Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [51]
Harry, indignant, didn‟t for a second reflect that it might be a bad idea to face down a large wolf creature he suspected of committing murder. „What have you done to him?‟ he demanded of the beast. „Come on! I know you‟re up to something!‟
The Doctor came up behind and shushed him, gesturing back at the house with its presumably still-sleeping occupants. „And she‟s not the killer,‟ he added. Harry still wasn‟t so sure. But he would go along with the Doctor, for now.
„All right,‟ Harry said to the wolf. „Perhaps it wasn‟t you.‟
But the Emmeline wolf backed further away from them, still whining like a dog with a thorn in its paw.
The Doctor looked from wolf to house to wolf to house.
„Is she trying to tell us something?‟ asked Harry. „Like an undead Lassie?‟
„Werewolves aren‟t strictly speaking undead,‟ the Doctor answered, his eyes now firmly fixed on the wolf. „Very similar in many ways on the surface, I‟ll grant you that, but whereas an undead creature is technically dead although still animate, a werewolf is alive, the embodiment of a natural although magical force. And what I think she is trying to tell us is that she cannot approach the house while we‟re standing in front of it.‟
„Why?‟
But that the Doctor didn‟t know. He waved at the werewolf.
„All right, we‟ll get out of your way. And when you‟ve changed‟
- like he was talking to a child who‟d got her dress muddy -
„we‟re going to have a talk.‟
It looked to Harry as if the werewolf nodded.
Luckily the front door wasn‟t locked. Between them, the Doctor and Harry carried Godric up to Harry‟s room, and laid him on the bed. Thankfully, no one appeared to have heard their entrance - or if they had, weren‟t bothering to come and investigate. Not that it really mattered for once; after all, everyone knew that peculiar things were going on. But Harry still instinctively shrank from having to offer explanations about bizarre, supernatural happenings.
Harry gave the lad a quick once-over. He still couldn‟t see any obvious injuries, but he didn‟t like to entirely rule out a bump on the head whatever the Doctor said, and that could be pretty nasty. He looked over at the washstand, wondering if it was better to wake Godric up with a jugful of cold water on the face or to let him stay unconscious. But while his back was turned, he heard the Doctor say, „Wake up‟, and when he turned round, the Doctor was just removing his hand from Godric‟s forehead, and Godric‟s eyes were flickering open.
From the corridor came the sound of a door clicking closed.
The Doctor walked over to the window and drew back a curtain. „No moonlight at the moment,‟ he said, „she‟ll be able to change back. Come on.‟
He‟d left the room before Harry had realised what was going on, and an obviously still groggy Godric stumbled off the bed to follow him. Resigned to trotting behind a Doctor almost everywhere he went, Harry hurried along after them.
The Doctor rapped sharply on Emmeline Neuberger‟s door, and entered without waiting for a reply. To Harry‟s sheer red-faced horror, she was in the process of redonning her filmy pink night attire. The Doctor, however, didn‟t seem the slightest bit embarrassed about barging in on her semi-nudity - it was as if he didn‟t even notice, or at the very least didn‟t realise that he was supposed to be embarrassed. And Godric didn‟t seem to be completely aware of where he was, so it was left to Harry to start to mumble probably incomprehensible apologies and try to steer the others back out of the room.
Emmeline, however, reacted out of all proportion to the social offence. Even setting aside her wolfishness, Harry, thinking back to her long white fingers caressing his shoulder, imagined that she was not the type of woman to be fazed by such an intrusion. But she was gasping and stumbling away from them, not as if in shock at their sudden arrival, but as though she were in pain.
Harry stopped pulling at the Doctor‟s coat sleeve and turned back to the room. „Are you all right?‟ he asked, his natural concern for a lady‟s well-being overcoming his