The Undertakers Gift (9 page)

‘You definitely know where this Black House place is?’

‘Yeah. I thought everyone did.’

‘I’m not a local, remember.’

‘I know, but we try not to hold that against you.’

‘So what is this Black House thing anyway? A pub?’

‘No way. I think it used to be a church, or part of one, a long time ago. You can still see where the graveyard was, but I think the actual building is empty or demolished.’

Ray shivered. Her vision had suddenly filled with a memory of the church she had glimpsed through the trees last night, where the funeral cortège had been. Could that have been the Black House?

Then she remembered the casket. And what was
inside
the casket.

Stop. Don’t even think of it.

‘Do you think it’s got something to do with your visions?’ Wynnie asked.

‘They’re not visions!’ A couple of people looked up sharply at this, and Ray hastily lowered her voice. ‘They’re
not
visions. I
saw
that funeral cortège. I saw the pallbearers and a. . . coffin or casket.
I saw them.’

‘But there’s no cemetery at the Black House, not any more. Why would a funeral cortège go there?’

‘Don’t ask me. But that’s where Gillian says she saw it and that’s where she’s meeting us.’

‘OK.’ Wynnie rang the bell and stood up. ‘This is our stop. Come on.’

They got off the bus and stood in the rain for a minute. Wynnie fiddled around with the collar of his jacket until he had managed to extract the foldaway hood. He put it up and tightened the drawstring. Ray didn’t know whether to be ashamed of him or sorry for him. But she found herself grinning at him from under her beanie regardless, and he smiled back at her, not in the least bit embarrassed.

‘So,’ Ray said when the bus had left and they were alone. ‘Where is this Black House, anyway?’

‘This way.’ Wynnie stepped over a gutterful of brown water and crossed the road. Ray hurried after him, following his brightly coloured rucksack. They passed some dilapidated houses with scrubby front lawns and no one home. They looked deserted, maybe even ready for demolition.

‘Hey, I think I do recognise this area,’ Ray said after a while. They were trudging along the side of a small park or something, surrounded by old, bent railings scabbed over with rust. ‘From when I was lost after the party. It’s around here that I saw the church and the cortège, I’m sure of it.’

‘Makes sense, I suppose.’ Wynnie located a gap in long row of railings where the metal spurs were missing. He ducked through and, after a moment’s hesitation, Ray followed.

‘I feel like a kid again,’ she said. ‘I used to sneak out of school at dinner time for chips. There was a gap in the railings there too.’

‘Watch your step here,’ Wynnie advised, pointing down. ‘It’s a bit overgrown.’

The undergrowth was thick and tangled, full of discarded rubbish. Ray now realised that Wynnie was dressed perfectly for the occasion: waterproof anorak, cargoes, heavy boots. He probably had a torch and first-aid kit in that stupid rucksack. But what had she come in? Trainers, skinny jeans and a denim jacket. Her only concession to the bad weather was one of Wynnie’s Kasabian beanies and a pair of fingerless woollen gloves. Wonderful. Way to go, Ray.

She followed him across a patch of waste ground, stumbling over an uneven surface littered with stones, weeds and big grey puddles. Up ahead there was a gang of dark, leafless trees waiting for them. Beyond the trees was a wide expanse of nothing but overgrown thistles and stiff, razor-sharp grass.

And then there was the church.

It was old, cold and forgotten. The windows were empty, there was no roof, and the walls were cracked and sprouting weeds.

‘This used to be the cemetery,’ explained Wynnie. There was evidence of where the cemetery walls had once stood – sections of low, crumbling black brickwork at various angles.

‘What did they do with the graves?’

‘They probably moved the recent ones. They can do that, with the right permissions and so on. That would’ve been back in the 1960s anyway. Ancient history.’

‘And the older ones?’

Wynnie shrugged. ‘Too deep, probably. Too decayed. They used to dig a lot deeper than six feet in the olden days, you know. And then there’s subsidence, where the ground moves and squashes everything. Wooden coffins will have rotted and split. What’s left of the bodies will have putrefied.’

‘There is such a thing as too much information, you know.’

As they wandered through the trees, Ray’s foot hit a large, square stone. Pushing back the undergrowth, she found what could have been part of an old gravestone. She was walking over someone else’s grave – so why did it feel like someone was walking over hers?

The rain had stopped and there was a thin mist rising up from the ground. Ray headed for the remains of the church. ‘So that’s the Black House, is it?’

‘What’s left of it, anyway.’

The sense of neglect was almost overwhelming, like a physical force. It made Ray want to run away and never come back.

‘It’s. . . horrid.’

Wynnie nodded wisely. ‘It’s no beauty spot. Small wonder no developer has ever bought the land. Who’d want it?’

Ray began to walk around the remains of the walls, tracing the perimeter of the building. ‘There’s no
life
here. Nothing. Look – even the weeds are dead.’

It was weirdly quiet, too; no traffic or birdsong or anything. Just the quiet whisper of the rain and the sound of her trainers as she picked her way through the thistles. It reminded her of last night, when she had stumbled across the midnight funeral taking place in deathly silence.

‘There’s something else missing, too,’ noted Wynnie.

‘What?’

‘No Gillian.’

Ray looked quickly around. ‘She did say to meet us at the Black House.’

‘And yet. . .’

‘Maybe she’s over there,’ Ray suggested, pointing. ‘I thought I saw someone in the trees just then.’

A figure was approaching through the row of spindly black trees on the far side of the area.

But it wasn’t Gillian.

‘Hi,’ called Wynnie, with a little wave. ‘We’re looking for someone.’

The man was tall, dressed in a ragged black coat with thin arms and dark gloves. His head was covered in a thick cloth, wound around like bandages, leaving only slits where the eyes should be.

