'Depends on the religion,' said the Doctor. 'What do you know about witches, Ace?'

'Witchkids, you mean? Or real witches?'

'What's a real witch?'

The wind had risen outside and blew straight through the open s.p.a.ce where the big front window used to be. It chilled Ace. One week in the sun and she'd forgotten about the English wind. 'I just meant proper witches instead of the kids. You know. The Goths, the Witchkids, the Crows.'

'What do you know about the Crows?'

'They did this place over. Some people got killed.' The wind was whistling through the roof again. The paper cup scuttled across the floor. Ace knew what it was but it still made her flinch. She picked it up and moved to one of the tan litter bins in an alcove. There was a sticker on the swinging lid with a picture of the planet printed in green ink. 'We Care', said the lettering on the sticker. 'Some people never pick up after themselves.' The Doctor took the paper cup from her before she could push it into the bin. 'Some people never get a chance,' he said. 'Someone was drinking from this. Perhaps they were interrupted.' He showed her the cup. Empty inside. Clean. But there was a lipstick print on the rim.

For the first time Ace let herself think about the night it had all happened and what it might have been like in this place.

Cars in the parking lot, families inside in the light and warmth. Looking out through the windows at the darkness. And then darkness coming in, smashing in through the window, claiming them. She shivered in the rising wind. 'I'm not afraid of them,' said Ace.

The Doctor smiled. 'Let's go, shall we?' They pushed through the gla.s.s doors and out into the big empty parking lot. Ace looked back over her shoulder into the gutted interior of the restaurant.

'Have a nice day,' she said.

Behind the restaurant complex there were giant waste modules with attachments designed to link with the big lifting trucks. The modules had stood here unemptied and untouched since the place had been attacked. There was a heavy smell of old rot around them. Beyond the painted squares of the staff car park there was a wire fence with a high jagged hole cut in it. Big enough for a person to walk through. Ace wondered if this was the way the Crows had come in. The Doctor held the flap of wire for her as she stepped through. She climbed with him up a shoulder of green hillside that rose up behind the complex. The first few metres was lawn that had gone wild, growing long and invaded by weeds. But further up the slope this gave way to thick bushes, nettles and brambles. Ace couldn't say at exactly what point it happened, but somewhere they crossed an invisible border and they were standing in the countryside. She looked back at the restaurant complex. From the brow of the hill the buildings were orderly geometric shapes. Nothing remotely strange about them. Perhaps they were still to be completed, waiting for the grand opening. But nothing bad could ever have happened there.

'Tell me what else you know about the Crows. You know what they've done and you know you're not afraid of them. What else?'

Ace looked at the Doctor. She liked walking with him. She liked having a chance to talk. 'At school, when I was a kid, we were all wearing Chipies and shaving brandnames into our hair. Some of the kids even had them tattooed. You know, like designer names on their faces. The Crows like their tattoos, too. But this is different, isn't it?'

'Yes,' said the Doctor. They climbed over a low barbedwire fence and entered a field, moving diagonally across it. The gra.s.s stung Ace's bare ankles. She was working up a sweat as they walked. In the sky above them a jet fighter climbed, too far away to hear. It left twin white streaks of vapour trail behind it. Further back the neat parallel track was beginning to fragment and blur. It looked like a broken twist of DNA in the sky. They surprised some birds arguing in a thick hedgerow. The birds fell silent as they pa.s.sed. Ace couldn't see them among the dense twigs and the dusty green leaves. Bright red berries gleamed. 'Are those berries poisonous?'

'They are now,' said the Doctor. He opened his umbrella. Ace joined him, walking close beside him under the shelter of the umbrella as it began to rain. Ace checked her watch. It was right on time. The evening rain, carrying industrial poisons from Germany. It made a steady gentle drumming on the fabric over them.

'I missed the Crows. I mean, I wasn't around when it got started. I was too old. When I first saw them I thought they were Goths. But they were too political. And then I thought they were hippies. But they were too violent.' Ace looked back down again towards the roadside buildings below them. A cl.u.s.ter of trees blocked her view. If she hadn't walked that way she would never know they were there. 'It used to be blues parties or acid raves. Or motorbikes and a fight on Sat.u.r.day night.' Ace remembered the sound of bottles breaking after the pubs shut. Some of her own Sat.u.r.day nights, when she was still a kid. A boy lying bleeding and crying on top of a spilled carton of Chinese food. The way everybody ran because they thought the police were coming. Ace had put a handkerchief to his face. It had been a nasty cut, but shallow. She got grease and plum sauce all over her good jeans, her Sat.u.r.day night outfit. She wondered why she bothered. No blood, though. And the police never did come.

