Part 40 (2/2)

The heart of Hexen Bridge opened up as the black earth, the tendrils of Jack and every trace of the alien creature drew back upon itself. The public house, standing on the edge of the ruptured cavern, s.h.i.+vered, stood solid for a moment, and then slid into the soil as a thousand timber beams cracked. A cloud of stone and brick mushroomed in the air.

The Green Man was gone.

For a moment there was silence, and then the ground erupted again, spewing out a stream of multi-coloured b.u.t.terflies which soared high in the air over Hexen Bridge.

Ace remembered to breathe when the noise finally abated.

Her hands, as she raised them towards her face, were shaking.

She pulled herself from the rubble of the pub. Overhead, the ragged frame of the hole in the green showed receding clouds.

'Wicked,' she said, her voice a funereal whisper in the face of the destruction that had consumed the centre of the village.

The hunters had gone. She was quite alone except for Trevor Winstone lying beside her. She checked his pulse. It was faint, but regular.

She crawled across the scree towards the remains of the mirror. She could just make out the glittering slivers of gla.s.s beneath the muddy bricks and planks of wood.

A sudden chill gripped her. 'Professor?' she asked, her head snapping from side to side. The monster was defeated, so the Doctor should return now, right? 'Doctor!' she cried in desperation.

A hand, pus.h.i.+ng up through the debris, grasped her ankle.

She stifled a cry, and was about to kick at it when she recognised that the hand was human.

Covered in dust and tiny scratches. Flexing and twisting, as if trying to communicate in some form of sign language.

Human? Well, something like that.

'Professor?' She began pulling at the stones and soil beneath her feet.

'Get me out of here, Ace!'

It was the Doctor. He only ever sounded this fl.u.s.tered when the trivial trivial things in life went pear-shaped. things in life went pear-shaped.

'You OK?' she said, pulling away a thick beam of wood.

'Of course I'm not,' came the irritated reply.

She could make out his coat, the arch of his slender back.

Some distance away was a horribly begaitered shoe.

'All right,' she said, idly hurling a vast chunk of masonry into the air. 'What've you been up to?'

Finally the Doctor was revealed, curled up like a foetus. In front of him was Rebecca Baber. It looked as though the Doctor had tried to protect her the best he could when the world collapsed around them.

The Doctor sat up, brus.h.i.+ng the dust from his sleeves. 'Oh, you know, Ace. This and that. Gangsters to overthrow, dark forces to combat.'

'The usual?'

The Doctor paused, a sombre look crossing his dirt-flecked face. 'Perhaps not this time, no.'

Denman ma.s.saged his temples, groaning. The ground around him was littered with corpses he did not recognise.

People from the recent and ancient past, held together and manipulated by Jack, now released. Some were already beginning to crumble as held-off decay tore into them.

Denman remembered stumbling under the weight of creatures, a claustrophobic wave of darkness. Hands had pressed into his mouth while unceasing blows came down upon his back and legs. It was as if he was being disa.s.sembled in the most excruciating manner imaginable.

He was on the verge of unconsciousness when the stickmen had started to fall away. There was the faintest impression of people on horseback, and animals tearing into the evil creatures.

Moments later a storm, the like of which he had never experienced, had ripped over the land. It had raged like a battle in heaven, and finally died.

Denman held his head in his hands, waiting for the pain to go away. Then he remembered what had happened in Liverpool, and realised that it never would.

Steven Chen and Joanna Matson held each other tightly as the storm faded, like a nightmare blurring into welcome reality. The last finger of the wind caressed their faces just as the rain began to fall.

'Is it over?' asked Joanna.

Steven smiled and nodded, water droplets falling off his nose. 'Yeah.' He breathed deeply. 'Feel that? The air's fresh.

Clean.'

'The thunderstorm?' queried Joanna.

'No,' said Steven. 'It's deeper than that. Something's changed.' He laughed, an earthy, throaty chuckle. 'I don't believe it. After all these years. It's all over.' His eyes roved over the chalk hills and fields, a green cloth with Hexen Bridge a jewel held delicately at its centre. Towards the horizon, a dim rainbow reached for the clouds.

He looked back at Joanna, and noticed, as if for the first time, that she was still in his arms. They parted, blus.h.i.+ng.

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