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.And they’ll have nothing to lose.’Ianto leant against the wall and took a couple of deep breaths.The sweat was running down his face now.‘You realise that Gwen is probably dead.’‘I know.’ Jack’s lips had compressed into a thin line.‘But until I see her with my own eyes, Ianto, I won’t accept it.And if I have to fight my way through an army of these pallbearer guys to do it, I will.Are you with me?’‘All the way.’There was a noise like a cough from the darkness and something metallic clanged against the stonework by Ianto’s head.He ducked, and another steel bolt ricocheted away into the shadows.Jack swung his torch around, illuminating a pallbearer at the far end of the passage holding a long spear.It was pointed directly at him.With a sharp grunt of compressed gas, the flechette at its tip was suddenly launched towards Jack’s face.THIRTY-EIGHTIt was spread across the crypt like a giant spider’s web, a complex network of wires and tubes radiating from the central casket and disappearing into the darkness.At the centre was a container of some kind, shaped like a coffin but more like a fish tank.The glass was murky and stained with green algae, as if whatever was kept inside had been organic and rotten.But since that time, the container had been expanded, reconstructed, to accommodate what lay within.The creature inside was clearly dead.The movement she had seen earlier had been nothing more than the reflection of her torchlight in the dimmed glass.At first, all she saw was the body – a withered, grey ribcage mottled with dark sores.The blood was so old it had turned into a black crust surrounding the damaged areas.The head, little more than a bulbous skull, was covered by skin so shrunken to the bone that what remained of the lips was pulled right back from two rows of uneven, grey teeth.The nose had gone, eaten away by parasites, leaving a ragged hole beneath the eye sockets, where creased, long-dead lids were fused shut over sunken eyes.So far, just another corpse – ancient, dried up matter, the leathery effigy of an unknown man.But someone, or something, had been working on this corpse.Both the head and torso were held in place by a series of metal rods and pins, skewering the body and bolted into place.The metal was dull and rusted, and the flesh was fused to the pins wherever they entered.There were no arms or legs.The trunk tailed off to an abdomen which consisted of shrivelled organs hanging like stuffing from the rags of torn skin.The lower part of the spine was visible at the base, trailing off to a series of broken, age-browned vertebrae that just managed to glint with a touch of ivory in the light of Gwen’s torch.Leading into the desiccated remains of the intestine were old rubber tubes, like the kind found trailing from gas taps in laboratories, cracked and perished and snaking away to a series of bottles and stands beneath the casket.There were some wires, too, thick with insulation, but in places Gwen could see that the copper wiring had come adrift where the flesh had dried and withdrawn.She stared at the mess, frowning, trying to work out what could possibly have happened but failing.It looked like it was all that was left of some kind of dreadful Victorian experiment, and it made her shudder with revulsion.But not as much as what had been done to the head.The top of the skull had been cut away and removed, like the top of a boiled egg.Stealing herself, Gwen aimed the light into the cranium, where a dried-up brain, like a giant walnut, rested in a web of rotten flesh.Wires had been fed into the brain matter, inserted through the folds in its surface.They emerged from the skull like a fright wig, leading up and away into the shadows.Some were as thick as mains flex; others were thin, but grouped together and tangled like spaghetti.Troubled, revolted, frightened – but unable to stop searching for some reason or clue as to who or what had done all this and why – Gwen narrowed her gaze.She directed the torchlight into the skull, inspecting the grizzled contents.She felt her stomach turn as she became aware of tiny things moving in the flesh, little white grubs slowly feeding on the old meat, their bodies pulsing with life in the sudden, harsh light of her torch [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]