Doctor Who: Drift (27 page)

‘Maybe you’re not getting me,
Lieutenant,’
he strained as though shouting the full distance, ‘but we’ve lost Marotta.

We’re still engaged in the search.’

‘
I know
.’ The radio made the woman sound even more callous.
Of course you know,
he swore in his head,
I Just told
you.
‘We don’t have a choice, Garvey, so I’m not giving you one. Drop the search and haul ass up to this cabin. Detail two riders to try for an intercept and you and I can argue this face to face - later.’

Garvey swore again and surveyed the squad, who had been busy gathering around while he’d been on the radio. Landers looked like he knew he wasn’t going to like his orders.

Damn it. Garvey was definitely going to take up voodoo after this was over.

The Doctor bent low behind the visor, teeth clenched like some ivory grille over a jet intake, and braced his frame for another impact. The snowmobile bounced, full throttle, off another ridge and its chassis rattled, while the Doctor grimly kept it on course.

From a distance, the vehicle might have resembled a skimming stone, clipping the crests of glacial waves. For the Doctor, riding that stone, the reality was a very bumpy ride and a series of rough shocks that any lesser system might have had trouble absorbing. Such was the price of driving as the crow flies, although the Doctor sincerely doubted whether any crow had ever experienced this level of turbulence.

His hat was clamped tightly over his head with the scarf once again, while the tails of his great coat flapped behind him like grey wings. In his pocket, the weight of the graviton distortion sensor loitered on the periphery of his senses. He had already taken a preliminary reading from within the town and he hoped he might soon be able to triangulate on that signal to pinpoint the TARDIS.

But before he could complete that search, he needed to find Leela. And the only way to do that was to drive straight into the heart of the curse that had befallen this mountain.

White death.

Makenzie wondered if it was his own shadow, looming large over Amber’s bed, that was keeping her awake. Even so he couldn’t bring himself to leave, mindful that his movements might break the fragile emotion in the scene, as a tearful mother stroked the child’s hair and urged her to sleep.

Amber seemed oddly at peace, paying scant attention to Martha’s caresses and continuing to stare from her pillow out through the frosted pane, like a kid mesmerised by a blank TV screen while she waited for her favourite show to come on.

Drawing a sharp breath, Martha finally stood and let go of Amber’s hand with a kiss. Makenzie’s gaze fell into that small upturned palm.

And he backed up from the bed. Because he dared not take a closer look.

‘I guess I should be going.’ he announced, cursing himself for sounding too hurried.

A spark ignited Martha’s eyes, but she defused it in good time. She walked briskly from the room and beckoned him out into the hall with a swipe of her hand. Makenzie moved slowly and pulled the door so it was left ajar.

Martha kept her voice to a brittle whisper. ‘Isn’t it time you thought about your priorities?’

Makenzie was genuinely confounded. Maybe because his mind was still in the bedroom, standing guard over Amber and feeling just as helpless as when he had lost Laurie. His own low voice couldn’t hide his impatience. ‘What are we talking about here?’

Martha was holding back on a scream of rage. ‘The Army.

Your brother, the goddamn CIA - Curt lying dead downstairs, for Chrissakes. This town of yours is turning into a nightmare around us, and God only knows what it’s done to

her ‘.
She hammered on her heart. ‘I’m talking about
us,
Mak. Maybe you should be thinking about
us.
About getting us the hell out of here. Think fast, Mak, because it’s our future hanging in the balance.’

‘Martha, I don’t have time for-’

‘Make time!’ Martha seethed and for a moment her eyes couldn’t find their target. All too soon they were right back on Makenzie. ‘What is it you want, Mak? You want to be a father to this town of yours, or you want to be a father to my girl?’

‘I want you, Martha. I want us to be together. But there’s things I have to-’

Martha shook her head, her face a portrait of disgust sketched with heavy strokes. ‘That’s not the right answer, Mak. Go think about it some more, and let me know when you’re done. Just don’t take too long, is all.’

Makenzie swore and lifted a fist to the doorframe, only to find his eyes drawn by the narrow band of hall light that strayed into Amber’s room. He couldn’t tell Martha. He couldn’t do it.

He considered taking a second look, but there was no need.

He knew what he had seen.

A tiny scratch glistening in Amber’s hand. So much like a sliver of ice.

Easing the door closed, he spun and hurried down the hall.

He had to find the Doc.

Night and the blizzard waged war over Melvin Village, and the fighting poured down into the streets, every available space or niche seized by white drifts or black shadows. For once, darkness was on the losing side.

Morgan gave the order, another window was smashed and another Thermite grenade lobbed into another house. Five so far. Kyle withdrew as the flames erupted inside this one and sent the shadows running. Morgan didn’t care for the way Kyle was grinning.

No blaze of glory this. In fact, the opposite.

He turned away so he didn’t have to watch the house go up, but the view in the other direction was, if anything, more solemn. Derm and the remains of White Shadow were fencing back the folks of Melvin Village who had gathered to watch the pyrotechnics.

One of the hardest things Morgan had faced was the way they had all gazed on him like some sort of hero when he’d arrived. They looked like they’d been saved and he hadn’t the heart - no, the guts - to tell them straight: sorry, that ain’t my job. Now they were growing expectant, and that, for people who lived life so slow, amounted to a rapid change of mood. A mood which was even harder to take than their unqualified admiration.

Morgan had to give them something more than bonfires.

Putting on a business face, he walked up beside Derm and raised his hands. ‘Okay, folks hear me out.’ They had been utterly silent, but he was buying himself useful seconds.

Long before he had joined the Army, Morgan had learned one thing: if you are going to lie, you had best make it a damn good one.

‘The coyotes have brought some form of infection into town.

