Doctor Who_ The Cabinet Of Light Part 6

'It's stopped hurting. I still can't move my arms.'Walken seemed poised to move forward to untie his prisoner but he checked himself. He didn't want to come close, to touch him. He was holding in all his spirit, all his natural aggression, from fear, almost from awe. Whatever it was it gave Lecha.s.seur a little leverage over the situation. Walken was deferring to him, even the girl could sense that. She chewed toffee and kicked and swapped perplexed glances between the two men.

'Not until we're each of us clear about what the other wants.' Walken flashed his empty palms at him, a peace gesture, nothing up my sleeve. nothing up my sleeve. 'I'm a cautious man, I'm sorry, but I'm also a reasonable one.' 'I'm a cautious man, I'm sorry, but I'm also a reasonable one.'

Lecha.s.seur offered him a sour, contemptuous smile.Walken coughed. 'Our last meeting didn't go well, so shall we start again? I haven't introduced myself properly. My name is Eric Walken, I'm the owner of this club. I am the most powerful human being alive on this planet today. I know you must think that's a small thing, a very tiny thing, but still I am' he clapped his hands together 'honoured to be here talking with you.'

Lecha.s.seur sat in silent pause before replying: 'Who do you think I am?'

Walken nodded. 'You're the Doctor.'

It would be a mistake, Lecha.s.seur knew, to laugh.

'I'm not the Doctor,' he said quietly. He watched Walken s.h.i.+ft his weight from one foot to the other, the face an untroubled mask but the body twitching with uncertainty and impatience. Walken pushed his hands and eyes as close to his prisoner as he dared. He wasn't simply looking, he was drawing an impression through all his senses, through his face and skin. Lecha.s.seur felt himself being read.

Walken snapped back, stung, fear flickering over his face before he recovered his composure.

'There's no mistake. You are t are the Doctor.'Lecha.s.seur shook his head wearily. 'Someone asked me to find him, that's my connection to him, but I'm not him. Who told you I was?'

'I can tell. Almost from the moment I saw you, I knew it was you.' Walken thrust his arms outwards, stabbing his shaped fingers at his captive, pulling them short of contact. His hands described a sigil in front of Lecha.s.seur's face, his chest, it would have looked impressive on stage with the right lighting creating the flaming shape in the air. 'You have a distinct aura. No human has an aura like that, not even Crowley or Ha.n.u.ssen, and they were among the greatest magicians in the history of our species. I didn't see it at first how could I? but when I did I knew. It's your signature, you bind time with it. You are the Doctor.'

Out of toffees, Walken's skinny moll craned forward to look for Lecha.s.seur's aura and cooed in mock delight when she couldn't. Lecha.s.seur felt his mouth tighten in a smile and watched Walken's left cheek tic.

He thinks I'm toying with him.He had no idea how Walken would react to anything he said. The conjuror was totally immersed in his fantasy. Maybe it was time to try on the Doctor's skin for size.

'You know, if I'd only known I was the Doctor all along it would have saved me a lot of hard work,' he said, airily. 'I was searching in all the wrong places.'

Walken gave a snort of laughter and his real voice broke though and his body relaxed with the weight of pretence gone. 'Doctor, you arrogant sod, d'you really think you could fool me?'

Lecha.s.seur c.o.c.ked his head sideways, smiling prim and silent.

'Now, I can't think why you've chosen to incarnate as a Negro or G.o.d forbid as an American, but' shrug 'your ways are not ours. And I'm just having fun with you. We searched you while you were unconscious. You know what we found?'

Lecha.s.seur shook his head.Walken dipped into his pocket and pulled out as though it were a string of coloured handkerchiefs a length of chain and a dangling key. Lecha.s.seur remembered Emily pa.s.sing it to him in the envelope, the warm brush of her hand on his.

'Your key, the one that opens your cabinet of light. Do you know where it is?'

Lecha.s.seur shook his head again.'Mestizer has it, I'm sure, but I don't know where. That golem, that patchwork prosthetic Abraxas, is working for her but I'm sure you know that. You've met Mestizer?' He a.s.sumed a yes. 'Now we have the key we can steal it back from her. I've arranged a gathering for this evening, see if we can force a materialisation right here in the club. Those idiots in California thought their botched Moonchild rite was the magical event of the 20th century. Typical Hollywood occultists really pulp hacks and rocket-men treating the Devil like it's something Abbott and Costello could meet. Well, sod them. The big event is right here tonight in London.

'And if that doesn't work we can always head up to her place and burn it down.'

