Doctor Who_ Original Sin - Andy Lane [91]
She swallowed it, and continued in a quieter voice. ‘I need a favour.’
‘Medical?’
‘Of course,’ she snapped, her patience almost worn out. ‘If I wanted my apartment redesigned I’d have gone to a professional.’
Dantalion didn’t answer for a while. When he did, he sounded a lot more reflective and a lot less drunk. ‘It won’t be the first time,’ he said.
Forrester wondered what he meant by that. As far as she knew, their relationship had consisted entirely of her kicking in his door and arresting him, and him protesting about it and evading the charge. She shrugged. Who could tell what a juke-sodden alien meant by anything?
‘I can pay,’ she said.
‘We’ll sort that out later. For the moment, bring the patient in.’
With a click, the door swung open. Light spilled out around the edges. Forrester pushed it fully ajar, then helped Bernice with Cwej’s unresisting body.
His breath was coming in short gasps now, and his eyes were rolling wildly beneath closed lids. Forrester had seen plenty of death in her time, and Cwej looked about as close to it as anybody she’d ever seen. Something squirmed inside her, close to her heart. He couldn’t die. Not Cwej. He was too young, too innocent.
An alien claw, slicing up into Fenn Martle’s chest. His face as he looked down, surprise and confusion in his eyes. His mouth open, calling her name. The blood.
The blood spilling down his chin and chest . . .
Down? But the claw had entered his back, hadn’t it? She remembered . . .
Don’t think about it, Roz. Just don’t.
The door shut behind them. They were in the vestry; old stones with rounded corners and pillars formed arches above their heads. Dantalion had obviously decided to retain the inside as well as the outside.
Dantalion appeared in the doorway. He had put on weight since Forrester had last seen him, and the corrugations in his face had become more pronounced. Scuttling over to Cwej, he briefly examined him, running both sets of arms over his body and clucking in disapproval at what he found.
‘Touch and go,’ he murmured, the diagnostic tools in his cybernetic eye whirring as they extended themselves towards Cwej’s body. ‘His only chance 155
is a time tank. Take him through into the narthex, and I’ll deal with him there.’
‘The what?’
‘The big room through that door. Oh, and put your weapons in the font.
Don’t worry, it’s dry.’
Forrester shrugged. If he wanted her blaster, he’d have to prise it from her cold, dead fingers. Or ask politely. One or the other.
Forrester and Bernice half carried, half dragged Cwej through into the main body of the church. Buttressed arches soared above their heads, and the diffuse light from the stained glass windows – reinforced to blast-resistant standards, Forrester assumed – cast rainbows across the flagstones. Detouring around various items of medical equipment scattered across the floor, Dantalion led them to a number of large, black, coffin-like boxes from which pipes led away to three rounded machines squatting in a corner. Dantalion activated a control and the lid of the nearest coffin swung upwards.
‘Place him in the receptacle,’ he ordered.
They complied. The Birastrop lowered the lid and turned his attention to the other machines, caressing their controls and murmuring to them.
‘Does he know what he’s doing?’ Bernice whispered.
‘Better than we do,’ Forrester replied.
Bright green light flooded out of the seams and interstices of the time tank.
Forrester hated to think how bright it must be inside.
Beside her, Bernice was still worrying. ‘How much is this likely to cost?’
Forrester shrugged. ‘No idea.’
‘Can we afford it?’
‘Look, we’ll rob a bank if we have to.’
Bernice raised her eyebrows. ‘What’s with this “we”?’ she asked. Forrester was just about to explode when she noticed that Bernice was smiling.
‘The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have not quite penetrated the young man’s thick hide,’ Dantalion said, turning to them. The tools in his eyes were retracting like disturbed sea anemones. ‘The burns are extensive, but not life-threatening in themselves.