by Phil Ford
Owen backed away from the door. Instinctively, he knew that something was wrong here – very wrong.
And the thing that melted out of the wall and came for him proved it.
SIXTEEN
Toshiko rode the elevator to the twenty-fifth floor with the gun in her hand. She decided there was no point in a pantomime; Lucca knew that she and Owen were not what they claimed to be, and he knew that they had weapons. The fact that she still carried a gun, despite his goons’ search-and-retrieve operation in their apartment, might help limit the discussion and get her what she wanted – and out of there again – faster.
She had gone back to the Lloyds’ party first, looking for Lucca and ready to coax him out of there and confront him. Lucca had already gone. But Toshiko was in no mood to let him get away. She didn’t stop to think about Owen’s concerns for her; she was still running on the pulse energy of anger. She was angry with Owen, and just as angry with herself. There was something to prove here – damn it, there was a lot to prove here. To herself, as much as Owen.
Was she really so pathetic that she could face off against horrible things from far-off galaxies, but she just couldn’t hack it when it came to men? With her scientist’s head in gear she had to admit that the empirical data was not in her favour.
Screw that!
This was where things changed.
She felt the elevator settle on the twenty-fifth floor. She waited for the doors to open. They didn’t. Instead she heard Besnik Lucca’s voice. She almost jumped, it sounded as if he was in there with her.
‘Toshiko. I knew you would come. But, please, put your weapon on the floor.’
Toshiko scanned the elevator cabin. There was a camera. There had to be. She saw her own reflection in one of the mirrors, the gun looked big and heavy in her hand.
‘Please,’ Lucca coaxed. ‘Then we can talk.’
‘We’re not police,’ she called out. ‘We’re not interested in you, Lucca. We’re no threat to you.’
‘My angel, anyone who carries a gun to my door is a threat. Put it on the floor.’
Toshiko did as she was told.
‘Now step back against the wall, and stay there.’
She took a step backwards and felt the cold glass of the mirror on her back through the thin silk that she wore.
The elevator doors parted, revealing two men who looked part-gorilla. One held a gun on her, the other collected the weapon on the floor, then gestured for her to step out.
The apartment was huge, tastefully furnished and decorated with artwork that she knew was both expensive and original.
The two goons left her to wander across its white carpet unhindered. She followed the slight breeze that moved through the apartment and found Lucca standing in the roof garden waiting for her.
It was a warm September night, and he had lost the jacket to his black suit. He stood on the terrace watching her approach, and he was smoking one of the same foreign cigarettes she had seen him with before.
The garden was lit with subtle lighting, and he had been quite right: even at night, it was breathtaking.
He stood next to a table that was lit by lights in the floor. There was a champagne bottle cooling and a couple of glasses. She got the sense that he had known she was coming, maybe before even she had.
‘I see that you chose not to bring your husband,’ he said.
‘You know he’s not my husband.’
‘Which simplifies matters a great deal,’ he said, and poured the champagne.
‘I didn’t come here to drink champagne with you.’
‘That’s a shame. We had seemed to be getting along so well.’ He sipped from one of the glasses. ‘And the champagne is at the perfect temperature.’
He held a glass out to her. Toshiko ignored it.
‘We’re not interested in you,’ she told him again.
‘We?’ he asked, placing the glass back on the table. ‘And just who are we?’
‘Torchwood.’
He looked at her blankly. ‘I’m sorry. It means nothing to me.’
‘There is something in this building, Mr Lucca, that is killing people.’
Lucca laughed, and threw himself carelessly into one of the big chairs out on the terrace. ‘I take it that you mean, apart from me.’
‘We know all about you, Lucca. But we’re not interested. You’re not the kind of scum we have the licence for. Or the stomach.’
He leaned forward, intent. ‘So what exactly is it that we’re talking about? A life form of some kind that can pass through walls and takes people with it, just sucks them back out through the wall, as if they had never been there?’