They came out of the field and through a gap in the hedge, the countryside around them looking suddenly sad in the rain. The sky was an odd yellow. On the other side of the hedge was a narrow country lane, trees close on either side, forming a canopy above them. The Doctor closed the umbrella again. 'Almost there,' he said.

'Almost where?' said Ace, but then they walked around a curve and she could see for herself.

At a wide point in the lane a small car was parked, nosed into a tangled hedge. An Austin A35, fifty years old but gleaming as if it was new. Ace didn't know which was more unlikely, finding a car there or finding one in such good nick. The Doctor was taking something out of his pocket. Keys. He turned to her and smiled.

'You drive.'

They drove through small villages with cherry trees edging the road. The pale pink bloom was thick in the October heat. Clouds of shed blossom drifted in front of the car like snow until the heavy rain arrived and soaked it down.

13.

The rain made a constant quiet tapping on two of the three windows high on the cellar wall. At the third window it splashed softly, gathering and running in. It was running through the hole Justine had made, smashing the gla.s.s in with a brick.

Justine was aware of the noises, listening for any change in the pattern. Her feet were numb with cold. This place was unusually cold, even for a bas.e.m.e.nt. Justine flexed her toes and felt them tingle. The chill was coming up from the icy stones. She walked deeper into the bas.e.m.e.nt, espadrilles slopping on the floor. The power rose around her and through her, transmitted up through the soaked rope soles into the skin of her feet. Like electricity, but heavier and slower. It was p.r.i.c.kling deep in her bones already.

Standing here, listening to the rain and the small creaking noises of the house, Justine could feel it coming into her from somewhere under the big stones of the floor. Maybe out of somewhere deep underneath the house. Up through her legs, lingering at the base of the spine to spread across her body along the Tantric lines of power, riding her backbone like domestic current running up cable into the base of her brain.

Now it was seeping into her thoughts. Just a sensation, a hint of disturbance at the edge of her mind. An awareness of another presence in her mind. As if someone else was in the bas.e.m.e.nt with her. It was like seeing something out of the corner of your eye, something that wasn't there when you turned to look at it directly.

Justine knelt and touched the floor. It was formed of big, irregular slabs that had been painted and then layered with years of dust and toolroom oil. Her fingers brushed the old, cold surface. There were shapes there, blurred by paint and dirt and age but still detectable. Patterns of symbols carved in the stone.

The feeling was more intense now. She'd felt like this whenever she'd wandered near to the house. It was the nature of the place. Justine had walked in the shadows. She knew a place of power when she encountered one. Now she rose from the floor. Blood thudded in her brain, making her dizzy. Her vision swam but she could still see it in the light from the broken window.

Justine crossed the cold stone floor. Every step seemed to drive sparks up from her numb feet. The spark stung in her mind. She found herself moving off at an angle, turning away from the thing. She forced herself to face it squarely again and walk directly towards it. It was tall and its shape was indistinct. Someone had draped it with yards of old rotten cloth.

Justine reached out.

Fine embroidered sheets, torn and stained with age. Ivory coloured. Justine stroked the cloth and the tips of her fingers felt strange, suffocated by the smoothness of the material. Silk. Dust stirred and a wirylegged black spider crawled out of a fold in the silk sheets and ran on to the back of her hand. Justine caught the spider and set it carefully on the floor. Clouds of dust swam as she gathered the sheets into a bundle. The old silk was close to her face with its smell of mildew. She held her breath. Her throat was burning and pulsing with the dust she'd inhaled. She concentrated for a moment, tightening the muscles in her neck, and suppressed the urge to cough. She folded the sheets one more time and threw them into a corner. Only then did she let herself turn and look at the thing which had been under the sheet.

One autumn Justine had hitchhiked through the Channel Tunnel and on to Paris. She'd spent a week sitting in vigil at the cimetiere PereLachaise, beside Jim Morrison's grave. She had fasted, living on nothing but black coffee which she drank standing up in the cafes. Standing up was cheapest. She'd fasted partly as an occult discipline, partly out of necessity. Sometimes she stole sugar cubes from the tables of cafes and ate those. Once a boy gave her a different sort of sugarcube and she ate it standing with him at the entrance of the cemetery. That night she was certain that she saw something as she sat by the sacred place, some black leather lizardking shape moving in the shadows as she sat there weak with hunger.

But that was all.

She hadn't found what she was searching for. Justine returned to England and kept on looking, following clues and rumours. One day she knew she'd find what she was seeking.

A doorway that opened to other worlds.

Now the silk sheet was folded on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor and Justine stood looking at it. A metal box like a deep wardrobe. Thick blue paint on it scarred and blistered. The absurd word Police Police written across the top of it. written across the top of it.

