by Susan Calman
The Doctor grinned. ‘Oh, and how!’
He was almost at the door when he found himself face-to-face with a large mace.
The man rushed at Rose. He gave off a clammy, damp smell, like something wet around the edges. She wrinkled her nose. It wasn’t a smell she recognised. He put out a moist hand. ‘You are an anomaly.’
Rose kicked him in the shin. It was like kicking a block of wood, and she recoiled, hopping about in agony. ‘Oww! Oww!’
‘Unhand her!’ Nikolai had drawn his sword.
The man gazed at the count with contempt, not letting his tight grip of Rose drop. The count slashed at his arm. Without flinching, the man grabbed the count’s sword in his free hand and, showing no sign of pain, tore it from the young man’s grasp and whirled it across the room.
Startled, Rose twisted to see it, forgetting her voluminous skirts and knocking a nearby candelabra over as she did so. The candles instantly fell on to the papers beneath, which whooshed up in flames.
The man backed away a little. Apparently, he wasn’t comfortable with fire.
Rose seized her opportunity and grabbed the candelabra, brandishing it at him. ‘Stay back!’
But the man, sweat dripping from his forehead, pushed aside his fear and lunged at her – just as Nikolai retrieved his sword and launched himself at the both of them. The three of them overbalanced, and the man caught hold of the long red ribbon tucked into Rose’s dress. He pulled hard and, as he did so, the room seemed to shimmy around them. The candles wavered and vanished, the walls contracted and squeezed, and Rose found herself standing next to a window, alongside Nikolai. The man in the fur hat had vanished; all that remained was the long length of red ribbon, torn at the end.
To her horror, Rose spotted the telescope and realised where they were: back in 2005, in the bright daylight of modern Toronto. Together, she and the count looked out of the window and down. Nine storeys below, embedded in the snow, lay a brown, horribly twisted shape.
Instinctively, Rose did the first thing that crossed her mind: she pulled the blinds shut, blocking out the great shining view of the city beyond.
‘What happened to him?’ Nikolai asked.
‘We …’ Rose flapped her hands. ‘We moved. To a different space. But he must have been on the other side of the window. Whatever he was, he’s gone.’ She covered her mouth with her hand. ‘He would –’ She forced herself to slow her breathing. ‘He would have killed us. He was trying to kill me.’
But by now Nikolai was looking about the apartment, utterly astonished. He had grabbed a television remote, and stared at it blankly, then felt the shape of it almost reverently.
He can’t have ever seen plastic before, Rose realised. And that, it occurred to her, was only the start of it.
‘What? What is this? Am I –’ He clutched his head.
Rose desperately wished that the Doctor was there; partly to help, but mostly to do the explaining bit that he was so good at.
‘Um, maybe you’re …’ She wanted to lie and say ‘concussed’, but instead she blurted out, ‘I’m sorry. We’ve moved forward in time.’
Nikolai shook his head, his face contorted.
‘Um, you know, time travel?’ Rose tried.
‘I never … What could that be?’
‘Well, you know “today”?’ Rose started, feeling this was only going from bad to worse.
Nikolai looked at her.
‘It is no longer the same …?’ He sniffed suddenly. ‘What is that smell?’
‘Not sure,’ said Rose, sniffing too. ‘Coffee? Diesel?’
Nikolai sniffed again. Then he twisted round. ‘Oh my,’ he exclaimed, his face incredulous. ‘It’s me!’
Rose couldn’t help it: she smiled.
Rose sat next to the telescope, amused by the sounds of extraordinary happiness emanating from the bathroom, even as she was conscious that she’d left her phone in the TARDIS and didn’t know how on earth she was going to contact the Doctor.
‘Oh my … oh. This is the best … this is …’
‘It’s just a shower,’ she called. ‘Okay, a power shower, but still!’
Nikolai could barely find the words for his joy. ‘It is … oh. I have never known such …’
‘You’ll have to get out.’
‘Never!’
‘You will! I’ve put your towel on the radiator.’
‘What’s a radiator?’
Covering her eyes, Rose edged the bathroom door open just a touch, then thrust her arm through the small gap to hand him the warm, fluffy towel.