Toshiko felt her body charge with nervous excitement. ‘Yes. Exactly. Have you seen it?’
Lucca smiled a little. ‘I see everything.’
He had a remote control in his hand. He pressed a button and a panel in the garden lit up. Lucca had a TV in his garden, as well as in his shower.
The garden TV didn’t particularly shock Toshiko. Anyone who lived half a mile up in the sky and still needed a lawn sprinkler was going to be a little on the flash side. What shocked her was what she saw on the screen.
‘I think you missed a bit, just there,’ he said, pointing to the back of his own neck.
On screen, Toshiko was showering.
‘You pervert,’ she growled.
Lucca chuckled. ‘A little perversion, a little paranoia… I built this place as my fortress. I have a great many enemies. But up here no one can reach me. From here, if I need to, I can control the elevators, the fire doors, the air-con. Everything. And I see everything.’
He toggled the remote and the image on the screen changed: it was Owen crossing the apartment earlier that night with the towel wrapped around his waist. Lucca froze the frame. The hole in Owen’s chest was clearly visible.
‘I see everything,’ he said. ‘I just don’t pretend to understand it all.’
‘All we want to do is to stop this thing killing people. You’re in as much danger as anyone. Let us deal with it.’
Lucca looked at her for a long time, as if he were considering, or perhaps just playing games.
In the end he said, ‘No.’
And the two men that had been waiting for her outside the elevator grabbed Toshiko from behind.
SEVENTEEN
Owen was surrounded by darkness. It was complete and total, and he knew that it was Death.
He had been here before. He remembered it the way that young babies must remember the womb.
There was a strange sensation of suspension. Like floating in the densely salted water of a relaxation chamber. Except that there was little that was relaxing about Death. It was cold, and every nerve in his body was screaming with tension. Because although this was Death, and this was the end, with no afterlife, with no hope of resurrection or salvation, he knew – as all the dead knew – they were not alone here.
There was something in the darkness.
And, whatever it was, it would find him defenceless because he could not move, he could not run and there was nowhere to hide. The darkness may have been total but instinctively he knew that it could see him.
Owen!
And sooner or later it would come for him.
Owen!
Just as the thing had come for him out of the wall.
Owen!
And shook his shoulder.
‘Owen!’
Consciousness hit him like a hammer right between the eyes.
‘Jesus Christ!’ he gasped.
‘Owen, are you all right?’
This time it was a different voice. A woman’s voice. He found himself on the carpet in the SkyPoint apartment. Gwen and Jack were crouched over him.
Jack was smiling. ‘Thought we’d lost you again there, buddy,’ he said and shook Owen’s shoulder once more.
‘It’s difficult to tell with a corpse,’ said another voice.
Owen turned his head and saw Ianto over by the sound system. H
e really hoped Ianto hadn’t been going through the CD collection in case he had passed on for keeps this time.
‘Yeah, well I was waiting for someone to give me the kiss of life, wasn’t I?’ he said, looking at Gwen.
‘So what happened?’ Jack asked, taking in the apartment and throwing himself onto its oversized couch. ‘You missed your ten o’clock call-in. We got round here and found you on the floor.’
Gwen was helping Owen to his feet as his head caught up with him.
‘And where’s Tosh?’ she asked.
‘Lucca,’ Owen gasped. His memory falling back into place with the impact of a bomb. Quickly he brought them up to speed with what had happened up to Toshiko slamming the door on him.
‘Then it came out of the wall,’ he said.
Somehow it had seized the door so that he couldn’t escape, and then it had come for him. Emerging from the wall, a shapeless mass that was neither solid nor gas, or liquid. Like nothing he had ever seen before. But there had been lights within it, like stars. It had been like looking into a galaxy that came drifting towards him, enveloping him.
… That was all he could remember.
‘But it didn’t take you like it did the others,’ observed Ianto.
‘Maybe it prefers fresh meat,’ said Owen.
