Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [126]
Down in the street below the Cypriot hotel owner and his wife were sitting on the steps, smoking and talking. Creed didn’t understand the language but he could follow the emotional tone of the conversation from the rising and falling cadences.
The open window also brought him the sound of pop music from a radio in a nearby shop. Now and then a car whisked past in the street or a girl laughed somewhere or the bead curtain in his bathroom clattered in a stirring breeze from the window. The background to all this was a low murmur of city noise, a blend of every sound in London woven together. Cars, music, the subaudible breathing of millions.
Creed listened to it, knowing that buried somewhere in that mix was Justine’s breathing. He could walk into a room somewhere and find her sitting there. It was just a matter of finding that room.
Creed’s mind was streaming with sense impressions as the massive dose of warlock entered his bloodstream. The drug could lead him to Justine. He was confident of that. It was just a matter of finding the right approach.
Or letting the approach find him. He knew that rational conscious thought would only pump him up with anxiety and disrupt the strange flowering of the drug in his brain.
So Creed lay on the bed listening to the breathing of the huge city beyond his window. His own breath flowed out, spinning the feather above his eyes, adding to the great unheard murmur of London like a trickle of water flowing into the sea.
The rhythm and sound of his own breathing was mingling with Justine’s somewhere out in that vast ocean.
Creed stared out of his window at the lights glowing against the dark blue square of night sky. Justine was out there somewhere and although she might not know it, they were reaching out at this moment and blindly touching each other.
He let his breath flow in and out of his lungs without conscious thought or interference. His mind eased away, releasing his body so it could just exist in the moment, free of the clenching grip of awareness.
Anxiety and intellect drifted away, leaving nothing but the unconscious natural core of his existence. Creed’s heartbeat slowed into a smooth rhythm and his lungs opened and closed effortlessly until he felt as though the air was breathing him.
Smells flowed in and out of his nostrils and he registered them in a distant way, like a sea creature tasting the currents it swayed in. He breathed the smell of diesel, fried food, sweat and perfume lingering on the pillow by his face. Scented insecticide on a fly strip hanging from the ceiling. Damp and mould deep in the building. Justine’s sweat and perfume.
Her clothing was bunched on the pillow beside him. He could smell her as if she had been asleep there by his side; as if she had only got out of bed a moment ago. He could smell her and smell his own body, the tang of anger and fear still on him. The scents of their bodies entangled like lovers.
The breeze rattled the beads in the bathroom doorway. In the room across the hall a man cleared his throat and cursed his luck with cards. On the doorstep below the voices of the Cypriot couple rose in vehement agreement about some unknown topic. A car alarm shrilled in a nearby street then abruptly cut off. The sound made Creed think of his own Porsche. It was parked in a cobbled mews a couple of blocks away. He looked out of the window, trying to determine where the mews was in relation to the hotel, but something was wrong.
The sky outside the window had changed colour. From a deep indigo it had paled to almost white. And instead of the bright random glow of lights this white sky had pale red spots hovering on it, spaced at regular intervals.
The transformation of the sky astonished Creed, making his heart surge with terror. He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down. He had to let the drug show him whatever it wanted. He had to