To Ray, the sight was terrifyingly familiar and she felt a surge of cold, sickly fear. The figure raised one arm and slowly pointed at her.

It was all she needed to snap her out of her paralysis. She grabbed Wynnie by the arm and physically dragged him away, pulling him along with her as she ran back towards the railings.

‘Run!’ she gasped.

Wynnie was saying something but she couldn’t hear what. All she knew was that they had to get away, had to get out of this awful, dead place. There were more figures, the pallbearers she had seen the night before, walking across the wasteland towards them. All of them were slowly raising their arms and pointing.

Ray held Wynnie in a grip so hard she knew it must be hurting. But she couldn’t let go; she couldn’t stop or even look back.

‘
Run!
’ she screamed.

SIXTEEN

Jack stood in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, leaning against the concrete wall opposite Zero’s cell. His neck was still smarting where Kerko’s fingers had dug in like grappling hooks. Somehow he had mislaid his coat, too, and it was cold down here. He had a sneaking suspicion Ianto had whisked it away for repairs. It would be dry cleaned too, in all probability. That coat had been through a lot over the years and it still looked good.
Could be talking about me,
Jack thought.

He stared through the plastic at Zero. What was the alien thinking? Was he even thinking at all? It was impossible to tell.

Ianto appeared quietly at his side with a cup of coffee. Jack hadn’t even smelled it coming.

‘I’ve put the Blowfish back in his cell,’ Ianto said. ‘He’ll probably come round in a few minutes.’

‘Thanks.’ Jack looked at Ianto. ‘You look beat. Get some rest.’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Don’t argue,’ Jack smiled. ‘I’m in charge. Get some rest and that’s an order.’

‘Aye aye, Captain.’ Ianto turned to leave again, paused, looked back. ‘I
am
all right, you know.’

‘Yeah, I know.’

But he wasn’t. Ianto looked pale and tired and there was still that sheen of sweat on his forehead. At other times Jack would have been mildly excited by that, but something was worrying him now. Ianto
never
sweated. At least, not without permission.

‘I thought I’d go back through the Archives,’ Ianto suggested, pausing by the steps. ‘You said there had been rumours of the Undertaker’s Gift for as long as you’ve been here. If I check the records, I may find something that can help.’

‘Yeah, good idea. See what you can dig out.’

Ianto nodded and left, leaving Jack alone with his coffee and Zero.

Jack remembered bringing Zero in, shortly after they detected the Rift incursion. The alien had been strangely compliant, utterly silent, bereft of hostility but completely lethal. Jack had worn a protective rubber suit and a pair of thick, insulated gauntlets – the kind of thing he imagined power station workers wore to handle radioactive isotopes, or fire crews on warships used to avoid burns. They had protected him from the fierce electrical charge Zero carried like a plague and they were hanging up nearby right now. Jack could put the gauntlets on and walk into the cell and try to make the alien respond – push him or shake him or punch him or whatever, anything to get a reaction.

Or he could just go in without the gloves.

Take the charge.

What would happen then?

Jack had been electrocuted before. Four times, to be exact. Or was it five? It got difficult to remember, sometimes: he’d died so many times. And on at least one occasion the charge hadn’t been lethal and he’d only suffered second- and third-degree burns. That had been painful for a long time but, as ever, he had recovered. Not healed – just returned to his existent state.

But Zero packed quite a punch: 50,000 volts at a rough guess. It would kill him, again, for sure. But for how long?

And why was he thinking like this? What was so fascinating about dying? He knew he couldn’t do it, no matter how hard he tried.
Or could he?
Was there something out there that could finish him, draw a line underneath his existence? When would it ever end? When everyone he had ever known was dead? If the Undertaker’s Gift is real, he thought, then I might finally be about to find out. If Earth is shredded in four dimensions by a temporal fusion device detonating in the Rift, would that be enough to finish him? Or would Jack Harkness still be here, living, waiting for an end that would never, ever arrive? Just
existing
?

Would he float away into space, stiff and frozen, rimed with ice, to drift into an eternity of blackness with only his memories for company?

Jack’s hand moved towards the lock on the cell door. Perhaps if he opened it, Zero would react.

‘Jack?’

He turned guiltily as Gwen stepped into the cell corridor. ‘Jack?’

‘What is it?’

‘I’ve been looking into something on the net.’

Jack felt as if he had to haul his attention back out of a deep pit. ‘What?’

‘The Undertaker’s Gift. I’ve done every kind of scan I can for a temporal fusion device and there’s nothing showing up. If it’s hidden then it’s bloody well hidden. So I did an internet search on all things associated with undertakers and came across something interesting.’

‘Hit me.’

‘There’s a student blog entry that talks about a night-time funeral procession in the middle of Cardiff.’

Jack raised an eyebrow. ‘And?’

‘The blog also mentions Torchwood.’

SEVENTEEN

Ray and Wynnie bolted to the gap in the railings and scrambled through in a tangle of arms, legs and rucksack. Wynnie stumbled, fell, swore, and Ray helped him up. Without a word, they sprinted together for another half a mile before both of them had run out of breath.

They leaned against a wall, panting hard. Ray’s lungs were burning and Wynnie could barely speak.

‘What. . . what. . .’ he gasped, swallowing with difficulty. He pointed back the way they had come. ‘It was them! The people you saw last night!’

Ray nodded. She literally couldn’t speak. Her heart was banging away in her chest and she was beginning to realise how incredibly unfit she’d got. Not that she had ever actually been fit in the first place.

‘I’ve never been so scared,’ Wynnie began, and then, quite unexpectedly, he laughed. ‘I mean. . .’