Doctor Who_ Wolfsbane - Jac Rayner [90]
As the TARDIS hurled into flight, a mile or so away a tall, featureless blue box connected to a tangle of wires pulsed oh-so-slightly in time with the flashing TARDIS light. But its owner was unconscious in the next room, and no one saw it.
„And don‟t go wandering off,‟ the Doctor called over his shoulder to Harry, following Godric and Sarah into the depths of the TARDIS.
That was the very last thing Harry planned on doing. He looked around the room again, drew in a deep breath of TARDIS air, and smiled.
Chapter Sixteen
Endings
Emmeline Neuberger crept into the Doctor‟s cottage, exhausted and scared. The living room door was shut, and when she opened it there was nothing inside but the wreckage of the previous evening. She climbed over the scattered silver in the doorway, and moved the dirty teacups off the table so she could use the checked tablecloth as a makeshift robe. She took the cups out to the sink. There was no one in the kitchen, or in the scullery. In the back garden, Betty and Mary squawked angrily, waiting for someone to feed them.
She went upstairs. The whole house seemed as still as the grave. But in the bedroom, on the floor, she found the Doctor. She raised his head, rested it on her lap and stroked his forehead. „It‟s all over,‟ she said softly. „You can wake up now, it is all over.‟
Slowly, the Doctor‟s eyes flickered open. „All over?‟ he echoed. She nodded.
He struggled on to his elbows. „It worked?‟ She nodded again.
He turned to the bed. „Where is Godric?‟
She shrugged. „I do not know. The wolf has gone from me and my senses are dulled. I cannot track him.‟
„What about Harry? Do you know what happened to him?
He obviously succeeded...‟
She shivered. „I... I cannot remember. I have snatches of thoughts, nothing more. The wolf knew Harry.‟ She remembered more than she would say, but most of her words were true. „I know the wolf saw him. But I do not know when, and I do not know where.‟ And then she whispered so softly that the Doctor did not catch the words: „I thought I had my companion...‟ To the Doctor again: „But now I cannot sense him. Harry is dead, Doctor. If he were alive, I would know.‟
The Doctor stared past her, gazing into the middle distance. „We have to find out,‟ he said to a point over her shoulder. „They are our friends. We have to know.‟
Now Emmeline was inside the Doctor‟s cottage, she didn‟t want to leave. People had tried to kill her the night before, and she had killed people in turn, this she knew. Oh, she also knew that she had not killed them, not really, not herself, just the thing whose body she wore for those few nights in every cycle. But she did not expect the people of the village - who had been willing to form a lynching mob just on account of a few sheep - to make such a distinction. And she was not sure that she blamed them, not while she had the tang of blood on her tongue and strings of flesh still between her teeth.
The Doctor, unworried by mobs and murders, had left for the Leffy house. He was going to fetch an outfit for her to wear. And he would find out everything he could along the way.
She did not know what to do. Yes, she would help him search for Godric and Harry - though she knew that for the latter at least there was no hope. Harry was not on this world any longer. She had tried so hard with him - her best chance.
But more than that, she felt she could actually come to care.
She had already come to care. But he had not liked her. She had painted her nails and made up her face to look nice for him, and she had gazed into his eyes and shown him through her words and gestures and touches that she was interested; that she would do whatever it took. But he had rejected her. So she had taken the final step - and again he had rejected her, the ultimate rejection of death.
Now she had no prospect of a marriage, no family - she had never had a family, she realised suddenly. And then she was struck with horror of another kind. She sat down on the bed with a thud, unminding of the drying, sticky bloodstains.
Eyes open wide but unseeing,