‘Ooooh!’
The Doctor felt something twinge. He looked down. The red ribbon he had been carrying had glowed briefly, and now the colour had all gone out of it. Rose had gone. Thank goodness. She was safe.
He, on the other hand, was still staring at the big man’s large, curved mace.
‘Now,’ the Doctor said quickly, ‘I’m sure you don’t mean to be trying to blow a hole in the fabric of space and time, so why don’t we sit down and talk things through.’
‘I must kill the anomaly.’
‘I like that name,’ said the Doctor. ‘The Anomaly. That could work – if only anyone could spell it.’
The man raised his weapon above his head and prepared to strike.
Nikolai came out into the sitting room, blinking. He turned the lights on and off over and over again, marvelling anew each time.
‘I’m definitely not showing you the internet,’ said Rose.
Nikolai looked across the room, frowning slightly. ‘Where is the rest of this palace? Where are all the servants and footmen?’
‘Ah,’ said Rose. ‘Don’t worry about that for now.’
There was one muffin left from that morning. She handed it to Nikolai, just to see his face as he ate it, and laughed when she did, vowing that the first modern item she would buy him was a toothbrush.
The Doctor frantically scanned the room, looking for something to use in self-defence, but there wasn’t much beyond sealing wax and parchment. Aha! He spied a large pewter jug on the table, and quickly pulled out his sonic screwdriver and increased its magnetism. Instantly the mace curved over the man’s shoulders like a fat scimitar, then plunged into the jug.
The Doctor had bought himself several seconds. He had to get to that window. Now.
‘Rose,’ he breathed, as he peered out of it. ‘Can you see me?’
He centred himself, using his intense powers of focus to tune out everything that was in the foreground and bring up what was lurking just below the surface. The pedlars, the flower sellers, the shivering footmen stamping their feet as they stood by their horses, the steam rising from the beasts’ noses: he tuned it all out.
And then he saw it. Just a glimpse, a mere blip, but clearer now than ever. The hole. It must be growing larger. He could see the apartment window quite entirely now, the skyscraper outlined behind.
‘Rose!’ he mouthed, even as he heard the figure behind him grunt and pull the mace out of the pewter jug. ‘ROSE!’
Rose was once more at the telescope, even as Nikolai had exclaimed his way around the contemporary apartment. She spotted the Doctor straight away. The window in Russia, its sill covered with a thick layer of snow, flickered softly; it was dark there, where everywhere else was light. She could see the Doctor was calling her name, and behind him a huge man was bearing down on him …
‘Oh no! We have to go back!’ She jumped up. ‘Come on!’
Nikolai didn’t move. ‘I don’t want to.’ He was dressed, his blond hair wet and flopping in his eyes. He had his back against the radiator. ‘Can’t I stay?’
Rose was so tempted. She looked at him sitting there, clean and content. She could leave Nikolai there while she went back to the Doctor, then they could come back for him … But what if they didn’t?
She glanced out of the window again. Amidst the honking traffic below, suddenly a sleigh careered, driven by a very, very confused-looking man and pulled by four terrif
ied horses, with a screaming woman in a ball gown seated inside. The sleigh sluiced across eight lanes of traffic, before finally coming to a halt at High Park.
‘No,’ Rose said firmly, tugging Nikolai roughly up from where he rested. ‘We have to go. Now. This isn’t good, and it’s getting worse and … you being here. I think that might be part of it.’
Rose was in such a desperate hurry to get back to the Doctor that she couldn’t think of a story to tell the doorman in the lobby of the apartment building across the road. The doorman looked at her and Nikolai – and, in particular, at Nikolai’s sword – askance as they rushed past him.
‘We don’t mean any harm!’ Rose shouted over her shoulder, but it was already too late. The doorman had pressed the panic button, and the elevators, Rose instantly saw, had all frozen in place. She cursed under her breath and banged through the fire-escape door into the stairwell.
