• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

‘It doesn’t matter. We’ll sort something out. Let’s just get her somewhere safe.’

He smiled at her, cautious, tight-lipped. ‘The B&B?’

It was Joyce’s turn to smile.

In all her travels with the Doctor – through all the ups and the many, many downs – Ace had never felt quite as alone as she did now She’d made her way up to the top of the cliff, and stood looking out across the black sea. She turned back to the island and the wind roared in her ears, whipping her hair around her face. It was starting to drizzle again, and she could hear the pattering of the rain against her jacket. The tiny figure that she was sure had been Megan was out of sight behind the rising slope of the cliff. She looked down the slope in the other direction: the roof of the tweedies’ cottage shone silver in the moonlight. She wondered what John and Alexander were doing now; whether they’d abandoned her for good; whether Megan or the tweedies had somehow got out there and...

She didn’t want to think about ‘and...’

‘Good evening!’

Ace whirled around and almost lost her footing on the friable soil at the edge of the cliff. Standing behind her was the tweedy man, the dog at his feet. His hands were hanging loosely at his sides – which somehow made him seem more alien than anything – instead of being jammed into his pockets like they ought to have been. On his face was plastered a cold, beatific smile. And how the hell had he managed to creep up on her like that? She stepped away from the cliff edge and glanced around, wondering where the woman was.

‘Nice weather,’ she said edgily. The man nodded, his mouth still stretched in that curious rictus. She looked down at the dog, its eyes catching the moonlight, its fur looking oddly smooth and wet.

‘The moisture content of your atmosphere is not to our taste,’ he said distantly – and Ace realised he was staring out to sea, towards John and Alexander’s boat. She felt a chill and took a step back. As the ground beneath her sank away slightly, she remembered how close she was to the edge of the cliff, and did an awkward sideways shuffle. The man turned his head suddenly, sharply, his eyes following her, hawklike and predatory.

‘I understand we have you to thank for the location of the control sphere,’ he said, a hint of a smile on his pudgy lips.

‘What?’

‘The control sphere from the stasis chamber,’ he said. ‘Your friend took it aboard the boat. We would have found it eventually, but you have saved us much effort.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Ace’s head was spinning. Did he mean the metal thing from the dome on the bottom of the sea? What did she have to do with it? She opened her mouth to ask him what the hell he meant, but he was staring past her. Ace followed his gaze. Standing twenty feet or so behind her was Megan, the menacing, moonlit shape of her rifle cradled in her arm.

‘About time,’ Ace said cockily. ‘What kept you?’

Megan took a step forwards, hefting the gun in her hands, keeping it trained on Ace and the tweedy man. ‘You have no idea how you’re going to suffer for what you’ve done to me.’

Ace turned to the tweedy man. He seemed to have tensed up. Had she got it wrong about Megan and the tweedies?

Weren’t they in league with each other after all? It hardly seemed to matter now. Megan was clearly about to kill her, and, finally, she had nowhere to run. She risked a glance over the edge of the cliff, but down below all she could see were the silver-flecked wavetops as they dashed onto the rocks. Not much of an escape route.

‘It’s too late now,’ said the man out of nowhere.

Ace turned to him sharply: was he talking to her? No, he was looking at Megan.

‘Too late?’ she echoed. ‘For what?’

‘The control sphere is in our possession,’ he said.

It was Megan’s turn to be puzzled – it showed clearly in her eyes: she looked between the tweedy and Ace, as if trying to work out who was working with whom.

‘How do you know about...’ Megan’s voice tailed away as a look of horrified – and angry – realisation crossed her face.

‘You’re Annarene!’ she hissed.

The man simply