Something in the Water

SIXTEEN

Three shots roared into the night air as Jack fired into the churning water. The bullets kicked up a fine mist but struck nothing.

‘He was grabbed,’ Gwen said, backing away from the lakeside. ‘I saw arms — they reached up and pulled him under.’

Jack continued to pace along the edge of the water, gun levelled. ‘Call Ianto and Tosh, get them to bring some depth charges from the armoury. We’ll blast that thing right out of the water.’

Gwen was already dialling.

When Toshiko answered, her first words were drowned out by a series of harsh coughs. ‘Sorry,’ she gasped after a moment, ‘frog in my throat.’

‘We’ve found the water hag,’ said Gwen without preamble. ‘It’s in the lake in Garron Park. We need depth charges, and fast.’

‘Depth charges?’ Toshiko’s puzzled response was suddenly overtaken by a tremendous roar from the lake and a shocking blast of water.

‘Down!’ yelled Jack, turning and hurling himself at Gwen, catching her under the arm with one powerful hand and sweeping her to the floor. She hit the grass winded, but nevertheless had the presence of mind, the fascination, to twist around to see what was happening.

The body of the dog-walker — or what remained of it — landed with a damp thud and a shower of water on the bank. Gwen knelt up for a better look and then regretted it instantly. The man’s legs were still intact, but that was about all. The torso had been ripped wide open from groin to chin, clothes and flesh sliced through as if they were nothing more than wet paper. Internal organs protruded from the scarlet wound like spilt shopping from a carrier bag. It looked like the victim of a shark attack, right here on the bank of a small lake in a park in the middle of Cardiff.

The man’s head was hanging on by a thin strip of twisted flesh and gristle. Blood was flooding out of the shredded throat and soaking into the earth beneath the man’s face, which still bore a rather shocked expression. His eyes were wide but sightless.

With fumbling fingers, Gwen found and drew her pistol. She felt her hands shaking as she disengaged the safety catch and cocked it, already turning in a kneeling position to aim at the lake. Whatever came out next was going to come under heavy fire.

‘Gwen?’ Toshiko’s voice sounded small and far away. ‘Gwen? What’s going on? What’s happened? Gwen, can you hear me?’

‘Tosh, I think it’s too late for the depth charges,’ Gwen replied eventually. Her mouth had that familiar dryness, the numbing shock of coming face to face with the incredible and the deadly. It was at once terrifying and electrifying, the thought that these next few seconds could be her last on Earth. Her last anywhere.

Flashing blue lights were approaching from the south east, accompanied by the long mournful wail of police sirens.

‘Damn,’ said Jack quietly.

‘Someone’s probably reported the dog barking,’ said Gwen. ‘Asbo time.’

‘Look!’ Jack shouted, pointing.

Twenty feet away, rising from the lake, was a thin, humanoid shape trailing long wet weeds like the rags of a cloak. Gwen scrambled for her torch, sweeping the beam across the lake, catching the dangling trail of slime as the figure rose higher into the night hair, water gushing from it like a miniature rain cloud.

It floated away into the darkness and Jack immediately sprinted after it, splashing spectacularly through the water.

‘Jack!’ Gwen called, just as a voice crackled in her ear. She put her hand up to her ear, shouting, ‘What?’

‘Gwen? It’s Owen. I’m on my way to the park. ETA five minutes. Ianto says the cops are heading your way too.’

‘Then bloody well step on it, Owen!’ Gwen ran around the lakeside after Jack. ‘We’re chasing a water hag!’

The thing floated no more than ten feet off the ground, trailing weeds and water through the small copse of trees which edged the lake. Jack flew after it, leaping into the air and grabbing hold of the dangling rags. He brought it crashing down into a pile of rotting leaves and mud.

‘Gotcha!’ he roared, only to receive a teeth-rattling blow to the side of his head which sent him reeling. He smashed into a tree, shook his head and then hurled himself on top of the thing again before it could properly regain its feet.

They rolled through the leaves, crashing into a patch of moonlight. Jack sat on top of it and saw a dark, twisted face the colour of mud staring up at him with insane, dirty yellow eyes. A thin mouth broke open to reveal dark, needle-like teeth in pale gums. The creature let out a foul hiss of rage and threw him off with phenomenal strength. Jack whirled, hit the dirt, and then looked up to find the thing pouncing on him. Yellow eyes glared and spit drooled from the dark fangs.

‘Naughty Jack!’ it screeched at him. She cuffed him across the face, drawing blood. Then she licked his face with a long, cold tongue. ‘You taste all wrong!’ she said, and spat it back at him. ‘You’re all messed up, Torchwood boy!’