‘We don’t have time to work it out now,’ Gwen told them. ‘This creature – whatever it is – is going to have to wait. First we have to get Tosh back from Lucca.’
Jack leaped over the back of the couch. ‘That’s right. Come on.’
As one, they moved out into the passageway, but they hadn’t reached the elevator when a man came crashing through the stairwell doors. He was in his pyjamas, a dressing gown flapping around him. It was the beachball man from the Lloyds’ welcome party, his face was pale but his eyes were red with tears. All he could do was cry one word again and again…
‘Gillian! Gillian!’
Gwen caught him in her arms. ‘Calm down, love. Calm down. What is it? What’s happened?’
‘She’s gone,’ he cried. ‘She’s gone!’
Behind them, another door opened. It was Andrew and Simon, disturbed by the beachball man’s cries.
‘What on Earth’s going on?’ Andrew demanded.
But Simon saw his distressed neighbour. ‘Ryan? Whatever’s wrong?’
Ryan the Beachball’s eyes were huge, threatening to burst out of his head. ‘Something, it took her! Gillian! It came out of the wall!’
Andrew raised his eyebrows in disbelief and looked at his partner. ‘I never took him as one for the…’ And he mimed a spliff.
Owen turned towards them. ‘He isn’t. He’s not hallucinating. There’s something in the building and everyone in it is in danger. You were right before, Andrew, people haven’t been running out on their payments. People are getting killed. So do yourselves a favour, pack a bag and get out.’
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’ said Simon. ‘This is some sort of a wind-up.’
‘No,’ said Jack. ‘It isn’t.’
Above him on the wall was the fire alarm. He pulled his Webley from its holster and used its butt to smash the glass. The building was instantly filled with the scream of an alarm.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let’s get everybody out of here.’
‘I thought we’d said we couldn’t evacuate the building,’ Ianto pointed out, ‘in case we lost the shapeshifter.’
‘That’s right,’ said Jack. ‘But on the other hand, look at the size of this place. We could be here months and never find it.’
‘I don’t follow,’ said Gwen shaking her head.
‘I do,’ said Owen. ‘This is its hunting ground. We reduce the food supply.’
Jack grinned. ‘Exactly. With the residents gone there’s just us.’
He looked pretty pleased with his plan; the others looked at each other. They would become the hunters and the hunted. It made sense. The only problem was that from the way Owen had described what attacked him, it didn’t sound like bullets were going to have a whole lot of impact.
But that was going to have to wait now; there were people showing up from their apartments. Owen saw Wendy and Ewan Lloyd running towards them. They had hurriedly dressed and had Alison between them in her dressing gown. She held Wendy’s hand with one hand, the other clutched the pixie doll to her chest, intent on saving her own most treasured possession.
‘What’s going on?’ Ewan demanded, looking flushed with barely controlled panic.
He was looking at Owen, but Jack answered. ‘There’s an emergency. You have to get out now.’
‘Is it a fire?’ Alison gasped, her eyes large with excitement.
Owen bent down to her. ‘No. It’s not a fire, but you have to get out of the building as quickly as you can. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.’
‘If it’s not a fire, what’s happening?’ demanded Wendy. ‘And who are you people?’
‘Everything is going to be fine,’ Gwen told her. ‘Just get into the lift and leave the building.’
As she spoke, she was easing the family towards the elevator.
‘No,’ Ewan said, suddenly defiant. ‘Not the lift. Not if there might be a fire. It’s dangerous. We’ll take the stairs. Come on, Wendy.’
‘There isn’t a fire, Ewan,’ Owen said quickly. ‘The lift’s quicker.’
‘We’re not using the lift!’ he snapped.
The elevator doors opened, and Andrew and Simon went for it without a second thought, taking the whimpering beachball man with them.
‘Well, we are,’ said Andrew. He lashed an accusing look at Simon. ‘I always told you there was something wrong with this place, but you wouldn’t listen, would you?’
