Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [50]
„That‟s good,‟ said Sarah with feeling.
„It‟s not good,‟ the Doctor said, on a different line of thought. „I‟m rather worried that she might not be able to change back.‟
„But when the moon goes down...‟ Sarah stared up at the sky, remembering then that there was no moon that night.
She turned a puzzled face to the Doctor.
„I forced the change. And now I think I‟d better find her.‟
The Doctor had wanted to take Sarah back to the inn, but she didn‟t want to let him out of her sight again. Or rather, she didn‟t want him to let her out of his sight. She was having difficulty walking, there was hardly a part of her that wasn‟t in pain of some kind, she knew she was slowing the Doctor down, she half suspected he wanted his coat back, but she was scared. And the reason she was scared wasn‟t because she had bled on the earth and brought it back to life, or because she had been buried alive and come as close to death as she had ever been, or because there was a werewolf on the loose with a taste for her blood. Her fear was not for her life, but for her being. Because thirty seconds after she‟d cried out „She bit me!‟, the blindingly obvious had hit her.
When a werewolf bit someone, that person turned into a werewolf.
„Yes, she talked about that,‟ the Doctor said, sounding clinically interested. „There were these mad scientists... well, never mind. She said that it wasn‟t just the bite that caused it. Something about the full moon... or it might have been something else. Yes, there had to be something else, some other factor‟
„What?!‟ Sarah yelled.
But the Doctor didn‟t know.
So Sarah was going with the Doctor to find the wolf called Emmeline, to find out if she was likely to have a seriously bad hair day on the next full moon.
It was the early hours of the morning when the Doctor and Harry reached the Lefty house. Harry, who prided himself on his fitness, had still felt a little bit puffed after digging and refilling the grave, and so was slightly concerned to see that the slighter man had not even so much as breathed faster during the exertion. Harry was feeling he was not acquitting himself well physically just at the moment, and resolved that first thing tomorrow he‟d start a new regime of daily press-ups.
As they walked up to the house, Harry was looking down at his hands, trying to use the fingernails from one hand to scrape the grave dirt from under the fingernails of the other hand, which is why it was the Doctor who first spotted the crumpled blue and white shape on the path. The Doctor therefore reached it a couple of seconds before Harry, but they both knelt down together to examine the unconscious Godric. He was still breathing, to Harry‟s great relief, and seemed unharmed. „Did he trip over something?‟ Harry wondered, knowing how easy it was to do.
The Doctor shook his head. „I don‟t think he did. For a start, I can‟t see anything he might have tripped over, although that‟s not proof - it could have been a cat, perhaps.
But he‟s fallen backwards, not forwards. His pack -‟ he indicated Godric‟s leather bag, still buckled on tight beneath him - „would have cushioned him, too, stopped his head from hitting the ground; that‟s not how he was knocked out. Now, look how he‟s lying. I don‟t think he was moving when he fell; that attitude indicates that he became unconscious while he was standing up, and just collapsed backwards. I don‟t think there was any force involved.‟
Harry was by now used to a companion who brought out the whole Sherlock Holmes caboodle for the simplest of questions. „He just fell asleep?‟ Harry asked. „Was he gassed?‟
„I would suggest a supernatural force,‟ said the Doctor. „He got in someone‟s way.‟
Harry knew whose. „Emmeline Neuberger.‟
There was a whine from behind them, away from the house. „And talk of the