Part 18 (1/2)

'Am I to take it that you believe my daughter to be under some sort of unnatural influence?' s...o...b..ld asked. He had to shout to make himself heard above the sound of the wind and the rain. It was the emptiness of her expression that had unsettled him and brought him chasing out after the Doctor. Her wide, dead eyes.

The Doctor seemed not to notice the inclement weather. He was standing in the middle of the driveway, amongst the diminis.h.i.+ng islands of grey slush that were even now was.h.i.+ng away. He was already drenched. 'Don't you?' he shouted back.

There was a fierce storm coming, s...o...b..ld could feel the heady atmosphere that often preceded the worst of them. He staggered through the rain towards the Doctor, holding his jacket closed, fumbling for the b.u.t.ton. He was soaked through before he had taken five steps. 'No,' he retorted. 'No, of course I don't. The idea is absurd.'

'Yet you were willing to entertain the notion that Lord Urton that your friend might be possessed.'

s...o...b..ld slipped on the wet gravel, stumbled, caught his balance by clutching at the Doctor's arm. 'Yes, but that... That was different.'

'Oh? How?'

'You saw you said. And Dobbs,' s...o...b..ld bl.u.s.tered. 'But Betty has done nothing.'

'Really?' Still the Doctor ignored the rain, though it was running in streams down his face, dripping from the end of his nose.

'Really.' s...o...b..ld stepped back. 'She is seventeen, Doctor. Adolescent. Alone.'

He said nothing.

'Her mother is long dead, G.o.d rest her soul. She's had n.o.body but her old father most of her life. She looks after me, keeps house, does the cooking, all the work I cannot afford to have anyone else do for us.' His mouth was racing ahead of his brain. He had never thought it through before. He had never had to.

He had never wanted to.

'So of course she's quiet, withdrawn,' s...o...b..ld shouted. 'Of course she is introspective and saturnine. She has n.o.body to talk to, n.o.body to confide in, n.o.body to trust. n.o.body but me.' He looked down at his feet, at the rain splas.h.i.+ng into the deepening puddles. 'She is scared of growing up, of becoming a woman. She is scared of leaving me, and she is terrified of never never leaving me.' leaving me.'

He looked back up, and saw genuine sympathy in the Doctor's expression, though his gaze seemed focused beyond s...o...b..ld, on the doorway.

'I must make time to speak to her, to be with her.' he said as he turned to look. 'I should have done so long ago.'

He felt the Doctor's hand on his shoulder as he turned and stared back at Betty, standing in the doorway. Her long hair was untied, hanging down almost to her waist. She was under the light in the porch, so that even through the driving rain he could see her freckles, her mouth slightly open, her face devoid of expression.

'Yes,' the Doctor said quietly, close to his ear. 'You should have. It's too late now.'

She started towards them, taking quick, confident steps. The rain spat and hissed round her. He stood, unable to move, unwilling to believe.

'Oh Matthew, Matthew, Matthew,' the Doctor said. 'Can't you see what is so obvious? Won't you admit to yourself what is happening?'

For an instant, s...o...b..ld felt like Jephthah, the Old Testament judge of Israel. He would give anything to be spared this. Like Jephthah, he would willingly sacrifice the first thing he saw on his return if only he was brought home safely.

The Doctor stepped round him and approached her. 'Nice weather for the time of year, don't you think?' the Doctor called into the rain.

'Thank you. It's lovely.' Her words seemed to carry despite the quietness of her voice.

'Yes,' the Doctor said, keeping his distance. 'I've been thinking about that. It's become a favourite phrase of yours hasn't it. An automatic response, something to say. Just being polite.'

He took a step back again, and turned quickly to see where s...o...b..ld was. 'It also happens to be what you said when you put on the pendant, the statuette of the fire G.o.d, of Agni.'

Her hand was immediately at her throat. Still she stepped towards them through the steaming rain. The pendant was glowing deep red, casting a diffuse light across her throat and illuminating her face eerily from below.

'Your final words, I'm sorry to say. No wonder they come back so easily, so often. To haunt you.'

The Doctor was standing beside s...o...b..ld once more.

Betty halted several steps in front of them. And now s...o...b..ld could see the drops of rain hissing and evaporating as they struck her hot form. He could see how she had walked through the rain without getting wet. He could hear the spitting and hissing of the water boiling away the instant it touched her, and a sob of anger and pity and grief broke from him.

