Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [107]
The small bird had fluttered above her while she lay strapped in the chair, trapped and helpless. This memory filled Ace with fury. She wanted to slash at the ones who had trapped her, feel her claws slide beneath their soft pink flesh, and drag them tearing back out. To taste their hot blood in her mouth.
Ace was shaken by the power of the anger. But she relaxed and let it pass through her, not interfering with it. She knew she mustn’t fight it; that would only prolong the emotion. Finally the anger died out, like a flame that had nothing left to consume. When it was gone she let herself remember the chair again, and being a prisoner. And the bird. The bird was important. Ace couldn’t remember why, which was frustrating. It was like forgetting a word or a name, but feeling it on the tip of her tongue. Her tongue. Ace yawned and felt her long tongue dart out of the pink cavern of her mouth. She rolled over under the comforting canopy of leaves, stretching luxuriously. It was such a pleasure to stretch, and such hard work to think. Unaccustomed hard work. But she forced herself. She thought about the bird. It was important. The bird had caused it to happen. Ace couldn’t remember what ‘it’ was, but she knew if she persisted the memory would return. She just had to find her way to it in this strange new mind of hers, like picking her way through an unfamiliar maze.
She had been trapped and they had given her something. Ace breathed the clean forest smells around her and suddenly she remembered a different smell. Her keen memory brought the scent back to life for a moment, as though it filled her nostrils now. That strong liquorice smell. Warlock. They had given her warlock. And they had trapped her and she had been desperate to escape. The warlock had rushed through her blood and affected her mind and she had been longing to escape.
Escape. Once again her emotions exploded within her. To be free, not constrained. To attack the hand that held her. Ace remembered how she had sunk her teeth into Tommy Hunnicutt’s plump white hand and the great jagged flash of joy that had filled her, and which filled her again now in memory. She had bitten the hand as it took her out of the cage and she had escaped.
But she had escaped before that. Warlock had done something to her mind. She had been trapped in the chair but she had managed to escape. She had somehow escaped without moving her body. And the bird had something to do with it. The small bird fluttering above the chair where she was trapped. The bird had flown across the barn and landed…
Where had it landed?
Somewhere bad. Somewhere so bad that it enraged her to think of it. Ace fought the fury down, trying to keep her mind clear. The bird. Where did it land? On the bad thing. The thing which kept you trapped. The thing that Tommy Hunnicutt had lifted her out of, just before she bit his hand.
The cage. The bird had flown across the room and it had landed on the cage. Cages. There had been more than one. The bird had fluttered above Ace and landed on one of the cages. And Ace had been straining to escape, with the massive dose of that strange drug invading her brain, doing things to her. She remembered the sensation of her mind seeming to float, an intoxicating, dangerous sensation as though she was a balloon that might slip its knot and bob up and float away. Escape. She had wanted to escape. And warlock wanted to help her. There was no way out of the chair. The straps held her. But they didn’t hold her mind.
There had to be an answer. There had to be a way out.
The bird. The bird had held the answer. First by drawing her attention. Ace’s gaze had become fixed on the bird, following its erratic flight as if hypnotized. The random fluttering path of the bird had seemed fascinating. A pattern of great beauty and complexity. Her drugged mind had become completely absorbed in following its motion.
And then the bird had landed on the cages, almost as if it was leading Ace to the solution. Ace wanted to escape.