Part 11 (1/2)

'Right. Let's try and delay them finding out we've gone for a while.'

Rose locked the door, then slipped the key into her back pocket. Hopefully when the nurses next came to collect her they would forget that they'd left the key in the lock and spend precious moments 110 searching for it. That might give her and Ali some extra time to work out where the cables went and get out of the house.

'Right,' said Rose. 'Now, follow me, but quiet.'

The two of them crept along the corridor, wincing at every creak of the ancient floorboards. If anything the upper part of the house had seen less maintenance than the lower level. Wallpaper bulged alarmingly in several areas and huge brown patches on the once white ceiling showed that water was getting in from somewhere. The floor was thick with dust and footprints were clearly visible down the length of the corridor, following the trail of cable and wiring. Rose strained to hear any sign of life, but her head was still muzzy, her ears ringing.

They rounded a corner. The corridor in front of them ended at a tall, elegant door, its once pristine varnish now scuffed and faded. A ragged hole had been torn through the wall next to the frame and the cables wound their way through the broken plaster. Rose chewed her lip nervously. The corridor was a dead end. If someone came up behind them now, they would be trapped, but she was d.a.m.ned if she was going to leave without finding out what was on the other side of that door.

A sudden thought struck her. When she had been at the back of the house she'd noticed a fire escape. If she had the layout of the house right. . . She crossed to a window and peered out into the wet night. The fire escape was right there! Rose gave a smile of satisfaction. They wouldn't have to go out through the cellar after all. If only the window would open.

She pulled at the catch. It was stiff but it moved. Ali gave her a curious look.

'What are you doing?'

'Getting us a way out, I hope,' said Rose. 'Let's see if our luck is holding, shall we?'

She gripped the bottom of the old sash window and heaved. With a terrible rattle, it slid upwards. Cold air and rain swirled in. Rose could have cried with relief. She stuck her head out of the window. The courtyard below was dark and empty. A badly fixed 111 security light banged back and forth in the wind, sending fingers of light dancing across the wet flagstones.

Rose ducked back inside, crouching down and gripping Ali by the shoulders.

'Right. There's a ladder out there. A fire escape. I want you to climb down, get over to the tunnel and go!'

Ali looked frightened. 'What about you? What are you going to do?'

'I need to look inside that room.' Rose nodded over at the door. 'As soon as I've seen what's inside, then I'll follow you.'

Ali shook her head. 'I want to stay with you.'

'No.' Rose's voice was stern. 'You've got to go! If I don't get out, if they get me again, then you have to find the Doctor and tell him where I am.' She ruffled Ali's hair. 'I need you to do this for me. I need to know that you're safe. OK?'

Ali thought for a moment, then nodded solemnly.

'Good girl.'

Rose caught Ali under the arms and swung her up on to the window sill. Ali grimaced as rain splashed against her face, ducked through the window and carefully lowered herself down on to the metal platform of the fire escape. The ladder vibrated alarmingly.

'It doesn't feel very safe.' Ali looked up at Rose nervously.

'You'll be fine.' Rose tried to sound confident. 'These things always wobble a bit. Now go. Quick as you can!'

She watched as Ali turned and made her way unsteadily down the rickety fire escape, brus.h.i.+ng her wet hair out of her eyes. She reached the bottom and hovered nervously next to the wall of the house, staring at the dark courtyard. Then, with a last look up at Rose, she dashed across to the lean-to, splas.h.i.+ng through the water that was pooled on the flagstones.

The little girl reached the shed and, with a little wave back up at the house, vanished from view. Rose gave a sigh of relief. She was safe. From the aliens inside the house at any rate. The dark woods were ominous and oppressive, but for the moment they were mercifully free of the roars and shrieks of the creatures. Ali was a smart girl and 112 she knew the woods like the back of her hand. She'd get home OK. . . wouldn't she?

Desperately trying to convince herself that she was doing the right thing, Rose pulled her head back inside and slid the window closed. The cold rain and fresh air had cleared her head a little and the sickness in her stomach was slowly fading. Brus.h.i.+ng her hair back, she crept down the corridor to the door, pressing her ear up against it and listening for sounds of movement from within.

She frowned. She couldn't hear movement, but rather something that sounded like. . . breathing.

She pulled back from the door, unsure about what to do. Perhaps the six ancient figures downstairs weren't the only patients that Morton had locked away. Tentatively she reached out for the bra.s.s door handle. It turned easily and the door swung open. Rose stepped into the room beyond. And felt the scream start to build in her throat. The big Range Rover swung into the estate, lights blazing, and pulled up on the edge of the wood in a shower of spray. The pa.s.senger door swung open and the Doctor bounded out into the rain.

'OK, you wait here and keep an eye out for us. If anything with big pointy teeth comes out of the woods, leg it!'

Mervyn nodded, his face grim. The Doctor gave him a rea.s.suring smile. The drive up from the pub had been a fraught one. The children were waking up, but it was taking a while and a few monsters still stalked the streets. The dent in the side door and the thick, dark ichor that was splashed across the bonnet of the Range Rover evidence of a closer encounter with one of the creatures than either Mervyn or the Doctor had wanted.

'Doctor, I'm sorry.' Mervyn held out an apologetic hand. 'For earlier. . . '

'Oh, don't worry.' The Doctor shook his hand vigorously. 'I do this sort of thing all the time!' Then, with a broad grin, he slammed the door and vanished into the trees.113.

Mervyn watched him go. 'Yes, I'm beginning to believe that,' he muttered finally.

Peyne tapped at the controls in front of her in puzzlement. Readings were slowly shutting down across the board. One by one, readouts were starting to drop to tickover levels, lights going dark on banks of instruments.

