Doctor Who - Missing Adventures - 19 - The Man In The Velvet Mask by Daniel O'mahony

Author:Daniel O'mahony
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, General, Doctor Who (Fictitious Character), Mystery & Detective, Fiction
ISBN: 9780426204619
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1996-03-14T07:00:00+00:00

There was a girl he had raped once, or twice, or thrice. It had been a cold night, and he'd lit a fire in her hearth before setting to her. She hadn't screamed once, but met his efforts with a defiant, hateful silence. She screamed now. He could hear her.

The light burst out of the shells of the demons, scattering more dust across the field. Two radiant lights hovered in the air above their corpses, then leapt into the air, spiralling endlessly towards Heaven. Their voices still sang, still screamed.

Two nights ago, he had murdered a woman and stolen her blood. She had screamed.

He blinked, noticing that the demon voices were gone, that the demon bodies were reduced to mounds of fine dust.

There was a commotion in the background, the shocked murmurs of the first few to notice Randolph's attack. He was still moving, stalking his final target. Though he still 180

wore the deathmask, he had pulled his pistol from his belt, raising it to Arouette's head. The player stood her ground, perhaps shocked by the sudden attack on her allies, perhaps trying to face Randolph down.

That wouldn't work. Randolph no longer had a face.

Someone screamed on the edge of the crowd. A man's voice, calling out a name. It took Garce a moment before he realized that it wasn't another bad memory. A man shoved past him, knocking him aside in his flight. By the time Garce regained his balance the man was bearing down on Randolph, swinging a bottle towards his head. Garce opened his mouth to shout a warning, but his partner's name died unspoken on his lips. Randolph wouldn't hear. The mask would, but the mask was not Randolph.

Randolph sensed the danger anyway, and swung round to confront it. The bottle shattered against his face, his mask, sending glass and red wine and blood in a shower across the field. The pistol exploded in Randolph's hand, sending his assailant sprawling backwards, a red wound opening on his chest. He struck the earth with a delicious thud.

He was screaming. His voice pierced Garce, like a cold silver needle through the heart. On an impulse, he pulled out his own pistol and put a ball through the back of Randolph's skull. It should have killed him, but he stood for a moment, as if contemplating what had happened and trying to make sense of it. Then he fell, silently, not screaming.

Garce threw down his pistols and ran from the campsite into the dark of the silent city. The screams pursued him.

Bressac could hear the blood rushing through his ears, carrying the sound of his heartbeat with it. It was a painful throb, stumbling and growing ever slower. He was lying awkwardly on the ground, his back and his hair plastered with wet earth. Shards of glass were crushed into the palm of his right hand, and his ribs felt shattered and soft and wet.

They were twinges, not real pain.

In the night he would lie awake listening to his heart.

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