The girl was clapping, she was making fun of them, but Walken didn't notice or care. His eyes were soaring up through a world only he could see. He was enraptured. Lecha.s.seur squashed his hands, trying to slip loose of his bonds, but they held. Everything was unclear now, he had no visions to fall back on, nothing but darkness behind his eyes. He would have to go where Walken led.

Walken was living in his own delusional world of patchwork men and goblin Doctors and Lecha.s.seur knew he was in danger of being sucked in. It was only that overheard remark of Walken's that convinced him the Doctor was a living man in the first place. Ruefully, he realised that Walken must have been talking about him all al him all along. The elusive Doctor slipped away, unreal again.

The conjuror came out of his reverie to look at his mistress. She ruffled herself, both self-conscious and glad of the attention. She was, Lecha.s.seur guessed, part-hypnotised. Her eyes weren't focused quite as they should be. They were fixed on nothing.

'This is Amber,' Walken told him.

'Eric! That's not my real name,' she piped in.

'She'll be the medium for tonight's ceremony I hope you approve. If things go well, I'll give her to you. I know you never travel alone. What would the Doctor be without his amanuenses?'

Amber pouted, believing she'd been called something rude, but was sensible or mesmerised enough to keep quiet. Walken sent her out to fetch some a.s.sistance for the Doctor. She went obediently, kicking the dust up with her heels.

Walken produced a penknife and set to work on Lecha.s.seur's bonds. The conjuror's mix of deference and revulsion was suddenly more dangerous for being invisible and out of sight. The blade brushed Lecha.s.seur's skin without cutting it.

'Can't you do this by magic?''I wouldn't waste it. I must insist you stay at the club until the ceremony is complete. I know you're thinking about escaping. You could take the key, approach Mestizer on your own, take back your stolen cabinet without my help. I wouldn't advise it.'

'I wouldn't do that, we seem to be on the same side.''Oh, no Doctor, I think that's exactly the sort of thing you would do. But I have plans of my own and the ceremony is going ahead tonight, with or without you. If I don't have your key then I'll find another focus for my magic. I could bring in that pink pyjama girl you're so fond of, cut her open and consult her entrails. She's the ace up my sleeve.'

The knife went through the cord, which slipped loose to the floor.

'I'll stay to keep an eye on you,' Lecha.s.seur promised.

Walken leant over his shoulder, so close he could feel the warmth of his skin and his mouth. 'Doctor,' he whispered, 'I knew you wouldn't let me down.'

The a.s.sistance a.s.sistance proved to be three waitresses from the club. They moved mechanically and said little unless they were directly addressed. Their pupils were hard and black, the life drained out of them. Unlike Amber they were completely under Walken's spell. 'I have conquered biology,' he boasted. 'I could order their hearts to stop beating and the blood to dry up in their veins, and it would, but they'd still go on as though nothing were wrong. My will animates them.' proved to be three waitresses from the club. They moved mechanically and said little unless they were directly addressed. Their pupils were hard and black, the life drained out of them. Unlike Amber they were completely under Walken's spell. 'I have conquered biology,' he boasted. 'I could order their hearts to stop beating and the blood to dry up in their veins, and it would, but they'd still go on as though nothing were wrong. My will animates them.'

Lecha.s.seur nodded sceptically. Maybe Mestizer could do it, he could imagine that.

The waitresses followed him everywhere for the rest of the day. They treated him as a guest, not a prisoner, but even so they were guards. They didn't look strong but he could imagine Walken could order them to tear his arms out if he tried to escape. He let them tend to him, though his flesh crept when they stared at him with their lifeless eyes. He couldn't look at their faces.

Walken stayed out of his way for much of the day, claiming that he had the ceremony to arrange, but Lecha.s.seur could sense fear and suspicion under his mask of admiration. He didn't want to sit at the Doctor's feet, picking up sc.r.a.ps of wisdom. His idea of the Doctor was flexible enough to absorb anything that Lecha.s.seur said or did. He had no fixed a.s.sumptions about the Doctor's behaviour or characteristics. Lecha.s.seur became Doctorish without having to act, without even claiming the t.i.tle.

He ate dinner in the cavernous body of the Inferno club, watching the stagehands putting together the scenery for the evening's cabaret. The lighting was white and ordinary. It revealed the seediness of the club, its threadbare painted walls, grimy floors, air hung with stale cigarette smoke from the previous night's audience. The glamour was gone. Walken came in to inspect the stage, didn't see his guest at first. Lecha.s.seur had been eating quietly but he finished his mouthful and called out: 'Getting ready for tonight's performance?'

