from the globe as it swings, and the air is as cold as a butcher’s freezer. A spatter of condensation strikes the floor and walls as the globe swings, its equilibrium upset by some internal event.
Imagine there’s a bee on the palm of your hand. Now make a fist.
Swoomsh. Swiiiiiish.
The globe buzzes angrily to itself as it moves, its violent arcs beginning to quieten even as a final shower of sparks erupts across the surface. It traces dizzy circles over the central pentagram, all the while buzzing, a ball of anger.
Someone watches the ball, and the ball watches him, buzzing. It spits out a handful of sparkles and is still.
‘Well, that didn’t work, did it?’ says the man who is watching.
The song of the sphere changes, the angry buzz echoing his words. Zwell, thdiiiidn’t zwaaaark, dyd yt?
‘Time to try something else, then.’
Diiiidn’t zwaaark, diiiidn’t zwaaark, teases the black globe, or whatever is inside it. For a moment an eye appears at its surface, stretched into a convex smear, and the eye is laughing. Thyall liiivd happileeeeverafter.
The watching man spits a curse at the globe, and it shimmers with electric laughter.
* * *
October 31, 1993
Cristián went shopping in the tiangui.
He should have gone to the cine. He should have gone to Chapultepec Park. He should have visited his sister. He should have stayed home.
But he went shopping in the market on Guatemala Street, and bought three courgettes and a bag of tomatoes. He carried them in a string bag that bumped against his leg. He put down the bag as he stopped at a refreshment stall to buy himself a slice of watermelon. He never did pick it up again.
At 4:33, the Hallowe’en Man pushed aside his coat to reveal a Chinese SKK semi‐automatic rifle.
Cristián had been buying a slice of watermelon from a fruit stand. He shouted, ‘Look out! There’s a man with a gun!’ and dived behind the fruit‐seller’s cart, dragging his son down with him. They quivered in the road for thirty‐seven seconds while the Hallowe’en Man sprayed the air with bullets.
He heard the snickering of the gun, the high‐pitched voice of ricochets, the cries of people being shot or being terrified. He pressed his face to the road and held Ben down each time he tried to get up and run away. A cucumber in the cart above them exploded, showering them with wet chunks.
There was a final shot.
Then there was silence.
Enough of this.
* * *
First published in Great Britain in 1993 by
Doctor Who Books
an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd
332 Ladbroke Grove
London W10 5AH
Reprinted 1994
Copyright © Kate Orman 1993
‘Doctor Who’ series copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation 1993
ISBN 0 426 20404 2
Cover illustration by Pete Wallbank
Phototypeset by Intype, London
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berks.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.
* * *
Table of Contents
Prologue New York City, December 1980
Chapter 1 Mexico (Not Tenochtitlan)
Chapter 2 Nine‐tenths Below the Surface
Chapter 3 Sun King
Chapter 4 Pronounced Weet‐Zeelo‐Potch‐Tlee
Chapter 5 Into the Fire
Chapter 6