Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [68]
'Right.' He knelt and pulled at the pieces with his hands. 'Ouch! Damnit!
OK.' His voice became very quiet. 'OK.'
'Is anything in there?'
'Yeah.' Fitz straightened up so abruptly she stepped back. He hoisted himself out of the grave. 'A log.'
She looked. Beneath the shattered lid, a perfectly ordinary column of bark-covered wood was visible. 'That's it?'
'Yeah.' He was pulling on his coat. 'We've got to get back.'
'Aren't we going to refill -'
'We don't have time. We've got to tell the Doctor. Anyway, it's not as if there's actually anyone in there.' Fitz had grabbed the lantern and was over the fence.
'He could be anywhere,' she said, hurrying after him. 'It's not a given that he returned to New Orleans.'
"Then there's no problem.' Fitz paused for her to catch up, holding the lantern high. In its light he was pale and anxious. 'But I'm betting that log looked like a body when they buried it. I think our clever lad here has lots and lots of tricks, and the part that isn't tricks is pure rage. And if he is in New Orleans, the Doctor's right in his path.'
The Doctor wondered how late it was. When the door had opened for Teddy there had been no sound from the haunted house, and that closed at 2 a.m. So they were in the deep hours now, down in the bottom of night's pocket. Dupre had finished with him some time ago and gone on to make a circle around the bone throne for Acree. Now he was completing his own.
'Other end of the room!' the Doctor had growled, but Dupre, smiling, had laid out the circle next to him, fussily sifting the graveyard dust through his fingers and taking great care with the runes in each corner of the pentagram. The Doctor was tired of watching him.
'You should leave, Teddy,' he said. His voice was a little cracked, 'This isn't a good idea.'
'I'd rather he didn't leave just now,' said Dupre.
'I'm not going anywhere,' said Teddy defiantly.
How did he even get here? thought the Doctor. Taxi? Private limo with the windows darkened? Or did the ever dutiful and unquestioning Swan bring him? He was too exhausted even to be very curious. Pain was amazingly enervating. There were a number of reasons he wished Dupre hadn't carved into him quite so deeply, but the chief one was that shallower wounds would already have been half healed and might have closed up enough to erase the runes and throw a spanner into Dupre's conjurations.
That wasn't going to happen now. Everything was going to get ugly.
'Does he understand not to leave the circle, no matter what?' he asked Dupre.
'Certainly,' Dupre snorted.
'Of course I do,' said Acree. 'I'm not a moron.'
'Let's not discuss that now,' said the Doctor. 'Dupre, I'm giving you a last chance.'
Dupre stared down at him. 'I beg your pardon?'
'I said, I'm giving you a last chance. Unchain me and go home.'
'You're kidding.'
'I promise you, if you don't you'll regret it.'
'Is this some sort of mind game? Am I supposed to believe that you're so obviously helpless that you wouldn't make such a threat unless you really weren't helpless at all?'
'It's good advice, Dupre. Take it.'
'You're really too absurd.' Dupre raised his arms and started to chant.
The Doctor knew immediately that the conjuring was going to work. The cuts in his chest tightened and burned. The fine hairs prickled on his arms and the back of his neck. There seemed to be too little air in the room, and what there was smelled faintly sulphurous.
Neither Dupre nor - the Doctor stretched his neck - Acree had noticed anything yet. Well, they weren't the centre of attention. At the base of his spine, he felt a cold shudder begin. He suddenly arched and spasmed. His head banged the floor. Dupre looked down eagerly and his chanting grew louder.
A little breeze wafted across the floor. It moved the Doctor's hair. The candles flickered.