Doctor Who: Bad Therapy (25 page)

Everyone in the room backed away from him a little. Gordy was pleased to see the smile slip from the Doctor’s blistered face. They were scared of him now. Good.

‘Not so frigging clever now, are you?’ Gordy said, trying to keep his voice level, but it kept cracking. ‘We’ll see how frigging clever you are with a frigging bullet through your frigging face.’

The Doctor only stood there, silent and impassive.

The room brightened as the disembodied voice of the devil spoke again.

‘Why haven’t you deactivated the Toy as I ordered?’ he hissed.

‘Toy?’ Gordy didn’t know what he was talking about.

‘The boy. Dennis. Destroy it as I have shown you. Destroy it now or our contract is at an end.’

Gordy didn’t take the gun off the Doctor. ‘I will. I promise. But first I’ve gotta do something else.’

‘You don’t have to do what he tells you to do,’ the Doctor said. ‘You have a choice. Why should you choose to hurt a little boy? What possible reason could you have to do such a terrible thing?’

Gordy smiled. ‘Because the devil wants me to and once I’ve. . . I’ve killed all the people he wants dead, then he’s going to help me to take control of Soho.’

The Doctor shook his head, sadly. ‘But you know he isn’t really the devil, don’t you?’

Gordy sneered. ‘You’re just trying to save your skin by twisting everything.

I’m not stupid.’

The Doctor took a step forward. ‘I’m not the one who thinks that you’re stupid.’ He gestured towards the large glass ball which was alight with a fiery incandescence. ‘I can’t say the same for the scientist who speaks to you through the globe.’

‘Scientist? What are you talking about? Keep back,’ Gordy ordered, as the Doctor took a second step towards him. ‘I’ve got a gun.’

138

‘Then you’ve got nothing to be worried about, have you?’

the Doctor

replied, taking a third step. ‘Gordon, listen to me. If the voice in the crystal ball really belonged to the devil, would he need you to do his evil work for him? If it really was the devil in there, why doesn’t he just drag his victims down to the Gates of Hell himself? The Prince of Darkness would hardly need a mortal man to help him destroy his enemies, now would he? Well?’

‘You’re just trying to trick me,’ Gordy said, his voice uncertain.

‘No, I’m not. But he is. I recognized that globe when I first saw it: it’s part of a device for travelling through time and space.’

Gordy relaxed, feeling his anxieties fade as the Doctor started talking nonsense. He’d lain in bed on many nights fretting over exactly the sort of questions that the Doctor had raised – about the motives of the devil in the crystal ball. As sleep eluded him he would be forced to face the questions which he found hardest to answer: why someone as tough and as powerful as the devil had picked Gordy out from everyone else to reward. When almost everyone else in his life seemed so sure that he wasn’t up to anything at all.

The Doctor took another step. The tip of Gordy’s gun was only a few feet away from his face.

‘I’ll use this on you if you don’t keep back, Doctor. Don’t think I won’t. A lot more people are going to get it before I’m done. I’m gonna clean the dross out of my town. With the devil’s help I can make it a place for decent people to live.’

‘I see,’ the Doctor said, his voice filled with quiet distaste. ‘England for the English. Until all the faces are white and there’s no one different from you at all. No queers, no yids, no darkies.’ The Doctor seemed to consider Gordy’s dream for a moment. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh yeah? You gonna stop me?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ he said, with absolute confidence.

‘You and who’s army?’

‘That’s right.’ The Doctor gestured to where Jack, Mikey and Dennis stood.

‘Me and my army. Now put an end to the suspense. Decide whether or not you are going to shoot me.’

Gordy disengaged the safety catch on the revolver. It made a threatening click. ‘Put you out of your bleeding heart misery, more like.’

The Doctor took a further step. The gun was almost touching the top of his chest. ‘What’s it to be, Gordy? My life is in your sweaty little paws.’

Gordy couldn’t take his eyes from the Doctor’s. How could the little man be so calm even as he was looking at death down the barrel of a gun? The Doctor’s eyes were clear and focused. It was as if they were looking past Gordy’s face and into the very heart of him. It felt as though the Doctor knew exactly what Gordy was like, deep down.

