by Paul Cornell
Nyssa ran through the castle, damning her gullibility. Just because everybody with power on her homeworld was honest and generous, she'd seen the shape of that power and assumed the heart to be true as well. Well, she'd seen enough. Her curiosity had been satisfied. If Yarven had broken his word, Nyssa could break hers.
She ran up the spiral staircase of a tower, remembering from her first view of the castle that all such turrets featured large windows. This one was no exception. A stained glass portrait of Yarven, no less, in various shades of scarlet and black.
Nyssa dashed up to the glass and pushed against it.
Useless. She needed something to smash the glass with. In the corner there was a trunk, perhaps there was something heavy inside. All she needed was a tiny hole that she could pour her gaseous form out of.
She opened the trunk.
Inside it, the Child smiled up at her. He reached out and headed straight for Nyssa. She grabbed the chest and arm before she could slam the lid, throwing it back with his supernatural strength. He floated up out of the box, it impacted, smashing the glass open and sending getting between Nyssa and the window.
Ruath appeared in the doorway. She carried a strange looking gun. "Shall I leave her to you, Child?" The baby burbled. Nyssa turned to Ruath accusingly.
"Are you planning to keep me prisoner?" "Until you are a prisoner of your biology, yes. We've been monitoring you all through the castle. We assume that you've fulfilled your function for us."
"Which is?"
"To contact the Doctor and tell him of our location. You've certainly had access to all sorts of transmitting equipment in your path through the castle. That's why Yarven promised to free you, my dear. He wanted to delay you until our plans were complete. Now that the party's prepared, I hope that you've invited our guest."
Nyssa didn't let her expression give away the horror she felt. Well, at least they didn't know how she'd done it. "What do you want him for? What are you planning?"
Ruath glanced up to the corner of the room, and Nyssa realized that she was performing this scene for an audience. Probably Yarven. "The Doctor is an ancient enemy of the vampire race. The Books of Prophecy declare that he must be sacrificed over seven days for the rule of the Undead to come to pass. He will regenerate at least once a night and maintain a state of regenerative trauma until he dies, as befits the one who killed the Great Vampire."
Nyssa shivered. "You don't really believe in these prophecies, do you?" she asked, looking Ruath in the eye. "You're just - " She grabbed the foot of the Child and flung him at her.
Ruath toppled backwards, but the Child swung up and headed straight for Nyssa. She grabbed the chest and hauled it two-handed at the window.
It impacted, smashing the glass and sending shards flying into the night.
The Child swept through a cloud of gas, looked around in puzzlement, and then faded into gas itself. Two struggling clouds of vapour billowed towards the window.
Ruath had got to her feet again. "Child!" she shouted. "Leave her to me!"
Much to Nyssa's relief, the tiny vampire regained his solid form. The two of them had been colliding and wrestling on a molecular level, the Child's form trying to surround and compress Nyssa back into flesh, and what misshapen flesh it would have been. In other circumstances, the young Trakenite might have found the idea of a gaseous combat interesting, but at the moment her only thought was of escape. The cloud that was her swished straight for the gap in the window.
Ruath aimed her pistol and fired. A fanlike beam of golden light caught Nyssa's gaseous form and held it, frozen in the air, for a moment. Then Nyssa found herself being pulled back into the pistol by tiny increments. All her strength, unused as it was to moving gas, couldn't escape the pull of the beam. Finally she gave in and was sucked back into the gun.
The last thing she thought of was the Doctor, and the suffering that she had bequeathed to him. Then she was gone into blackness.
Ruath tapped the pistol with her finger. "Glad I came up with that," she smiled.
The Child backed away, raising its hands in sudden fear.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to use it on you. Oh." The exclamation was caused by a sudden shadow that had swept into the room.
Yarven was standing before her, almost there, his features a charcoal sketch against the shattered scarlet window. "I did not know of such a weapon," he whispered.
"I made it while studying vampire lore, my Lord," Ruath told him nervously.
"There are other such devices?"
