Doctor Who - [Missing Adventure 01] - [Vampire Trilogy 3] - Goth Opera

by Paul Cornell

  "Not at all, Nyssa!" The Doctor pulled out a chair for her and she primly sat. "How are you feeling this morning?"

  "Better. I was dreaming about the past, about Traken. That can sometimes be very traumatic."

  "You were bucking like a horse," Tegan told her. "Do you often sleep-walk?"

  "Lately, yes." Nyssa raised a hand to her face as the landlady pulled back the curtains. She felt suddenly sunburnt, as if she'd gone to sleep with her hand outside the shade on a beach. "Goodness, that's bright."

  "Is it? Yes, I suppose it is rather." The Doctor gently moved Nyssa's head from side to side with his hands, looking into her eyes. "Have you been having headaches?"

  "No. As I said - " Nyssa had raised her voice. She paused, and when she spoke again it was more level. "I'm fine. I'm a little embarrassed about all this. It isn't the first time that I've been overcome by my memories, and I'm sure it isn't the last. Please don't dwell on it."

  "No...." The Doctor glanced back to the teapot, rather abashed. "Mrs. Capricelli," he called, "is there any chance that we might have another pot of tea?"

  Night in another place. Total silence. Yarven spread his arms wide. The landscape around him was a flat and windy heath, surrounded in all directions by muddy wastelands. The only thing breaking the flatness of it all was Ruath's TARDIS, a tall white rock atop which they stood. The Time Lady was behind Yarven, hooded, enjoying his delight.

  "Magnificent!" he was laughing. "It rather reminds me of home. You mean to say that this is the future of Earth? Why, my dear, this takes all the sport out of it!"

  "This is one possible future," Ruath told him, "that the Earth may come to at some distant point in its calendar. I brought you here to encourage you, darling, not to reassure you. Step off the rock at your peril, for touches like that make futures fixed and destinies finite. My ring allows me to change timestreams, I wouldn't be here if it didn't, but we really shouldn't push it. The Time Lords may be watching us even now. They have a special interest in this place."

  "Let them see ..." Yarven chuckled. "They should learn to fear me. Tell me, are there creatures here?"

  "Yes. They live totally under the chemical swamps. They should have smelled us, or the blood that I splashed about. Ah, look, here they are, the lovely things!"

  From the flat sludge ahead, a gnarled blue head rose. Puckered lips flexed inquisitively under bright eyes. The creature wore the tattered remains of some ancient uniform.

  "A Haemovore," Ruath smiled. "The natural evolutionary inheritor of a pollution-ravaged Earth. They live in the saline solution of the oceans, plankton feeding, and occasionally they gang together to ambush a great whale. This is my point, Yarven. Even without us, the humans become vampires. History is on our side. The only pity is that the transformation comes too late, when the planet's in decline, rolling around a bloated star. Our job, my dear, is to bring the future on more swiftly."

  The Haemovore stared at them, blinking. Yarven stroked his beard, studying the creature. "Yes ... Do you have any thoughts on how we're going to go about it?"

  "I was hoping you'd ask. I do have a plan, it's really quite simple. It involves the Doctor, as a matter of fact."

  "What!" Yarven spun and stared at her. "The Doctor ... the one who became a hero to those vile peasants. The one who staked the Great Vampire. He is on Earth?"

  "Yes. Do you hate him?"

  "Hate him? Not as a man, no, I have never met him. But as a symbol for resistance, a figurehead ... when I was a child, his name was the one the servants used as an example for their wretched hopes. Ruath, you have told me of all these prophecies concerning me, and I have ... my own reasons for believing them to be true, reasons which are only becoming clear to me now. Am I destined to kill this Doctor, this destroyer of the Undead?"

  Ruath paused, biting her lip in concentration. "Not exactly, my Lord. The books are clear about your role. You are to capture the Doctor, and then leave him to my mercy. I'll torture him over a period of days, and share out his blood amongst your lieutenants. You have a greater destiny to fulfil, by sacrificing yourself to - "

  "Yes, yes, you keep mentioning that. Since you did me the service of murdering the one called Romana, I am sorry that I cannot return the favour. As for the Doctor, it may not be my destiny to kill him, but I will enjoy seeing him suffer for the harm he has done my people." He turned to Ruath and regarded her with a piercing gaze. "But never presume to manipulate me with this prophecy of yours. I am not this Agonal who was so easily tricked by the wiles of Gallifrey."

  "No, sir." Ruath dropped to one knee. "You are the Messiah. I follow only your cause now"

  "Good. Rise now." Yarven lifted her to her feet and they stepped back down into the TARDIS.

  After the rock had faded away, the Haemovore gave a long sigh and sank back into the warm mud.

  A day went by, back when the Doctor was. He played badly. Twenty six. Out to an ordinary-looking ball, caught the edge of the bat and the wicket keeper got it. The others scraped to a hundred and seventy, but Boon glanced at the troubled look in the Time Lord's eye and refused to let him bowl. They still won.

  Tegan took a bus to the countryside and wandered about. She'd asked Nyssa to come with her, but the Trakenite had just shaken her head and retreated back to her room to read. Tegan was kind of hoping that she'd have come along. For once, she could have done a bit of the explaining.

  There was a particular slope that Tegan would have liked to have helped her with. An earthy hill with a cluster of trees on top. Tegan threw her bag up and launched herself up towards it, climbing with her hands, getting her shorts dirty. If Nyssa had been there, she could have pulled her behind her. They'd done all right with the Doctor's zero cabinet back on Castrovalva.

