Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [63]
'Dupre,' he said, 'what exactly do you want?'
Dupre came back into view. Under one arm he was carrying a wooden box carved
with skulls, in which glass clinked. He held a razor blade. 'I want to know the mysteries,' he said simply.
'What mysteries?'
'Well if I knew, I wouldn't be going to all this trouble, would I?' said Dupre, amused by but indulgent of the question's stupidity. He sat down on the floor to the Doctor's left, grunting a little, and began removing small bottles from the box. Some of these were dark blue, as if to protect the contents from sunlight; others were clear and could be seen to be filled with different-coloured powders. The Doctor wasn't really interested in the bottles. His attention was on the razor blade, which Dupre had rested on his velvet-covered knee.
'When you've finished,' he said, perhaps a little faintly, 'who's going to clean up?'
'There won't be anything left to clean up,' said Dupre.
The Doctor shut his eyes. Before he could stop himself, he instinctively pulled at the chains. They rattled on the concrete. Pain stabbed through his injured hand. Dupre watched smugly.
"That bastard cop friend of yours won't have a body. No body, no murder investigation.'
"That's not strictly true, is it?'
'It's true in practice. The police have plenty of obvious killings to keep them busy'
The Doctor felt Dupre's fingers at his throat. He opened his eyes. Dupre was unbuttoning his shirt.
'What's your problem, anyway?' the Doctor asked. 'You're not poor. You're not a member of a historically persecuted ethnic group. Young women seem to flock around you, the more fools they. Is it just a massive, infected case of self-pity?'
Dupre grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. The Doctor gasped but didn't yell. Dupre leaned over him.
'I've figured it out,' he said quietly. "That night. It was you. You're some kind of lodestone. You're some kind of charm. 'His eyes were black and lustreless. 'You have gifts. But you don't deserve them. You're too soft.'
'Well, they're nonretur-Ah!' The Doctor broke off painfully as Dupre wrenched his head again and bent closer.
'You won't waste them any longer. I've got you now. You're my key. Or my bait. Probably both. But in either case -' he traced a forefinger along the Doctor's long upper lip - 'you're all mine.'
The Doctor twisted away but Dupre tightened his grip, holding him still.
'You can't get free,' he said softly. 'I've made very sure of that.' He slid his hand down to the Doctor's chest. Then he stopped.
'Problem?' the Doctor asked dryly.
'You're cold.' Dupre was frowning slightly. 'But I suppose that's because -'
'Anything else?' Dupre just stared, bewildered. 'Anything else! Listen, you fool! FeelF
Dupre's mouth opened wider. He started to speak, couldn't, tried again.
'Your heart,' he whispered.
'"5",'said the Doctor. Hearts! Get it now?'
He jerked free of Dupre's suddenly strengthless hand. Dupre shrank from him, eyes wide.
'A demon '
'If I were a demon, you'd have been in pieces ten minutes ago. I'm an alien.' Dupre still looked uncomprehending. 'Not of this earth. Oh come on, you've seen the movies. We're not pre-Spielberg, are we? Wasn't Close Encounters in the seventies? This is your close encounter, Dupre.' The Doctor grinned at him ferociously. 'Welcome to the mysteries.'
Anji couldn't sleep. She kept turning over, fighting an impulse to curl up tight with her head under the pillow, something she had done when she was upset as a child. All that fury, scoured into those walls like burns. She had almost felt it turn, snarling, on her shocked presence at the window.
But nearly fifteen years had gone by, the killings were the past, why should such an impression still linger, like a malevolent ghost? Maybe she was just