Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [49]
Ace is slapped backwards by the shockwave, DMs skidding on the smooth floor. Somehow she keeps her balance. She reaches under her jacket and snatches out the gun.
The SALIDA sign sizzles and bursts. The lights in four of the cabinets buzz and shatter. The glass above the single page explodes outwards in a glittering shower. Hard rain falls on Cristián.
Bernice steps backward, mind frozen, looking up at the thing Macbeth has become. She recognizes it from the painted books.
The image is ghostly, like a cheap hologram, a series of outlines in the air – hands, eyes, feathers. Intangible. The colour boils, seething Blue. Sketch feet step towards her as the wind whips her clothing, smelling of blood and flowers.
‘No!’ screams Cristián. ‘No!’ He reels backwards, finds the cabinet, tears the page out of it. The frail paper bends and rips in his hand.
Huitzilopochtli the war god turns aside, gliding towards him, a bitter wind sailing across the floor.
Ace fires again and again and again, the gun kicking against her palm as the creature crosses the room. But the bullets just keep going, flaring in the fountain of light for an instant before they pass harmlessly through.
The Doctor wails, ‘No!’
‘This is what you want!’ Cristián shouts, holding out the page. ‘Come and get it!’
He bolts for the exit.
Huitzilopochtli comes and gets it.
* * *
Chapter 8
The Cat in the Hat
Benny’s mind snapped back like a rubber band.
On the other side of the hall, Cristián was lying on the floor, the Doctor kneeling next to him. Ace stood over them, her gun arm hanging loosely by her side. There was no wind, no noise.
Benny bolted over to where they were standing. Her shoes skidded unexpectedly on the wooden floor, and she looked down stupidly. Ice. A thin slick of ice had formed on the lino.
There was something terribly wrong with Cristián. It was as though he were underwater: she couldn’t see him clearly, couldn’t make out the outlines of his face, his hands.
She knelt down beside the Doctor. There were streaks of blood on the Time Lord’s face, like crimson tears. Cristián was speaking in a hoarse whisper.
‘The page,’ he said. ‘He wanted the page.’ He was clutching a handful of ashes in his good hand. ‘He came for the book. It’s dangerous. Dangerous.’
‘What did he do? What did that thing do?’ said Bernice.
‘Please,’ said Cristián. ‘Help me.’
The Doctor reached out and smoothed the hair away from the Indian’s forehead. He let his thumb and forefinger sit together on the skin above Cristián’s eyes.
They stayed like that for a few seconds. The Doctor’s face changed, his eyes closing into a tight squint of pain. Cristián relaxed, his fist opening, letting the ashes slide onto the frozen surface of the floor.
With a sparkling motion, like flashes on the surface of a pond, Cristián dissolved away. The Doctor’s hand passed through him until it came to rest on the icy wood. And then he was gone.
The lights slammed on, flooding the hall with searing brightness. Someone shouted in an adjoining room. With a convulsive movement, Bernice hauled the Doctor to his feet, and half‐dragged him to the TARDIS. She heard Ace following behind as she pushed the shivering Time Lord through the doors, but she just kept walking, opening the internal door, ignoring the sound of dematerialization as she walked and walked, wishing her mind would switch itself off again.
* * *
London, December 20, 1968
At first, Hank hadn’t been too sure about the uniforms, the ranks, the whole military bit. He wasn’t a soldier, he was a psychologist, and he wasn’t about to shoot anyone.
But the set‐up was perfect. Decent funding, at long last – no more palm readings to support the hobby, eh. Access to all sorts of files and reports that the army had squirrelled away. A goddamn genuine alien invasion to worry about.
Macbeth grinned at himself in the glass of the train window. He planned to be the Intelligence part of the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce.
It hadn’t been immediately easy to convince UNIT to