She glanced over at the others. Her technicians were darting from console to console, the once quiet air of efficiency starting to acquire a tinge of panic.

'Hadron!' she barked at one of the hurrying figures. 'What is happening?'

The masked figure quickly came over. 'We're not sure, Priest Commander.' The voice was m.u.f.fled and indistinct. Peyne tore off Hadron's mask with an angry snarl.

'What do you mean you're not sure? Subconscious brainwave activity energy is dropping to unsustainable levels!'

'Yes, Priest Commander.' The Cynrog technician shuffled under her glare, forked tongue flicking across his thin lips. 'But the fault is not here. The fault seems to lie with the imagers themselves.'

'Impossible!' snarled Peyne, thrusting the flaccid human mask back at him. 'Check the generators! At once!'

As Hadron saluted sharply and hurried out of the ward, Peyne turned angrily back to the dropping readouts. The Synod was relying on her. The entire campaign plans of the Cynrog rested with her. All had been going exactly as planned until now. Until the arrival of this interfering Time Lord. She gritted her teeth. They could not fail now. Not when they were so close to completion, so close to being able to leave this primitive backwater planet. She longed to feel dry sand under her feet again and the warmth of the suns on her skin, not this constant grinding dampness.

She wriggled uncomfortably in her human disguise. She wanted to be free of the constraints of this unpleasant body and the constant irritation of Nathaniel Morton. But she would do her duty; she would complete her mission.114.

Abandoning her useless controls in frustration, she crossed the ward to one of the sleeping figures. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. These humans were weak, feeble things, susceptible to every disease the planet had to offer. It amazed her that they survived at all, let alone that they made it into old age like these pathetic specimens. But for now the humans were necessary. More than that, they were essential and so she would bide her time. When the moment came she would enjoy the subjugation of this miserable planet. She would enjoy watching Balor destroy it if he saw fit.

She ran a hand over the forehead of the sleeping figure.

'Soon, Balor,' she hissed. 'Soon.'

Rose stared in fascinated horror at the room. It was huge and very dark, a library by the look of things: bookcases on every wall, the shelves piled high with ancient, dusty tomes. Like practically every other room in the house, the furniture had been cleared away and the resulting empty s.p.a.ce adapted to another purpose. Here the once elegant antique tables now groaned under the weight of alien machinery, lights glimmering in the gloom. The thick cables that wound into the room coiled their way up the tall bookcases, splitting and dividing, spreading out through the room like a tangled spider's web, looping their way to four heavy, ugly cl.u.s.ters of alien technology, one hanging in each corner of the room. Energy crackled from the machines, sending flickering fingers of electricity arcing across the library. There was a smell like summer lightning. And hanging in the midst of the lightning was the thing. Rose took a tentative step into the room, trying to get a better view through the dancing spears of light. The thing was huge, a ma.s.s of glistening flesh hanging suspended in the electrical web. Rose rubbed at her eyes. It was difficult to make out its shape properly. One minute she thought she could see scales and ridged skin, the next it looked like fur or, worse, like dead, pale human flesh.

Gooseb.u.mps ran across her skin and she felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. Her heart was pounding in her chest, her breathing becoming faster and faster. She forced herself closer to the 115 monstrous shape. Every fibre of her being screamed at her to run, to get out of this place as fast as her legs would carry her, to run and not look back, to hide from this monstrosity before it reached out for her and dragged her into that horrible crackling web. She swallowed hard, trying to control the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. She had to let the Doctor know what was going on. He was relying on her and she wasn't going to let him down. She forced herself to take a step closer, then another. Waves of energy seemed to ripple across the creature, almost changing its shape as they washed around it. Horns and claws and tusks seemed to appear and disappear across the writhing skin. One minute it looked almost humanoid, the next it was something hunched and animal-like. High above her, almost pressed against the ceiling, Rose thought she could make out the shape of a head of some kind. Shadows flitted this way and that, making it difficult to see. She leaned closer. She had to get a proper look.

The creature's eyes flicked open.

The Doctor raced through the wood, branches whipping at him as he followed the line of the old rectory wall. The villagers were now integral to his plan, giving him time. With the kids awake, the woods would be safe, and no monsters to avoid meant that he didn't need to be stealthy. But it also meant that whatever was going on at the rectory would now be interrupted, and that probably wouldn't be a good thing for Rose. He had to get inside quickly, preferably unseen. Ali's mysterious tunnel seemed like the best way. If all went the way that he hoped, then Morton's plans would be interrupted until morning. It was unfortunate that he had so many disparate elements to deal with. The lighthouse was out of the way and tricky to get to which was no doubt why they had used it to house the transmitters in the first place the rectory was tucked away on the cliff tops and Bronwyn was down in the village. The Doctor still wasn't certain how Bronwyn Ceredig fitted into the puzzle, but she was part of it, of that he had no doubt. Bronwyn, Nathaniel Morton and a small boy called Jimmy who was almost cer116 tainly Bronwyn's son. All of them pieces of a puzzle he still had to solve. . .

'In between rescuing Rose and Ali, dismantling the transmitters and stopping all this ever happening again. I do do love holidays by the sea!' love holidays by the sea!'

The tangle of rhododendron bushes and broken brickwork that Billy Palmer had told him about loomed out of the darkness. The Doctor pushed his way through the wet leaves and into the remains of the old coalbunker. The tunnel entrance was only partially concealed. Billy had said that they'd left in a hurry.

The Doctor pulled the sodden plywood to one side, peering into the dark.

'Cold, wet tunnel. . . just my sort of thing!'