Doctor Who_ The King of Terror - Keith Topping [31]
As the heavy blinds were drawn shutting out the daylight, Joyce switched on three powerful overhead lamps that cascaded a soft, eerie red light on to the men sitting around the oval table.
‘That’s better,’ said one of the group as his face shredded itself apart.
Around the room the sound of tearing flesh and fusing bone and muscle could be heard. The thing that had been Sanger loosened its tie just as its chest burst through the material of his shirt.
Michelle Stonebringer looked to her left and saw that the face of the thing that had been Theydon Bois had become a pus-dripping red-raw pool of mag-gots. Across the table, the thing that had been Giresse was clawing the last of the facial skin from the replacement beneath it. Michelle stood and began to tidy up her papers.
‘If you gentlemen wish for a moment of privacy . . . ’ she began, a note of slight embarrassment in her voice.
‘Sit,’ came the sibilant reply from the thing that had been Main Giresse. ‘We shall only be a moment.’
Hands became pincers, heads became huge, domed insect-like skulls with antennae and small red eyes that seemed to feed on the room’s new light.
58
Within seconds, the entire conglomerate had been transformed.
Into something inhuman.
‘ Much better,’ said the thing that had been Sanger in a rasping, barely audible whisper. ‘Now we can get some real work done.
59
Chapter Seven
UNIT Cutaway
In the safe house Paynter and Barrington were awakened by their bedroom shaking.
It seemed to be happening to Geoff Paynter more and more these days. That awful moment of disorientation that only the long-distance traveller experiences. The split second after awakening in the dark of a strange bedroom. The dislocation of being unaware, even if only for an instant, of what continent and time zone you are in.
His body clock was screaming at him that it was midnight and that he was in Stockholm where the bar was still open. Probably. Then he opened his eyes and saw the floor moving.
‘It’s an earthquake,’ said the captain, rolling over and pulling his gun from beneath his pillow just in case it wasn’t.
‘We are on a fault line, you know. Somebody was telling me that they get minor ones near enough every day.’ Barrington didn’t seem in the least bit concerned. In fact, he hadn’t even opened his eyes yet. After a few seconds, the shaking stopped. He, at least, seemed to have his brain and his body in the same hemisphere.
‘I couldn’t live in those conditions,’ said Paynter, still trying hard to catch up.
‘Is it any worse than that gaff you used to have near Baker Street tube station? I seem to remember your bed moved around the room rather a lot without much help from the forces of nature!’
Paynter smiled to himself. ‘Mark. Thank you, that’s the nicest compliment I’ve ever had,’ he said, searching beside the bed for his watch. ‘Your snoring hasn’t improved, by the way. You want to get that seen to. Sleep apnoea can be really dangerous.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind, doctor,’ said Barrington, pulling on a T-shirt and trying to remember where he’d left the bottle of wine they had half-finished the night before after Mel Tyrone had driven them back from the restaurant.
Once in the safe house, they had done what they usually did on the first night of a new job. Sat up until almost daybreak talking about past missions, friends they had known and lost. And about the future.
61
Barrington found the bottle at the foot of the bed. ‘Seems a pile to waste this.’
Paynter looked at his watch and nodded. ‘If you’re up, it’s early enough for a drink.’
‘Have you ever lost a friend, Mark?’
Barrington seemed surprised by the question, particularly as it came after just two glasses of white wine. He expected Paynter to be far more pissed before reaching the introspective phase.
‘How do you mean . . . lost? Seen them die?’ he asked as he struggled