Doctor Who: Virgin Missing Adventures [013] - Invasion of the Cat-People by Gary Russell

Author:Gary Russell
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780426204404
Publisher: Doctor Who Books
Published: 1995-10-11T23:00:00+00:00

Episode Four

His mother had always warned him about rushing around too much in the heat, but Adoon never listened. He reasoned that, at eleven years old, he was quite capable of making up his mind as to what he did and didn’t do with his time.

Mashuk’s mother never told him what to do – and he was stinking rich now. A bit of begging, a bit of street dancing and an awful lot of purse-string cutting had made Mashuk the envy of his peers. Adoon reasoned that there was no reason why he could not learn the same tricks and make himself just as much, if not more, money.

Of course, his mother would not approve but ultimately she could not stop him. Adoon’s four younger brothers and two baby sisters dominated most of her time now. And since his father had lost both his hands after trying to rob the local Wazir’s third wife, Adoon reasoned that it was his job to bring a bit of cash into the household.

Now, rushing through the streets of lower Baghdad, with a red furry demon on his tail, he wished he had stayed at home and helped his aunts weave some carpets.

Behind him was a crash as three or four wicker baskets of fruit crashed on to the cobbled ground. Adoon knew that right now the stallholder would be opening his mouth to yell at the miscreants and would quickly shut it again when he saw the demon. Instead, all Adoon heard was a strange noise, like a stick dragged across bricks, and a sharp scream from the stallholder. A scream so wracked with pain that Adoon found himself stopping and looking – and immediately regretting it.

The demon was standing opposite the stallholder, holding him against the wall. The stallholder was squirming, trying to kick out at the demon but Adoon realized he simply could not reach. After a few more seconds the stallholder stopped squirming and the red demon released him. Adoon stared for a moment longer as the stallholder crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the wall, unmoving. Then he fled before the demon could register him.

He bolted up a flight of steps built on to a nearby block of sandstone houses. Keeping his head down so he could not be seen, he reached the top faster than he thought possible; around him flapped the assembled washing of the ten houses that made up the block, drying under Allah’s watchful gaze. No one else seemed to have seen the demon, and carefully Adoon poked his head over the parapet to look down into the street below. He could see the stallholder, who still had not moved, but there was no sign of the red demon.

Adoon tried to calm himself, stop his heart from beating so hard and loud – maybe demons could hear such things.

Maybe they could see through walls and roofs. Maybe they could reach up and snatch him down into the great pits below the desert where they came from.

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