Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [35]
Dupre had brought up a CD player. Now he put in a disc and sounds came from the speakers that resembled something like the moaning songs of whales mixed with the crank of turning gears. The Doctor rather liked it.
Dupre began to walk around the circle anticlockwise, chanting in a sonorous voice. The women and Roy echoed the chant. This went on for what seemed to the Doctor like hours. Finally, the women began to run their hands over their bodies, and he sensed his escape was near. The candle-woman, he noticed, was still alight.
At the throne end of the room, one of the heavy draperies was thrust aside and a seventh woman stepped out. The Doctor recognised the girl from Death's Door who had been wearing the chartreuse shoes. She was shoeless now, dressed only in some kind of metal corset with spikes protruding from the front of it. Without make-up, she looked very young.
Dupre dropped his robe and stood naked and erect. She came and knelt before him, then, rather clumsily, lay down on her back. He started to lower himself on to the spikes, and at this point the Doctor had had enough.
'Stop this silliness,' he snapped. 'Right now.'
He strode over, shoved Dupre away, and pulled the startled girl to her feet.
'Go and take off that ridiculous outfit.'
Dupre grabbed at him. 'You dare!' The Doctor threw him aside and pushed the girl towards the door. 'Go and find your clothes. And for goodness'
sake, don't trip on the way down.'
She backed away confusedly. 'All of you!' the Doctor yelled at the other women. 'Playtime's over. Goodbye. You too, Roy.'
Roy seemed to be trying to say 'But ', but no sound was coming from his mouth. The women glanced uncertainly at one another. 'And put out those candles,' the Doctor ordered the burning woman. 'Can't you see this place is a fire hazard? Look at those curtains - they'd go up like straw.'
It was at this point that Dupre hit him in the back of the head with something very hard. Possibly a femur, the Doctor thought as he dropped.
There were plenty of them around. Looking up, he saw that he'd been right.
Dupre was holding the thigh bone raised above his shoulder. He swung it down like a golf club and after that the Doctor didn't know anything for a while.
He dreamed he was dreaming. He was lying in bed, wondering why he was awake.
Oh no!
Desperately, he flailed towards consciousness, grabbing for mundane thoughts. Cheese. Jelly babies. Marmite. Why am I thinking about food at a time like this? Parking tickets. Lost socks in the laundry. Hamsters& Somewhere, quite far away, there was a grinding snap -
He jerked awake. People were arguing. Some of the women objected to Dupre's having brained him. That was nice of them. Clearly they were nice people. Getting involved with Dupre was just some kind of youthful mistake.
Heaven knew he'd made enough of them when he was young. Hadn't he?
He opened his eyes. He was lying where he'd fallen, between the throne and the circle. Everyone else was over near the door, Dupre furiously exhorting them to stay. The Doctor felt as if his skull were going to separate and fall into two pieces. He was having trouble seeing, as if there were a cloud between him and the group at the other end of the room. He squinted. There was a cloud between him and the group at the other end of the room.
He sat bolt upright. Nobody noticed. The Doctor stared at the circle. It was silently filling with smoke. No, not smoke, it looked more like spreading ink.
That was impossible, of course -
'Get out!' He sprang to his feet. 'Get out of here now! Now!' he shouted when they stared towards him, paralysed.
'What is that?' whispered one of the women.
The darkness inside the circle churned as if it were boiling, but the Doctor knew it was cold as the vacuum of space. 'Out of here! Out! Out!' He ran around