Part 33 (1/2)

'You want to go there?' said Bregman. 'Why, for G.o.d's sake?'

The Doctor leaned towards her, conspiratorially.

'I'm half-stupid,' he said. 'On my mother's side. If you feel up to the walk, it'd be nice to have some company.'

Up close, the castle/car park looked even worse than Bregman had expected. She guessed it'd take a good few hours to walk all the way around the base of it, so G.o.d knew how long it'd take to get to the top level. Through the opening at the front of the building, she could see the layout of the ground floor, a concrete hangar the size of a football field, marked with lines of white paint and splashes of dried blood. Bare yellow bulbs hung from the ceiling in their thousands, filling the building with a sick electric light, while the dead loitered in the shadows of the supporting columns, doing nothing in particular, the way only the dead really know how to do nothing in particular. The columns were stained with black graffiti, Bregman noticed, although you couldn't make out the letters. Presumably, there were no names in Mictlan.

The Doctor took it all in, but didn't seem fazed. Bregman wondered whether he was seeing a car park, too, or something worse. She felt it was fair to a.s.sume this was her her version of purgatory. She doubted it'd look the same to anyone else. version of purgatory. She doubted it'd look the same to anyone else.

A couple of minutes later, they found the way up to the next level, a fifteen-metre-wide stairwell set halfway along the ground-floor wall. The steps were huge, big enough to make Bregman think of a set from an old Hollywood musical. You could imagine the leading lady high-kicking her way down the stairs, belting out the theme song and trying not to break her stilettos on the solid concrete. The bulbs at the top of the stairway had blown, so everything faded into darkness after the first few dozen steps.

The Doctor started bounding up the stairs, two or three at a time. Bregman tried to keep up with him, but failed miserably. In the end, she had to shout at him to stop.

'I'm not well, all right?' she said, when she saw him glance back at her over his shoulder.

The Doctor looked agitated, but at least he'd stopped bouncing. 'I don't suppose there's any need to hurry. I was hoping to catch Trask before he handed the Relic over to the Celestis, but I think we're already too late for that. We're going to have to deal with the Celestis face-to-face.'

'”We”?'

The Doctor seemed taken aback. 'I'm sorry?'

Bregman stopped a couple of steps below him, and caught her breath. 'You wanted me to follow you here, OK? And so far, all I'm doing is slowing you down. Whatever you're doing, it's got nothing to do with me. I don't even know why you're here. So why drag me along? I mean, don't think I'm not enjoying the experience or anything.'

But the Doctor turned out to be entirely sarcasm-proof. 'It's got something to do with a tree falling in a forest,' he said, as if that explained everything. 'Oh, look. We've got company.'

Bregman looked up. At the top of the stairway (or, more accurately, at the point where the stairway vanished into the darkness), things were moving. Person-shaped things, shambling down the steps, muttering among themselves as they descended. Without thinking, Bregman took a step backwards, and almost lost her balance.

More of the dead. You could tell by the way they walked. But these moved with a purpose, and you could see, even through the shadows, that they had some traces of ident.i.ty left in them. The zombie elite, Bregman guessed. The chosen ones of Mictlan. One by one, the shapes staggered into the light, their eyes fixed on the Doctor.

The first of the dead men was black. He wore a brilliant red flower on his lapel, and there was a sharp white grin cut into his face, but it was a corpse's grin, the grin of someone who no longer had any need for a sense of humour.

Behind him, there were two figures dressed in dark designer suits, their faces pale, their hair cropped in a military style. Both wore sungla.s.ses, which hardly seemed appropriate here, and both had their hands tucked into their inside jacket pockets, fondling the handles of concealed firearms.

Two more humanoid figures stumbled into the light after them. Bregman thought of the slimy drug dealers you used to see in programmes like Miami Narcs Miami Narcs. The men had tanned skin and greasy hair. Their teeth were sharpened to points, and they wore gold medallions around their necks, although Mictlan had worn down the metal until it was almost as grey as the stairwell itself.

