by Paul Cornell
There was a gentle knock on the door behind her. "Nyssa? You okay?" Tegan's voice.
There was another little pain as the baby disengaged itself from her vein, and looked up at the door. It smiled, its lips coated in red, and then bent to resume its task. The teeth injected themselves once more, and the sucking resumed.
Nyssa made a great effort of will, and slammed her feet against the door again.
"Nyssa?" Tegan asked, more concerned now. "Can you open the door?" She couldn't reply. Her legs wouldn't move again.
"I'm coming in." The door vibrated twice with the impact as Tegan kicked at the wood. It was a narrow corridor, she wouldn't have been able to get much leverage. The door stood firm. "Hold on!" she shouted. "I'll go and get the Doctor!"
Nyssa shivered as the baby detached itself from her throat once more. It looked at her, calmly, a look of well-fed peace. It smiled a red smile. Then it rose from her, floated up to the ceiling and, like a summer wasp, out of the window.
Nyssa put her hand to her throat, gingerly, as one inspects a tooth after dentistry. There were two tender puncture wounds, but they weren't bleeding. Her neck was bruised around them. Her lip hurt far worse, and her ear was throbbing red. Coughing, she stood up, and tottered to her bed.
She pulled the covers up over her and grabbed her pillow, pressing her neck down into it.
There was a clunking sound from the door and it sprang open. The Doctor strode in with Tegan behind him, replacing a skeleton key in the pocket of his dressing-gown. "Nyssa?" he asked, urgently. "Are you all right?"
"Yes ..." she was surprised to hear herself say it, and to hear the measured tones she said it in. "I'm fine."
"Oh ..." he seemed almost embarrassed. "Sorry. Tegan said she heard a commotion. Must have been a nightmare."
"Yes, it must have been. I was asleep." No, she wanted to shout, I was awake, I was assaulted.
"Just as well I didn't kick down the door," Tegan muttered. "Did you bash on it, though?"
"I have been known to sleep-walk."
"Yes ..." The Doctor frowned, glancing around the room. He went to the end of the bed and recovered his hat, staring at it curiously. "Well," he decided, folding his hands behind his back, "we'll leave you in peace. Tegan - "
"Before you go," Nyssa's voice rose in pitch. She felt like she was speaking properly for the first time. "Could you do something for me, please?"
"Yes, of course."
"Close the window."
Ruath stood on a tree-covered hillside above Launceston, her arm outstretched. Her squad of vampires stood behind her, looking about them with bemusement. They'd made another stop after their trip to the Balkans, in Sunderland, where they'd picked up their unusual passenger. Ruath's TARDIS, disguised as a bush, was standing behind them, its open door throwing a triangle of golden light across the scrub.
"I'm tired," sighed Madelaine.
"You would be," nodded Ruath. "You've spent more than one night-time awake. Get used to it."
"Who's this lad gone after?" asked Eric. "One of your lot, is it?"
"Correct. A fellow Time Lord. His name is the Doctor." Ruath pushed a wayward hair back off her forehead. "He likes to think of himself as human, and so he hangs around this world, pursuing all sorts of trivia."
Madelaine smiled nastily at the tone in the Time Lady's voice. "You two go back a long way, then?"
Ruath didn't react. "We have history, yes. Ah, here comes the Child."
In the sky, a tiny speck was floating towards them. It resolved itself into the figure of a baby, giggling and kicking its legs happily. The Child was one of Jeremy's acquaintances. He'd recommended him to Ruath as something that might get past the guard of whoever she was hunting, and the Time Lady had agreed.
The baby settled on Ruath's arm like a hunting falcon.
"Well?" she asked it. "Have you a belly full of his blood?"
The baby burped and smiled.
"He, ah, doesn't talk..." Jeremy murmured. "Sorry and all that, but he was taken at a very early age. He mainly acts on instinct, but if you point him in the right direction and give him a sniff of your victim..."
"I did provide him with a sample of the Doctor's DNA, stolen from the bio-data files." Ruath frowned. "I want to know. Could one of you. . ?"