139

Did the Doctor know that Gordy had never so much as pointed a gun at anyone before, let alone fired one? Did he somehow know that even despite having arranged for several people to be killed, he, himself had never had the determination or the courage to take someone’s life?

Gordy became aware that someone was speaking. It was the devil.

‘Scraton, this is your last chance. Destroy them immediately or our associa-tion is over. Do you hear me?’

And then Gordy knew that he wasn’t going to pull the trigger. He couldn’t.

Whatever it took to pull the trigger of a gun he didn’t have it. He felt a curious stillness for a moment and then the Doctor’s hand closed around the gun and he lifted it out of Gordy’s fingers.

‘When it comes down to it, killing is so much harder than you think it will be,’ the Doctor said.

‘Maybe for you,’ said a young voice, ‘but not for me.’

Gordy turned to see Carl climb to his feet. He picked up his razor from the floor where the Doctor had discarded it. ‘You should have let me see to them in the first place, Gordy. You should have trusted me. I wouldn’t ever let you down.’

Gordy looked at the Doctor. The little man’s eyes were full of fear and alarm.

Jack had been watching the Doctor’s exchange with Gordy from where he lay on the floor. The Doctor was hypnotic. It was as if he had talked the gangster out of killing them with his words. Somehow Jack knew that the Doctor’s words wouldn’t have any effect on the psychotic Carl.

He’d have to help the Doctor himself.

Jack rolled on to his back and pulled his bound arms over his legs. His hands were still tied together, but at least now they were in front rather than behind him. Hoping that the same trick would work twice, Jack slipped behind the knife-wielding man and grabbed hold of the glass sphere.

The last time he’d held it, the glass had been dark and cold. Now it was ablaze with light and was warm, almost hot to the touch.

‘Right, listen to me, all of you,’ he shouted. ‘Let the Doctor go, or I’ll smash this thing into a thousand pieces.’

Gordy, Carl and the Doctor swung round as one. Strangely it was the Doctor who appeared to be most disturbed by his actions.

‘No, Jack, put it down. You mustn’t hold the device while it’s activated. It’s more dangerous than you can know.’

‘It’s our chance to get out of here. Come on, Doctor.’ Jack backed away, until he was next to Mikey and Dennis. The brightness of the globe was making it hard to see the others in the dark room. The tips of his fingers started to 140

tingle, as if he had a bad case of pins and needles. The sensation crept up his arms and through his whole body. He tried to speak, but his mouth was engulfed by the tingling even as the first word was leaving his throat.

‘Doc–’

Jack felt an unbearable pressure against his eyes and ears and chest for a moment and then. . . nothing.

‘Bleeding Hell!’ Gordy shrieked, as more of the emerald light escaped from the globe creating a halo around Mikey, Dennis and Jack. The light intensified for a tiny moment, like a star exploding and then it died away completely.

‘Where’ve they gone?’ Gordy’s question was answered by the mocking laughter of his devil, which echoed around the cellar. The three lads had completely disappeared.

The Doctor pushed past him heading for the stairs. ‘To the home of your demon. I told you that was a device for travelling through time and space.’

Gordy glanced around the cellar. How could he contact the devil if he didn’t have the crystal ball? Panic gripped him. How could he apologize to his devil if he couldn’t speak to him? How could his devil forgive him?

The Doctor disappeared through the doorway, leaving Gordy and Carl alone in the darkened room.

The Doctor tore out of Gordy’s nightclub headquarters and into the busy streets of Soho. If he was quick he would be able to follow their trail back to the Psychiatric Institute in the TARDIS, avoiding the time-consuming task of calculating the hospital’s five dimensional coordinates. He didn’t like to think what Moriah would have planned for Jack, Mikey and Dennis when they arrived in Healey.

The streets were thick with people and it was an effort to dart between them and navigate a course to the alley where he had left the TARDIS. He’d lost the key to his ship in one of the several changes of clothes he’d made in the last couple of days, so he sent a telepathic distress call to his ship and hoped that it would open the door for him.

One half of the police box exterior was a tall oblong of blackness. The dear old thing had heard his cry for help and opened the door.

The Doctor increased his speed as he headed for the doorway, almost colliding with the uniformed man who stepped in front of the police box. The Doctor skidded to a halt.

