Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [74]
„You‟re not supposed to fight back!‟ cried George, indignantly. „I‟m the king! I can hit whoever I like and they‟ll just take it!‟
„I‟ll be damned if I will!‟ called back Harry, who had sworn an oath of loyalty to Queen Elizabeth II and didn‟t think that sort of royal privilege had ever been mentioned. Mind you, he had to admit to himself that if the queen ever hit him, he almost certainly would not try to hit her back.
Emmeline was squawking, trying to get free. George was still waving the sandbag - or sand sock, as it actually was -
and Harry wasn‟t able to get in close enough for a punch. He looked around for something he could use as a shield - hold off the sandbag while he got a punch in - but nothing leaped out. He knocked against the table, picked up his half-empty mug and flung the remaining contents in George‟s face. The tea wasn‟t hot enough to hurt him, but it was a distraction.
Harry took advantage of it to dash past George into the hall, trying to lead him away from Emmeline, and to somewhere where there was more room to manoeuvre.
But the plan did not work. It was not Harry in whom George Stanton was interested, and he did not follow Harry into the hallway. And now Harry found the living room door slammed in his lace, and heard the key turn in the lock. On the other side of the door, Emmeline began to scream.
Harry began to batter at the door with his only weapon, the silver candlestick, but it had no effect. He debated running up the stairs to the Doctor‟s laboratory, finding a lever, but couldn‟t afford the time. He got as far back from the door as he could, and shoulder-charged it.
Halfway to the door, when the impetus was too great to stop, he heard the key turn in the lock. Three quarters of the way to the door, he heard it click open. And as he rushed over the threshold, unable to halt himself, he found the sandbag descending again, and knew that George Stanton had been just a bit too clever for him.
Chapter Thirteen
The Call of the Wild
Emmeline drew in her breath as Harry fell to the floor. But even if she had not been able to see the rise and fall of his chest, the senses that were heightened by the nearness of the full moon told her that he was still alive. He would recover.
And whatever fate awaited her now, she knew that somehow or other, she was going to make Harry Sullivan hers.
George Stanton rammed a piece of cloth in her mouth, and she snapped at him, forgetting that her jaws were still human. But even so, the moon‟s strength was pouring into her, and she was able to make short work of the gag. She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what she thought of him - in German, having been only in so-called polite society since her arrival in England, she did not know the appropriate English words - but he pulled from his trouser pocket something that made her swallow her words, and struggle desperately to get out of her bonds. But the Doctor had tied her too securely.
Then George Stanton slipped the silver collar around her neck, and suddenly she was in too much pain to think of anything else. If she could just change - with the wolfs teeth and claws she would teach him the folly of his ways, no pain would stop that.
But even tonight, the night when the moon called her loudest, she needed to feel its rise before she could embrace the freedom of the wolf. And the sky was still blank and empty.
George untied and retied her bonds; she was still bound, but no longer shackled to the chair, and some of her chains dragged on the floor. He attached a chain to the silver collar, and dragged her from the room, making her walk over the scattered silver teaspoons with which the Doctor had guarded the door. The front door slammed behind them, and he pulled her forward.