"No. Forgive me, I didn't think of this as a secret. I have no secrets from you."
"Don't you?" Tiny pinprick eyes turned to look at Ruath and, not for the first time, she felt scared by how alien Yarven could be. "No," he concluded. "You are devoted to me. You have not lied about the sacrifice that lies ahead of me, and it must surely have occurred to you to do so."
"I'm your servant, my Lord."
"I gave Nyssa my word, you know, Ruath. Once, the word of a nobleman would have meant something one could trust, beyond riddles and mere literal truths."
"It will again." Ruath approached the shadow and put her arms around its coldness. "In the world that we will establish."
"It will be a world founded on deceit, then. On many deceits."
"Why then," Ruath kissed the darkness, "it will be a world like any other."
Victor Lang lay unconscious on a bench in the pit room. Yarven indicated him to Jake and Madelaine. "Take him back, leave him somewhere appropriate. You know the city better than I" Then he left, sweeping his cape behind him.
"All right." Jake looked down at the sleeping man. "Wonder what they did to him?"
"Not our problem." Madelaine lifted the evangelist into her arms. "I'll miss our conversations, though. Perhaps I'll go back and visit him."
"What, before or after our lot rule the world?"
"I'll believe that when I see it. Do you find all that ... I don't know, frightening?"
"Change always is frightening. We'll get used to it."
"I suppose so. Okay then, pull the lever."
Jake did so, and they rose out of the dome as it opened, into a beautifully clear night sky. The moon shone down on the forest, a shade off full.
Lang opened his eyes and looked up at Madelaine. She glanced at him and smiled, giving him a little hug. "You're going home."
Their eyes met. And Madelaine knew. "Oh ..." she whispered. She stared back into him and hit his brain with a serious thought.
You will tell them, you bastard. And then you'll be free.
"Problems?" Jake asked, moving up alongside.
"Not mine," Maddy assured him, looking at Lang sadly. "Come on, let's finish this."
The Doctor and Tegan were up early, walking the streets of the city just before dawn in what Tegan took to be a futile search for a slumbering vampire. The Doctor had refused to despair but Tegan could see that he had very few options left. The city centre was going about its business despite itself, comforted by the lightening sky.
"There's going to be another dawn after all," Tegan opined. She could imagine the vigils that were coming to an end all across the country.
"Yes ..." The Doctor had his hands deep in his pockets, and was staring ahead, lost in thought. "Possibly the last one, though. There haven't been any more time experiments, but I can't see why they don't just . . " His thoughts eluded him again. "Doughnuts. Must keep the blood sugar up."
They were walking across the square in front of the Town Hall, and the Doctor had spotted a doughnut trailer, its owner oblivious to the apocalypse, which had opened up to catch the first businessmen.
As they bought coffee and doughnuts, Tegan noticed something happening on the steps of the Town Hall. A small crowd was forming. A lot of homeless people, but quite a few of the early risers of Manchester's working life too. They were clustering around the base of the steps, and on them a figure was standing, proclaiming loudly.
The Doctor nearly spilled his coffee.
"I recognize that voice!" he murmured. "Come on!" They raced across the square. Sure enough, on the steps of the Town Hall stood Victor Lang, dishevelled and swaying. He was preaching with all the skills at his command, his powerful voice echoing out across the square.
"I have been lost these last few days, ladies and gentlemen, and you have been lost also, am I right? Lost in the darkness, lost in a night that you thought was never going to stops Well, I'm here to tell you, I got back, I came back from that pit, and even there, Jesus Christ our Lord did not desert me. He is coming! He is coming. And that is why I am opening the gates of my service, free, to anybody who wishes to attend. We will stand through the next long night together, and together we will see in the dawn!" The crowd had started to gasp and point. "A sign!" one of them yelled. "A sign!" She was gesturing at Lang's forehead.
There, a cluster of red letters and numbers had started to appear.
"What does it mean, Doctor?" Tegan whispered.
The Doctor was grinning broadly. "I think I know," he replied. "But first I have to find an Ordnance Survey map."