‘OK, now I’m not just intrigued,’ said Jack. ‘I’m annoyed. Who the hell are you?’

‘I’m Sally Blackteeth!’

‘Lovely name. Got a boyfriend?’

She leaned down over him and smiled wickedly. ‘Professor Len. Did you know him?’

‘Bitch,’ said Jack.

‘Dead meat,’ said Sally Blackteeth.

‘Him or me?’

‘Both.’

She swung at him again, but he was ready for it this time, blocking with his left forearm, letting the wrist-strap take the brunt. She snarled and lashed out again, and this time he used the momentum to roll her off him so that he could swing himself up on top of her. It proved to be a bad move; by some strange anatomical contortion she managed to knee him in the groin. He curled up with a hard grunt of pain but now he could hear that the police sirens were getting much closer. Blue light flickered through the trees.

Sally Blackteeth twisted around, swiping Jack away with the back of one hand as he climbed to his knees. He looked back up just in time to see her disappearing into the glistening darkness and flashing lights.

Jack got back to his feet with a groan just as Gwen came running up. ‘It’s gone that way,’ she panted, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him after her.

‘She knew who I was,’ Jack said.

They stumbled through the trees and emerged by the lakeside, just as the water hag rose swiftly into the air. Jack pulled his gun and fired, sending two rounds after the fleeing shape.

‘Missed her,’ said Gwen.

‘Shine the light on it!’ he yelled, running down into the water, gun arm extended, taking his time now, sighting carefully.

Gwen had automatically counted his shots — three before and a double-tap just now. That left one more bullet in the gun. She waved the torch beam frantically until the light caught something glistening high in the air above.

Jack adjusted his aim, narrowed one eye, squeezed the trigger. The revolver boomed, its final word echoing over the lake before being drowned out by the noise of approaching policemen.

‘Armed police! Drop your weapon!’ shouted the first man on the scene, dropping to one knee and taking aim at Jack with a steady, two-handed grip on his automatic. ‘I said drop your weapon! Now!’

Jack turned around, eyebrow raised.

‘This is your final warning,’ bellowed the marksman. ‘Lower the gun to the ground or I will shoot.’

‘Back off,’ said Jack. ‘It’s Torchwood.’

The officer pulled the trigger as the last word left Jack’s lips. At this range, the first round was powerful enough to lift him right off his feet, and the second, catching him in the shoulder, spun him right around so that he hit the ground face down in the mud.

The marksman blinked, as if surprised by what he had just done. ‘Did he say Torchwood?’

‘Hold your fire!’ A voice echoed across the park, and Owen Harper strode out of the dark mist. ‘Lower your weapons. This entire area is now contained under a Torchwood restriction.’

The police officers were staring in dumb bewilderment at the scene in front of them: a headless dog lying in the mud, an eviscerated human corpse stretched out on the bank, Jack Harkness face down in the water, Gwen standing a little way off looking completely shocked. And Owen striding through them all, right up to the officer in charge until they were nose-to-nose.

‘You in charge here?’

‘I’m SOCO, yes,’ replied the officer stiffly. ‘Sergeant Kilshaw.’

‘Piss off, then,’ said Owen.

‘OK, Owen,’ Gwen said, walking over. ‘I’ll handle this now.’

The SOCO turned gratefully towards her. ‘Is this true? This is Torchwood business?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ Gwen said, mustering a smile from somewhere. She put on her official voice and said, ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to ask you and your men to leave the area. Thanks for responding, but we’ll take over now.’

‘Uh … yeah. OK.’

The SOCO looked utterly bewildered, and Gwen softened her tone slightly. ‘You could set up a cordon around the park, though. We don’t want any innocent nosy parkers getting involved, do we?’

Sergeant Kilshaw nodded, as if only too glad to be given an excuse to withdraw. Then he hesitated, looking down at the gutted corpse dumped on the grass nearby. ‘Miss, we have a dead body here. I understand what you’re saying, and I know Torchwood has absolute priority, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving it like this.’

Gwen held his gaze, steady but not combative. ‘I’m sorry, but you said it yourself — absolute priority.’

‘I need to find out who he is. We have to inform his family. Can I do that?’

‘Not yet. We’ll liaise with you and get the details sorted out as soon as.’

Sergeant Kilshaw still wasn’t happy, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Yet he paused again, unwilling to leave without claiming some sort of concession. ‘What about my man?’ He indicated the officer who had shot Jack. Already another member of the firearms team was relieving the marksman of his weapon, and dropping it into a plastic evidence bag for the routine forensic tests that would follow. ‘There’ll be an enquiry. It’s the law.’

