Part 15 (1/2)

'We're travelling under a cloud, Sam. We're bringing the curse of the Scarlet Empress with us.'

'Don't be so melodramatic. Curse of the Scarlet Empress. Sounds like a B movie.'

'A what?'

'Oh.' She stopped. Right in the path she could have sworn should lead outside, there stood the trunk of a gnarled tree, wider than she could stretch her arms.'We've lost our way.'

Iris was freed like a magician's a.s.sistant who steps from the glossy, lacquered cabinet all in one miraculous piece.

'It's just like old times, Doctor,' she said ruefully. 'Remember Venice and those awful fish people, and Wilde and -'

'Oh, come on,' he said irritably, glancing around before he jumped off the platform. The whole ensemble shuddered with the thunder.'You're lucky you weren't struck by lightning, sitting in that...' He struggled for a word.

'Egg-slicer thing,' she supplied, and heaved herself off the stage. She glanced up at the hydra, which was still attacking the palace, sending rubble crumbling to the wet ground.'How on earth did you summon up that thing?'

He started to run for the bus.'Would you believe black magic?'

'No,' she panted, struggling through the black, b.l.o.o.d.y mud.

'Neither would I,' he said, and stopped. 'Ah.'

Behind them the Executioner had reappeared, this time wielding the remote-control device from his belt. He had nipped back to fetch it and now he was powering the thing up with a furious expression. The air between Iris, the Doctor and the waiting bus was s.h.i.+mmering and warping as something else started to take form.

Iris said, ”That's his machine for deluding people.'

The Doctor stared.'I thought it must be.'

Before them, standing taller than the roofs around them, coalesced the stout and snarling figure of a gryphon. Its lion's body was coiled to pounce, its eagle's head clashed a voracious beak.

'It's an illusion,' said the Doctor hopefully.

'I don't think so,' said his.

To check, the Doctor went running towards it.

The gryphon beat its vast, all-too-corporeal wings twice and reached out one golden paw.

Too late, the Doctor skidded to a halt. He brushed the hair from his eyes with both hands. 'It's real!' Then he was s.n.a.t.c.hed up and lifted high into the stormy air.

'Doctor!' bawled Iris.

Behind her the Executioner cackled and made some final adjustments.

The Doctor came eye to eye with the gryphon. The claws dug into his sides.'Are you real?' he asked aloud, staring into eyes as wide and round as cartwheels.

Iris swore again. Her turn to rescue him, this time.

While the gryphon was preoccupied, she scurried off towards the bus, grimacing at the pain in her arms. She kept her nerve and shot under the creature's legs, gagging at its musty stench.

The bus. There it was, untouched, waiting for her as ever.You're either on the bus or off the bus, she'd told her last companion when he left.

The pa.s.sengers on her bus had to be loyal to each other.When they got into tight corners, they did everything they could for each other. As she felt inside her many pockets for the key, she stole a glance back at the square and her eyes widened. This was the tightest corner she had been in for a while.

The hydraulic doors swished open and all the lights popped on. She needed to think fast.

Outside, the hydra had at last lost interest in demolis.h.i.+ng the palace. It wheeled around in the air, blasting flames and fumes to orientate itself.

All three heads fixed their burning gazes on the gryphon and saw in it a suitable rival. The hydra plunged down headlong into the square, stretching its wings to their fullest.

The Executioner was shrill with delight. He cackled merrily at the Doctor's plight. He was laughing when the hydra's breath touched him and, in one crackling discharge, burnt him to a crisp.

This caught the gryphon's attention.

The Doctor cursed and cried out as he was squeezed even tighter. He craned his neck to see the hydra shuffling, advancing across the ground on clawed, elephantine legs.

'Why don't you just put me down first?' he yelled.'And then you boys can get on with it?' But the gryphon had forgotten all about the tiny being in its grasp. With its free paw it clawed the ground, as if about to charge.

'I hate monsters,' the Doctor yelled.'Why is it always me?'

Then the hydra lunged. Its three heads struck at once, attacking from all angles. The confused gryphon reared and felt one of those fanged heads bite into its pelt, bringing up a furious welter of blood. It dropped the Doctor to the ground and grasped the middle neck of the lizard and held on for all it was worth. The Doctor crash-landed in mud, in a clatter of confused, scrabbling limbs, the wind knocked out of him.

'Doctor!'

He looked up to see the bus, all its lights blazing, dwarfed in the shadow of the behemoths.

'Get yourself away from them!'

Iris was hastily a.s.sembling what looked for all the world like a First World War bazooka on a tripod, a little distance from her s.h.i.+p. She looked manic, forcing in the gunpowder, her hair standing wildly on end. Then she slipped the mortar in and went scuttling round the back.

'Get down!' she screamed.

He pelted for cover.

A huge, over-optimistic blast rent the air.

The tussling creatures were hit full blast. For an instant they were lit up orange and black. There was a shower of filth and blood and hanks of fresh meat.

'Run!' shouted Iris and, through the dense smoke, the Doctor, skidding, sliding, deafened, ran.

She caught him. 'Here! I've got you.' She grasped his arms and with surprising force hustled him aboard the bus.

As the doors clashed shut he was lying breathless in the gangway. Iris threw herself into the driver's seat and revved the engine. 'We're off!' she said, and the bus rolled with unseemly haste out of the town square.

The Doctor dragged himself to his feet to see the gryphon and the hydra, both hideously injured, blackened and hanging together by threads, still raking and pulling at each other.