Chapter Eleven

'The Time Lord is operating a sonic jamming field. Our energy weapons will be reflected if we use them.'

'And one of your warriors has just been killed?' Staines whimpered.

'Yes. The Doctor will die for that action.'

Benny had ended up in her room, right at the top of the house. There was nothing up here but memories and alcohol.

She closed the door, and tiptoed across the room trying not to make a sound. She'd managed to lose the Ice Warrior for the moment: she could hear him crashing around on the floor below, looking for her in the bathroom. It wouldn't take him long to work out where she had gone.

The attic room. "The honeymoon suite". She and Jason had taken this room, made it their own on the few times they'd stayed here. The Doctor had left them alone as she and her husband moved the stuff up here from her old room on the floor below.

She picked up the box of matches sitting on the little fireplace and remembered a dozen mornings squatting by the fire with a match trying to get the damn strips of newspaper in the hearth to light. Meanwhile Jason lay under the duvet pretending to be asleep while he was watching her out the corner of his eye. She'd light the fire, then scurry back to the bed and he'd pull the duvet open and let her in.

And now the room was empty. Just her, a crate of vodka and a bed that was too big for one person.

The Ice Warrior was coming up the short flight of stairs.

Benny pulled one of the unopened bottles from the box and unscrewed the top. Supermarket vodka this, nothing special. The Doctor, of course, was a bit of a connoisseur and wouldn't touch anything that didn't smell of Red Army engine oil. She wasn't fussy.

Benny just had time to take a swig as the Ice Warrior crashed through the door. He had to bend down almost to a crouch to get in, and seemed to fill the room.

She stood, a little awkwardly.