Torchwood: Slow Decay by Andy Lane Page B

remembered, above all else, was the people that had been melted together during sexual congress by Goldenrod; their flesh joined, teratological monstrosities that Owen had to try to separate surgically leaving, for the most part, deformity and death behind him.
    Ianto raised an eyebrow. ‘And what about you, Tosh? What are you looking for down here?’
    ‘That device we recovered from the nightclub – I think it’s part of a set. According to the files, we have several more of them in a box.’ She waved vaguely down the tunnel. ‘Down there somewhere. Tunnel sixteen, chamber twenty-six, shelf eight, box thirteen.’
    ‘Ah.’ Ianto took her by the elbow and guided her back down the tunnel, the way she had come, away from the chamber where he had been working. ‘You’ve come too far. It’s a little confusing, down here. Let me help you orientate yourself.’
    They walked back, Ianto holding Toshiko’s elbow all the way. Something made a noise behind them, a movement, a scuffling, but when Toshiko turned her head she couldn’t see anything. And Ianto didn’t turn his head.
    It was a rat. Just a rat. That’s what Toshiko told herself.
    ‘This chicken is delicious. What did you do with it?’
    Gwen smiled. Suzanne Vega was still playing softly in the background, the alien tech was glowing a soft amber, which had surprised her but fortunately blended in with the candle, and Rhys was wolfing everything down with an enthusiasm she hadn’t seen for ages. ‘Nothing, really. I just marinated it for a while.’
    ‘There’s nothing “just” about that. It’s inspired genius. And it certainly makes a change from the usual pasta in sauce.’ He took another sip of his wine. ‘We used to eat like this a lot,’ he said reflectively. ‘We used to cook together, remember? We’d buy a recipe book and go through the recipes, one by one. Sometimes they were great, and sometimes they were… well, not so great… but they were always interesting.’
    ‘Remember the turkey with chocolate and chilli pepper sauce?’ Gwen giggled.
    ‘Which might have worked if we’d read the recipe properly and used dark chocolate instead of milk? I remember.’
    ‘Give us some credit, we were drunk.’ She wasn’t sure if it was the wine or the alien tech, but she was feeling like she was slightly out of control now as well. Or possibly she and Rhys were synching together, so in a sense they were both controlling each other. Whatever: it was a nice feeling.
    He was laughing now. ‘What about the Brie wedges in breadcrumbs?’
    ‘Which we left in the deep fat fryer for so long that the Brie just melted away and all we had left were these breadcrumb shells that tasted faintly of cheese!’
    ‘What was the silliest thing we ever cooked?’ Rhys asked. He reached out a hand and placed it over the back of Gwen’s hand in a gesture of familiarity that took her breath away momentarily, it was so unexpected.
    Gwen smiled at him, catching his eye for longer than they usually managed these days. ‘The pork, paprika and pears, when the pears just cooked down to this porridge-y mush?’
    His gaze locked with hers. ‘No. No, I think it was the Cuban lamb. The one where the recipe said we had to marinade it in Coca Cola before barbecuing it.’
    ‘Oh! Oh!’ A sudden memory made her eyes widen. ‘Surely it was the peanut butter and apple soup?’
    Rhys nodded. ‘Yes! Oh God, didn’t we do that for a dinner party?’
    ‘Rebecca and Andy came over. You found the recipe in a vegetarian cookbook. You were so proud of it.’
    ‘And it was so thick and stodgy that none of us actually wanted our main course.’ His fingers curled around her hand, touching the soft palm, stroking down to her wrist. ‘Oh, Gwen, when did we stop having so much fun?’ he asked softly.
    She sighed. ‘When I got a promotion, and you got a promotion, and we both ended up working silly hours just so we could get together enough money to pay the bills and take an