Nine
The Doctor raced around the TARDIS console, tapping in co-ordinates to feed the computer map that was forming on the viewscreen. He squinted at the finished map and then, like a meticulous dinner-party host, reached across and hit a final control. The map flipped on its edge and became a three-dimensional projection of hummocky, wooded countryside.
"Staffordshire, Tegan, the wooded areas surrounding a small town called Leek. They do a rather good oatcake, so the TARDIS tells me. All being well, we'll be able to share one with Nyssa by the end of the day."
"Did Lang tell you anything useful?" Tegan had moved back out of the crowd earlier as the Doctor had attempted to draw the evangelist aside.
"No, he'd got rather carried away with enthusiasm and wouldn't talk to me for more than a few minutes. He did say, however, that he'd been kept in a pit for most of the time, and knew his captors mainly as a series of voices. He doesn't even know how he got away, which worries me, but still ... I don't honestly think he could be of much use to us. Except as a message-carrier, that is. Nyssa must have been able to get some sort of heat-activated chemical onto Lang's skin. Similar to invisible ink, I should think." He looked up at Tegan suddenly. "So what are you going to do while I pop over and get her?"
Tegan stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. "Oh, now, wait a minute, you can't just go walking in there without me!"
"I'm not going to argue with you. I seem to be like a bad juggler at the moment, trying to keep three things in the air at once." The Doctor had looked aside, not wanting to meet Tegan's gaze.
"You don't have to worry about me. Listen - " Tegan grabbed the Doctor's shoulder and gently made him look at her. "What happened to Adric isn't going to happen again. You can't leave me behind. We're in this together."
"Are we, hm? Yes, I suppose that perhaps we are. Well, while daylight is with us perhaps we'd better be on our way. I think I can persuade the old girl to get us to the exact place, but I'm going to have to translate the map reference into co-ordinates, and that's going to take a while, so -"
"I know," sighed Tegan. "One lump or two?"
Lang pulled the tie smoothly about his neck.
New shirt, new suit. Bathed, shaven, clean. He'd spent three hours ranting from the steps of the Town Hall, and had assembled quite a crowd before the police had asked him to move on.
Ordinarily, it wasn't the sort of publicity he'd have liked, but damn it. Damn it. This was what he'd been born for. He'd somehow escaped from that castle, illusory or real as it had been. Maybe the girl Madelaine had got him out, because he remembered her face. He'd been delivered back to humanity to speak to them of the last days of the world.
Olivia knocked on his office door and he opened it, welcoming her in. "How are you?"
"I'm fine, but what happened to you? There have been so many stories. And, let me say, we've got the world and his uncle on the phone. Is it true you're throwing the doors open tonight?"
"It is. And to hell with the Council, pardon my language. I don't think they could stop us now if they wanted to, insurance regulations or whatever." He stood up and walked to the window. "This is the big one. Tonight is the last night of man on Earth, Olivia. Do you believe me?"
The young woman sat down. "Yes, I do. Something odd's happening to the nights, and they had all these scientists on television, but they were all contradicting each other. And everybody knows that there are creatures out there. I don't know what they're supposed to be, but I -"
"I was with them. I saw them. And, though I'm sure they don't know it, they're part of the great plan."
"Which is?"
"The end of the world. The great reckoning. The dead will return and be judged, Olivia. They'll be selected for heaven or cast down to the fire." Lang spread his arms wide, gazing down at the sunlit city below. "In that stadium, we'll be getting as many of them through customs as we can."
Tegan didn't find that making the tea distracted her very much from what was about to happen, but she managed to warm the pot and strain the brew to just the right strength for the Doctor.
When she returned to the console room, carrying the tray, she found him hacking away at the hatstand. Coats and hats had been scattered everywhere as the Doctor used a laser blade to slice up the wooden construction. "Ah, most welcome." He finished his task and splintered off along length of wood. "I realized that my vampire-repellent kit was missing something."
"A stake?"