Ewan was drawing his family towards the stairs. ‘Come on, Wendy, Alison. This way.’
Owen strode after them. ‘OK, if you want to take the stairs, I’m coming with you.’
Ewan glared at him. No way did he want Owen with them, but right now he didn’t seem to have any choice. Owen didn’t stop to think about it. If Ewan wanted to be an arse, that was up to him.
As they went through the doors to the stairwell, Owen turned back. ‘Make sure you get Tosh, Jack.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Gwen told him.
And Owen was gone.
Jack turned to Ianto and told him to take the elevator down to the ground floor with Andrew, Simon and the beachball man. ‘Pull up the records on the desk computer in the reception hall – there’s got to be a list of everyone who lives here. Check them off as people reach the ground. I want to know that everybody is clear.’
Ianto nodded and jumped into the elevator cabin. Andrew glanced at him appreciatively, then caught Simon’s look. Ianto just hoped it was a very fast ride to the ground.
He saw Jack wink at him as the door closed on the elevator cabin and it began to descend.
At the same time Jack checked the cylinder of the Webley .38. All six chambers were loaded.
‘OK,’ he said to Gwen. ‘Item One – let’s get Tosh back.’
Gwen pulled her own automatic out.
And then the fire alarm stopped. And the lights went out.
EIGHTEEN
The sudden silence was deafening; the darkness, blinding.
Jack and Gwen threw themselves against the walls. It was an instinctive reaction. Made them a harder target. It was only a half-second later that they both realised that this time, in this building, the walls might not be such a good place to go for cover. They looked at each other from opposite sides of the dark passageway as their eyes grew accustomed to the night light that fell through a window further along.
‘Maybe not,’ said Jack.
Together they stepped away from the walls and went back-to-back, their eyes searching the darkness.
‘What happened?’ Gwen whispered.
‘At a guess, we just lost power.’
As he spoke, emergency strip-lights at the bottom of the walls started to flicker into life, giving the passageway a muted green
illumination.
‘Yeuch,’ said Jack. It sounded like he’d just stepped in something.
‘What?’ Gwen hissed.
‘I do not look good in green.’
‘Jack?’ It was Ianto’s voice in his ear. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Where are you, Ianto?’
In the elevator cabin, Ianto ran his eyes down the string of floor numbers.
When the power had gone the lift had lurched to a stop and for a few seconds they had been plunged into total darkness. Andrew had squealed with fright, and Simon told him to grow up. Then a small emergency light had come to life on the ceiling, so Ianto could make out the numbers.
‘I think we’re between the sixth and seventh floors,’ he said at length. ‘That’s just a guess.’
‘Everybody OK?’ asked Jack.
Ianto looked at his cabin mates. Andrew’s eyes behind his red frames looked like they’d been drawn by Chuck Jones, but he was OK. Simon had an arm around the silently heaving shoulders of the fat man that he occasionally called Ryan. The fat man was the only one Ianto worried about: he was already stressed, having seen his wife get pulled through the wall, now he was trapped in a lift between floors. He could have a heart attack. Or he could turn crazy.
‘So far, so good,’ he told Jack.
‘Sing a few campfire songs. We’ll get to you soon as we can.’
Jack turned to Gwen, she had taken a hand-held module from her jacket pocket and was running quickly through screens.
‘What have you got?’ he asked.
‘The SkyPoint blueprints. Besnik Lucca has the whole of the twenty-fifth floor, penthouse suite, roof garden…’
‘Has he got a jacuzzi? I bet he’s got a jacuzzi. Maybe if we get this sorted in double-time…’
‘Doesn’t say anything about a jacuzzi. What it does say is there’s no way up there other than the lifts.’
Jack wiped his mouth with the back of his gun hand, feeling the humour drain out of him. ‘So we can’t reach Tosh while the power’s down and, you know, that gives me a really bad feeling about what’s going on here.’
