Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [41]
She put a hand on his arm. He tried, without doing anything as rude as pulling away, to indicate that he would prefer her hand to be detached from his person forthwith.
She did not get the message.
„Lieutenant Sullivan,‟ she said, and smiled broadly at him.
He noticed that despite apparently having gone to bed, she was still fully made up, lips a brilliant vermilion. Her hand tightened, and to his alarm Harry felt her suggesting through movement that he should accompany her into her bedroom.
„I am very happy to find you outside my room, lieutenant,‟
she said, revealing gleaming white teeth. All the better to eat you with, Harry thought.
Harry tried to think of a suitable explanation for being found outside her bedroom on his hands and knees, and with duffel coat and scarf on. He decided on the truth.
„Terribly sorry to have disturbed you,‟ he said. „Off on werewolf patrol, but tripped over that rug. Don‟t want it getting hold of any more young women. The werewolf, I mean, not the rug.‟
He was aware of her drawing in breath sharply while he was talking, but for the life of him he couldn‟t be sure of at which point. She recovered herself quickly. „Ah, the werewolf.
It was because of him that I could not sleep. Perhaps you would relieve the fears of a woman so foolish and check for her that no beast lurks within her room?‟
Well, how could Harry ignore a plea like that? Much, of course, as he wanted to. He allowed himself to be led inside, while visions of stagelike farces danced in front of his eyes, in which he was discovered in a lady‟s boudoir and forced to marry her.
With a horrified start, he realised that his unpleasant fantasies were seeping into reality. „I thank you so much for this service,‟ the lady was saying. „As I have no husband, no big strong man of my own, I am often nervous.‟ (She looked anything but.) „I think to myself -‟ her hand had not yet removed itself from Harry‟s arm - „that I should be finding myself a husband, a big strong man like you, for to take care of me.‟
„Righteo, I‟ll be looking for werewolves then,‟ said Harry.
There were not many places to look. The room was a good size, but Harry assumed that a werewolf too would be a good size, and if it were in here, being very quiet and shy, it could only be under the bed or in the wardrobe. It was in neither of those places.
Emmeline Neuberger was watching him intently. The negligee thing had fallen open - by accident? - revealing the similarly filmy garment underneath, the name of which he was not this time sure; surely it didn‟t go under the generic term „nightie‟? She began to walk towards him. Eye contact was made and he couldn‟t drag his gaze away from hers. He felt like a rabbit hypnotised by a snake. He backed away, still trying to seem polite, to not give offence. Suddenly he could go no further, he felt heavy velvet curtains at his back.
Emmeline slunk towards him.
Then she gasped. For a second he suspected a ruse, though to what end he never got around to working out. But he saw her eyes widening in panic, the pupils dilating, as she stumbled away from him - away from the window. That‟s where she was looking now, the window.
Harry spun around, but there was nothing to see, the curtains were still closed. Behind him Emmeline was fighting for breath. He hesitated for a moment, then moved to fling the curtains wide. „No,‟ Emmeline choked.
Harry could see the light of a lantern down beneath the window: the Doctor and Godric, waiting for him as arranged.
Their forms were plain to see, not only in the circle of lantern light, but in the glow of the almost full moon. Forgetting Emmeline for a second he pushed open the window and gestured out: be there soon.
There was a croak from behind him, a sound of tearing flesh like something too big being born. Emmeline gasped something, a mix of words