"It's a drastic solution, but at the moment I don't see much of an alternative. There hasn't been a full moon since Nyssa was bitten. That means that if the vampire that did so is destroyed - "
"She's free of it. Make me one!" The Doctor frowned at her but, having taken a slurp of his tea, resumed his task. A few minutes later he handed Tegan a sharpened stake. "This is only to be used in the last resort, or when and where I tell you."
"No worries." Tegan pricked her finger on the point. "Hey, that's sharp."
"That is the general idea." The Doctor turned back to the console and activated the co-ordinate keypad. "Now, let's go and see what they've been getting up to, shall we?" The familiar wheezing, groaning sound vibrated from the console and the central time rotor began its rise and fall.
The TARDIS faded away from the backstreets of Manchester and spun into the vortex.
Nyssa's eyes opened.
She was awake. It didn't feel like night yet, but it was dark. Absolutely black. There was a smell of wet wood all around her.
She tried to move a hand up to her eyes but it encountered something immediately. A surface, right above her. Wood. Nyssa slid her hand up over her body and found that there was a gap of only an inch or so between her and the ceiling.
She tried to turn, and her shoulder hit the ceiling too.
She lashed out with her arms and hit the sides of her prison, left and right, only a few inches away. Behind her head was a board as well. She inched down a bit, and her feet encountered a similar one.
Nyssa was in a box only slightly bigger than she was. She fought down the urge to panic and start screaming. She placed her palms against the upper surface and pushed, gently at first, then harder.
The wood creaked slightly. She pulled up her knees and tried to exert upward force with them as well, but that didn't help much.
She made a fist and swung it at the ceiling, hitting it with a solid thump.
A tiny dollop of soil fell through a crack onto her face.
At that point Nyssa began to scream.
The woodlands around Leek were basking in an autumn afternoon, rooks clattering back to their nests overhead and the business of nature continuing in the great drifts of leaves that had accumulated in hollows and gulleys.
Nowhere was the forest really deep, surrounded as it was by the green sweep of farmlands, but it was relatively isolated, much of it owned by the National Trust rather than individual landowners. The trees were
orange and gold now in the sunlight, and through them distant hills and farmsteads could be spotted.
The TARDIS materialized, sending a great cloud of leaves into a flurry around it. The Doctor thus stepped out into a windfall, shooing them away with his hat. He carried the cricket bag that contained his vampire equipment. Tegan followed, looking around the damply sunlit glades without enthusiasm.
"So," she muttered, "where's the coach with the driver who won't take us to Castle Dracula?"
"No coach, Tegan, but I've put us down about a mile or so from Nyssa's map reference, which is - " he moved his finger slowly from left to right, "that way. Shall we?" He moved off at a brisk pace.
After a twenty-minute hike Tegan stopped, leaning on a tree to get her breath back. "Hey, wait up. We've got a lot of daylight left."
The Doctor jogged back. "Not necessarily, if the time experiments are still continuing. Still, I know what to expect now. I should notice some unusual curvature in timespace well before any major changes occur, and I haven't sensed anything yet."
"Garlic time?"
"No. They might release the gas."
Right. Tegan Kiev. Not a pretty thought. "Hey, did you get that call you were on about? The telepathy job?"
"Yes. An old friend. She wanted to warn me, but she was under very strict instructions about what she could and couldn't tell me. Gallifreyans looking over her shoulder, I suspect."
"Anything useful, like who this Yarven bloke really is?"
"Not that, exactly. But a couple of hints that might prove useful."
"What do you reckon this lot are up to anyway? What do they want?"
"To rule the world, I assume. That's the usual job description. I wonder if any of them ever consider what a tiresome job that would actually turn out to be." He gave her a reassuring grin and patted her on the shoulder. "Come on. Can't be far now."
Grudgingly, Tegan hauled herself up.
Five minutes later the Doctor pulled himself up a bank by grabbing hold of tree branches, and pushed aside the foliage of a bush. He stopped. Tegan clambered up beside him and grasped his coat-tails to steady herself.