Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [64]
He had found the source of the original pulse.
The pulse was an echo identical to the emanations he had detected at Cirbury. The rock was identical to the standing stones he’d found there too, ancient and implacable in their field of ages.
The wand kicked in his hand, twisting like a water diviner’s, and the Doctor turned. He knew what he would see before he directed the torch beam behind him.
He froze at the sight, but his voice was icily controlled as he 153
spoke the name that came to him as if on a telepathic breeze.
‘Ragman...’
Jo stepped away from Mike. ‘He’s no friend of mine,’ she said emphatically.
‘Pigs! Pigs! Pigs!’
The chant was becoming louder, and attracting more travellers to the clearing.
Sin’s eyes were boiling with unmitigated loathing. Nick put a hand on her arm, in an attempt to defuse the madness. She put the nails of her other hand to his, scratching troughs of flesh away.
‘He’s part of the Establishment.’ Jo continued slowly, hatefully.
Mike looked at her carefully. Her face was a mask of fervour. ‘He’s a pig!’
Jimmy leapt on Yates from behind, his arms thrown around the captain’s neck in a python hold. Yates flung him aside with practised ease. Nick stood back, taking no part in the lynch mentality. A punk spat on Yates, another picked up a stone and flung it at him. He dodged it, and someone leapt at him wielding a broken branch like a club. Yates threw him over his shoulder, cracking the punk’s head against the obelisk.
Sin stepped forward and there was something in her hand. A silver cigarette-lighter. She pressed a knob on the end and a four-inch blade sprang eagerly out. At the same time another stone spun off Yates’s temple, diverting his attention long enough for Sin to dive in with the flick knife. The captain’s eyes actually met Jo’s as the blade slashed across his right cheek, and in the burn of pain he saw her flinch and then resume her determined coldness.
Nick grabbed for the knife, but the tall punk pulled him away.
Jimmy slammed an exclamation mark on the proceedings by smashing a bottle of Newcastle Brown across the back of the captain’s head. Yates dropped face first into a bed of nettles. Sin stepped astride his body, held the lighter knife aloft in both hands, poised it above the back of his neck. Even Nick stood transfixed in the moment of frenetic violence.
A shot rang sharp and clear and a chunk of masonry spun away
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from the obelisk next to Sin. A female soldier stood in the gap in the clearing, blonde hair tucked up beneath her cap, one eye shut, the other, pottery blue, focused down the length of her rifle barrel. Her finger flexed on the trigger as she swung the barrel to centre on the Chinese girl.
‘Corporal Robinson!’
The order cracked out as loud and sharp as the rifle shot a second or two earlier.
A flash of extreme frustration twisted across the soldier’s face, but she held the rifle in position until the Brigadier pushed his way into the dripping clearing. Sin melted into the foliage. The other punks followed suit, hightailing it into the woods that pressed all around them.
The Brigadier squatted to check on Yates, then stood up to confront the corporal.
‘Shoulder your weapon, Corporal.’ His voice was clipped and angry. Robinson did as she was ordered, resentment all too clear on her face. The Brigadier stepped closer to her, eyeballing his subordinate but saying nothing. She dropped her gaze and stood to attention. Satisfied, he turned to the other soldiers who had followed him into the clearing,