Doctor Who_ Nightshade - Mark Gatiss [84]
dull light exposing every capillary and nerve.
Ace remembered suddenly that her rucksack might contain something even more useful, that was, if she’d bothered to pack it. She looked up at the featureless sky.
Any attempt to negotiate the frost-covered roof would be suicidal, so they had remained perched on the sheer slates, clinging together for dear life and bodily warmth. Under different circumstances it would have been a delight, thought Ace, tightly gripping this lovely bloke, feeling the pressure of his warm body against hers. But circumstances 234
235
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
weren’t different. They were the same as they always were and a chunk of light, solid as a film beam in a dark cinema, when travelling with the Doctor. Bloody dangerous.
poured out.
Ace checked her watch. It was well after eight in the The Doctor moved back a little.
morning.
Some sort of mental link, he thought.
‘Ace?’
Possession?
She jerked alert as the Doctor’s voice sounded from the Billy Coote’s wizened chest began to heave. From deep, room below.
deep within his ribs came a rustling sound. He began to
‘Robin!’ she hissed. ‘It’s him. The Doctor! He’s in there!’
mouth noiselessly, his lips splitting and cracking as light The boy craned his neck to look at her. ‘What can we do?
flooded through.
Get him up here?’
Something inside the old man gave out a dreadful Ace shook her head. ‘No point. Maybe things’ve croaking moan and the Doctor shuddered. Then it spoke.
quietened down in there. If the Doctor got in, we should be able to get out.’
Nightshade was running.
Carefully, she slid down the roof and leant over the gutter, There wasn’t much time, he knew, and the rocket had to straining to hear more. She closed her eyes, feeling sick, as be launched soon or else - or else ...
the ground jumped into view a hundred feet below. What Around him, the air steamed and hissed, smoke belching was the Doctor doing in there?
from the massive steel furnaces which crowded the complex.
Three domes, their fabric buckled and blackened, loomed Billy Coote was slumped against the wall like an into view and he chose the first, scurrying up the twisting abandoned scarecrow, his arms limp at his sides. The ladder on to the gantry section. He looked down at the flat Doctor was crouched on his haunches, gazing in awe at the concrete far below and felt queasy. Heights had never been old man’s luminous eyes and the weird light streaming his strong point.
from every crevice of his leathery skin.
But what was that below? A body? Lying lifeless on the baked ground, its features coated in black slime. Of course.
‘Who are you?’ said the Doctor gently.
Barclay! How could he have forgotten? Barclay was dead.
Billy stirred slightly, his hair rustling agitatedly as energy Barclay had sacrificed his life so that they might escape. But began to build around him. Filigrees of electric-blue light where had he, Nightshade, been? Why hadn’t he even tried shivered over his flesh.
to save the young man?
‘Who are you?’ said the Doctor again.
There had been something else. Something very pressing.
Billy’s eyes rolled in their sockets, the dull light suddenly
‘Nightshade...’
blazing intensely from them. He opened his wizened mouth That voice again. Chuckling. Chuckling.
236
237
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
DOCTOR WHO: NIGHTSHADE
And suddenly the complex vanished, replaced by the He struggled to his feet and, with some trepidation, deeply inset window of an eighteenth-century farmhouse.
pressed the summons button. The doors sprang open Nightshade looked down. There was a television in the immediately.
corner of the room and his own face was on the screen, There was a strong smell of burning inside the lift and grimacing in horror as a vicious insectoid claw