Menagerie - Martin Day [69]
She heard the awful sound of muscle and bone rupturing, but it was not her own. She looked up, her vision still blurred, and saw the unmistakable form of Diseaeda.
He had recovered consciousness and was brandishing one of the metal bars. He was very pale, seeming to have lost a lot of blood from somewhere, but his sudden strength was like that of ten men. He took a few steps away from the creature and then gripped the bar firmly, angling it forwards like a spear. Then he charged forwards.
Whatever the intention of his attack the results were clear enough: the huge bar sank into the creature's neck, just under its skull.
The beast turned, the bar clanging into the wall and then falling to the ground. Zoe noticed a deep wound in the creature's neck, a round slot big enough to accommodate a fist. Blood gushed over its shoulders and down its spine.
The animal was now standing a few feet away from Zoe.
Pressing her hands tight over her leg wound and gritting her teeth against the pain she began crawling along the base of the wall. Even through the agony of her wound she could see the circus master standing erect in front of the creature.
The twins stood at his side, shaking with fear. They had run to the worker's corpse to pick up the welding torch, but Raitak held it uneasily in her hand. The twins did not know what to do.
Diseaeda did. 'I've had enough of this,' he said, and reached for the torch. 'I'm much too old for this sort of thing.'
With that, he twisted the controls of the device and casually dropped it to the floor. A wide fan of flame shot upwards like a screen between him and the monster. Zoe could barely see through the burning, shimmering air, and presumed that the creature could not either. But why had Diseaeda discarded perhaps the only weapon to have had an effect on the beast?
The creature could no longer see Diseaeda and the twins through the haze. It half-turned, searching for Zoe.
In that instant Diseaeda jumped through the wall of fire and hurled himself at the creature with every ounce of his remaining strength. His hair was burning, his clothing smouldering, but his eyes were glazed over with a single purpose. His large body thudded into the creature, catching it off-balance. In Zoe's mind it seemed that the two humanoid figures hung in the air for a moment, two opposing forces smashed together. She saw the creature's blank face, half-twisted away as if in disgust for being surprised by the same man once more. She saw Diseaeda, the flames licking away his age to reveal a young man, and then a frightened boy.
They arced through the air, merging long before the flames of the furnace reached out to them, four arms wrapped tightly around the man but unable to prevent the momentum carrying them backwards. The creature's head and shoulders, already damaged by fire, crumpled first, and then the red spears of heat stabbed into the circus master's chest and legs.
There was a small, glimmering explosion, deep in the inferno of the furnace.
The Doctor followed the android as it walked unhurriedly into the main room and stood before the large screen, tapping a few controls in the arm of one of the chairs on the dais.
The screen glowed for a moment with phantom images, and then showed a solid wall of static. The android removed the clay pendant from around its neck and chipped away at it with its massive hands. A few moments later a small silver wand was revealed, which it placed into a slot by the screen.
The image stabilized to reveal the logo of an ancient piece of communications software. A few seconds later the screen showed a balding grey-haired man, a damp felt hat pulled down over his alert but disgruntled eyes. The image swayed unsteadily, and the man seemed to peer down at the Doctor and the others. Clearly Defrabax — if that was he —
was holding some sort of small communications unit in his hand. 'What is it? You should have powered-up by now.
And what are those people doing —'
'There