Doctor Who: Matrix by Robert Perry & Mike Tucker

Author:Robert Perry & Mike Tucker [Perry, Robert & Tucker, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Doctor Who (Fictitious character), Time travel, London (England), Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9780563405962
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 1998-10-05T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

Ace jerked awake. She’d definitely heard something.

Something breathing, something moving. She slowed her own breathing, straining to hear over the sounds of the city and the lapping of the Thames. It must be nearly dawn... She lay for several minutes, not moving, listening.

A scuffling from somewhere beyond her door brought her jerking upright. There was something... something in the house with her. Surely it would be light soon. She decided it was time to move.

She returned to the disused dressing-room and searched among the long-discarded clothes. The dress she had taken from the TARDIS was looking shabby now, in spite of Martha Tomkins’s best efforts. She hated the maid’s uniform she had been given. The one thing that had stood her in good stead so far was the notion that she was a lady. She selected one of the best-preserved of what presumably, long ago, had been the old woman’s clothes, and put it on. From her attic room she’d salvaged her fur wrap, shawl and muffler. They were grimy, but the nights were cold. Her muffler still concealed its deadly payload of Nitro-9, and around this she stuffed handfuls of the brooches, necklaces and rings. She could search for ever for money in this place; she ought to be able to pawn this stuff for a fair amount of money. Give herself something to live on until she (or the police) could find the Doctor. Finally, grinning to herself, she pinned a bonnet to her head with a long hatpin. Might as well do this right.

She stepped out on to the still-dark landing and groped her way to the stair-top.

‘So you thought you could cheat me, did you?’ The old witch, her voice dry and freezing. ‘I suppose they told you I never come upstairs. Well, there’s a lot my nephew doesn’t know about me. I suppose they told you I was mad... Well, maybe I am!’

Ace was aware of a sudden breeze disturbing the dark, dusty stillness, and something flying at her. The hag was on her once again, hissing and cackling, bony talons, sharp nails digging into her bruised neck. Ace toppled backwards. She felt the banister crack beneath her weight. The floor vanished beneath her feet and she toppled down the stairs, the old woman still clinging to her. The muffler bounced heavily down beside Ace, shedding jewels. If the Nitro-9 went up...

She managed to break the old witch’s grip as they fell, but now the woman had hold of the front of Ace’s dress, snatching at her bonnet.

‘I know how to fix scheming little she-cats like you,’ the old woman hissed. Her hand flashed forward. In the last of the moonlight Ace saw the vicious glint of her hatpin. She howled with pain and anger as it plunged into her arm.

For a frozen moment the two women lay at the bottom of the stairs, motionless. In that moment, Ace saw the old woman’s expression change from one of mad triumph to one of momentary confusion, nausea, fear.

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