Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [43]
Ace spun around to see Shell standing over her. The girl’s eyes were black and gleaming and inhuman in the moonlight. They could have been part of the tattooed pattern of her face. She turned away from Ace and beckoned urgently for her to follow. The two women passed the first farm building, skirted a small pond set in a fan of cobblestones and joined Jack standing in the doorway of one of the barns. There was a small, familiar yowling from just inside the door and Ace had to stop herself exclaiming out loud. It was Chick.
Ace trotted past Jack, right into the barn. She saw the five small portable cages sitting on the concrete floor. Three of them contained animals she didn’t recognize, a dog and two cats. In the others she saw the black dog Sheba and her cat Chick.
Chick made another small cry as he recognized Ace and Sheba whined as she bent down to kneel on the cold stone floor. The other animals remained oddly silent. One of the cats was fat and white, long‐haired. The other was slender and black. The dog looked like a young mongrel to Ace.
She was reaching for the lock on the small barred door when she saw a movement in the shadows beyond the cages. The building was suddenly flooded with the brilliant white light of fluorescent ceiling lamps.
Ace’s irises constricted painfully in the sudden harsh glare. Through squinting, tearful eyes she saw the tall man with the blond hair leaning against the far wall of the barn. He was standing with one hand on a wall mounted panel of switches, smiling at her.
She had the gun out of her waistband almost immediately, but just as quickly she felt hands closing on her arm. Jack had grabbed her and now he was clumsily trying to wrench the pistol out of her fingers. Ace moved her left hand away from her body to get some momentum, making a knuckle fist, taking aim at the centre of Jack’s bearded throat.
His grip on her arm slackened almost immediately. ‘Hey. Hold it. Peace.’
‘It’s all right,’ said the blond man. ‘Don’t hurt him.’
‘Yeah, don’t hurt me.’ said Jack. Shell was looking from him to the blond in a state of shock.
‘Jack, what’s he doing here?’ she said.
The blond man came closer, smiling. ‘Jack and I arranged all this.’
‘Arranged all what?’
‘Listen, Shell. Everything’s cool. It’s like I told you. I met Sean in the pub and got talking. But I didn’t tell you everything. I got him to agree to help us.’
‘You’re going to help us?’ Ace was still holding the gun but she was uncertain where to aim it. Jack had stepped away from her and the other man was making no threatening moves.
‘That’s right. Here, just let me close the door.’ The man called Sean stepped carefully past Ace and gripped the handle on the barn door, a collapsing set of vertical metal shutters riding on castors in a long groove in the concrete floor. ‘I don’t want anyone at the farmhouse to know that we’re here.’
Ace wasn’t sure if he was up to something, so she tracked him with the gun as he drew the door silently shut. He smiled at her as he stepped away from the door. ‘Make sure that thing doesn’t go off, okay?’
Shell was kneeling by Sheba’s cage, trying to open the door to check that the dog was all right. Jack was bending over her, trying to help her with the lock. ‘Leave me alone,’ she hissed. ‘I’ve got it.’ She opened the door and the black dog licked at her clenched fist. When she was sure the bitch was all right Shell gently shut the door again and Jack clumsily helped her lock it. The bearded man was wincing as she scolded him, jabbing a finger at his face. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me you’d planned all this? I’m nervous enough. This is the first lab I’ve ever done.’
‘Listen, don’t be too hard on him,’ said Sean. ‘It was mostly my idea. As soon as Jack told me about you people and how you felt, I jumped at the chance to help. I’m sick of this place. When I started working here, I didn’t think it would bother me.’ He frowned, his brow furrowing thoughtfully. Despite everything,