Jake sighed and put a finger to the baby's lips. He then applied it to his own. "You're all right," he nodded. "That's not human blood. I never tasted anything like that before."
"Good!" Ruath patted the baby on the head. "Let's make use of it."
They took the baby back to Ruath's TARDIS, Madelaine holding it by the foot like a balloon. Inside, Ruath checked on Yarven's condition and declared herself satisfied.
"How much blood will the Child have metabolized?" she asked Jeremy.
"Not much. He generally only feeds once a week or so."
"He can't have the stomach to carry a full nine pints!" laughed Eric.
Ruath looked at him sharply. "Like my TARDIS, vampires are bigger on the inside. Didn't you know?"
Madelaine put a hand on her stomach. "I feel all hollow now."
Ruath took a thin tube from the silver hammock in which Yarven hung, and unreeled it, attaching a needle to the end. She slipped this into the baby's wrist, at which it only giggled, not allowing itself to feel pain. She repeated the process with the other wrist, so the Child floated, two lines attaching it to the hammock. Then she pressed a button on the console. The lines ran red as the blood was drained from the baby to the sleeping vampire, and back again.
"It's a filtration system," Ruath explained. "Yarven gets the alien blood, and the Child gets his own passed back to him."
"What will this stuff do?" asked Jake.
"It will enable Yarven to take up his rightful place as Lord of Vampires. He is, after all, the last representative of a vampire nobility created by the Great Vampire himself." Ruath sighed, apparently deciding that this would be a good point for a history lesson. "Recently, certain rather misguided elements on my planet, that's Gallifrey, aided an attempt to resurrect that grand creature. They weren't interested in the cause of the Undead. They were foolish enough to think that Gallifrey as it stands now could rule space and time, with a man called Borusa at its head. I watched, amused, as they attempted to gain the services of the being called Agonal - "
"Agonal!" Jeremy gasped. "The fools!"
The other vampires looked at each other. "Is he hard, then, this Agonal?" asked Madelaine.
"The hardest. Not hard enough, however, to pose a serious threat to the omni-temporal power of Rassilon. The cosmos is now one Eternal poorer. No, in order to restore Gallifrey to its former glory, to secure its future, we must follow my path. The books I have consulted say that the final end of the Great Vampire, its death by sunlight, will be the prelude to the arising of the Vampire Messiah. That event has just occurred. The books also say that the means of his triumph will be his enemies. He escaped to Earth in the Doctor's TARDIS. I realized that was what had occurred just after the said TARDIS had left Gallifrey. If I had worked it out a few moments earlier, I would have stowed away with him, and all this would have happened in the nineteen thirties. But even that, even that was foreseen by the ancient sages who saw how the future was to progress."
Maddy glanced sidelong at Jake. They were both concealing smiles at the Thatcheresque tones that were driving Ruath's voice higher and higher.
"I ran into the Time Lady called Romana." she was continuing. "And she volunteered to tell me of her experiences with the Undead. She fell, let us say, before the force of destiny."
"But not without smacking her one ..." whispered Jake, indicating Ruath's cheek.
"I made her help me with the controls of the Time Scoop before I disposed of her, used it to view the paths of the Doctor's many incarnations, and when I saw that he was on Earth now, in his most vulnerable form, with many vampires ready and - waiting ... I knew that the time of the prophecies was at hand. Hence all I have done, hence Yarven." She raised
her hands triumphantly, as if expecting applause.
"Well, that's very impressive, like," nodded Jake.
There came a sudden shout from the hammock, which began to buck and twist as if the occupant was in agony.
"Yarven!" shouted Ruath, running to him. She hit a control to cut off the blood supply, and the convulsions subsided. She turned on Jake, furious. "That was not Time Lord blood!"
"Well how was I supposed to know? I don't know one lot of alien blood from another."
"The Child does, ah, mainly work on instinct," murmured Jeremy apologetically. "He might have got a bit mixed up."
Ruath made a spire with her fingers, visibly calming herself. "Well. This is a set-back. It means that I shall have to do something that I didn't want to do. Rather a last resort, in fact." She unhooked the Child from the blood circulation system, a look of quiet determination on her face. "I knew that it might come to this. I shall have to give Yarven my own blood." She opened a hatch on the console and pressed a series of controls.
