unrecognisable as his words slurred into her ear: ‘Tosh isn’t infected, Gwen, and neither are you. It doesn’t affect women. Only us guys.’ There was a long, scraping cough. ‘Man flu, eh?’
Gwen smiled, and stood a little straighter. Her hand moved behind her back and gripped the butt of her gun.
‘Naughty,’ said Saskia warningly.
‘I said I’m not scared of you,’ Gwen said, lifting the automatic out and levelling it at the woman. It took all of Gwen’s nerve to keep the heavy pistol from wavering. She felt like she was shaking inside but she had to keep the gun still. She sighted carefully along the barrel, training the little metal V at the front of the gun on Saskia’s pale forehead. ‘I’m not scared,’ she repeated.
Saskia simply smiled, and Gwen felt a cold touch on her neck as long, clawed fingers slowly wrapped themselves around her throat.
She’d been grabbed from behind. The long, twig-like fingers encircled her neck and squeezed. It felt like a cold, wet rope being pulled taut and she simply stopped breathing.
Another hand reached around from behind her and deftly removed the gun from her weakened hands. Gwen felt utterly unable to resist as all the strength seemed to drain out of her feet. All she could do was watch, dumbly, unable to even draw breath, as the green hand with its long, ragged claws removed the automatic from sight.
Whatever had hold of her from behind now stepped closer, moving its body against hers, bringing its mouth right next to her ear so that she could feel its cold, stinking breath on her face.
‘Surprise,’ it said.
TWENTY-FOUR
‘Water hag,’ said Jack, pointing at the screen.
His finger was resting on the fuzzy image of a tall, skeletal figure with long, dark hair standing behind Gwen, relieving her of her gun. The pistol was casually tossed away, irrelevant, forgotten. Gwen seemed to be sinking as they watched, her knees giving way.
‘It’s the one Bob Strong coughed up,’ Owen said. ‘Fully grown. It has to be. Saskia’s not working on her own.’
‘We’ve got to help Gwen,’ croaked Ianto, moving towards the lift. He collapsed halfway, sliding down the concrete steps until he hit the floor with a clang. He lay there and coughed, bringing up red slime and heaving as he felt the homunculus inside him quiver in anticipation.
‘That is what these things grow into, isn’t it?’ Jack said, tapping the image on the monitor. ‘Water hags.’
Toshiko shook her head as she worked hurriedly at the keyboard. ‘I’ve no idea what they’re really called, but yes, these are the creatures that have been living in stagnant ponds and lakes — dragging people to their deaths, killing, preparing the way …’
Owen lifted his head heavily, blinking. ‘Preparing the way for what?’
‘Invasion.’
Jack nodded, pushing himself upright so he could look at the images on the other screens, where Toshiko had pulled up a map of the region peppered with blinking green dots. ‘Yeah. This is it. The first sightings were all way out, in canals and rivers and ponds and marshland, in a huge circle around Cardiff. But they’ve been getting closer, drawing in all the time …’
‘Homing in on the Rift,’ realised Toshiko.
‘Spreading the disease on the way. Releasing the spores, infecting every human who breathes ’em in.’
Owen stood up shakily. ‘But only the men produce a new one, right? It grows inside them, then climbs out, ready to turn into one of them. A snotty little water hag.’
‘And so it goes on,’ Toshiko said. ‘An exponential cycle.’
More green dots appeared on the screen. Clustered in the heart of Cardiff. A few keystrokes zoomed in on the city centre, showing a cluster of dots all around the bay. ‘They’re everywhere.’
‘They’re coming for the Rift,’ Jack said, falling heavily against the railing again and sliding to the floor. ‘Gwen? Gwen, can you hear me …?’
‘All right, what’s going on here, ladies? It’s not Hallowe’en yet, y’know.’
The policeman smiled happily, thumbs hooked into his belt, pleased at his joke. Gwen sagged, and she knew that he would presume she was drunk. The cop duly ignored her, dismissing her as a likely threat, and turned his attention to her mate in the fancy dress.
His face fell when he looked into her eyes. ‘Crikey,’ he whispered. ‘That’s enough to give anyone a bad turn, that, love.’ He recovered slightly and grinned again. ‘You’ll be giving me nightmares!’
Gwen tried to raise a hand to point at the water fountain behind him, but she barely had the strength.
But when Saskia Harden, who had been observing all this with amusement, finally spoke, the result was almost comic. ‘It’s all right, officer,’ she said. ‘These are my friends. It’s a private party.’
The policeman whirled round and stared at her, blinking. ‘Pardon me, miss,’ he stammered. ‘I didn’t see you there. Bloody hell, I must be blind! You lot been to this party, then, or just going? Hen night, is it?’
Saskia stepped off the pavement, walking slowly towards the policeman. Gwen wanted to warn him, to tell him to run, but all she could do was open her mouth and watch.
‘See,’ continued the policeman, smiling politely at Saskia as she approached, ‘you can’t actually hang around here any longer, girls. With all this business with the bug that’s going round, we’ve got to keep people on the streets to an absolute minimum. Orders, see. Everyone indoors.’
‘I quite understand, officer,’ said Saskia. ‘I’m not sure my friends will, though.’
‘Eh?’ The policeman turned around to see a number of equally strange women walking across the area towards them. They were all moving at the same pace, converging on the water tower. ‘Hello, girls.’
They drew closer, and the policeman had to squint at some of them as they approached. They all appeared to be wearing masks — white faces with thin, viciously sharp features and long, straggling wet hair. There was something in the hair — weeds or grass, he couldn’t tell in the dark. ‘Boy, you’re a scary lot. Wouldn’t like to meet you on a dark night.’
‘You just have,’ said Saskia.
They watched it on the CCTV monitor. One of the water hags reached out with long, sharp fingers and tore away the policeman’s throat. He lurched back, a jet of blood visible in the air for a moment before he simply corkscrewed to the ground and lay there, kicking and waving while they gathered round and watched.
Jack used the last of his strength to pull himself up by Toshiko’s chair. ‘Got to stop them …’
Toshiko turned and looked at him. He was ashen-faced, his eyes bloodshot and hooded. As he spoke, blood appeared on his white lips. ‘You can barely stand,’ she told him, her voice hollow. ‘You can’t fight.’
‘Gotta do something …’ He sank back down to his knees, hands falling limply. ‘What’s happening to me … Why am I so weak?’
Toshiko looked at him, and at the others: Owen, propped up against the wall by the sofa, wracked by coughs, holding his chest and throat. Ianto, sprawled on the floor below them, weeping and gurgling through the massive build-up of mucus.
Toshiko looked back at her computers, at the keyboards. Her hands were shaking, but she knew she had no choice. ‘The homunculi are getting ready to hatch,’ she told Jack, trying to sound matter-of-fact, as scientific as possible. Not as though she was terrified out of her wits. ‘They’re growing fast and taking all the energy they need from you. That’s why you’re so weak.’
‘Right,’ Jack said. ‘We need to get rid of them. How?’
‘I’m not sure. I can think of a few things that might work, but it’s not certain-’
‘Do it,’ Jack urged her weakly, screwing his face up in pain. ‘Do ’em all. Anything.’
‘It might not work. It might kill you.’
He opened his eyes and stared up at her. ‘Wanna bet?’
The policeman gradually stopped moving. It was a slow process. Gwen watched him die, watched the lifeblood running out of his neck and across the flagstones, winding its way through the cracks in little geometric red rivers. There was nothing she could do to prevent it.
