Doctor Who_ So Vile a Sin - Ben Aaronovitch [76]
The courtroom was suddenly full of them, humans distorting into attack creatures. The guards were overwhelmed. As the 176
Doctor was struggling out of his chains, he saw a young Adjudicator being crushed by the Marquess as he tried to defend the Council, her heavy body twined around his as she squeezed.
His face disappeared in her coils.
The chains dropped to the floor. That had taken almost fifteen seconds.
Councillors were running for the exits, screaming. One woman ran straight into a monster with eight arms. It ripped her in half and threw her aside; she was in its way.
Duke Walid had clambered to the very back of the tiers of seats, and was shooting at the monsters as they climbed up after him. The Doctor saw the pattern of the fight – it was the Duke they were after. Everyone else was just collateral damage.
The Bailiff landed on him.
The Doctor tried to squeeze out from under the massive Adjudicator, but the Bailiff grabbed his arms, forcing him flat against the floor. The man and his armour weighed a ton, squashing him. He could hardly get a breath.
He turned as best he could to look at the Bailiff. Why bother with the prisoner, when the whole courtroom was full of monsters? Devotion to duty was one thing, but –
The man’s eyes had turned into mouths. His face stretched as they widened, becoming maws, filled with shark teeth, row upon row of needles pointing into his skull.
The Doctor struggled uselessly as the mouths dipped towards him. ‘Listen!’ he shouted. ‘You don’t need to do this! Break free!’
Someone shot the Bailiff, right through the eye. Mouth.
The Doctor clawed his way out from beneath the heavy corpse.
The Bailiff’s drone hovered down to scan him, its three guns still smoking. They were projectile weapons, very no-nonsense. If its scan took in internal detail and decided he had also mutated into a hostile alien, he’d be next.
The drone took off, its guns spinning to spit hot lead at the monsters.
The Doctor leapt up, stumbled over the corpse of a stenographer, and ran towards the pyramid of monsters clawing 177
their way up towards Walid. He was barely holding them back, pumping shot after shot into the group, perhaps a dozen of them.
He almost collided with Genevieve, clambering down the seats.
She elbowed the werewolf in the stomach, hard, ran to the Bailiff, and snatched up his ceremonial sword in both hands.
She aimed a massive blow at the backs of the monsters nearest her, severing the spine of the werewolf, almost toppling over with the force of her own swing. The monsters turned in surprise.
The Doctor ran up the seats to one side, just out of the monsters’ reach. He heard Genevieve roaring as she wielded the weapon. It was far too heavy for her, but she knew what she was doing.
What she was doing was distracting them so her boss could get away.
The Doctor wished his pockets had not been emptied quite so thoroughly. A handful of ball bearings or a firecracker would be very useful right now.
The snake Marquess had wriggled to the top of the pile of attackers, protected from Genevieve’s sword and Walid’s pistol by the bodies. She shot out from beneath them, grabbing the Duke’s ankles.
The Doctor hurled the chains he was carrying at the serpent.
They tangled around its fat body, catching under one stunted arm.
The Doctor pulled backward as hard as he could, just barely enough to loosen the thing’s grip.
The Duke got his balance back and put three shots into the snake’s body. Blood puffed out in a cloud of vapour as the Marquess fell back, jerking the chain from the Doctor’s hands, crushing the monsters beneath her.
It had taken the Imperial Guard thirty seconds to respond.
Doors opened all around the room, and soldiers and Adjudicators started pouring in. They took one look at the monsters and opened fire.
Genevieve ducked. The Duke leapt to safety. One of the monsters tore itself loose from the