Next came a short, square-shouldered man, his hair slicked back and greying at the temples, his eyes points of black in a flabby white face. He looked like every G.o.dfather figure in every gangster movie ever made, and his head was almost lost in the enormous fur wrap he wore around his neck. The wrap was wriggling on his shoulders, needle-sharp teeth snapping at each end. A fas.h.i.+on accessory that wanted its own back.

The last two figures were both alien. The first was jet black in colour, covered in a carapace much like a beetle's, its arms ending in enormous lobster-like claws. Two steps above it stood a shape dressed in an ornate golden robe, a huge semicircular collar raised behind its head. Bregman got the feeling the robe was supposed to be a parody of a much more elegant style of clothing.

The eight figures, Mictlan's finest, marched down the steps in perfect time, until the nearest of them wasn't more than a metre or two from the Doctor. Then they stopped.

'The agents of the Celestis,' the Doctor mused. He didn't seem worried, and he hadn't backed away while the dead had been advancing. He glanced over his shoulder. 'It's all right, Kathleen. They're only puppets. Stand behind me, you'll be quite safe.'

Bregman hopped down a couple of steps anyway, but she didn't take her eyes off the dead. 'Safe how, exactly?'

'You're not really here, remember. Your mind is in Mictlan. Your body's safely back on Earth.'

'And what about you?'

The Doctor cleared his throat. 'I'm afraid I brought my body with me. I didn't really have a choice. Ah. Mr Trask.'

A ninth figure had appeared out of the darkness. Bregman almost choked. It was the thing... the person... the man man... she'd met in the ziggurat, just after she'd arrived in the Unthinkable City. The one who'd made her throw up.

And he was still smiling.

'Not true,' the creature told the Doctor.

'I beg your pardon?'

'Not true. Not safe. Her mind is here. So we can mark it. Make her one of ours.'

Bregman had no idea what this meant, though she saw the muscles tense up all over the Doctor's body, so she guessed it wasn't nice. 'You wouldn't dare,' he said.

'We could. We won't. Not the way we work. Never mark agents against their will. Never.' Trask indicated the figures around him with a stiff, mechanical wave. 'Us. All of us. We chose this. Chose to serve the Celestis.'

Bregman tried to focus on the man's face, but failed, the same way she'd failed the last time she'd seen him. Like most of the dead souls in Mictlan, he'd lost everything that had made him human, until his face was just a collection of lumps and holes, a shape without meaning.

As she watched, something else floated out of the shadows. It was the casket, Bregman realized. The moment it appeared, the Doctor's body went stiff as a board.

'The Relic,' Trask said. 'It's ours. Paid for it. Rules of the auction. We won.'

”Rules”? ”Won”? The Doctor turned to Bregman again. 'You see how the Celestis think? Whatever happens in the real world, it's all a game to them. Without their bodies to hold them down, all they've got to worry about are their own little political feuds. They don't care who wins the war, as long as it makes life more interesting for them.'

'Yes,' said Trask. 'Games are important. Rules are important. Always obey the rules. Always honour agreements. Always keep deals. Cheating, otherwise. Like you cheat.'

The Doctor sniffed petulantly. 'I never cheat. Admittedly, I do sometimes make the game more complex, but I never cheat.'

'The Celestis had a deal. With you. You broke it.'

'Deal? What deal?'

Ancient muscles cracked and flexed inside Trask's face. 'The Celestis agreed. To let you conclude the battle on Dronid, in your own way. Without interference. In return, you promised. Promised your body. Now you want to steal it back. Cheating.'

'Not true,' the Doctor protested. 'I've never even met the Celestis, I've certainly never made any deals with them.'

'You will. One day.'

The Doctor looked alarmed. 'You're trying to hold me to a promise I haven't actually made yet?'

'Yes.'

'But that's not fair!'

'You promised. You made a deal. In your future.' And as one, the other figures on the stairway began to move again, those at the back of the formation turning to flank the Doctor. Trask kept croaking. 'We need your body. The Celestis need your body. To give you the mark. To make you ours. Our agent.'

Bregman hopped down another couple of steps, but the Doctor stayed where he was, his head held high. 'You can't have the Relic,' he reiterated, obviously doing his best to keep his voice steady.