The console room darkened as power drained away from the walls. A door opened overhead and a crystalline probe descended, a glowing series of interlocking cylinders.
From the wall a metal chair emerged, with a heavy rubber tube connected to each arm rest. The chair had metal cuffs at the hands and feet. Ruath quickly sat in it, and began locking the ankle cuffs. "During this process, I must ask you to ignore any pleas for help I might make," she told the vampires. "It's not going to be pleasant, but one has to make sacrifices for the cause. It's about time somebody did." She looked up at Madelaine suddenly, while securing the first wrist cuff, and shrugged. "I mean, it may be fine. All I'm saying is, if I scream and plead, please ignore it. It's all for the best."
Madelaine nodded. "We understand."
Jeremy helped to connect up the other cuff: "Be careful," he advised.
"Sorry, no." Ruath took a deep breath. "Activate speed plasma drill, then full rejuvenation. Thank you, all. Goodbye."
There was a sudden thump of machinery and Ruath sucked in a breath, slamming her back up against the chair. A sharp sound came from the cuffs, and she bit her lip.
A powerful liquid throbbing resonated through the fabric of the console room, and Ruath closed her eyes. She was getting whiter as the vampires watched, blue veins starting to stand out on her neck. Her skin became flaccid and dull, and her lips were the grey of death.
She was silent throughout, her chin held up and still.
The roaring stopped. Ruath's head fell forward, the muscles no longer strong enough to hold it.
"She's given everything," whispered Jeremy. "All her blood."
Suddenly the crystal lattice in the ceiling began to pulse, and the grating sound of take-off filled the room. The walls reflected the beat of the light, the whole craft booming with noise and glare.
Ruath's face took on the colour of the light, an orange glow that enveloped it and held to it like a second skin. The glare spread to cover her body. The vampires staggered, their senses suddenly full of a rich, organic scent.
The glow flared to white light around Ruath, and she was gone. Then, everything stopped. The light faded, all was silent. The cuffs opened, and somebody fell forward from Ruath's seat.
Somebody dressed in a red velvet gown and long gloves. Her hair was different too, black and flowing to her waist.
Jeremy ran to the new arrival and helped her stand. "Who are you?" he asked, amazed.
"Why, Jeremy," the voice was rich and full of laughter, "it's me. Ruath. Ruath number three. A new body, a whole new me." Even the bruise had vanished. She raised her elegant hands to her face and grinned at them. "Isn't it wonderful!"
"I agree!" The new voice caused the vampires to spin around. It was powerful and dark, with a cultured edge to it. It came from a patch of shadow and mist that had risen around the remains of the silver hammock, now a pile of tatters on the floor. The darkness resolved itself into a cloaked figure, a thin, sharp-faced man with shining eyes and a neatly pointed beard. He was dressed in the garb of an aristocrat, waistcoat and boots set with silver buckles and purple silks. He held his hand out in demand. "Give me the ring," he commanded.
Ruath quickly reached into one of the pouches her new gown had around its waist, and threw the silver band to the man. It sped through the air and spun onto his upraised finger.
"I am Yarven," he said. "Lord of the House of Yar. Last survivor of the Great Vampire's progeny, father to all the Earth's Undead. I am the Vampire Messiah. Kneel before me."
They all did so. Even the Child.
"Good..." Yarven looked around slowly, delighting in his new strength. "You have done well, my children, to free me from my long imprisonment. Especially you, Ruath, who are of the same blood as that insolent wench Romana. You honour the Time Lords with your actions."
Ruath looked up at Yarven, her green eyes glittering. "You have been treated with Numismaton gas, my Lord. Your body is awash with symbiotic nuclei. Do you not feel the joined power of both Time Lord and Vampire?"
Yarven threw his head back and laughed in joy. "Yes! I do feel it. It is a magnificent sensation, the ability to travel through time and space. Name your boon, Ruath, for I would grant anything to the one who has given me such freedom."
