The Algebra of Ice by Lloyd Rose

Author:Lloyd Rose [Rose, Lloyd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Science Fiction, Comics & Graphic Novels, Doctor Who (Fictitious Character)
ISBN: 9780563486213
Google: jXM-AAAACAAJ
Amazon: 056348621X
Publisher: Random House UK
Published: 2004-10-26T07:00:00+00:00

‘Where!’

‘I don’t see him. Do you?’

‘No,’ said Ethan frantically. He pointed. ‘What’s that? That hut.’

Chapter Nineteen

167

‘It’s where the skaters change their shoes.’

They started running.

Brett was, in fact, standing on the other side of the hut, his eyes alert and bright. He had been staring at the ice so long he was beginning to feel as if he weren’t really seeing it, so he glanced away – just as something hurled itself into him and knocked him over.

‘You’re done, you bastard!’ cried a young female voice. ‘You’re past tense!’

and a fist slammed into his face. Brett seized her wrist, bewildered – who was this girl, and why was she attacking him? She jerked back and to her feet, then kicked him in the head. He rolled away and she landed on his back, got a handful of hair and started pounding his face into the snow. He rolled again and grabbed for her as she fell. She was screaming obscenities, and when he caught her wrist she lunged forward, grabbed his ear in her teeth and ripped.

Brett yelled. It was like fighting an animal. He knocked her away and held her down.

‘Who are you, you little bitch!’

‘I’m the frigging angel of frigging death,’ she snarled. ‘Say your prayers, scumbag!’

Brett hit her, but this turned out to be a mistake since he had to let go of one of her wrists and she went right for his throat. He couldn’t believe how strong she was. He grabbed her wrist again and she switched her grip to his collar and pulled him down to her teeth.

‘Ace!’

For just a second, she was distracted, and that second was all Brett needed.

He hit her awkwardly, managed to stand and stumbled away. Choking and spitting, Ace started to get up, but the Doctor and Ethan each caught an arm.

‘Ace, Ace,’ the Doctor’s burr was soft and calming, ‘no more, Ace.’

‘Go after him!’ she screamed, trying to rise, slipping in the snow.

‘How badly are you hurt?’ said Ethan.

‘You’ve let him go, you’ve let him go!’ She began to sob in rage. The Doctor stroked her hair.

‘He’s much bigger than you, Ace. It was only a matter of time till he won.’

‘I’d have killed him! He ought to be dead!’

‘Yes, yes.’ The Doctor pulled her head to his chest and she sobbed against him. Ethan fell back, watching them. ‘It’s all right. They couldn’t get through.

He can’t do any more harm.’

‘He ought to be dead,’ she repeated, and wailed like a child.

Something flashed at the edge of Ethan’s vision. He looked at the sky.

168

The Algebra of Ice

‘It’s over.’

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ethan must have paced around the console room to a distance of two miles before the Doctor appeared.

‘How is she?’

‘Fine,’ said the Doctor soothingly. ‘Bruises and cuts like that can be healed in fifteen minutes.’

‘She got the bloody better of him.’

‘Indeed she did. I try not to encourage that kind of behaviour.’ The Doctor sounded a bit guilty. ‘But there’s no denying it comes in useful.’

Ethan thought ‘useful’ wasn’t really adequate but didn’t say so.

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