Climbing eight flights of stairs is the kind of thing that would be a challenge when you’ve warmed up and are wearing sweatpants and trainers, let alone when you’re wearing a tightly laced corset and have a very confused Russian count in tow. Rose’s lungs were bursting by the time they reached the eighth floor, and the sirens were blaring in their ears. Nikolai was having no trouble keeping up, but the look on his face indicated just how very, very difficult he was finding it all.
Rose dragged him along the corridor to the correct door and, gathering the last of her strength, she kicked it open. But it opened on the wrong room. There it was: the small sofa, the furry throw, the fairy lights. This time, though, a young woman was sitting on the sofa with her laptop. She rose up, terrified.
‘Oh my gawwwwwd! Was it you who put the lipstick on my window?’
‘Sorry. Sorry! Sorry!’ said Rose, retreating in a panic and closing the door behind her.
Oh god. What now? The Doctor needed her.
Then she smelled it again. It was wafting off Nikolai, even after a shower: that whiff of tallow wax and parchment. The whiff of time.
She thought about it. Then turned towards him.
‘You open the door,’ she said.
‘Will it take me back?’
‘I think so.’
‘Will you come with me?’
‘Yes,’ said Rose.
She could tell he didn’t want to do it, but he did it anyway. This time, when the door swung open, Rose was not surprised to see the salon there. The Doctor, looking exhausted, had shinned up one of the heavy velvet curtains, while below him a large man feinted and swiped at him with the point of a huge mace.
‘Help us!’ shouted Rose, charging in.
‘Which one?!’ said Nikolai.
‘The one with the nose!’
‘Oi!’ The Doctor’s relieved but nonetheless offended voice called from the curtain.
Wielding his sword, Nikolai leapt on to the back of the man with the mace, even as Rose had gone for his ankles to try and knock him off balance. The man reared up with a roar that sounded distinctly unhuman, dropped his mace, and Nikolai tore half the shirt off his back, exposing blue, nobbled reptilian flesh under a white carapace of what looked like wax.
‘Ooh,’ said Rose, grabbing the rest of it.
The Doctor jumped lightly to the floor. ‘Causubus!’ he cried, as Rose kicked out at the creature’s knees before it could swing its mace back round, bringing it crashing to the floor. Nikolai held the point of his sword at the creature’s neck, and the Doctor came over to them. The fake skin the monster was wearing – the wax-like carapace – was peeling off.
‘Causubus origina. Oh, how you little souls cling on.’
‘What foul thing is this?’ said Nikolai.
‘Something you should definitely keep pointing your sword at for now,’ said the Doctor, grabbing the creature’s mace from where it had clattered to the floor nearby and holding it alongside the count’s sword. ‘This too, for good measure. It’s a parasite,’ the Doctor continued. ‘Steals little bits of time energy from all over the universe to use as fuel by binding itself with a host. I have no idea how he’s ended up here.’
Rose looked at the creature, then back at Nikolai, as an idea dawned.
‘Um, when you say “bind”,’ she asked, ‘could that also mean “marry”?’
The Doctor turned to her.
‘It could do. Why?’
Meanwhile, the creature’s face was melting off, pieces of wax falling to the floor. It groaned.
‘Shall I kill it?’ asked Nikolai, still standing there. There was a tremor in his voice and, Rose noticed, he was shaking.
‘Are you built for killing, do you think?’ the Doctor asked the young man.
‘No,’ said the count, his face turning pink. ‘I have no stomach for it.’
‘Good,’ said the Doctor. ‘Quite right too.’
‘But of little consequence,’ said a voice behind them. In the doorway stood the beautiful woman in a white dress, clutching a small bouquet of wilted lilies.
‘You,’ the Doctor said, before turning back to the creature on the floor. ‘Of course. This is just one of your goons.’
Rose looked closely at the woman’s beautiful, perfect skin, at her waxy complexion.
‘My love.’ The woman turned to Nikolai. ‘It is time for us to be wed. Ignore my pet.’
Rose laughed. ‘I don’t think he’s up for it, mate.’
The woman ignored Rose. ‘Your family,’ she cooed to Nikolai, ‘has lived here for hundreds and hundreds of years. Land and titles and fealties passed down. You are rooted in time. You are delicious, a fertile well … You shall have money. Your family will be safe and cared for. There will be no offspring. No harm.’
