EIGHTEEN
Drew was just reaching the peak of his piece when Ianto's muscles stiffened slightly, his primal senses aware of danger even before it had quite arrived. Lost in the music, Drew sang on, but Ianto was no longer absorbed in his talent, the sound now merely a distraction as he glanced around trying to home in on what had disturbed him. He shivered, a chill running down his spine. Something was wrong.
He looked up, just before a window set high in the wall above him smashed, sending shards of crimson- coloured glass plummeting to the floor like bloodied hail and carrying within it a figure that disintegrated into nothing as he tried to focus on it, becoming only a substance hidden between the fragments. Ducking instinctively, Ianto yanked the portable device free and, crouching, peered upwards. Where the hell was it?
Drew had stopped singing and the backing music continued plaintively as the chubby man stared desperately at Ianto, fear wreaking havoc in his eyes before something caught at his chest and, as he gasped, his gaze dragged reluctantly to his left. Staying low and hidden by the aisle, Ianto moved forward, looking to see what Drew was staring at with such unconfined horror.
A dark void of blackness that was smeared against the wall of the church began to re-form, shaping itself into something solid. Watching the moulding of limbs and torso completing, cold gripped Ianto's chest and it took all his effort to touch his earpiece.
'Jack.' The name was suddenly unfamiliar, and for a moment Ianto couldn't see Jack's face in the space in his brain where it belonged.
'It's here.' The words rasped out of him, no purity in the sound and no breathing from his diaphragm, just sheer effort and desperation, and the minute he'd spoken he wasn't sure he could repeat the sentence, even if his life depended on it.
Life.
He dragged his head upwards against the weight of emptiness that was pressing his soul into isolation.
Keeping his eyes down, he rushed towards the frozen Drew, needing to come between him and the creature. In the corner of his eye there was a sudden movement and, twisting his head, he saw the strange metallic man, his solid body a network of sharp fractures. Caught in that frozen moment as they both leapt towards Drew, Ianto thought the black silent void of its home planet leaked through those cracks, infecting the air around it with sheer emotional desolation, as if there was too much for the one creature to house.
Ianto wanted to weep, but had forgotten how. His own action was clumsily human, slow and heavy, but the alien moved fast and jerkily like the flickering image of a broken film; in one spot at one moment, and beside Drew in the next, its attention focused only on the chubby man as if the Torchwood operative didn't even exist.
Shrieking like a savage, Ianto threw himself at it, his finger on the button of the portable prison. The power of his cry deadened in the air around the alien and, taking a deep breath, Ianto's hand grabbed the creature's arm. His shriek died with the contact and what it brought with it. Coldness shocked its way throughout his own system and an instant silence emptied his mind. The world was empty. The world was dead. With the last drip of thought, he squeezed his numb finger down.
The alien tossed him aside as if he were no more than an irritating gnat, hurling him sideways and into the piano. His head slamming hard into the sharp edge of the wood, Ianto watched in despair as the portable prison tumbled to the back of the church, activated, but with nothing in its field but empty air. Blood trickled into his eye, and he was glad of its warmth. Black pain throbbed through his head and, just as unconsciousness gripped him, he heard Drew Powell begin to scream.
Jack pushed through the double doors from the vestry, not pausing in his stride as his eyes took in the scene ahead. Broken glass littered the pews, crunching underneath his boots. Beyond the altar and the piano, the blue light of the prison cylinder shone upwards but it was empty; Jack didn't even have to look at it to know that.
Drew Powell lay on the floor, the alien crouching over him. Its head was tossed back in an awful mockery of a howl, the pit of its mouth stretched open in a silent scream, pouring black emptiness out into the church. Its arm stretched out towards Powell's neck, the limb dissolved towards the end, the hand nothing more than a black streak that cut into the singer's neck like a scalpel.
'No!' Pulling his gun free from its holster, Jack fired into the alien's back before running forward. Drew Powell was not going to die. Not when they were this close, God dammit. Recoiling from the bullet, the creature twisted round, its rage and disappointment glaring out at Jack from two blazes of red in the pits of its dark eyes. In a split second it was on its feet, the shot seeming to have caused no lasting damage.
Jack's lungs burned with cold as he stretched out to grab it, but he was an instant too slow, its body dissolving into blackness as the shadow pulled away and upwards, escaping through the broken window high on the wall, leaving Jack with only the slightest damp taste of its presence. Panting, he filled the space the alien had vacated, and black rage filled him.
'Shit!' Behind him, Cutler turned back. 'I'll go after it!'
'No point. Call an ambulance.' Falling to his knees, Jack looked down into the gurgling mess of Drew's neck. A slice ran down from his chin to his Adam's apple, sticky blood pumping slowly out. The cut was bad, and God only knew how deep it went, but Jack knew that if an artery had been severed they'd all be covered. Maybe there was a chance. Cursing under his breath, he chewed on his own frustration and anger. There had to be a goddamn chance. Gently, he lifted the man up slightly so he could breathe without drowning in his own blood, and stroked his forehead.
'It's OK. You're going to be OK.' Watching the beads of damp sweat forming on the shivering man's ashen face, he hoped he wasn't lying. 'You hang in there, you hear me? Help's on its way.' Somewhere in the distance, giving his words weight, a siren began to wail through the night.
Behind him, Ianto groaned.
'Gwen!' Jack called over his shoulder. 'Is Ianto all right?'
'He's got a nasty cut. But I think he'll live.'
There was a long pause.
'What are we going to do now, Jack?' Her voice was soft and low and, feeling the warm blood of the injured man coating his hands, Jack was glad he didn't have to look at her face when he answered.
'I don't know, Gwen. I just don't know.'
NINETEEN
The hospital was alive with sound from the moment they arrived.
It seemed to Gwen that each area of the building had its own unique orchestra to identify it. When she'd visited the witnesses to Richard Greenwood's death, there had been only the hum of lights and the calm whispering of shoes and skirts as they had travelled through the ward like ghosts, pausing to smile and check temperatures and tick lists on charts. Patients had been reading books and magazines and occasionally chatting quietly to visitors as they discussed what they might do when they were released. Much of the time had been filled with the slow breathing of sleep as fractured bones and damaged organs mended. Peace and quiet had reigned in a place where recovery was almost a certainty, and days were marked off with the delivery of meals and afternoon naps after some daytime TV.
This time, as she leapt out of the ambulance and ran into the hospital behind the paramedics, Gwen would have known she was in the Accident and Emergency department even if she had been blinded. Noise danced and partied in the bright corridors, whooping with glee at every new arrival. The wheels of the trolley carrying Drew Powell squealed and rattled as they pushed forwards, crashing through doors as nurses and doctors called out to each other for drips, and numbers and pressures in a language of their own that just created dread in those excluded from its understanding. Behind hastily drawn curtains, the burned and the broken and the drunk ranted and raved, screaming and sobbing for help or a loved one, either in pain or in panic. Nurses' feet thumped hard
