Doctor Who_ Warchild - Andrew Cartmel [111]
Creed stared in surprise; the ancient dog had moved like an eager young pup. Now the Doctor was scrambling in after it.
After a moment’s hesitation, Creed followed them.
The Doctor was pulling the curtains open, letting the steadily brightening sunlight into the back of the hearse. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘some might argue that is precisely the proper function of the past. To come back and haunt us.’
As he scraped the curtains back and light swept into the gloomy interior Creed could see that the old dog had shoved itself in beside a long object on the floor of the hearse.
Creed had expected to see a coffin. But this was something quite different.
There was a body in the back all right, but it was lying in a transparent two-metre-high cylinder which was surrounded by piles of cushions.
Creed set down the box of warlock, which he was still carrying, and crawled forward to get a better look. The dog was close to him now and Creed was surprised that he could get near the thing without flinching. In recent hours dogs had come to represent the enemy, but this one gave no hint of menace. It seemed utterly harmless, old and frail, all its attention focused on the cylinder.
The huge cylinder was half buried under the cushions and pillows. There were dozens of them, tattered and dirty; a motley assortment which looked like they had been pillaged from sofas and beds in a rundown English country house.
The dog twitched beside him and sneezed. Creed sympathized. His own nose was tickling with the musty, dusty smell of the pillows and cushions.
But in a moment it was overpowered by the liquorice scent of the warlock which was wafting from the small box Creed had set down, filling the back of the hearse. He tried to ignore it and concentrate on the strange contents of the hearse.
The cushions and pillows were jammed in beside the big cylinder, wedging it into place. Creed realized that they were a good idea; the cylinder appeared to be made of glass and didn’t look like it could take much bashing about.
The Doctor was kneeling on the other side of the cylinder. He nodded down at it. ‘Do you recognize him, Creed?’
Creed stared down into the cylinder, at the face of the naked man lying inside it. The face was hauntingly familiar.
The memory tugged at him for a moment then slipped away.
The man had red hair plastered across his pale forehead, mashed down by the wide piece of elastic which someone had put on him like a headband. The headband secured a cluster of electrical components to the man’s head.
Creed couldn’t identify their function but they looked hastily assembled; jury-rigged. A long cable ran from them into the front of the hearse where they connected to a miniature TV-screen propped in the front seat.
‘Been busy with the soldering iron, I see,’ said Creed. He looked at the tangle of electrical components that rested on the man’s head and then he noticed the beads of moisture in the man’s hair around the fat rubber headband.
Creed realized that the man was sweating, and as he watched the man’s eyes rolled back and forth under his closed lids, like a sleeper deep in REM.
‘He’s alive,’ said Creed.
‘Yes, he is. Do you remember his name?’
‘Jack.’ The name had suddenly popped into Creed’s head, and the sensation was rather disturbing.
It was just the familiar sensation of one’s memory suddenly retrieving a missing piece of information, but it felt a little odd to Creed. Almost as if someone else had put the name in his head.
The smell of warlock was growing thick and heavy in the back of the hearse even though the tail-gate was open.
Creed felt the strange rush of the drug, still familiar after all these years. The blood pulsed in his head with a new precision and delicacy, like some precious molten metal transmitting strange electrical currents.