Doctor Who_ The Sleep of Reason - Martin Day [91]
There was a grotesque sound of splitting bone as the dog – axe still hideously lost in what remained of its head – slammed into the rough stone.
It slipped down the wall, leaving behind a huge crimson stain – and into a pile of burning rags.
The creature was on fire, patches of fur and hair smouldering, adding to the awful stink of the hell-hole. It ran in circles, shaking, twitching, groaning.
Then it collapsed into the flames and was motionless.
There was a dull, inhuman cry from Fern. He knocked Torby away from him and ran over to the burning form of the dog. Plunging his hands into the flames, his face grimacing only as a man preparing a too-warm bath, he sought to engage with the remains of the creature.
Craig, who nursed his injured shoulder, and Sands sprinted across the room, over the unconscious form of Torby, and hurled themselves at Fern. They hit him as one; for a brief and terrifying moment all three seemed to sink down into the flames.
Then Sands emerged, pulling Mr Craig behind him. Both men’s clothing seemed dark now, their pale faces smudged with dirt and grime, but both were clearly alive.
Behind them, the slumped form of Mr Fern seemed indistinguishable from the hound, from the ever-growing, ever more greedy conflagration that was expanding across the room.
We all stood, mute, for a moment, watching as the silent flames of hell wormed their way through Fern. Again I saw – perhaps I was alone in this? –
an impression of great golden caverns of light behind the flames. They seemed always to move, to twist like some living thing, one moment indivisible from the fire, at another fading to nothing like a miasma.
And within the tunnels were living things, creatures that chilled my blood, demons and dark centaurs.
I blinked, and saw nothing more.
‘We had best be leaving,’ came a voice behind us.
Dr Christie was on his feet and, seemingly, in his right mind. A beam, pitch black and burning, chose that moment to fall from the ceiling at the far end of the chapel, as if to underline the simple and vital importance of Christie’s warning.
Without a word we turned towards the door.
167
Nineteen
No Alarms
(No Surprises)
Liz stared at Laska, wholly unable to read her reaction.
From the far side of the dining room she could hear Dr Smith rustling with the documents. ‘The final piece of the puzzle,’ he announced loudly. ‘I think I now know how the Sholem-Luz survived, how the fragment was returned to this building. . . ’
Liz returned her attention to Laska. Still there was no obvious change in the young woman’s face, though tears seem to be welling at the outer edges of her eyes.
Smith bustled over, seemingly ignorant of what had just happened. ‘Laska, we need to talk about the necklace of your father’s,’ he said.
‘Just a moment, Dr Smith,’ said Liz sternly. She’d just told Laska that she had, in effect, killed Laska’s father; she wasn’t about to let Smith ride roughshod over Laska’s emotions.
Smith paused, as if unused to being challenged in this way, folding his arms behind his back.
‘It’s OK,’ said Laska finally. She reached out for Liz’s hand, squeezed it, forced a miserable-looking half-smile. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Then she turned to Smith. ‘What have you found?’
‘Some of the pages you returned with,’ explained Smith. ‘They’re a coda to Dr Christie’s diary. He talks about picking up a dog’s tooth, turning it into a necklace. The tooth must have belonged to the hound that was possessed by the Sholem-Luz.’
‘So this tooth contains some Sholem-Luz material?’ asked Trix, who’d followed Smith over.
Smith nodded. ‘I had read references to the Sholem-Luz “seeding” their tunnels in time and space. I’d never before realised that the phrase could be interpreted so literally. That tooth contains a single Sholem-Luz seed. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them might have been created back in 1903, had the plans of the Sholem-Luz not been foiled. They would then have been scattered on the Time Winds, to infect untold areas of time and space. Each