Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [67]
Now they were trying to work together. Something was wrong with the Doctor, and Ace was withdrawing further and further into herself, leaving behind only the warrior facade. Benny felt as though she had to try to protect them both, to save them from themselves. Someone had to do something.
Three, he had said. Three lumps of LSD‐spiked sugar.
Ace was half‐comatose on a beanbag in one of the bedrooms; even slapping her hadn’t brought her round. And now the Doctor was simply missing. She didn’t think he had left, but he was somewhere here, doing – what? Or having what done to him? The friendly hippies didn’t seem so friendly any more.
There was a muffled moan from behind the shower curtain. Bernice spun, shoes slipping, one hand ripping aside the curtain as she scrabbled for balance.
Cristián was in the bathtub. He had taken off his T-shirt and was wringing it between his hands, a shapeless mass of cloth. The strap of his camera was twisted around his ankle.
Benny knelt down on the cold tiles. ‘Cris?’ she said.
He looked bleakly at her. His pupils were swollen, his eyes solid marbles of black. His face was a child’s face, so far from home, looking for answers in the big bad world. Why here, of all places? How had he become entangled in the catastrophe?
Cristián grinned at nothing, mirthlessly, hallucination dancing in his eyes. ‘Will you weep for me one last time? Will you feel sad for me?’ he asked.
‘Cris,’ said Benny urgently, ‘it’s happening again, isn’t it?’
His eyes changed colour, startling blue in his copper‐coloured face.
‘Otiquihiyohuih,’ he said.
Benny bolted.
* * *
Lizzie came down the stairs into the basement, carrying a single candle in a chipped cup. London light pushed through the black curtains. She waited a few moments while her eyes adjusted to the flickering darkness.
‘How do you feel?’ she asked the man on the bed.
‘Bored,’ he said.
‘No, seriously,’ said Lizzie. She squatted on the chilly floor, carefully positioning her candle. It sent a dim circle of light up over the edge of the Doctor’s expressionless face, onto the complex scrawl of the Aztec calendar behind him. She could see his eyelashes in peculiar detail as he blinked. ‘I don’t want you to get sick or anything.’
‘Sympathomimetic effects,’ he muttered. ‘Fever, some tremor.’ He raised his right hand; it was shaking. ‘Moderate synaesthesia.’
Lizzie looked up at a sound. John came into the cellar, carefully shutting the door behind him. He was carrying a bowl of water and a reasonably clean tea‐towel. ‘Everyone’s either stoned or asleep,’ he announced quietly, ‘so we’ll have some privacy for a while. Anything yet?’
‘Nothing,’ said the Doctor. John looked at him sharply, as though surprised he could speak. ‘What is it you’re expecting to happen?’
John sat down on the bed, wetted the tea‐towel, and carefully wiped the sweat from the Doctor’s forehead. ‘To tell you God’s honest truth,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure. This is a sort of experiment.’
‘Wonderful,’ said the Doctor.
‘Cris and Molly both have the sixth sense,’ said John patiently. ‘Molly won’t drop acid any more because she was freaking out too much, and because she thinks Jesus wouldn’t like it. But it’s too late. She still dreams about Aztecs. I think she’s picking it up from Cris. Like radio interference.’
‘When Cris turns on,’ Lizzie continued, ‘he gets visions. He knew you were coming. That’s why we got all of this ready. We wanted to know what visions you might have. We know who you are, you see.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Ixiptla,’ said Lizzie.
‘Ixiptla,’ said John.
‘The image becoming the god,’ said the Doctor. ‘The god becoming the image. The same patterns happening again and again.’
‘That’s what the psychics are tuned into. The reality behind the appearance, the Void.’
Lizzie said, ‘People are always asking “who am I?”, but the question doesn’t