Justine reached out to touch the doorway.

'How is the TARDIS now?' said Ace, breaking miles of silence.

'Waiting,' said the Doctor.

'Waiting for us?'

The Doctor didn't reply.

It took Ace a while to get used to the transmission and the brakes felt a little spongy. When the rain started she had a struggle to operate the wipers. But she soon got the hang of the car and she was even beginning to enjoy herself by the time they were nearing the house.

They pa.s.sed the street sign that said ALLEN ROAD and Ace saw that someone had dabbed white paint on to the second L so that it read ALIEN ROAD. She sighed.

'Do you think somebody knows something?'

The Doctor didn't say anything.

They turned left into the gate and up the long gravel driveway. At the first big curve in the drive Ace had to slam the A35 over hard to the left as a white Transit van came storming past, travelling in the opposite direction, water spraying up from its tyres as it coasted through puddles. Ace was still swearing as they came out of the final curve of driveway and she braked outside the house.

Justine heard both the vehicles, first the van and then the car. By the time the van stopped she was turning and running across the cold bas.e.m.e.nt floor, squirming out of the window, cutting herself on the broken gla.s.s. By the time the van was gone and the car had arrived she was past the tall Victorian greenhouse, running across the wet gra.s.s of the garden and into the fringe of woodland a hundred yards away from the old house. She stood under the dripping branches and watched.

Ace parked the Austin in the big garage between the Volvo estate and the Saab 96. There was just enough room to get the door open and ease herself out past the Volvo and then the Kharman Ghia. The old stables had been a large building but the cars crowded it. Ace moved through the darkness, between the Kharman Ghia and the workbench. Warm wood creaked around her in the shadows. The scent of petrol made her think of summer and lawnmowers. The Doctor was already out of the car and going into the house. Ace followed him.

There were milk bottles on the steps and a dozen newspapers. 'You forgot to cancel the Mirror Mirror,' said Ace, but the Doctor wasn't listening. She followed him into the living room and stopped dead.

There, standing in the centre of the Persian carpet, was the grey plastic barrel.

'How the h.e.l.l did that get here?'

'That white van you saw '

'Yeah, I worked that out,' said Ace. She went up to the barrel and stood beside the Doctor. He was smiling. That wasn't always necessarily a good sign.

The surface of the barrel was speckled with moisture. Ace wiped a portion of the surface clean. 'But how did you get it through customs so quickly?'

'Diplomatic seals are handy things,' said the Doctor. He circled the barrel, moving quickly on his neat little dancer's feet, unclipping a panel on the smooth plastic side of the barrel. It was like a small door with a compartment inside but fitted so neatly, flush with the barrel's surface, that Ace hadn't known it was there. Inside was a small packet of metal and plastic tools. The Doctor plucked the pack out. He emptied it on to a cushion of the big sofa and discarded all the tools except one, a thin bar of metal curved at one end and sharpened at the other. He used the curved end to prise up the lid of the barrel.

The thick plastic lid came free with a fat wet popping sound.

Ace looked away, looking at the peeling wallpaper of the living room, the mottled ceiling plaster, down at the floor. She studied the carpet. It was just like one of Miss David's. Ace rubbed the toe of her shoe against it. Part of her mind registered one of the designs on the nap, rubbed thin by a century of wear. The shape had seemed just an abstract pattern to her before. She had sat in this room on long summer afternoons, watching the dust float sleepily in the air as the sunlight crossed the floor, patiently fading the carpet. Now she could make out the rotor blades and distinctive balance fins of an Odin gunship. Ace sighed and looked into the mouth of the barrel. There was nothing to see. A taut membrane of black film sealed it shut.

The Doctor reversed the small tool and used the sharp end to rip into the membrane. A single droplet of milky liquid shot across the room and landed on the carpet.

Mist drifted out of the mouth of the barrel. There was a smell that was both organic and medicinal. An unpleasant scent of menthol and, under it, a heavy oily aroma like that of rancid b.u.t.ter. When the mist cleared Ace could see inside. A crust sealed the entire surface of the liquid. A thick white plug of what Ace thought at first was ice. Then she realized it was some sort of white substance, like the fat that forms on a rich broth. She felt revolted at the thought.

'What is this thing?'

'Have you ever heard of cryogenics?'

'Like when somebody gets sick with an incurable disease,' said Ace. 'They put them into deep freeze.'

'Yes?'

'And they hope one day, in the future, someone's going to thaw them out and be able to cure the disease. Like Walt Disney.'

