Border Princes - By Dan Abnett Page 0,1

never suffered from migraines, but she’d read enough to know that this was what migraines were supposed to feel like.

‘What the bloody hell is this?’ she asked. She was slightly scared.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. He managed a grin and put on the beaky voice of his favourite cartoon character, ‘But I ain’t gonna get in no flap.’

That made her laugh. Jack was Torchwood’s rock and soul, but James was its heart. He could make her laugh in the face of the End of the World. Or Cardiff, whichever occurred first.

James turned away from her. ‘Game face,’ he said. ‘We’re on.’

Someone was running towards them, running right across the flooded part of the lot and kicking up froths of water like Gene Kelly in a happy-go-lucky mood.

Gwen thought it was Toshiko at first glance, but it wasn’t. It was a slim girl in boy-cut jeans and a skinny rib T-shirt that bore the slogan I’ve got tits, so I win.

She was running kind of funny, Gwen thought, spastic, her arms shaking. Her thin, pram face was twitching and blinking.

‘Hello?’ James called out.

The girl stumbled to a halt and wavered in front of them, blinking at James, then at Gwen, and then at James again. Each swing of her head was abrupt and made her sway. Her fingers, dripping with rain, pinched and snapped like someone telling the old ‘he’s been giving it that all night’ lobster joke.

‘Big big big,’ she told them, slurring and emphasising the middle ‘big’. ‘Sham. Sixty Nine per cent. Of cat owners. Anthropomorphise. Gibbons. Big gibbons. Big Gibbon’s Decline and Fall,’ she added.

Then she dropped to her knees with such a hard, bony crunch, Gwen winced. Kneeling, the girl threw up on the gravel.

Gwen went to her quickly, trying to help her. The girl said something, and pushed Gwen away. Then she hurled again.

Even diluted by the wind and rain, her sick smelled wrong. There was a strong ketone stink. Behind that, half-masked, plastics and burned sugar.

‘It’s all right,’ said Gwen.

‘Big big big,’ the girl slurred, and dry heaved like she was trying to exhale her liver.

Gwen looked up at James.

‘What the hell’s wrong with her?’ she asked. ‘And, also, ow! My headache’s getting worse.’

‘Mine too,’ he agreed. He was trying to be upbeat, but she could hear the tone. The pain. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘unless quiz night at the local pub has gone horribly wrong—’

The girl got up, shoving them aside. She fell down again, picked herself up once more and said, ‘Glory. Glory glory glory. Cantankerous. Is a good word.’

She swayed and looked at James. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ he replied, reaching out his hand.

The girl laughed, and bubbles of snot came out of her nose. The heaves squeezed her again, and she convulsed, elbows digging into her sides, but nothing more came up.

‘Varnish,’ she said, gurgling, and ran away.

‘Don’t let her—’ Gwen began.

The girl didn’t get far. She ran blindly into a mouldering brick wall, bounced off it with an ugly smack, and fell flat on her back.

They ran to her. Her face and arms were grazed and bleeding. Her nose was broken. Blood ran out of it, turning pink in the steady downpour.

‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Gwen hushed. ‘What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?’

‘Huw,’ the girl mumbled.

‘Well, there’s a switch,’ said James.

Gwen looked up at him. ‘She’s not Huw, you prat. Huw’s someone else.’

Huw ran down the riverside path, behind the glittering raindrop wall of the chain link. He thought he was running well, really sprinting, but to an observer, he would have looked like someone doing a sensationally bad Planet of the Apes impression.

He stumbled and slapped into the fence, making it trampoline and jingle. Collected rainwater shivered off the diamond links.

He sagged.

‘Let me help you,’ said the woman materialising out of the rain behind him. She was beautiful, Huw thought, blinking at her. She was slender and very cool beans in her black leather coat.

‘My name is Toshiko,’ the woman told him. ‘Let me help you. Tell me your name. Tell me what happened.’

Huw flopped back onto the grass and broken asphalt, one hand still clinging to the quivering fence.

‘There are,’ he began, but stopped. His voice sounded funny, as if his ears were stuffed full of cotton wool. Maybe they were. Had he done that? Perhaps he had. Earlier on, in the bathroom, swallowing the last of the aspirin. There had been a baggie of cotton wool balls by the sink. Laney’s, for make-up. Had