Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [105]
Chapter Nineteen
‘Oh no!’ spat Megan, ‘oh no you don’t – not after all we’ve been through!’ and raised her gun.
There was a sparking crack and something flashed at the tip of the gun. Instinctively, Ace threw herself aside, rolling away from the cliff, her knee jarring painfully against a rock buried in the grass. As she tumbled, she caught a brief, horrifying glimpse of the man sinking to the ground. He clutched his arms to his chest and howled in pain. She watched as an unearthly fire built up inside the man’s body, lancing out through his open mouth, his eyes, his ears. And then he vanished in a burst of such painful brilliance that Ace threw her hands over her eyes.
Because of that, she missed what happened next; when she finally dropped her arm it was to the sound of slaVering and growling. Something dark and spiky launched itself from where the man had been standing and sprang at Megan.
The dog. But. . it had changed. In the darkness, Ace could hardly make out what it had become, but it was something far sleeker and far deadlier than the little terrier. A scrabbling, chitinous black thing, it seemed attached to Megan’s throat; and as she screamed and tried to tear it away from her, it extended oily black tendrils around her neck like blind worms. She staggered backwards, accidentally kicking the gun in Ace’s direction in her panic. She could just about make it if she ran for it, Ace thought, eyeing up the weapon. But before she could, there was a final scream from Megan. She lost her footing at the edge of the cliff, and she and the. . whatever it was. . toppled over the edge.
Then there was silence. Feeling her heart thumping in her ears loud enough to drown out the wind and the rain, Ace crawled to the cliff edge on all fours, gritting her teeth against the pain in her knee, and peered over. Sprawled face down, broken on the rocks below, was Megan, the remains of the thing that had been a dog still wrapped around her neck, crushed against the damp, sea-licked stone.
The door slammed behind them with a heavy finality that sent Ace’s spirits into her boots. She looked around the storeroom and kicked sullenly at a cardboard box filled with baked beans, positioning her blow exactly between the two dents she’d made in it earlier that afternoon. Her knee yelled at her to stop.
‘Don’t bother looking for an air vent or anything,’ she said as she saw the Doctor scanning the ceiling. ‘Believe me, I know.’
‘How?’ Sooal eyed her suspiciously.
‘Because I’ve spent an hour in here already – before I rescued the Doctor from your machine. I suppose I should thank your psycho sidekick for telling me what was happening to him.’
‘Megan?’ He stared at her, curious. ‘Yes, what did happen to her?’
‘Well, about now,’ Ace glanced at her watch, frowned and shook her head, ‘she’s probably spreadeagled on the rocks waiting for the sea to drag her body away.’
‘Where?’
‘In the Orkneys, pig-eyes – where you sent her to finish me off.’
‘Ace, Ace!’ The Doctor’s voice drifted over the shelves. She could see his hat above a drum of cooking oil. ‘We should be concentrating on getting out of here.’
‘Don’t you go backing him up,’ she called back. ‘After what he’s done –’
‘That’s the whole point.’ The Doctor suddenly appeared, his hat in his hand. ‘I’d really like to know more about what he’s actually done.’ His eyes narrowed and he tipped his head back, staring at Sooal. ‘And why.’
‘We know what he’s done. What does it matter why?’
The Doctor raised a finger to his lips and Ace grunted.
‘So?’ The Doctor stared at Sooal. ‘Now that the Annarene have foiled your plan, why not let us in on the big secret?’
‘And what big secret is that?’
‘Well, cruel