The Undertakers Gift (16 page)

‘Where are you now, Ray?’

‘I’m still here. At the Black House.’

Jack looked at Ianto, signalling to him that he should get the SUV ready. Ianto turned and headed for the cogwheel door, Jack following as he talked to the girl. ‘Tell me what happened to Gwen.’

‘It’s not just her. Wynnie’s dead too.’

Jack’s mouth turned dust dry. He followed Ianto along the access tunnel that led to the SUV garage, his thoughts flying wild. After a second he composed himself, summoned his patience, licked his lips. ‘Just tell me what happened, Ray, as best you can.’

‘The pallbearers got them. I don’t know who they are, but they did something to Wynnie and it was horrible. Awful. He’s dead and it’s my fault. I made him come with me. He didn’t want to go inside, but I made him.’

‘Stay calm. I can only help you if I have all the facts.’ Ianto opened up the SUV and Jack climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘What about Gwen?’

‘She’s dead too. They got her as well. And Gillian too. Oh god, this is
terrible
—’

Jack’s fingers were hurting where they gripping the mobile hard enough to crack the plastic. ‘OK, Ray,’ he said, carefully and calmly. There was no indication of stress in his voice at all. He hit the SUV starter and the powerful, zero-carbon engine rumbled into life. He eased the steering wheel around one-handed as he gave the mobile to Ianto to hold. The SUV turned towards the exit ramp and picked up speed. ‘Listen to me. You say you’re still at the Black House, right? Great. We’re coming to meet you, Ray. We can be there in less than fifteen minutes – let’s make it ten. Do you think you can wait that long?’

‘I – I don’t know. . .’

‘Tell me you can, Ray, because it’s important.’

‘All right. I th-think so.’

‘Good girl. Find somewhere safe and hang tight. Keep hold of that phone.’

‘OK. OK.’ The voice sounded small and frightened, even through the loudspeaker. Shock was beginning to set in, the words sounding numb and emotionless. ‘I’ll wait here. Who did you say you were?’

‘Captain Jack Harkness.’ The SUV roared out of the underground garage into the cold, evening light and surged onto the road. ‘And this is Torchwood.’

THIRTY-FOUR

The cold hands pulled Gwen down until the darkness took her.

Perhaps this was what dying was like: Jack had once described it as a cold, infinite darkness. Or perhaps, she guessed in a spasm of panic, it was the poisonous black gore of the pallbearers infiltrating her body and killing her slowly and painfully from the inside out. Like Wynnie.

But then she felt herself dropping through the grasp of the hands to hit the floor, hard. She closed her eyes and lay there, unmoving, not even daring to breathe. If she could have stopped the pounding of her heart she would have done so.

The pallbearers moved around her, above her, the ragged hems of their long coats brushing her face and hair as they passed. She kept still, dead in every visible manner, her cheek pressed to the filth of the concrete floor.

Wynnie was dead, and there was no sign of Ray. It crossed her mind that the pallbearers could have left her to pursue the student – and they would surely kill her when they found her. Gwen fought down the dull ache of despair in her stomach. She had to make those deaths mean something. She had to live and find a way to fight back.

Whether it was Torchwood training, or instinct, or the fact that Gwen had faced death many times before, she didn’t know. But she wasn’t dead yet and that always had to count for something.

She waited for a minute longer until she was satisfied that she was alone. It was during this period that Gwen became aware of the pain in her left ankle. As soon as she moved the pain grew worse. It must have been sprained – perhaps even broken – in the fight with the pallbearers. But she couldn’t just lie here and do nothing. She had to move. Gritting her teeth, Gwen started to crawl laboriously along the passageway.

She could hear someone breathing – long, hard, painful gasps, so loud that they must have come from someone very close. She froze. The breathing stopped. And only then did she realise that it was her own breathing she could hear.

Come on, Gwen
, she told herself.
Get a grip.

She clenched her fists and crawled on. The floor of the tunnel was covered in a cold sludge but she knew she had to ignore it. She had to get to the exit, get out in the open and warn Jack and Ianto. She didn’t have her mobile any more – she vaguely remembered that Ray had kept hold of it – but there was no signal this far underground, and her earpiece wouldn’t work for the same reason.

She had to get out, however difficult and painful it was.

Then she heard movement further down the passageway. There was definitely something there, a dark presence in the shadows. She stopped and glared at the gloomy shape, her eyes wide. For a split second she hoped that it was Ray, that the girl had somehow survived. But she knew in her heart that was impossible and, besides, the figure she could see was too tall.

It was a pallbearer, standing guard near the exit. It stood like the shadow of a statue, no indication that it was even alive or breathing. And there was no reason why it should be, at least by human standards. Gwen felt a little flutter of excitement in her stomach, the same world-changing thrill she always felt when in the presence of something alien to Earth. No matter what the danger, the buzz was always there.

There had been times when she had enjoyed the kick that danger brought: the sheer, unadulterated joy of facing death or injury and surviving it. That sensation could become addictive. She had never seen herself as a thrill-seeker, but she could understand the attraction. Facing down death, beating it, was better than sex. Not that she would ever tell Rhys that, but it did go some way to explain why Captain Jack Harkness was so incredibly
hot
.

You’re losing it
, Gwen told herself angrily.
Your mind’s starting to wander.
The adrenalin high was giving way to delirium, and the pain in her foot was starting to add a persistent, bass-line beat to everything she thought. If she analysed the feeling properly, she knew that she would suddenly begin to appreciate just how brain-numbingly painful her ankle was. She had to take her mind off it somehow.

There was no way to get to the exit, not with the pallbearer there, that much was clear. She had to go the other way, maybe find somewhere to hide.

