Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [107]
The creature looked down at her for a moment, and the lack of emotion on the face, or in the great, blank eyes, chilled her to the bone. She could understand how Smith had said that this creature was unfamiliar with concepts like sanity and madness – with life and death. It was distant and unknowable and utterly alien. A single glance was enough to make a shiver of utter dread run down her back.
Thankfully the Sholem-Luz inclined its head away from Liz and she was able to concentrate on James Abel. He was taunting Liz once more, seeming to revel in his newfound powers. ‘Perhaps your husband,’ he said. ‘He should be next. After all, I don’t hear you screaming.’
James was right about one thing – Liz was virtually the only person in the room not screaming. All the others, packed into one corner, as far from both the flames and the creature as they could possibly be, were screaming and shouting. Jostling was giving way to fighting, to the blind panic of animals given nowhere to run. The weakest would doubtless be crushed underfoot, if the flames didn’t get to them first.
‘James,’ said Liz desperately. ‘If there’s any way. . . If there’s anything you can do. . . You’ve got to stop this.’
A look of utter incomprehension crossed his face. ‘Why should I do that?’
He spoke as if Liz had just asked him the impossible, to stop breathing or to still his own heart. ‘How could I. . . ?’ he whispered, more quietly, momentarily more human.
There was a sudden, rending sound from the big oak door. The business end of an axe blade appeared in the wood, then withdrew, then appeared again, further down, with another ear splitting shriek.
‘No!’ shouted James, leaping across the flames and towards the door. ‘This time there will be no interruption!’ He seemed for a moment to consider throwing himself bodily at the door, as if he could hold the splintered wood together with his outstretched arms. Then he paused – waiting, perhaps, for some way of attacking the person with the axe.
Without warning a tiny golden portal appeared the other side of the wall of flame, mere yards from James. It was just large enough to accommodate a man.
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And within the glowing tunnel stood Dr Smith, still immaculately dressed and exuding calm authority
‘Fitz,’ he called through the confusion and the carnage. Liz didn’t dare look to see what, if anything, the centaur-creature was making of all this.
Fitz, still at Liz’s side, said nothing, his mouth gaping slightly.
It was good to see that even familiarity with Dr Smith’s methods did not lessen a sense of wonder at his unpredictability.
‘I want you to reconnect the fire alarms and especially the sprinklers,’
shouted Smith. ‘It looks like our friend. Mr Abel has done some damage with a pair of wire cutters.’
James turned at the mention of his name, swinging his attention away from the door that was still shuddering under the impact of the axe.
‘Of course,’ said Fitz. It didn’t seem to occur to him to ask just how they were to achieve that with James, and the creature, very much in control of the chapel area. Smith made his request sound like the most reasonable one he could have made, in the circumstances.
Thankfully, he was not entirely ignorant of the problems they faced. ‘Oh yes,’ he added. ‘One more thing.’
With that he hurled himself out of the flowing, fluctuating tunnel and towards James. He caught the young man in an ungainly bear hug, spinning him off his feet and pulling both of them back towards the tunnel.
The ethereal doorway expanded as they fell, engorging outwards like the mouth of a leech. For a moment it seemed to fill the space between floor and ceiling. A burning silver wind seemed to sweep over both men.
And behind them Liz could see the dim outline of a number of the Sholem-Luz creatures, rearing up as if to strike.
Her last vision was of Smith clutching James to himself as if he could protect the man by his sheer physical presence.
And then the portal snapped shut and faded to nothingness.
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Twenty-three