The car plunged onwards, out of control. Shreds of bushes and skeletal branches clutched and scratched at the paintwork like talons. The fog around them gave the briefest glimpses of their surroundings. The chipped, angled embankment blurred past the side windows, changing from grey to green where the river had lapped and splashed up the base of the concrete.
A bone-crunching thump rattled Rhys’s teeth in his jaw. At the bottom, instead of a splash as they hit the water, the car groaned and crunched when it struck the frozen river. The Vectra’s engine whined as the wheels spun helplessly and the vehicle described a lazy circle on the river’s icy surface. A large white shape appeared from the mist. The car slowly twisted and, with a crunch of metal on wood, its rear smacked into the side of the object.
They had struck a riverboat. Incredulous passengers stared out through the vessel’s windows, probably as surprised to see Rhys as he was to see his company car crash into them. The vessel had already come to an abrupt halt in the thick ice, and its captain was hardly going to be on lookout for stray Vauxhall Vectras mid-river.
Rhys caught his breath, and peered at Gwen. ’The insurance claim on this is gonna look pretty bloody unbelievable.’
He could hear screams of terror from the riverboat behind them. Rhys turned in his seat to see why they were yelling. The passengers were wide-eyed, pointing at something beyond the Vectra.
Rhys twisted back, just in time to see a dark mass smash down on the bonnet. The whole car shook with the impact. A slavering head splattered the windscreen with spittle as it bellowed a bestial cry at the occupants of the car. Something like a bulldog, only the size of a Shetland pony, scrabbled to get at them, tearing the wipers and trim off the windscreen. Rhys jerked back in his seat with a bellowing shout of his own, unable to get far enough away from the thing. It was gonna break the window. It was gonna reach in and devour him with those terrible, foam-flecked fangs.
Beside him, in the driver’s seat, Gwen released her seatbelt, then shuffled and squirmed. Rhys was terrified that she was going to get out of the car. ‘Don’t!’ he cried. But he didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know what to do.
The bulldog monster slammed its head down, and the windshield cracked right across.
Gwen reached forward, double-handed, and pressed a handgun against the glass. That was why she’d removed her seatbelt – to get at her weapon.
She fired twice in rapid succession, a double-tap. The explosive noise of the gun filled the enclosed car. The windshield shattered into fragments. The alien monster’s head dissolved in a spray of gore and pus, and the body dropped off the bonnet and disappeared from view.
Gwen burst her door open, dived out, and moved as carefully as she could over the ice to the front of the car. She aimed her weapon, and fired two more bullets into the unseen creature beyond the bonnet.
Rhys sat for a moment and gasped in a desperate breath. His ears still rang with the sound of the first two gunshots. He dropped his chin down on his chest and expelled the air in a shuddering exhalation of relief.
At his feet were the MonstaQuest cards that had scattered out earlier. He scooped them up, straightening them to return them to the glove compartment.
Gwen got back into the car. She was furious, and slammed the heel of her hand against the steering wheel. ‘Damn it. Gareth got away.’ In the icy cold, her exasperated words formed angry clouds in front of her mouth. ‘He abandoned the Mondeo near the opposite bank and hoofed it while I was dealing with that Mahalta.’
Rhys nudged her elbow. ‘Did you call it a Mahalta?’ He handed her one of the MonstaQuest cards. ‘This says it’s called an Antebellum.’
‘No, the last one we saw, Jack said it was…’ Gwen’s voice trailed off as she considered the oversized playing card. ‘Wait a minute… How can this be on here?’
‘That’s not the half of it,’ continued Rhys. He passed more of the creature cards to her, one by one. A Weevil. A bat-like creature. Something that looked like an angry diplodocus. ‘And there are these things called Element Cards, too, see?’ He watched her reaction as she studied them. Lightning. Sandstorm. Fog. Ice. ‘Too much of a coincidence?’ he asked her.
Gwen tapped the cards against her chin as she thought about it.
‘Never mind,’ said Rhys. ‘Fog seems to be clearing a bit now. There’s the Stadium, see? Blimey, I’ve wanted to have a trip down the Taff for ages. Didn’t think I’d be doing it in the Vectra, mind.’ He considered the icy river. ‘D’you think Green Flag will come out this far?’
‘I doubt it,’ laughed Gwen.
‘Told you we should have gone with the RAC.’
‘Look over there.’ Gwen pointed through the shattered windscreen. She was showing him where Gareth had abandoned his Mondeo.
‘I hope that little shit has got third party, because I am gonna sue his arse off.’
‘No,’ said Gwen. ‘I mean it’s sinking.’
The Mondeo’s rear wheels were slowly vanishing below the surface of the ice.
Gwen’s eyes widened. ‘That’s not good.’
Rhys saw that her breath wasn’t clouding in the air any more. Things were warming up, and quickly. The Vectra lurched, and the ice around them crackled and snapped.
They didn’t need to discuss it. Both of them wrenched open their doors, and flung themselves out of the car. Rhys could feel the ice beneath his feet turning to slush. Gwen skidded around the car, tottering a little on her heels. She grabbed his hand, and together they half-ran, half-skated their way over to the embankment.
The ice gave way as Rhys jumped for the edge. The river water was still icy cold, and he sank into it up to his waist. The embankment slanted down into the water, and his trainers slid and scraped on the slimy concrete below the water as he tried to prevent himself vanishing beneath the surface.
Gwen wasn’t so lucky. The heels of her boots punctured the melting ice, and she plunged right into the river. She surfaced, spluttering at the shock and indignity. Her teeth chattered. Rhys perched on the angled concrete edge, reached out to her, and together they managed to escape the river’s freezing embrace.
Only once they had scrambled over the slimy green surface of the concrete and onto the higher, dry area of the embankment did they dare to look back.
The fog had entirely dissipated. The hard white surface of the water had become translucent. In the middle, the riverboat bobbed in the current, now that the river’s icy grip had released it. Close to the vessel, the tail end of Rhys’s beloved Vectra blurped and bubbled as the car sank into the Taff.
SIXTEEN
Ianto Jones lay on the cold slab of the Torchwood morgue. That much was encouraging, anyway – he hadn’t completely lost feeling.
Owen pulled the portable X-ray away from above him. ‘You still there, Ianto?’
‘Very funny.’ Ianto faked a hearty laugh. ‘Can I get up yet? This thing is bloody freezing. And so were your hands.’
‘What did you expect?’ said Owen. ‘I blame poor circulation.’
‘What?’
‘Mine, not yours.’
Ianto sat up, and dangled his legs over the edge of the slab. He peered down at the tiles, and was aware for the first time that this was going to be trickier than he thought. How far up was he? He couldn’t see how close to the floor his feet were. ‘What’s the diagnosis then?’
Owen had stored away his equipment. ‘I can’t see anything wrong with you.’
‘Ho ho,’ said Ianto.
‘I might get some more from a post-mortem on the other guy.’ Owen indicated the ginger-haired corpse on a stretcher against the wall. The head end was away from Ianto, and he had a gruesome view of a flat cross-section where the visible portion of the dead body suddenly ended, as if it had been guillotined.
‘The corpse is half there, half invisible,’ explained Owen. ‘Should give us some clues.’
‘The hospital is gonna want that gurney back,’ said Jack. ‘Along with the rest of the ambulance.’ Toshiko had