Nikolai blinked.
‘Look. He just doesn’t fancy yours much,’ said Rose. ‘Really. Aren’t you all blue and scaly under there too?’
The woman made to move away, but she kept her eyes on the young count, her beautiful face outlined in the firelight. ‘No, I am not,’ she said to him. ‘Come now, Nikolai. Everyone you know is out there, waiting for you. But you and your family may starve, if you prefer, or die on the slaughter fields of Russian winter.’
The Doctor’s eyes blazed. ‘You, Causubus. Parasite. I know what you are. I’m here to stop you.’
The woman smirked. ‘But this is a wedding! You cannot stop a binding when both parties are willing. And we shall be bound.’
She opened a purse she carried on her belt. Inside, it glistened with gold and jewels.
Nikolai’s eyes widened.
‘All yours, my love,’ she said. ‘The instant we are bound.’
‘Money,’ the Doctor muttered to himself. ‘Why money gets people to do such extraordinarily stupid things will always remain a mystery to me.’
The woman still had her eyes fixed on Nikolai.
‘Come, my love.’
And she disappeared through the door and glided back into the ballroom.
The Doctor, Rose and Nikolai glanced at one another, then charged after her.
As the three of them clattered into the ballroom, the music stopped. Everyone turned to stare at them, and also at a very old man dressed in black, with a long beard and a curved crucifix hanging heavy round his neck, who had walked into the ballroom at that same moment. As he shuffled by, the assembled guests sank to their knees.
‘The priest!’ said Nikolai, looking panicked.
The woman in white was already in front of the assembled guests, kneeling as she waited for the priest to reach her. Rose hung back and grabbed the count.
‘Run!’ said Rose.
‘Where?’ said Nikolai.
Outside, a freezing gale blew off the lake and rattled every door and every shutter.
Rose looked imploringly at the Doctor. ‘Can’t he come with us?’
Nikolai’s face lit up. ‘I would like that very much. To come where the lights glow and the water falls and where there are tumbling, sweet fountains of steam. Yes, I would like that very much.’
The Doctor’s
face was absolute granite. He refused to make eye contact with either Rose or Nikolai.
Then, from far away, there came the sound of a police siren. Rose didn’t notice the anachronism at first, until Nikolai stiffened. He had no idea what the siren was.
‘It’s getting worse,’ Rose said to the Doctor in a low voice.
‘Yes, it’s getting worse every second, and we’re all part of the problem. We need to seal both ends. With everyone in their right end.’
Rose blinked. Her mouth moved, but barely any sound came out.
The Doctor folded his arms and bent down to listen to her.
‘To send him to war …’ she was saying.
‘Sometimes, people go to war.’
‘You could stay here, for me,’ Nikolai beseeched Rose. ‘We could be happy.’
‘There is,’ said the Doctor, speaking so quietly only Rose could hear, ‘something of a time limit on happy Russian aristocrats.’
Rose remained as frozen as the statues outside in the winter garden, and avoided meeting Nikolai’s pleading eyes. Looking forlorn, he turned his attention to the assembled guests, and in particular to the front row. There they were, anxiously gazing back at him: his father, his mother, looking fretful, and what were obviously his five sisters. He glanced once more at Rose, who still did not move.
There was no way out.
The candlelight gleamed on the beautiful woman in white’s hair, flickered over the purse hanging from her waist, and Nikolai found himself moving forward like a man in a trance. He knelt obediently opposite the woman.
Rose lifted her head and sniffed. There was that soggy scent in the air again. What was it?
‘Mud. Mud, decay and earth,’ the Doctor whispered to her. ‘It’s all they have.’
The priest withdrew a long piece of material to bind the count and the woman’s hands together. It was a long strip of red ribbon. As he wound it round and round the couple’s wrists, he intoned the ancient words of the marriage ritual over their bowed heads.
Rose couldn’t bear to watch. Instead, as if hypnotised, she watched a long drip of molten wax run slowly down the back of the woman’s white neck. The woman flinched, but did not look up.
