Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [111]
Liz glanced at Trix. Trix had her eyes closed tightly. ‘It’s worth a try,’ she whispered. ‘It seemed to work down in the chapel.’
Liz tried to calm her turbulent worries and concerns, marvelling at Trix’s Zenlike passivity in the face of God-knows-what, but she couldn’t help but keep glancing at the tunnel.
Suddenly Trix, her eyes still shut, began laughing, an utterly atypical Sid James chuckle. She was grinning from ear to ear.
‘What are you remembering?’ asked Liz.
‘Never you mind,’ said Trix.
‘Looks like we might have found the right junction box,’ observed Fitz. He and Joe Bartholomew were backing away from the creature nervously.
‘Leave this to me,’ said Laska bravely. If the others thought she looked like Bruce Willis she might as well play up to their expectations.
She crouched just in front of the dog, staring at its malignant, haunted eyes.
This time she effortlessly called to mind scraps of past joy and happiness – they might be little but specks of light on a sea of black depression, but perhaps that made them burn brighter. Even Dr Smith came to mind, and Laska found herself smiling. In some ways he was very like her dad – a bit odd and distant at times, but full of marvellous insight and irrepressible energy.
The dog thing opened its jaws – she saw razor-sharp teeth, a great, lolling tongue of grey – but then became motionless, a fly in amber mere yards from Laska’s crouched form.
206
‘Best get on with it,’ Fitz whispered to Joe. ‘I don’t know how long you’ve got.’
Trix didn’t strike Liz as being the sort of woman who spent hours gazing into crystals or going to yoga classes to ‘find her inner self’. For all that, she seemed to be doing a remarkable job of holding the tunnel at bay. Huge expanses of it were fading from sight; the portal at the tunnel’s end was shrinking back on itself, folding up like a midnight flower.
Soon there was nothing left but a bright and burning star, hovering just over head-height. Trix had managed to transform the vision before them from an entrance to a different, deadly world to something that seemed to carry all the threat of Tinkerbell.
Or perhaps it was just a coincidence. But Liz wasn’t about to spoil the moment with her ungrateful cynicism.
She ran towards the door, the key already in her hand.
She sighed with relief when she saw Mike Thomson within the room, sitting calmly in the centre like some cheerful Buddha.
‘Thought you’d forgotten about me,’ said Thomson, bathed in the awful fiery glow of the emergency lighting.
‘Mike, I’m so sorry. We thought you were. . . ’ Liz indicated that he should come with them. ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter now. We’ll explain later. Hopefully.’
Thomson got to his feet but did not seem immediately inclined to leave the security of the room. ‘I’ve seen some strange things in here. I’m starting to think. . . ’
‘We’ve all seen strange things,’ said Trix, appearing in the doorway.
Thomson smiled. ‘Oh. Oh, that’s OK then.’
Liz was delighted to have Mike Thomson back at her side – not only because she couldn’t bear the thought of having lost him to the fire, but also for the very practical reason that he alone seemed to know where all the fire extinguishers were. Liz had been told, on numerous occasions, of the plans and procedures for a variety of emergencies, but she had simply trusted that something like this would never happen.
Struggling with two fire extinguishers each, they began the trek back to the basement. ‘If we end up looking like long-armed orang-utans after this, I know a very good plastic surgeon,’ joked Trix, trying to lighten the mood.
The smoke in the corridors was becoming thicker as they passed, but they found precious few fires worthy of operating their extinguishers. The structural integrity of the building was, for the moment, unaffected.
However, by the time they approached the chapel, it