Walken hummed. 'There won't be a magic show tonight, not for the paying public.' He struggled up onto the stage, looking suddenly like an impatient little boy. He turned to look out across the club at Lecha.s.seur, his hands dug into his pockets. 'You really are a riddle wrapped in an enigma inside a mystery. I never know what to expect from you.'

'You must have tried to imagine what I'd be like?'

'Oh yes. I've heard such wonderful contradictory stories about you. My G.o.dfather met you in Dublin during the Rising. You were a white man then and older. You wrote Poor Tom's dialogue in King Lear, I've seen your handwriting in the first draft. You are Tom o'Bedlam, you are the king-in-patchwork, you are the flickering unman who never was.'

'I must be a real disappointment.'

'No, not yet. I don't understand you yet.'

'What about Mestizer? I haven't got a handle on her. Who is she?'

Walken shrugged. 'The dark lady,' he said, 'the spider woman, the evil seductress who tempts man and brings about his destruction: He pouted, glancing down at his feet and blowing sour air out through pursed lips. When he looked up, he said, 'There's something I'm sure you've worked out. I should tell you for the sake of fair play.'

'Yes?''If I can find a way to kill you, I will do it,' he droned, 'but even if I let you live you'll never be the Doctor again.'

'I don't get it.''When we've fixed Mestizer, I'll have your cabinet. I'm going to steal it from you. And once I have it, I'll be the Doctor and you'll be n.o.body. You'll never have existed. I'll take your cabinet and make you mundane. I won't let anyone take her from me, not as easily as you did. I will have all your powers and all your knowledge and all your light, but when I'm you, Doctor, I won't waste them like you did.' He blew again, bored. 'Just thought I should warn you.' I won't let anyone take her from me, not as easily as you did. I will have all your powers and all your knowledge and all your light, but when I'm you, Doctor, I won't waste them like you did.' He blew again, bored. 'Just thought I should warn you.'

'We'll see,' Lecha.s.seur called, chewing on this thought as he chewed on his food. Walken, dejected, shambled off the stage. He was a volatile man, given to moods.

For the rest of the day, Lecha.s.seur was kept isolated, even as evening drew in and he heard the first patrons arriving for the cabaret. For all their zombie scariness, the waitresses took good care of him, even tending to the bruises he still wore from his encounter with Abraxas. He wondered if Walken had also ordered them to kill him, when the time arose. No, he'd do that himself. He still had a street-kid arrogance that demanded he do his own dirty work. Besides, they had to get through the ceremony first.

It began shortly after eight. Music and applause were rising from the bas.e.m.e.nt s.p.a.ce when the waitresses took him to Walken's inner sanctum, the room adjacent to his office on the first floor. He'd had a glimpse of this on his last visit, now he saw it all. It was an odd-shaped room, with its corners boxed-off in a doomed attempt to make it seem circular. It was decorated in sober creams and dark greens, a little oasis of opulence in the decrepit club, and as a flourish Walken had decorated it with scarlet banners bearing occult symbols. The swastika was there, with others. A large window along the far wall gave the same dismal view of the backyard as the office, spoiling the effect.

He was the last guest to arrive. There were twelve already in the room, including Walken and Amber. He didn't recognise any of the others, men or women, but most of them gave off that peculiar British scent, cla.s.s. Walken rose from his seat to introduce the Doctor and a ripple of approval pa.s.sed round the table. Lecha.s.seur felt the mood transform as Walken captured the admiration of his betters. They were a sorry bunch, shabby even in their evening dress. The faces of one or two gave away the same feral tenacity that Lecha.s.seur saw in Walken but most had pale, frightened faces. They were the dying old order, they'd probably turned to the supernatural out of fear of extinction.

Walken introduced his guests but Lecha.s.seur took in few names. They would turn up in the papers over the next week as individual tragedies for their great families.

Walken indicated Lecha.s.seur should sit in the empty chair between Amber and a young fop who introduced himself as Clute ('Another name for the devil, doncha know?'). The table was circular but as far as it could have been said to have had a head, it was Amber, the medium, not the magician. After the initial ruffle of interest in 'the Doctor,' the circle's eyes went back to her. Walken sat almost forgotten to her right, Lecha.s.seur to her left. She was dwarfed by the big leather chair and sat stiffly with a hypnotised gloss over her eyes. There was a small ornamental dagger through her left palm, the point jutting from the back of her hand. The wound was puckered but unbleeding.

'A demonstration,' Walken intoned, the magician's voice, 'that I have put Amber into a deep trance. I'll forgo the other tests I'd planned, as we have ladies present.'

