‘I’m an early riser,’ Owen shrugged. ‘Besides, I’m a growing lad.’
‘You poor boy.’ A smile twisted Jack’s lips. ‘Why don’t you help yourself here? You guys love your fish and chips.’
He nodded at the nearest of the water tanks, where the surface was covered with dead fish, floating in a scum of green algae. A silver sheen of dissolving scales glistened across the fetid mass. In the corner, where the corpses had gathered and started to merge into one another as they decayed, a cloud of flies broke away as the torchlight hit them. Rats stirred beneath the water, avoiding the glare.
And there was something else.
Lurking just below the surface.
As the light touched it, a long, pale shape suddenly dived, disappearing into the murky depths. Ripples spread through the scum.
‘Did you see that?’
Jack stepped closer to the edge and peered into the water. ‘Can’t see a thing. Maybe it was a fish — a survivor?’
‘No way — too big.’
Something exploded from the water, sending a fountain of brackish spray high into the air, drenching Owen and smashing straight into Jack, lifting him off his feet.
Spluttering, blinking the filthy water from his eyes, Owen brought his weapon up — but he couldn’t see anything clearly enough in the darkness. He tried to bring his torch to bear, but the beam was flashing wildly and all he glimpsed was a dark shape sprawled across the floor, turning over and over as Jack wrestled with it. Then he heard a sharp cry from Jack and the heavy thud of a bone-crunching impact.
The pale shape leapt away and Owen felt something cold brush past him, so fast that he could only snatch at its slippery wetness, then — nothing. The shape disappeared into the shadows while he was still reeling. He stumbled after it, aiming again, pulling the trigger instinctively rather than with any hope of hitting anything. Two bullets zinged away into the darkness, punching plaster harmlessly out of the nearest wall, but the thing had reached the exit and was suddenly whisked away, as if by the wind.
Then silence.
Owen went back and used his torch to find Jack. He was lying on his back, teeth clenched, holding his chest. Owen knelt down and trained the light on Jack’s shirt. The dark blue material was soaked in blood, a glistening stain as black as tar in this light.
‘I’m OK,’ grunted Jack through his teeth. ‘Get after it.’
Owen shook his head. ‘It’s gone, mate. Took off like a crocodile with a jet-pack. Moved so fast I could hardly see it.’
‘It was waiting … under the water …’ Jack sat up, wincing, looking at the blood on his fingertips.
‘Yeah, I got that,’ said Owen ruefully. He was still dripping.
‘Hell, this was a new shirt — fresh out of the packet this morning. Damn!’ Jack indicated the front of his shirt, which was in tatters. Owen caught a glimpse of the lacerated flesh beneath.
He helped Jack to his feet. Jack limped over to the pool and looked down at the water, still swirling with dead fish and decaying matter.
‘Think there’s any more of them down there?’ asked Owen cautiously. He hung back, making sure his gun was still cocked.
‘I doubt it,’ Jack said. ‘We’d both be dead by now if there were. Well, you would be.’
Owen looked at him. ‘You’re an inspirational leader, Jack. Have I ever told you that?’
Jack grinned as he turned to leave. ‘It’s a gift.’
Owen stuffed his gun into the waistband at the back of his jeans and followed him. ‘So we’ve got a Weevil- killer on the loose,’ he said as they headed back to the SUV.
‘Not just a Weevil-killer,’ Jack replied. ‘Tosh says the Rift’s fluctuating because of something she calls chronon discharge — she gave me a 45-minute lecture on the subject, but basically it boils down to this: the Rift is throwing off little sparks of time energy, and, while we don’t know what they mean, Tosh’s computer can trace the direction these sparks travel in. One of them kept coming back here.’
‘To the fish farm?’
‘Two nights ago, the security guard on night duty was found dead; his body had been ripped right open from his crotch to his neck. It was quite a mess with the rats and all, but the pathologist was certain there was no way the poor guy could’ve been killed by another human being.’
‘So they assumed it was a Weevil and called us in.’
‘Got to admit, I assumed it was a Weevil too. We knew Big Guy was active in the area after all.’
‘Except that Weevils don’t gut people like that. They go for the throat.’
‘Actually the police pathologist reckoned on a velociraptor,’ Jack grinned. ‘He had some imagination, I’ll give him that.’
‘Dinosaurs coming through the Rift?’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘So what do we reckon it is, then?’
‘Something that can kill a Weevil as easily as a human being.’ Jack paused. ‘Ianto?’ His ear comm connected directly to the Hub. ‘Give me some news, and make it good.’
Ianto Jones’s soft Welsh voice came through loud and clear: ‘Gwen and Toshiko have made it through alive.’
‘Alive?’
‘It was a close thing, apparently. They nearly died of boredom.’
‘Right. Kinda funny, Ianto, if I wasn’t in such a foul mood.’
‘I take it the Weevil got away. Again.’
‘Yes and no. It’s a long story full of mystery, intrigue and lots of sex and violence, but the upshot is this — the Beast of Butetown is no more. Owen’s bringing Big Guy in for an autopsy.’
‘Ah,’ replied Ianto. ‘I’ll be getting the Morgue ready, then.’
‘Great. Any sign of Rift activity?’
‘Just the “spark” trail leading to your current position. Tosh has been running an automated network program to identify any areas of temporal activity including time shifts, time warps, time jumps, time bubbles, time splits, time loops and time travel, but there’s nothing unusual showing whatsoever at Evans Fish Emporium. Except, as I said, for the “spark”.’
‘And a Weevil ripped open like a tin of tuna,’ Owen added.
‘OK.’ Jack clicked his tongue, considering. He kept looking around the old warehouse. Eventually he sighed and said, ‘Ianto, you can liaise with the cops. Sergeant Thomas is the guy in charge here. Tell him I want this entire area cordoned off — armed guards until further notice. Then get the coffee on. We’re coming back to base.’
Jack yanked open the door of the SUV. He looked over the top of the car at Owen. ‘Initial assessment?’
‘I’ll know more when I’ve had a chance to look at Big Guy properly.’
Jack started the SUV up and reversed it across the warehouse, close to the tanks. Together they dragged Big Guy into the back of the car and closed the hatch.
When they finally climbed back into the front seats, both men were breathing hard and bone weary. Owen was soaking wet, and he could still smell the stagnant water. Mixed with the ripe odour of dead Weevil, it was enough to make him nauseous.
Jack drove out into the night and the start of a heavy downpour. The windscreen wipers started to dig holes in the rain automatically.
‘At least we know what it isn’t,’ Owen said after a while. ‘It isn’t a Weevil — or a velociraptor.’
‘Great, that narrows it right down: there’s only a hundred billion other kinds of alien it could be. Tell you what, make out a list when we get back to the Hub and we’ll work it out by a process of elimination.’
Owen sulked, too cold, hungry and tired to think of a good enough retort. Worse still, his head felt muzzy and there was a sneeze brewing. He let it out with an explosive yell, earning him another disgusted look from Jack.
‘Great,’ Owen muttered. ‘Now I’ve caught a cold.’
‘Well, hey, at least you caught something.’
