Doctor Who_ Warlock - Andrew Cartmel [5]
The girl was looking away from Ace, face in profile and Ace saw she was wearing odd circular earrings, hanging well below the lobes of her ear. They were strange flat discs in black and white, a yin‐yang pattern. But the black and white shapes were rabbits, their bodies interlocked as if in a drawing by Escher. There was something wrong about these earrings. They were utterly motionless instead of swaying when the girl moved and after a moment Ace realized they weren’t earrings at all. The black and white rabbits were tattooed onto the flesh of the girl’s neck.
Now the girl turned and looked directly at Ace. She had a Slavic face, blunt and coarse. It should have been ugly but her cheekbones were broad and sensual and her lips were rich and full. Her dark feline eyes looked sulky and truculent under sharp dark brows. Ace realized that the girl’s cheeks were pitted with acne, old scars that were almost impossible to see now because of the tattoos.
‘Hello,’ said the girl to Ace.
In the centre of her forehead, where the third eye is supposed to lie and where caste marks are traditionally painted, she had a tattoo of a cluster of bright red flames. Rising from it was a dark bird, wings spread. A phoenix, thought Ace.
On her left cheek was a bright red angular dog, running, tongue lolling. On the right, a sinuous blue Siamese cat stretched luxuriously. These tattoos were quite skillful, simply but vividly rendered, the posture and motion of the animals entirely convincing.
The tattooed dog and cat seemed to be watching each other, warily exchanging stares across the girl’s face, as if they were considering venturing out from their safe shelters under her eyes to meet beneath the nose.
‘Hello,’ said Ace, and the girl smiled at her. Under the girl’s broad sensual lips there was a bright butterfly, oddly coloured in splashes of lavender and green. The colours reminded Ace of something but she couldn’t remember what.
The wings of the butterfly were spread in flight as if it were rising from her chin. At the base of her neck Ace could just see the slanted green eyes of a tiger peering out above the swell of her full, freely swinging breasts.
‘My name’s Shell,’ said the girl, speaking to Ace through the wrought iron bars of the gate.
‘As in seashell,’ said the man. ‘That’s hippy parents for you. She has three brothers, and they’re called Rainbeau, Conan and Tao.’
‘No I don’t,’ said Shell. ‘No they’re not.’
‘I only exaggerate slightly. My name’s Jack. And this is Sheba.’ He patted the glossy black dog with a braided red collar that lolled at his feet, ribs heaving. ‘We apologise for disturbing you like this.’ He held up the chisel and hammer which he had been using on the large padlock that sealed the iron gate. ‘I hope I haven’t damaged the lock too badly.’
‘It looks like I got here just in time,’ said Ace, inspecting the scratches on the mechanism.
‘On the contrary,’ said the man, ‘I never had any intention of trying to break in. I was just trying to set off an alarm and get you out here. It seemed to take an awfully long time. I must say I’m a little disappointed in the security around here.’
‘I had to get dressed,’ said Ace.
‘You shouldn’t have bothered for my sake,’ said Jack, eyeing the gap where Ace’s black kimono had come untucked exposing a patch of bare, flat, suntanned belly above her jeans.
‘We’ve come here for a purpose,’ said Shell, interrupting Jack’s gloating appraisal of Ace. ‘We need to talk to you.’
‘It would have made it considerably easier for us if you had some kind of bell for people to ring,’ said Jack. He was reaching into the pocket of his checked shirt for a folded piece of paper, suddenly businesslike.
‘Perhaps we don’t like visitors,’ said Ace.
‘I do tend to get that impression,’ said Jack, looking at the gun in Ace’s hand. These two were so clearly unthreatening she felt a little embarrassed holding it now.
There was a faint sound in the long grass behind her and Ace turned to see that Chick was prowling towards her. The slender ginger cat