Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [98]
'Why?' said the old man, apparently unimpressed.
'I'm pursuing a felonious... um, felon, and need to requisition your vehicle.'
Hopeless! He'd blown it! He smiled anyway, hoping it would come over as a 'Trust me, I keep your streets safe' type of smile.
It didn't. 'You're off your chump,' said the old man.
Fitz produced the pistol, aimed it point-blank at the man's head, squeezed the trigger and closed his eyes. The gun still made no noise, but when Fitz opened his eyes again the man was lying sprawled over the passenger seat, his wispy white hair standing on end.
So. Although he had missed the unstable killer lunatic after all, at least the harmless old man was out for the count. He got in the car, and saw the Anglia take the corner and swerve out into the street, speeding past him.
He gunned the engine.
'Hang on, Granddad,' he muttered, and screeched away in pursuit.
***
Watson stared out into the night through the hall windows and considered his plan of campaign. At the moment, he was aware it seemed to consist of little more than 'kill people'. Not that there was anything intrinsically wrong with that. He was at war, and war was hell - everyone knew that, and still they carried on regardless. If Watson was to exalt in his new-found powers there, he would need to do more. Much more. Orchestrate a war against everyone.
What fine 'troops' he had at his disposal - a boy, an old woman and a bit of skirt. Yet look what the four of them had achieved, the breathtaking expanse of the pain they had inflicted on this tiny community.
He was a little worried about Mrs Kreiner. It pained him to have to rely on a sympathiser in the first place, but there was no avoiding that. He'd pushed into her mind, helped her release all the hatred he'd found there, but the old woman had been in poor health anyway. If she lapsed into senility it could be to the detriment of them all. The boy, too, needed to find his backbone, needed to put his shoulder into things more, but Watson was confident that strength would come in time .The boy carried the mark, on his forehead. He was a sign of their provenance over the Earth.
Then there was Lucy - an admirable queen, no question of that. Loyal, loving, and as beautifully misguided as she'd been all her life. She was looking at him now, he could feel it. He smiled at himself in the glass, and she smiled too.
Watson let his mind stare past his reflection, losing its focus in the endless, rainy night outside. When they numbered five, when that petty thug Taylor rejoined them, then men would learn what they could do.
A tiny community of pain. Soon, they could be thinking about all Britain in those terms.
'I think it's time we found our old nurse, isn't it?' Watson announced.
Mrs Kreiner chuckled. 'Perhaps she could make us better again,' she rasped.
***
Fitz swung the Wolseley through the quiet streets. At least he didn't have to worry about losing his way - Taylor seemed to know exactly where he was going, even if he'd apparently forgotten most of the Highway Code.
'Take more care, you sod,' Fitz muttered. 'You'll have the law on me.' He frowned. 'Again.'
His first day of being a fugitive, and was he lying low? No, here he was screeching about the streets of London in a stolen car with an unconscious old man for company.
Act Three was a real wow.
***
The Doctor pushed open the door to the TARDIS butterfly room with his toe, walked in a little way, and gently laid Sam down on the warm, lush grass underneath the perfect blue sky. A pea pod burgundy fluttered down on to her matted hair, then swiftly took off again.
He'd done all he could for her. Using the great chunk of leech matter in the cube as a kind of mediator, he'd allowed just enough energy to build up in Azoth to authorise and instruct the software in Sam's brain to disengage itself. The leech in Sam would now be busy assessing all damage done to itself and to the host brain, prior to taking appropriate steps to delete itself from her system. The leech would become dormant; then