The Cabinet of Light by Daniel O'Mahony

Author:Daniel O'Mahony [O'Mahony, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9781903889183
Publisher: Telos
Published: 2003-08-17T22:00:00+00:00

5: SENSITIVE CRIMINALS

Doctor?

He’s still out cold.

He can hear us. I know he can.

They’d chloroformed him and now there was a hard lump of blood on his tongue. He had little time to struggle, the gang had surrounded him and pinned his limbs while they pressed the pad over his mouth, but they hadn’t hurt him. There was a hard streak of muscle at the base of his neck, from the awkward pose he’d slept in. He was sure he’d been moved, even with his eyes closed he didn’t recognise his surroundings.

The scent, the acoustics, were wrong. He had an impression of being underground. There was a warm dampness in the air but it tasted stuffy and enclosed, laced with a flowery perfume. He picked up two voices as he came round, one male and familiar, the other a shrill feminine tone.

There was at least a third body present, he could hear rasped breathing that suited neither voice.

He’d been unconscious upright in a chair, upholstered, not uncomfortable though his arms were bound behind his back, pinning him in place. He flexed his wrists, slowly so as not to attract attention but there was no slack in the cord and making some would take time.

The taste of acid in his mouth was too strong. Lechasseur rolled his head to one side and spat at the floor.

Oh, yuck.

I think it’s beautiful. (The man’s voice.) Can we get some of that in a jar?

How can you say it’s beautiful? (The woman – it was her perfume he could smell, the scent of dry rotting flowers).

It’s the product of a wholly exotic biology. It’s like ectoplasm.

It just looks like sick and spit.

He’s telling us he’s awake.

The aftertaste caught in his mouth, unshiftable. He inclined his head forward and opened his eyes. The light was red and pulsing behind his eyelids, he fluttered them open but the glare was still hard, the revealed world looked queasy and unsettled. He smelt something smouldering, but it was in his mind. Lechasseur didn’t get real headaches, not any more, and these disorientating moments of waking were the closest he came to reliving them.

His lips flickered like his eyes, his mouth almost too dry to make words.

‘Hei-Heil Hitler,’ he stammered.

‘You know, that’s twice as amusing the second time around,’ said Eric Walken.

‘What does he mean?’ squeaked the girl. ‘You didn’t say anything about Hitler.’

‘I’m joking,’ Lechasseur mumbled. There was a movement at his feet.

He glanced down through bleary eyes and saw another man on his knees, wrapping up discarded acid-spittle in a handkerchief. He was a big guy with cropped hair, a gorilla in evening dress. As Lechasseur’s eyes settled on him he rose self-consciously and, at a nod from Walken, left the room, clutching his precious find in indelicate fingers. On his way, he looked back at the captive, then at Walken, with slow concerned eyes.

‘Don’t worry, he’s not going to hurt us,’ Walken told him.

‘I don’t know,’ Lechasseur warned, the strength returning to his voice, ‘he might.’ He shrugged the pins-and-needles out of his body and made himself comfortable in the chair.

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