Ruath licked her lips. "I desire nothing more than for our bloodlines to be joined. I have done this for you, Lord. Do the same for me."
"Very well." Yarven opened his arms. "Come to me."
Ruath stood and walked to him, still unsteady.
He put a hand on both of her shoulders. "You will be my consort," he told her. "We shall be King and Queen of the Night, and we will unite all of human and Time Lord society in the great communion of the Undead. We shall feed through all time and space. There will be no limit to the letting of blood in our name, and no power in the universe to challenge us. You, with the wisdom of your people, have brought us this far. Together, nothing is beyond our reach."
He bent forward and bit her, drawing his cloak around her as she cried out at the sensation. History being born, a grand marriage of peoples and destinies. Her own wish made flesh. Ruath could feel the new principles taking root in her, the new abilities rushing to remake her genes.
Holding her against him, Yarven raised his head once more and bared his bloody fangs. Her blood was dripping off them, Ruath realized with a little shudder of delight.
"Thus it begins!" bellowed Yarven, his voice full of the lust of blood. "The time of humanity on this world has come to an end. The long night is starting!" He spread his arms wide and shouted a berserker shout. "The age of the Undead is upon us!"
Two
Meat meat meat meat meat.
The trouble was that they had stopped bands performing at the Civic Centre. Dr Claypole were very upset about it.
I will rule the world.
Nyssa woke, gently, to find that she had gathered the sheets into a knot in her hands.
Surely last night had been a dream. She felt fine now. She put a hand to her neck, smiling to herself.
It was bruised. Why should that be? Her mouth didn't hurt, her ear didn't hurt, why should her neck actually feel like the experiences of last night had been real? It had been some sort of repression dream, a lurid message from her unconscious concerning the death of her planet. Her father, after all, was now in some senses a vampire, therefore she had invented a vampire child to punish herself with. It was all perfectly simple. Nothing that a better diet and a few brisk walks couldn't cure.
Probably a crick in her neck. Something with salt was required for breakfast. Poached eggs would be appealing. Mrs. Capricelli would certainly provide some if asked.
She couldn't stay in bed all day. Now that she had understood cricket, Launceston had a library that she wanted to explore. Perhaps there would be something interesting about marsupials.
So. Get up.
She did so, throwing aside the sheets and wandering into the bathroom.
Well, that showed that she was be
ing silly. There she was in the mirror. A little pale, but reassuringly solid. And her neck had -
Two small holes in it.
Nyssa shook her head, irritated. "It can't be true," she said. "I would feel different if it were true."
The Doctor was peering at a teapot over the breakfast table, holding it gently in both hands. His spectacles were on the bridge of his nose. "Mrs. Capricelli has a Georgian teapot," he told Tegan, who was reading the paper.
"How nice for her ... murmured the Australian absently, taking another bite of toast. "What's your star sign?"
The Doctor lowered the teapot and frowned at her. "My what?"
"What star sign were you born under? There's one here that sounds so like you I'll bet you're a Cancerian."
The Doctor hopped up and glanced over Tegan's shoulder, taking a corner of the paper in his hand. "The constellations one sees from Gallifrey are different from those seen on Earth, Tegan. Add to that the fact that Time Lords make no note of what ancient stellar pattern happens to be on the horizon when they're born, and the fact that astrology is an unscientific and unprovable system based on blind chance, and - " His face fell as he saw the entry for Cancer. "Stuffy?" He let go of the paper and glared at her.
"Never mind." Tegan carefully kept a straight face. "There's an opportunity for romance on Wednesday"
The Doctor sat down again, still regarding her suspiciously. "Does your paper have anything to say about tall, dark strangers?"
"You're worried about the Master?"
"No, I should think the Xeraphins took care of him. It's the Black Guardian that concerns me. Of late, I've been piloting the TARDIS to deliberate destinations such as this one quite often. The more I do that, the greater the chance that he'll launch some attempt at revenge. ."
"Let him try," Tegan smiled. "Hey, Nyssa!"
Nyssa had entered, wearing a high-necked Traken jacket over her dress. "I'm sorry if I disturbed you last night," she said.