Amber took the dagger with her free hand and slid it loose. She set it down clean in front of her. The tabletop was varnished, the same rich brown as Lecha.s.seur's skin.

'The inauguration of the cabinet will take the form of a seance,' Walken continued. 'We will link hands. We will be alone. We will not break the circle. The medium will chant but only I shall speak. I hope this is understood.'

Nods of agreement from round the table, Lecha.s.seur agreeing warily. Walken waved the three waitresses away and they turned out the lights as they left. With the doors closed, the room was sunk into a moment's darkness; in the dark Lecha.s.seur felt Clute grasp his left hand and he wrapped his right around Amber's cold, unmoving fingers. Then the candles at the centre of the table flared, another Walken trick. The yellow light flickered on Amber's pale face, against the white skin of her shoulders, on the Doctor's key that she wore as a necklace.

Her lips moved. She began to chant, guttural moans separated by long pauses. Lecha.s.seur realised she was intoning Mary Had a Little Lamb, syllable by syllable. He snorted. syllable by syllable. He snorted.

'Thank you, Doctor.' Walken was wide-eyed, his pupils full of candlelight. Many of the others had their eyes closed, afraid of the dark. 'The chant is only a focus. We are linked. You'll feel the power flowing soon. We're free of these bodies. We're rising over London. We're flying in the bodies of the pigeons, searching with our bird-eyes for the cabinet of light.'

Now Walken mentioned it, there was a buzz, pa.s.sing between Clute's flesh and his flesh and Amber's. Walken gasped, breathing hard.

'I can feel the wind and hear the beat of my wings. We are carried north. We see the radiant city spread out beneath us, we see the mundane glimmer and are not fooled. The true light was brought into this mundane world by the pretender-G.o.d. He spoke the words and there was light, given to his mechanism, his subjects and his descendants. The cabinet is a vessel, built to hold the light. She is an anchor into other worlds and we see her as a shaft of true light. We see.'

Lecha.s.seur could see. He saw it glowing in the night, a blotch floating over the centre of the table, a gouge of brightness in the air. Light isn't white, Lecha.s.seur realised giddily, but a smear of all colours. The blotch was the shape of a malformed hand and his heart thumped, realising he could see himself through it. It wasn't in the room, the room was inside it.Walken wheezed laughter. 'That's Mestizer's house. That unbelievable shameless b.i.t.c.h! She's had it hidden there all along! Give Amber your strength, we can take it now!'

Amber chanted harder, her hands shook and Lecha.s.seur could feel the stab wound under his fingers. It was flowing now, but not much. The buzz came again, this time like a knife through the heart. One of the women in the circle coughed her guts out onto the floor, a rank b.l.o.o.d.y smell, but her hand held tight; one of the men was screaming but his voice sounded isolated and faraway. Amber chanted. The key at her neck was white-hot.

'It's coming!' Walken gasped, his eyes swimming with triumph.Over the sound of the chant and the cabaret they heard the roar of engines, ancient machinery struggling back to life. Their wheeze and their groan filled the darkness. They bellowed, not engines but something alive, a mot alive, a mother's mouth twisting as she gave birth, a baby a girl girl erupting into the world screaming before she could breathe. erupting into the world screaming before she could breathe.

Lecha.s.seur looked into the light, which grew larger, and saw the shape of the newborn. It was a cabinet, as Walken said, a tall blue box with a drab, oddly familiar outline. The light swirled round it as it phased in and out. The blotch swelled ripe, ready to burst, ready to spill its contents into the room.

There was a crash from the bas.e.m.e.nt, shots and the first explosion.

Amber s.n.a.t.c.hed her hands free.

The light imploded, sucking the vision of the blue box into the darkness. The candles snuffed out. Lecha.s.seur felt the energy from the stance snap through him, he grabbed the chair to steady himself. One man wasn't so lucky, the invisible blast blew him back out of his chair and sent him staggering against the door, which creaked open. Another slumped lifelessly forward on the table. Lecha.s.seur felt an empty shock then saw the same on the faces of the other occultists. Only cold immobile Amber seemed unaffected. The key winked and shone on her chest.

More rattling gunshots from downstairs, yells, then screams. Automatic weapons, Lecha.s.seur guessed. That and the explosion suggested a hit rather than random violence. He stood uneasily.

Walken had gone quiet after contact was broken, but he looked up suddenly, a vicious line on his mouth. He began to pound his fists on the table.

'Amber!' he screamed. 'We had the cabinet! We lost it! How could you do this to me?!'

