Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [39]
At the base of Huitzilopochtli’s temple, the bodies smacked into Coyolxauhqui. Her hard stone body embraced them for a moment before they were dragged away by the priests to be cut into meat.
And the queue kept moving forward.
And the Doctor saw it all.
‘Don’t you understand what you’re doing?’ he shouted, but his words were turning into coloured fish and floating away. ‘Don’t you understand what it is you’re feeding?’
And the queue kept moving forward.
* * *
She had dragged four of them down, screaming. Two had fled.
Ace felt herself gliding down from the high of combat, felt the strength starting to leave her arms and legs, became aware for the first time of the blood washing down her side, the insistent ringing in her ears.
Where was Iccauhtli?
Glorious.
No sign of the little warrior. Her side was throbbing in time with her head.
‘Dear God,’ she said. ‘I left him. I left the Doctor.’
She dropped her sword and bolted back through the streets, leaving a trail of red.
* * *
Bernice screamed, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’
Or perhaps her mouth opened, silently battering the hospital walls with her horror. She moved against the sheets, her wrists pinned to the cold metal by the restraints. Cristián did not wake up.
She needed to get up, to run away. She had to deliver her warning. She pulled on the restraints, the rough straps cutting into her wrists.
‘Be quiet,’ said a cool voice in her ear. Non‐existent fingers ran themselves over her forehead, her shoulders. She shuddered and gulped.
‘Be quiet, Bernice. Be quiet.’
Doctor? Is that you?
But there was only the sound of traffic and air‐conditioning, and Cristián’s quiet breathing, oblivious in the cool darkness.
* * *
He pushed through the crowd at the base of the temple, pious faces twisted upwards to the sky like sightseers at a suicide. He pushed through the wall of human flesh, the line that stretched across the stone floor of the temple precinct. No one took any notice of him.
‘Stop it!’ he screamed, as time slowed down to a standstill. The line hovered in mid‐step. ‘Stop it, stop it!’
He found himself looking up at the temple, to the side of the frozen queue.
something was walking down the steps.
At first it was just footsteps without feet, just the fact of walking with no one to do it. But as he watched, as frozen as the other sacrifices, the truth began to be painted in.
Huitzilin was a ghost, an image smeared in the air. He was tall, and muscular, and dressed as an Aztec chief should be, in gold and feathers. His smile was white. His hair was long and white. His eyes were Blue.
The Time Lord’s head snapped up, his body held rigid, his eyes and mouth wide with horror. A single drop of blood traced its way down from his nose as something inside him broke.
A flower of Blue exploded into blossom deep within his chest. Its petals unfurled, and each of the petals was a flower, unfurling its own petals, and each of those flowers was made out of flowers, and each of those flowers was made out of flowers, and each of those flowers –
He fell sideways, making no attempt to catch himself, head and shoulder smacking hard into the stone. Blood was coming out of his ears and his nose. His eyes were burning, blazing, seeing, seeing at last, seeing…
‘Sing for me,’ said Huitzilin.
The Doctor screamed.
Ahuitzotl smashed the knife into his victim.
The Doctor screamed.
Ahuitzotl smashed the knife into his victim.
The Doctor screamed.
Ahuitzotl smashed the knife into his victim.
The Doctor
* * *
Second Slice
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it the right way, did not become still more complicated.
Poul Anderson
* * *
Chapter 7
And the Smile on the Face of the Tiger
* * *
Over the Atlantic, 1994
Macbeth hated flying.
He smiled cheerily at the flight attendants and nodded at his fellow passengers. But as soon as the plane dragged itself into the sky over Heathrow, he