Doctor Who_ The Gallifrey Chronicles - Lance Parkin [91]
She could see them on nearby roofs and trees. There was a ring of them, resolutely staying away as though there was a glass wall blocking them.
Trix got out of the car and stood right next to the fire. The lieutenant in the town near her hotel had said the smell of burning Vore kept other Vore away. So, she’d come up with this experiment. The smell of burning humans would keep her away, she was sure, but there was more to this. This was more 188
like spraying Vore repellent around. Chemistry, not simply psychology. Which was why she was standing here now, letting the stink get into the fibres of her clothes. There were no Vore within fifty feet of her, but they could fly that distance in a matter of seconds. The fastest way to get dead now would be to start thinking she had made herself invincible. But this was a start.
As Trix waited by the fire she looked over at the house. The Vore had abandoned the outbuilding, revealing that it was a garage as she’d suspected.
The house itself – like most of the others in the country by now – had its windows and doors boarded up or barricaded. First, she made her way up the drive to the garage. It was all but empty. Walking around it, Trix found what looked like a hi-tech piece of brewing equipment in the middle of the space, a three-inch strand of what looked like intestine on the rough concrete floor, and nothing else of note. The garage did give her a strange feeling, though –
just a slight sense of being unsettled, like time and space hadn’t been put back together quite right in here.
‘Miss?’ a woman’s voice called out.
Trix turned. A middle-aged woman, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, stood in the doorway. She was shaking. Trix instinctively went over to her.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. The older woman’s eyes were rimmed with black, a combination of smudged make-up and lack of sleep.
‘I’ve been in my house since they came,’ she said.
Although she appeared calm, there was something distracted about her, signs of trauma. Trix wondered if she herself looked any different.
‘My name is Trix,’ she said.
‘Jackie Winfield.’ The woman held out her hand, and Trix shook it, a little awkwardly.
‘Have you lost someone?’
‘My husband,’ she said quietly. ‘Killed in front of me, the monsters just stood there and breathed white dust. . . ’
‘They killed my boyfriend the same way,’ Trix told her, not wanting either of them to relive it.
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ The woman looked it. ‘The smoke keeps the monsters away?’
‘I really hope so. Have you seen a man around here? Mid-forties, long hair, probably wearing a long velvet jacket?’
Mrs Winfield shook her head. ‘There’s been no one like that.’
‘A police box?’ Trix wondered, aware of a note of desperation in her voice.
Mrs Winfield looked confused. ‘The police were here, the night the moon appeared.’
‘The siege,’ Trix remembered. ‘That was definitely at this house?’
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‘From what I could tell, it was this garage. They evacuated us, so we didn’t get to see.’
Too much of a coincidence, Trix decided.
‘Would you like some coffee?’ Mrs Winfield offered.
The Vore were getting impatient, at least that’s what Rachel assumed from their increased activity. If it had been a group of humans, the shuffling and looking around would have indicated it was an agitated one.
‘The Doctor’s TARDIS was damaged,’ Marnal said slowly. ‘Until it’s been repaired it will travel more slowly than normal. You can see from your display that it is heading back this way. It will be here shortly.’
The hologram, or whatever it was, was still as impenetrable to Rachel as a magic-eye picture. She had asked Marnal if he could understand their language. She couldn’t even make out sounds that might be Voreish; the only noises they made