‘No need,’ drawled a voice from the lakeside. Jack was getting slowly to his feet, his face and coat soaked with muddy water and streaked with his own blood. He walked slowly across to the SOCO and smiled. ‘No harm done.’

‘What?’ Kilshaw looked down at the deep red stain spreading across Jack’s shirt.

‘He missed,’ Jack said simply.

The policeman frowned. ‘What?’

‘Cap’n Jack Harkness,’ said Jack warmly. He shook the SOCO’s hand and flashed him another bright smile. ‘Like I said, no harm done. Get your men together and go, Sergeant. We’ll handle things from here.’

‘He missed?’ repeated Kilshaw, still staring at the blood seeping through Jack’s blue shirt.

‘Yeah. In fact, I’d reprimand him if I were you. Looks like he needs a bit more practice on the shooting range, wouldn’t you say?’

‘So where’d it go?’ Owen asked a little while later. The three of them were standing by the lake. It was still and deathly quiet. The surface was placid, mirror-smooth under the black night sky.

‘Up there, I think.’ Jack was looking up at the sky, searching the low clouds tinged with orange from the sodium lights of Cardiff. Spots of rain began to hit his face, making the blood and dirt run.

‘You mean she can fly?’

‘Crocodile with a jet-pack. She rose up out of the water, and then we lost her in the dark.’ Jack looked back down at his revolver, which had its cylinder out so that he could reload. ‘Think I winged her, though.’

‘It got away again, then.’ Owen kicked at the grass in disgust.

‘You reckon it’s the same thing we saw in the fish farm?’

‘Look at the body.’ Owen crouched down next to the dog-walker. He used a pencil to indicate the gaping wound, teasing at the torn cloth and flesh. ‘This is just like the security guard and Big Guy; practically split him in half.’

Gwen, who had been standing a little apart while she reported back to the Hub, called over. ‘I’ve given Tosh the details. She’s going to sort out removal of the body and a suitable story for the cops.’

‘What about the press?’ asked Jack. ‘They’ll be all over this place soon.’

‘She’s on it. She says the press and TV are the easiest to sort out, because brutal murders in local parks are just what they like to hear about and they’ll believe anything.’ Gwen suppressed a shiver at the thought of Torchwood’s cover-up expert going through the routine of disguising their involvement and ‘normalising’ the incident. It was something Gwen almost took for granted now. Almost. Just like the violent, terrible deaths she had witnessed with incredible regularity since joining Torchwood. She had made a promise to herself, early on and with Jack’s encouragement, that she would never become desensitised to it. And yet here she was, staring dispassionately at the eviscerated body at their feet with the same sort of cool, professional detachment that she had seen displayed by the other, experienced members of Torchwood when she first joined the team.

Jack, as ever, seemed to read her thoughts. ‘You OK?’ he asked softly.

Gwen shrugged and blew out a long, slow breath of mist into the cold night air. ‘I dunno, Jack. I don’t feel anything. Just a bit sick — but that’s the adrenalin climb-down, I think. You get used to it after a while, I suppose.’

Jack pointed a finger straight down at the corpse. ‘Take a good look at him, Gwen. That’s a real guy. He was just out walking his dog. He’s — what? — around twenty-five, twenty-six. There’s a mother somewhere who doesn’t even know she’s lost him yet. Imagine how she’s gonna feel when a cop turns up at her door with the news. Won’t matter if her boy was the victim of a gun crime, a backstreet fight, an RTA or an alien psychopath — he’s still gone.’

Gwen dragged her eyes off the corpse and looked at Jack. ‘Your point being?’

‘You’ve got to care, Gwen. You’ve told me that often enough — you have to remember to care. He’s been murdered by something we just don’t understand and we can’t find. And it’ll do it again unless we do find it, and stop it. That’s our job. That’s why you have to care.’

She nodded, biting her lip, and turned away.

It was a long walk back to the SUV.

‘So, what now?’ asked Owen as he and Jack began the trudge up towards the gates after Gwen.

‘How’d you get on with the doctor?’ Jack asked.

‘He’s still sick — really sick. He should be quarantined.’

‘What’s up with him?’

‘I don’t know. Symptoms indicate some kind of respiratory infection, but it’s the worst I’ve ever seen.’

‘Worst as in The Lancet worst, or Torchwood worst?’

‘Torchwood.’ Owen described the strange, subcutaneous movement he had observed at the back of Strong’s throat. ‘It’s nothing that originates on Earth, at any rate. That’s why I didn’t send him to hospital — it’s too risky. Maybe we should bring him back to the Hub.’

‘Not if it’s contagious,’ warned Jack.

‘Well I don’t know about that.’ Owen rubbed his throat and coughed. ‘But I think I’ve caught it.’