Very slowly, very quietly, she turned herself around. She bit her lip hard as the pain in her ankle flared with every movement, but eventually she was facing in the opposite direction and she was able to crawl away from the exit, and deeper into the shadows.

She had no idea where all the pallbearers had gone; they had simply disappeared into the passages and tunnels like rats. At last, Gwen was able to sit up and take stock of her position. She was filthy, exhausted, injured and in need of a really big vodka.

She edged further into the blackness, shivering. It was damp and unforgiving down here and she was close to panic. She had to keep calm, use her training, remember that the only way to meet a crisis was with a cool head.

A little further down the passageway she found Wynnie and Gillian.

The pallbearers had moved them. They had taken the bodies and pinned them to the walls of the passageway, opposite each other, like a pair of gargoyles. Metal spikes, slightly flared at the ends like darts, had been driven through their arms and legs to hold them to the brickwork, and two more had been driven through the eye sockets of each of them to pin back their heads. Congealed, tarry blood ran from the shattered eyes down the grey cheeks, staining the clothes like ink.

Gwen resisted the urge to vomit. She had been at road traffic accidents where the carnage had been unbelievable and kept control of her stomach; she had seen death before in many and varied forms during her time with Torchwood. And she had always kept the sick down. She refused to give in. The sight was ugly and distressing, but the physical violence didn’t affect her as much as the realisation that this abominable act had been carried out with cold deliberation by the alien beings who had come here, to her planet, uninvited.

The bodies were a warning:
Come any further and the same thing will happen to you.

But Gwen Cooper didn’t back down to bullies. Never had, never would. This kind of thing didn’t frighten her, it just made her more determined than ever to put a stop to it, to do her bit to protect the human race from this kind of hostile action.

Because what Gwen saw here was nothing short of a declaration of war. Whoever, or whatever, the pallbearers were – wherever they came from and whatever they wanted – they had just bought themselves a whole load of trouble.

With a choking sob, Gwen lowered her eyes, ground her fists into the grime beneath her, and crawled onwards, further into the darkness.

THIRTY-FIVE

Ray sat on the remains of a low stone wall at the edge of the Black House.

Shock had set in after she had disconnected the call to Torchwood. The American man had sounded nice – warm, confident, in control. But it felt like a dream now. The moment she had closed the call and the mobile’s backlight had faded, the whole conversation had felt like a ridiculous flight of fantasy.

Torchwood? Captain Jack
Whatever
. . .?

It was ridiculous, and she would have felt ashamed if it hadn’t been for the calamitous avalanche of shock and despair that had descended on her since escaping from the crypt with her life.

With her life
.

Wynnie was dead. She couldn’t comprehend that simple, incontrovertible fact. She knew it was the truth, but she just couldn’t
comprehend
it. Couldn’t feel it. All she knew was that a huge, boiling rock of fear and grief had landed on her chest. And it was suffocating her.

Ray had no idea how long she sat like that; time no longer had any meaning at all. A river of bad thoughts swirled through her mind, slow and murky with guilt.

She had survived. Her friends were dead. And she had absolutely no idea what to do now.

Then she heard the car engine. A big, black 4x4 slewed to a halt directly in front of her, the tyres scrunching heavily across the cracked paving.

Two men got out of the car. The first wore a serious expression and a three-piece suit. The second man was older, good-looking and wearing an RAF greatcoat. He strode purposefully towards Ray and she saw that he had a pair of the most wonderful blue eyes she had ever seen. As he approached Ray she automatically got to her feet, and a slow smile softened the man’s otherwise diamond-hard glare.

‘Ray?’

‘Yes.’

He held out his hand. ‘Captain Jack Harkness.’

His hand was as warm and dry as his voice. Ray found herself shaking the hand automatically, and a curious sense of calm seemed to rise up her arm and spread through her entire body. Just being near him was like being wrapped in warm towels. She staggered slightly, her legs almost giving way as the accumulated emotional turmoil suddenly dissipated.

‘Easy now,’ said Jack, keeping hold of her hand, supporting her. The briefest flash of a smile sent a wave of renewed strength and energy flooding through her.

‘This is Ianto Jones,’ Jack told her, nodding at the man in the suit. ‘We’re Torchwood.’

Ray looked back at the SUV. ‘Just the two of you?’

They didn’t reply. The man called Ianto had some sort of handheld device which he was using to scan the area.

‘What happened to Gwen?’ Jack asked.

‘She went down there with Wynnie and me,’ Ray said. ‘We were looking for my friend Gillian. She said she was going to meet us here.’ Ray quickly recounted the facts about finding Gillian’s mobile, the underground passages, the pallbearers. She spoke in a flat, dull voice, unwilling to let her emotions surface now. She barely wanted to think about it at all, but she knew this was a job that had to be done. Her voice gave up on her, however, when she started to recount the details of Wynnie’s death.

‘What happened to Gwen?’ Jack repeated.

He was making an effort to be patient, Ray could sense it. There was a small muscle in his jaw that she could see was twitching. She took a deep breath and tried to explain, but all that came out was a jumble of senseless words.

‘OK,’ he said, holding up a hand for her to fall quiet. ‘Let me ask you this question: did you see Gwen Cooper die?’

Ray was about to start nodding, because she was certain that she
had
seen Gwen die at the hands of the pallbearers – but then, in a sudden moment of terrible clarity, she realised that all she had seen was. . . nothing. She hadn’t stopped to check. She had turned and fled. And as she had run helter-skelter along the darkened passages, Ray had thought Gwen had been running right behind her. But she hadn’t followed Ray out of the Black House so she must have been mistaken. Gwen must have been killed along with Wynnie and Gillian.

That was the only possible explanation. But she hadn’t actually seen it happen, and she said so. ‘No. No, I didn’t.’