Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [128]
It was a modular weapon, about the same size as a hunting rifle. But if you removed the magazine, the barrel extension and the extended grip you were left with an effective handgun. Creed sat for a moment, debating whether to take this or his Python with its MIDI link. In the end he put the pistol under his mattress and picked up the riot gun. He stripped it down, loaded it and put it into the modified inner pocket of his jacket.
The three men playing cards across the hall all dropped their gaze as he walked past their open door. The ancient cage elevator was busy creaking up to another floor so he took the stairs down. As he walked through the lobby the Cypriot woman was coming out of the narrow back room. She paused when she saw Creed, then she came hesitantly into the lobby.
Something glinted in her hand. It was a silver crucifix on a thin chain. She fastened it around her neck, staring at Creed as he went out of the door into the street.
* * *
Creed let his feet do his thinking for him. He just wandered, his mind detached. Not concentrating, not worrying. He knew warlock would show him the way if he could just relax and allow it to.
His shadow stretched on the pavement in front of him, then shrank again as he passed under street lights. London was busy tonight. Taxis drove past, and cars full of young laughing people. Creed wandered without plan or destination, turning off from one street to another whenever it felt right. He followed his impulses, careful not to interfere with whatever the drug might show him.
It was now a pleasant, warm autumn night. He heard the sizzling of a street vendor’s stall and smelled cooking meat. He listened to his footsteps creating their own rhythm, their own unique signature, and mixing with a million other city noises.
Creed let his thoughts drift. The warlock was still surging through his bloodstream, transforming everything. Coloured lights of shops and restaurants washed over him. He glimpsed passing faces watching him, strangers, their eyes shining with strange intelligence. Minds he would never know. Then the faces and lights became a blur. All his attention was on sound. The sound of his own footsteps clattering on the late‐night streets.
The rhythm of this sound began to alter in some subtle way, becoming even more personal and urgent until finally he realized he was not listening to his footsteps but to his own heartbeat.
Creed had a sudden searing flash of memory. Anna in bed with him, face caught in a beam of moonlight. She was bending over his bare chest, her hair tickling his skin, grinning her crazy infectious grin so that her cheeks were baby‐fat and rounded. ‘I can hear your heartbeat,’ she said, pressing her warm ear to his chest. ‘Don’t ever let it stop beating.’ But it was Anna’s heart that had stopped.
The memory passed away but it left Creed standing alone on this London street, the cold September wind pushing past him. Here he was in an alien city at night, surrounded by strangers. People looked at him as they hurried past. He was hunched over with a shocking physical ache. It felt like a huge bruise that ran from his navel up to his collar bone. It was most painful and tender directly over his heart.
Creed made himself start walking again, swinging his arms briskly, trying to shake off the aftershock of the memory.
But another memory was fighting its way into his consciousness. Creed resisted it. He knew it only promised more pain. He walked faster, swinging his arms harder. People on the sidewalk were looking at him oddly, moving away to let him pass.
But he couldn’t move faster than the memory. As he strode along, swinging his arms, it began to invade his mind. Any moment it would erupt full‐blown into his consciousness. Creed fought against it. He tried to concentrate on his heart again, to recapture the intensity of that rhythmic sound which had filled his consciousness a moment ago.
There. He heard