The Doctor probed the thick white layer at the top of the cylinder, testing it with his fingers. Ace shuddered. He took a plastic spatula from the packet of tools and looked at her and smiled. 'Except with cryogenics you need a lot of technology and a lot of money. This is the poor man's version. Instead of low temperatures it involves chemicals in a gel which suspend the life processes. You take a durable container, fill it with the chemicals, put the person inside it and seal it carefully.' The Doctor studied the plastic spatula, testing its edge with his thumb. 'The search for eternal life has been a recurrent motif in your cultures. It's a form of insanity and this is one of its more benign manifestations. All you need is a plastic barrel and some storage s.p.a.ce and you've achieved immortality. Of a sort. These are very popular in California.'

'I'll bet,' said Ace.

The Doctor was using the plastic spatula to sc.r.a.pe back the heavy white layer. Dark liquid showed underneath. Despite herself, Ace came closer and looked down into the barrel. As she stared down into the dark fluid she saw two blue eyes staring back up at her.

14.

At a distance the Victorian greenhouse looked in good repair. When you came up closer you could see the rust eating the ironwork and the missing and broken panes. Thick green tropical plants were finding their way out through the gaps, reaching for the warm autumn air. The rain had stopped but the ground was still damp, soaking through her jeans, making her feel the cold deep in her bones. It was nothing to compare with the cold she'd felt in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Justine sat under a trailing length of foliage and watched the sun go down over the redbrick house. She had gone back to her encampment and put things in order, packing her bedroll and shelter, burying her campfire. She'd set Sammy free and left him behind. He'd tried to follow her and she'd had to throw stones at him until he got the message. She'd abandoned the rest of her belongings. Now she just had the clothes on her back. She was ready.

Justine waited for nightfall, watching the house.

The Doctor had brought a bulky old physician's bag down from the attic. The leather was stiff with age and the bag was difficult to open. Ace watched as he took a wooden tongue depressor from the bag and a blue gla.s.s jar. The jar had a handwritten label, the paper yellowed with age, the unreadable inscription scrawled with a fountain pen. The Doctor untied a length of string and removed the cloth seal from the jar. He scooped some gunk out with the wooden splint. The jar toppled and fell to the floor. Ace moved quickly and caught it, but the Doctor didn't even seem to notice. He was back at the barrel, looking down at the boy.

The boy's head was only just submerged in the dark fluid. When the Doctor tilted it back his face broke through the surface. The Doctor put a hand under the damp chin and adjusted the position of the boy's head. Then he pinched the boy's nose and squeezed his nostrils shut.

The boy's mouth opened like a baby bird's. The Doctor put the tongue depressor into the open mouth, feeding the boy the gunk. He stood back, beside Ace. They both waited, watching the boy. He suddenly shuddered, neck muscles and shoulders convulsing. The movement threw back his head and exposed the pale skin of his throat, tight over his Adam's apple. Ace thought she could see the flutter of a pulse in the vulnerable patch of flesh. There was something attached to the boy's neck. A cheap jewellery chain sagged around his throat, disappearing into the thick fluid. As the boy moved something shifted on the chain, floating to the surface. It looked like a leaf under dark pond water. It glittered as it broke surface. It was a metalliclooking dogtag, but so light and thin it had to be some kind of plastic. Ace recognized it as the kind of thing you won on a cheap arcade game, usually the combat simulation variety. The tag floated among the sc.u.m on the surface of the liquid. The Doctor reached in and lifted it out. He wiped the gel off the plastic, inspected the dogtag for a moment, then handed it to Ace. There was embossed lettering on the silvercoloured plastic. On one side it said O Rh + 1794 meso/ akg dlt ugn. O Rh + 1794 meso/ akg dlt ugn.

On the other it said, Wheaton, Vincent Wheaton, Vincent.

'Ace,' said the Doctor, 'Meet Vincent. And by the way, I'd put on a swimsuit if I were you.'

'Swimsuit?'

'Or go naked. You don't want to get that gel all over your clothes.'

'Why would I get gel on my clothes.'

'It will be almost inevitable when you help him upstairs.'

'Oh, good.'

'And into the bath.'

'Bath?'

'Hot, but not too hot.'

The bathtub was ma.s.sive, sunken into the black tiled floor. Its wide curving inner surface was a pale ivory yellow, broken only by the daggers of green mineral deposit under the taps, heritage of fifty years of dripping water. The taps squealed and shook, pipes rattling deep in the old house as Ace turned them on.

'Don't let him move around before he eats something.'

'What?' Ace reduced the thunder of water from the taps.

'Sorry,' said the Doctor. 'I was saying that his blood sugar is extremely low. We'd better feed him before he exerts himself too much.'

Ace looked at the boy slumped unmoving in the chair. 'He isn't going anywhere.'