She took the dagger gently in her palms. 'You had nothing,' she told him in her flat trance-drone. 'You never will.' She swung round to put the dagger into his chest, then sat back patiently in her chair.

Walken s.h.i.+fted before the blow hit and took it in the shoulder. Maybe that was the moment when he finally conceded that Mestizer was the better hypnotist. Lecha.s.seur didn't want to stay to find out. He turned to the door in time to see the waitresses reappear, their eyes still hollow, their hands now full. The man who'd struck the door struggled to his feet and shrank back but the closest girl put two clean bullets through his forehead.

Lecha.s.seur turned from the door and ran for the window. The yells from below had died down but the shooting continued in short brutal bursts. Walken's goons were probably mounting a defence but the attackers sounded better equipped and had surprise on their side. Behind him the waitresses were finis.h.i.+ng the occultists with efficient double taps.

The window could be pushed open but there was no easy way down he could see. There were a number of cars parked in the yard, large ones with long solid black roofs. He could risk a jump, they weren't going anywhere and might take his weight. There was a drawback, the Silver Ghost sitting in the alley, the eight foot figure at its door, his obvious silhouette inadequately disguised by a broad brimmed hat. Someone was watching from the open window of the back seat. Lecha.s.seur couldn't see clearly, but he guessed Mestizer.

In the window gla.s.s he saw Amber's reflection behind him as she rose leisurely, a small ladies' pistol in her hand pointed at the back of his head. The key was still on her neck but he'd lost that now, he had no use for it. Amber's finger squeezed. He shoved at the window and leapt.

The bullet went over his head but the sound of it made Abraxas whirl. The Big Man was cradling a large machine-gun, of the make it took three ordinary men to carry. With a glance at his pa.s.senger, he turned and brought it to bear on the figure falling from the window.

Lecha.s.seur crashed onto the roof of the nearest car and struggled for a footing. The jolt went through his body, undoing all the good work Walken's a.s.sistants had done for his bruises. He didn't have time to climb down, he hurled himself forward onto the roof of the next car, buying himself a little time before Abraxas could change his aim. He pounded forward and threw himself into the gap between the second car and the back gate. Abraxas was blind behind them. A shot pinged pinged into the gates from above, Amber still had him covered but she was a rotten shot. He hurled himself into the alley and ran as hard and as fast away from the club as he could manage. into the gates from above, Amber still had him covered but she was a rotten shot. He hurled himself into the alley and ran as hard and as fast away from the club as he could manage.

There was another blast behind him, filling the night sky with light and smoke. The shock knocked him onto the floor. The stones were cold and wet, but London was suddenly hotter than he remembered. It was raining flecks of ash and flaming wood. He looked round in time to see the fireball rise through the roof of the building. The windows were smeared red and yellow. The Inferno was burning. was burning.

The blast had knocked Abraxas down too. That bought him enough time, if he could just find the strength to get up.

The hand, black and gloved, was thrust at him from the dark. Lecha.s.seur took it automatically and the newcomer pulled him up.

'This way,' he said, thumbing at the alley. There was soot smeared across his face and his coat was burning faintly where the embers had touched it. He turned and ran and Lecha.s.seur pelted after him, a bitter sensation in his mouth. His rescuer was Walken's spy from Sh.o.r.editch, the one who'd been preparing to grab Emily so the magician could study her entrails.

Behind him, Abraxas was up and firing wildly. The spy crouched in the shadows as he ran that was sensible and Lecha.s.seur followed suit. Walken was almost certainly dead and his man was no threat Abraxas was the immediate danger. The air seemed full of the rattle of exploding bullets, they rang like bells, then he realised they were bells. The fire engines of half the West End were probably bearing towards Covent Garden after the blast.

'I've finished with this,' he yelled at the dark back ahead of him. 'I don't want anything more to do with it!' But apart from a low wordless murmur there was no answer. The other man led him through the alleys and the shadows further away from the club, though the fire soared across the skyline, like a landmark, turning it an unhealthy pink. Every night in London was once like this. Every night.

Walken's spy stopped him by a burned out site. A whole section of alley had come down here, a line of shops that were lost forever under rubble. He stabbed his finger at a crack in the side of the wreck, a narrow hole leading down into the darkness of the buried building. 'Through here,' he said bluntly.

Lecha.s.seur shook his head and made to go on but the man grabbed hisshoulder and pushed him back.

'Mestizer's gang are going to be searching this part of London for the next hour at least. If they find you, they'll kill you. You're safer with me.'