Part 15 (2/2)

'You won't feel that way after your exorcism. I look forward to serving my Lord by helping cleanse your tainted souls.'

Kat shuffled around to present him with her back. Ryallen snorted and turned away. Chris whispered urgently to his fellow captive: 'Exorcism?'

'The cult worked out that the Devil is allergic to wood and iron oxide. So if anyone has a demon inside them, the best cure is to put some rusty nails into a plank and beat them to death.'

'Oh.'

'Any ideas?'

'The way I see it,' said Chris, 'we have three choices. One: 119 we die. Not recommended. Two: we escape.'

'Which might lead us back to ”one”,' said Kat.

'Or three: Enros will spare us if we say we believe in him. So why don't we - and here's a really off-the-wall suggestion - say ”We believe in Enros”?' I've been hanging around Bernice too long, he thought as he said it.

Kat shook her head. 'Once we allow Enros to get his claws into us, we might as well be dead. You especially. He won't give you the chance to escape until you've been up on a few soapboxes, preaching to the non-believers.'

'Hmmm. I couldn't do that. Not lure more people into this.'

'So it's ”h.e.l.lo rusty nails”,' said Kat gloomily.

'Unless we try for option two,' said Chris. 'There is only one guard, after all.' Escaping, he recalled, was the one thing they had got right last time.

'That's one more than they need. This place is a labyrinth, crawling with brainwashed zombies. There are two ways out: conversion and death. n.o.body's managed any other.'

'Perhaps,' said Chris, casting around for an idea, 'we could steal some robes? Put up the hoods and pretend to be cultists?'

'Oh yeah,' Kat said reproachfully. 'Like no one's thought of that!'

'It seems to me,' Chris pressed on, a little put out by her att.i.tude, 'that Enros's greatest weapon is fear. He's built up his own legend so that people think he's invincible.'

'n.o.body's proved otherwise.'

'Then it's time we did. Let's get out of here. But, instead of fleeing, let's go back to the Great Hall. We can show everyone how tough Enros really is!'

Kat'lanna wanted to believe - Chris could see that in her eyes - but still, she was reluctant to take the risk.

He nodded towards Ryallen and lowered his voice. 'It does mean we get to slug him.'

A smile tugged at Kat's mouth. 'I'm certainly warming to the idea.'

Floating; reality's harshness dragging him upwards. Chris railed against that, preferring to stay inside the bittersweet 120 dreamworld. But his eyes opened, bringing into view a pink blob which resolved itself into the Doctor's face.

'Betrayed . . .' Chris whispered. He strained to reach out but his arms were heavy, pinning him to the soft mattress (his own bed), muscles aching.

'You were taken in by a rather clever conman, I'm afraid,' the Doctor said kindly. 'It was my own evil doppelganger. He was the one who told you to destroy Detrios.'

'Evil . . .' Chris repeated faintly.

The next time he awoke, the Doctor's face was gone and there was only the white light. He screwed up his eyes against it, but although he felt exhausted and sick, the world refused to leave him alone.

Eventually, he gave in. He pushed back the sheets, dimly registering that he was fully clothed. The world spun as he hoisted himself upright. Then Chris's mind drifted and he found himself leaning against a wall in the corridor outside, making his way towards the console room with his brain on auto-pilot.

He tried to operate the TARDIS: a mad idea, his senses screamed. It was far too complex for even a rational man to handle without the Doctor's experience - Q'ell had taught him that. Chris wasn't feeling rational right now. He wanted to get back to Detrios, to Kat'lanna. Failing that, he wanted to be out of this madhouse and away from the Doctor and his heartless gloating about the planet's fate as arranged by his own hands.

He pulled at levers and punched b.u.t.tons desperately - and his stomach lurched as the room tipped sideways and he hurtled into the Doctor's hatstand, bruising his skull.

Either Chris blacked out or the Doctor appeared from thin air, rus.h.i.+ng about the console with an expression of concern. The TARDIS righted but Chris's stomach remained at ninety degrees to the rest of his body. He coughed and was almost sick on the floor. Then he tried to get up to reach the controls again, but he felt as though powerful hands were pus.h.i.+ng him back down and into dreams and memories once more.

Time s.h.i.+fted, patterned with kaleidoscopic colours.

They were in the Great Hall, Chris nursing bruised knuckles: 121 frustration had made him overzealous in despatching Ryallen (he denied to himself that he might have been trying to impress Kat'lanna). There was one problem: the alcove, and Enros's throne, were empty.

'What do we do now?' asked Kat.

He was at a loss. 'Make a run for it? Hide until he comes back?'

She didn't answer. Chris saw why. She was staring over his shoulder, eyes like saucers. He knew what he would see before he turned.

'You didn't imagine I would be unprepared for such an attack?' said Enros quietly, as he stepped from the shadows.

Chris and Kat kept very still, believing implicitly that the mad G.o.d would use his pistol at the slightest provocation. 'I am omnipotent, after all. My eyes see everywhere.' More likely they had tripped an alarm, Chris thought, and given Enros time to seek concealment.

His own eyes were rooted upon the man himself: not the image of a deity, more that of a corpse. Looking at Enros, he could see how he might well have existed for, if not centuries, then at least some decades longer than his contemporaries. His skin was festering, sliding off grey bones as it mouldered to paste. He was only held together at all by a gleaming silver exo-skeleton, which seemed to comprise at least two-thirds of his body. Between metal ribs, Chris glimpsed horrific brown misshapes suspended in a greenish liquid. A rubber device like a pair of bellows expanded and contracted in the chest area, controlling the monstrosity's respiration.

'And I thought your followers were zombies!' said Kat.

'My appearance,' Enros stated, 'is an unfortunate side effect of my divine immortality.'

'Divine?' Kat scoffed. 'The only secret to your extended life is money. You take what you can from your followers and use it on surgery and cybernetics to keep your own miserable self alive!'

Her anger was beginning to overcome her sense. Chris squeezed her arm to pull her back from the brink. It was too 122 late.

Enros clicked his fingers and six cloaked figures appeared from the Great Hall. Three cl.u.s.tered about Kat and seized her despite her frenzied objections. 'You are beyond redemption,'

said Enros solemnly. 'You will be executed, your corpse hung above the entrance to our church as a disincentive to your misguided followers.'

Chris cried out and reached for her but the other cultists had moved in, pinning his arms to his sides. Enros was saying something, no doubt offering one last chance for salvation. All he had to do was say he believed, add the considerable weight of his alien heritage to Enros's crusade. That way, he could live.

But Chris had eyes only for Kat's lithe form, ferociously struggling as she was dragged out of his life forever. His gaze lingered even after she was out of sight. Then he felt the sharp, precise pain of a needle point entering his thigh and that, coupled with the fear of what they might have done to him, refocused his attention onto Enros.

The cult leader sounded almost disappointed. 'You will prove valuable to me one way or another. I had hoped you would stand by me, proclaiming my interplanetary fame. Instead, you will just have to die on the altar, to fuel my followers' faith in their Lord and deter those who would strive against me.' The words started to echo as Chris found his concentration failing.

Enros gave a harsh laugh. 'And, of course, the organs you donate to me will be put to good use.'

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