Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [52]
I hope I don’t throw up. Throw up in the snow. My God. Mother of God.
He’s been walking for hours, for hours now, how long has he been walking? St John’s Church is an improbable angular shape in the dusk. His feet are too far away, like when Alice was wondering whether she’d have to mail instructions to her feet to get them to walk around… is that right? Am I walking the right way, walking home? No. Home’s in Mexico. Or… home’s in… where am I, anyway?
Somebody’s coming. Like in that song about Santa Claus. Someone’s on their way…
He looks into the glass window of a shoe shop, at dummies in hip clothes, smiling out at him. His body is all wrong, all the wrong shape, too tall, his fingers are the wrong length. The dummies don’t look all stretched out. It’s someone else’s body he’s looking at. Not his.
He should stand still. He should stand perfectly still, hold himself in place, or his arms and legs might ribbon away on the cold wind, his fingers stretching out over Notting Hill Gate and trailing into the Thames.
The burning fills up his head. He opens his mouth as though to tell the snow about it, shouting It’s here, it’s here! But the shouting is only inside his skull.
He’s been running. His feet are bleeding! His feet must be bleeding. He tries to look down at his feet, tries to turn his head and open his eyes. But it’s like in a dream where you’re at school and you have to look at the blackboard, have to look, but you can’t open your eyes because you’re actually asleep. Sleeping with your eyes closed.
The Blue Meanie is chasing him. What’ll it do when it catches him?
Tears thump against the inside of his eyes, two thumbs pushing against the cold jelly inside. The need to cry makes a leaping motion inside his chest, but everything’s frozen, frozen in place, and his face is wet and he can’t feel his feet, a million miles away.
They’ve found him! They’ve caught him!
Someone is standing over him, he sees those feathers and freaks, just loses it, screaming and screaming get away! Get away! The Blue crests over him like a manic wave and he screams and screams.
Something cold presses against his wrist. If I could move my hand, if I could get away –
– away –
‘Who are you?’ Cris gulps, and it’s the first thing he’s said aloud.
‘Hold still, Cristián.’ They’re gripping his wrist, putting that cold thing on it. ‘You’re going to be all right.’ The sky leaps over him, impossibly high behind the stranger’s face. All shadow in the Blue light, no features, only those eyes looking down at him.
Cris screams again.
* * *
‘Go on, you get out!’
Elizabeth threw a dish at Macbeth’s head as he retreated backwards down the steps. John took her shoulders from behind, gently. ‘Just leave us alone,’ he instructed the straight, around his cigarette. ‘You haven’t even got a warrant, so just take a walk.’
‘Whatever you say,’ said MacB, wondering if the woman had any more missiles hidden in her shabby clothing. He turned to go through the gate.
‘Jesus,’ said Lizzie, watching the straight depart.
John passed her the cigarette. ‘It’s cool, it’ll be cool.’ He was wearing a moth‐eaten fox coat over a bright orange kaftan. It hurt Lizzie’s eyes to look at it.
She dropped the cigarette in the snow and swore. ‘Where the hell is Cris? What if he gets arrested?’
‘Yeah, what are they going to do to him? He’s not carrying anything. Just be cool.’
‘Hey,’ said Lizzie.
Coming through the freezing night were four people, one of whom was Cris. He was being half‐carried by two of the weirdest‐looking women that Lizzie had ever seen. Cris looked at them blearily over the fence. ‘Did anybody find my shoes?’ he shouted.
‘Hey,’ said Lizzie again, as a short man pushed the gate open and trudged up to them through the snow. He was wearing white, not much for the cold weather, and a squashed‐looking fedora hat. Someone else trying to invade