‘That’s far enough, Doctor,’ Sergeant Bridie said. ‘Or whatever your name really is. You’re under arrest.’

141

Interlude

Gilliam’s Story

The voice called her name for a second time. It was on the edge of her aware-ness, like a partly remembered song.

‘Highness, can you hear me? Answer me, please.’

She was wrapped around something. Something warm. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Not yet. Her curled-up body felt stiff and brittle; she feared that if she moved she might crack apart. Perhaps she could just lie here for ever.

‘Highness! Please.’

She knew the voice. It reminded her of her stepfather. Protective and judgmental. It was her chancellor. Ala’dan.

She opened an eye and saw him high up above her, fluttering about anxiously.

‘You’re alive!’ The old man shouted and clasped his spindly hands together.

Gilliam looked about her. She was lying at the botttom of a deep pit. Had she fallen? She was hugging a large glass ball to her stomach. It was warm and lit from within. The sphere was one of several which described a circle in the underground chamber.

The bird/globe

And then she remembered finding the entrance to the gateway the previous night. Sinking down into the dark. Leaving her stranded, away from the protection of her thermo-tent. The warmth from the strange spheres had kept her alive, kept the freezing desert night at bay. The first queen of Kr’on Tep had built well.

Thank you, Petruska.

Gilliam climbed to her feet and looked up at Ala’dan. ‘I’m all right. You can stop praising the man-god now and think about how you’re going to get me out of here.’

Ala’dan nodded. ‘I’ll send a message to the king.’

‘No,’ Gilliam ordered, more harshly and quickly than she had intended.

‘Don’t do that. I. . . er. . . don’t want anyone to know that I did something as stupid as falling down a hole in the ground. There should be null-gravity 143

equipment in the shuttle or failing that you could just find some rope. You head the government: use your initiative.’

‘Highness?’

‘What?’

Ala’dan looked down at her and smiled warmly, his face cracking into a thousand lines. ‘It is good to see you alive.’

She waved her chancellor away, but was grinning to herself even as his face disappeared from the lip of the pit. It’s good to see you too.

She turned her attention to the chamber she had discovered. The smile was wiped from her face when she found Petruska’s remains. The skeleton was partly disintegrated, several of the grey spokes of the first queen’s ribcage were broken. A deep crack ran down the centre of her skull.

Gilliam knelt by what was left of Petruska’s body for what felt like a long time, a well of sadness growing in her stomach. Petruska hadn’t escaped: the gateway she had created to flee her oppression had become her tomb. The histories of Kr’on Tep were correct. Moriah must have discovered Petruska’s and Tol’gar’s secret plan and killed them both. Gilliam glanced around the chamber; there didn’t seem to be any signs of Tol’gar’s remains and she wondered, absently, what might have become of them. The details of what had happened all those years ago seemed less important now that she knew Petruska hadn’t succeeded. She could leave the points of history to the professor and his students.

It was only then that Gilliam realized exactly how much she had invested in Petruska’s life story. How much her own decision to abandon her life here was tied up with the first queen having escaped from Moriah’s grasp. Now that she knew how Petruska’s life had ended, it was as if she had lost the confidence to make changes to her own. Even if she did leave the king, where would she go?

Gilliam only noticed the hieroglyphs as she returned to the square of light directly beneath the hole, preparing to wait for Ala’dan’s return. They were scratched hurriedly and crudely into a dimly lit part of the wall. Compared to the beautiful and elegant symbols in the bedchamber above, these were a desperate scrawl. Gilliam almost didn’t bother to translate them. Only the thought that the sweaty professor would be the first to read Petruska’s last words, caring only for the use he could make of them, changed her mind.

With a broken hand I write of this betrayal
Moriah has clipped the wings of this bird
The circle is no longer complete and so the door is locked for ever
I am not to think of a life without him

And so what use have I for my life at all
144

‘Don’t you see?’ Gilliam exclaimed to Ala’dan, when he had returned from the shuttle and thrown down a null-gravity belt which lifted her gracefully out of the underground chamber. ‘Moriah didn’t murder Petruska because she was unfaithful to him, she killed herself – it was the only way she could ever have been free of him.’