'Betty,' he sobbed. 'Oh Betty, tell me it isn't true. Tell me it's still you.'

She smiled then. Her mouth widened, her cheek bones and eyebrows lifted.

'I don't think she has been consumed, like Urton,' the Doctor murmured. 'It's more in the nature of a possession.'

She raised her hand, bringing her other hand underneath as if reaching out for the sacrament.

'Not that it makes much difference now,' the Doctor added.

Cradled in her palm was a glowing coal plucked from the fire. Red and orange flickered within the dusty black lump. Her hand was a blackened, scorched mess beneath. As the Doctor and s...o...b..ld stood watching, a ma.s.s of flame spouted violently from her hands towards them, erupting from the glowing coal. A moment later, her forearms erupted, the fire spreading out from her palms, over her entire torso. Only her legs were still visible beneath the roaring, rolling sea of flame. She stepped towards them.

s...o...b..ld stood his ground, shouting at her, pleading, begging. He was thinking again of Jephthah, of how he must have felt when the first thing he saw on his safe return home, running to greet him, was his own daughter.

Until the Doctor dragged him back.

'It's no use, can't you see?'

They continued to back away. s...o...b..ld could feel the heat from the flames as Betty continued to advance towards him. He could feel the difference in texture beneath his feet as they stepped from the gravel of the drive on to the sodden gra.s.s of the front lawn. The roaring of the fire blotted out the sound of the gathering storm.

His foot slipped from under him and s...o...b..ld fell backwards. He pushed himself away from her on his back. The Doctor had his hands under s...o...b..ld's shoulders and lifted him, dragged him away. The ground was awash, a ma.s.s of slippery mud. s...o...b..ld's feet sank into it as they had in the snow, except that they stuck. It was an effort to lift them, to move, to back away. And if they went much further they would reach the bank at the end of the lawn, rising to the boundary wall. They might slip and slide and climb the one, but never the other. Not in time.

He fell again, and this time found himself sitting at the base of the embankment. He could feel the ground squirming, running, was.h.i.+ng away behind his back as the rainwater poured off it. Again the Doctor dragged him up.

For the first time he took his eyes off the fiery swirling pillar that was his daughter, and he glanced behind him. The rain was blowing so that it hit the wall. Narrow rivers were forming on the stone and running down to the ground with such force that they were eating into the top of the bank. As he looked, a section of the wall sagged towards them, the ground around its foundations washed away in the torrent.

A glance. Then he looked back at Betty. He saw the flames running, pouring out of her as she increased speed, racing towards them now, sensing that she had them.

The Doctor was dragging him up the steep slope. They slipped and fell. Tried again, scrabbling desperately at the liquid ground. Somehow they were at the top of the bank.

She was coming up after them. The mud exploded round her feet. The fire engulfed her legs now, dried and cracked the ground as she walked. The flames seemed to gather themselves, then the whole blazing ma.s.s hurled itself at them. s...o...b..ld had his back to the wall, felt his feet slipping from under him, could only watch the fire growing until it filled his vision, his world, his life.

Suddenly he was tumbling down the muddy slope the Doctor had knocked him sideways, winding him. The clergyman rasped in great gulps of rain*filled air as he fell. He landed on his back, saw the Doctor disappear past him. And he saw the ball of fire that had pitched towards him strike the wall with such force that he heard the explosion of heat*cracked stone.

Sparks flew from the centre of the fire. Acrid smoke billowed out. The wall was getting bigger as he watched. No it was moving, coming towards him, falling forwards knocked off its crumbling, exposed foundations.

s...o...b..ld rolled aside as the stonework shattered into the ground close by. The fiery shape of his daughter rolled molten towards him again, driven down the bank by the falling masonry. He saw her face coming at him, fire exploding from her mouth, her nostrils, the sockets of her eyes. Then she pitched downwards within the fire, a ma.s.s of stone and mortar cras.h.i.+ng on top of her, crus.h.i.+ng her into the sodden, muddy ground.

The mud exploded into smoke and steam. The sound of the hissing fire and of the falling wall almost blotted out the near*human screams. Then, the noise died. There was just the rain, and the bursting bubbles of boiling mud as the ground settled back down over her.