We’re sanitising the affected households, but in the meantime you folks ought to prepare for a possible evacuation.’ Yeah, that would work. ‘It might not come to that, but maybe some of you folks can get organised, gather all the vehicles, fuel and supplies you can, assemble them alongside our convoy.’

Already they were murmuring, happier with some action being taken.

For the moment it was make-work. But. since he didn’t really know the truth, the story about the coy-dogs didn’t exactly qualify-as a bona fide lie.

The cold mask that Kristal had donned went by the name of necessity. Necessity, which made its wearer at once less than human and superhuman. Kristal trusted Leela to recognise it as such, leading a swift run through the woodlands behind the cabin, seeking out, like a hunter seeks the spoor of a deer, the warmth and life that signalled another lonely home.

Kristal had done her best for the bereaved woman, and Garvey’s squad would not be overlong in coming to take care of her. Meanwhile Kristal’s mind was running over the prey’s escape route, calculating how much time they would have to make up even if-Angular silhouettes in the blizzard answered the prayers she had offered up on the run.

Directing Leela around to the right, she charged around to the driver’s side of the Cherokee, parked close to the A-frame shack. A couple of spare jerry cans were racked on the rear.

Well, they wouldn’t be needing the extra fuel, she hoped, patting the vehicle’s flank like a good horse and clambering in behind the wheel. Now all she had to do was hotwire the thing - pronto - as Leela climbed in and heaved her door shut.

After that it would be a matter of an insane drive to catch up with the fugitive. And after that, since nobody could risk firing on the pick-up, their options would be severely limited.

A spasm of cold and fatigue coursed down Emilie Jacks’

spine, and her eyelids were shutters that couldn’t make up their mind. She smacked her elbow against the door for a swift dose of pain - her preferred brand of uppers.

She had eased up on the gas right after that first skid, but even the trundling pace wasn’t much help in this mess.

Lurking behind the screen of snow, the trees were her only guide, shining in her headlights like streaks of silver frost on a charcoal window.

Beside her. the hostage mumbled, head rolling like a seasick passenger on rough waves.

Emilie could only afford a fraction of a glance, but it was enough to start her wondering why she was still keeping the woman with her. Hell, it wasn’t for the company.

In fact, Jacks realised, she was a liability. Another direction to focus on, when she could barely concentrate on the one that counted. And just having her there, was a reminder of all her holier than thou speeches. All that righteous flame burned Emilie’s gut.

Like the government were the good guys, and the Army were safe from whatever was out there. So
they,
like the Army, were out for the blood of Emilie Jacks. Jacks snorted.

No reason why the hunted couldn’t use a decoy as well as any hunter.

Slowing up some more, she reached over the slumbering hostage for the door-release.

Head down, Derm and some of the squad in his wake, Morgan Shaw was about to step up to the CPV and check on O’Neill, when the familiar bulk of Makenzie’s police truck drew by.

Shots were singing out sporadically around the town, percussion to the wind’s tuneless lament. A coy-dog cull was under way, as a direct by-product of Morgan’s minor deceit.

Morgan didn’t mind so long as the folks kept busy and there were no accidents.

He stepped out and waited as Kenzie rolled down his window. The impatience in his brother’s eyes was so evident for a moment Morgan thought he was ill.

‘You’re not telling me you got a call-out? Somebody’s cat stuck up a tree?’

Makenzie’s eyes were narrowed tight against the windblown snow and he managed only a colourless smile. ‘Nothing like.

Listen, I have to find the Doc.’

‘You do?’ Today was full of surprises.

The wind was blowing hard, streaming the flakes into vaporous plumes, like the frigid breath of some Norse god.

The town’s perimeter vanished behind scudding clouds of chill smoke.

‘Well, I wish you luck, big bro. He made for the Wentz cabin. There was a shooting.’

‘Yeah, I heard.’

Morgan leaned close in to the quarterlight. ‘Kenzie. it’s a hell of a drive ‘

‘I’ll make it. Just take care of my town while I’m gone.’

Morgan shook his head and grimaced, watching the vehicle recede into that gusting maelstrom, past which there was no suggestion of existence. And he felt the distance between himself and his brother more keenly than he had in years.

Leela’s trust in Kristal did not extend to the machine she was driving. She rode high, as though they were not properly anchored to the ground, and but for the fact they somehow remained upright, it felt like they were riding a boulder in a landslide, the way they bumped and crashed down the forested slope.

Kristal’s grip on the wheel looked the equal of a Voc’s, solid and unrelenting. Every so often she would compensate for a bad bounce with some minor nudge of the wheel.

Leela stared into the blizzard through which they appeared to be falling. Flakes died softly on the windscreen, despite the speed with which they were hurled out of the night.

Suddenly they broke from the trees and spun wildly onto a broader trail, freshly furrowed. A new tension seized Kristal, and Leela knew their prey was close.

There: up ahead and crawling around a bend, a man-made smudge on the specked canvas. It was the fugitive truck, one door flapping open like the broken wing of a lame bird.

Kristal jammed one foot down hard. Leela grasped around for a handhold.

Ray Landers was dead on his feet, but on balance he figured he’d rather be standing guard in the cold than intruding on that poor woman’s grief. Pathos was Garvey’s field of expertise, so maybe he’d see the woman okay. Meanwhile Landers could stay out of Garvey’s way.

Ray’s thoughts were still out there in the void, wondering about Marotta’s last moments. Since they’d had their orders from the Kristal Witch to abandon the search and head straight here, it was somehow easier to think that way: if the big guy was dead, it felt a little less like desertion. With all they had found when they’d got here, death was getting to be a theme.

A shout went up.

Landers trotted around to the nearest sentry. Jen Godzinski, with her blanched freckled cheeks, nodded over at the western flank.