  She grabbed a tree trunk at the top, and hauled herself upright, taking a deep breath of the Tasmanian air. Like a lot of urban Australians, Tegan had never seen any of the poisonous spiders or insects of her country. There were probably hundreds of them out here.

  Not to mention snakes.

  The view from the top of the hill was wonderful.

  Nyssa looked out from her bedroom window and calculated the distance across to the cricket ground and then the TARDIS. All that ground to cover in the sunlight before she could gain access to her laboratory. She could put herself through a full diagnostic program. If only there wasn't so much sunlight.

  She could run from shadow to shadow, perhaps. Wear a big hat and stay out of the worst of it.

  Wait until nightfall.

  Nyssa slumped onto the edge of the bed, her hands bunched in her lap. If only she could tell somebody about all this. It seemed silly to be so feverish in bright summer. She lay back, tired through worry. Before she knew anything else, she was asleep.

  Night fell, and all was well across the island, insects chirruping, the town alive with the sound of people in bars and on streets. Tegan had returned for tea, armed with a strong grin, ready to shake some fun into Nyssa. But the Trakenite had already retired, she was told, so she accepted the Doctor's invitation to dinner. Best frock job because it was a long table for several of the tournament's guests, with Mike Gatting and his wife at the head. Thankfully they talked about things other than cricket, and Gatting kept on doing tricks with the wine glasses, making them sing with his finger. Tegan and the woman called Frances exchanged looks and made impressed noises. Gatting grinned at them.

  "The Doctor," Frances said, proposing a toast at one point. Those around the table echoed her. "I wouldn't dream of calling it affectation not to have a real name, but I do worry about your past. You haven't done anything criminal, have you?"

  The team laughed. "We can, ah, offer asylum if you have, Doc." David Boon said, straight-faced.

  Tegan glanced at the Doctor. He'd stopped in the middle of taking a spoonful of soup, looking around as if genuinely accused of something. His mind had been on other things. Slowly, a grin broke across his face. "I don't think I've done anything that would disgrace the TCCB.
Not lately, at any rate. And, as in the small matter of being out, W. G. Grace didn't always admit to a name either."

  There was general laughter. After the meal had ended Tegan and the Doctor walked home. The Doctor had his hands stuck in his pockets, deep in thought under the brim of his panama.

  "Penny for your thoughts?" asked Tegan.

  "Not a bargain at that price I'm afraid. I'm worried about Nyssa."

  "Yeah, so am I. She's going all weird. Maybe it's the sun."

  "Perhaps. Ah well, only three days left to go, unless it rains. Then we can go somewhere more exciting."

  Tegan smiled. "I thought you were having fun?"

  "I am. But neither of you seem to be - "

  "I like it here. It's Nyssa you ought to be worrying about."

  "Yes ..." The Doctor returned to his musings and increased the speed of his stride to the point where Tegan was tottering along on her heels to keep up with him.

  Nyssa had woken up a few hours ago to watch the sunset. Inside her, it felt like dawn. She opened the window of her room and sat on the sill, feet dangling over the edge. She watched the Southern Cross appear overhead, and held up her palms to the great tingling spread of the Magellanic Clouds.

  If she had a powerful optical telescope, she would be able to see Traken sun from here. The light from it was still travelling. She'd be seeing some prehistoric solar flares, the state of the star as it lighted the day while... she did a quick calculation: the first Union agreement was signed.

  She had stopped herself feeling bitter about it very early on. The Master had destroyed Traken as a side effect of what he was doing, a farcical sub-plot. Sometimes she dreamed of him as a Melkur, calcified, sweating away his childish evil. But if they ever met again, she knew that she'd try to communicate with the good man inside him, rather than take any sort of revenge. She had time enough to meet him again, after all. She was going to live forever.

  The knock on the door made her leap back from the window and close it. Tegan was at the door again, Nyssa realized without knowing how. She crossed the room and opened it. "Hello. How was dinner?"

  "Great. You missed out. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. No more nightmares?"

  "No."

  "Okay." Tegan paused, as if expecting something more. "I'm really enjoying the book you lent me."

  "Good. I'm glad."

  "Do you want to talk about something?"

  "About what?"

  "Oh ... nothing. Listen to me, I'm doing to you exactly what I didn't like you doing to me. Sorry."

  Nyssa managed a smile. "That's all right."

  "Okay, sleep well tonight, yeah?"

  "I'll try. Good night, Tegan." Nyssa closed the door and leant on it, her hand reaching up to her neck.

  Tegan watched a bit of Tassy TV, repeats of old British comedy shows and stuff, and then settled down to read before going to sleep. She got through a few pages of Primo Levi before the hand holding the book began to tire and her eyes lost their concentration. She dropped the book on top of the Gideon Bible on the bedside table and switched off the light, turning over to sleep.

  Hours passed. The room creaked as the wood and plaster contracted with the declining heat. Tegan moved in sleep, turning from one side to the other and pulling the blankets after her.

  Around three o'clock a mist hissed in under the window. It collected itself into the form of Jeremy Sanders, who stood at the end of Tegan's bed, looking down at her hungrily. He moved silently around the bed and sat on the corner by Tegan's head. He reached out a hand and stroked her cheek. "Tegan Jovanka? That's what Ruath says you're called. Rather an Australian name, eh? Wake up. Gently now."

  Tegan opened her eyes. Her muscles had all tensed. A voice had got in her ear, her sleeping mind told her, and was trying to tell her things. Be quiet, it was saying.

  Be what?

  She sat upright, slapping the hand away from her face. "Who the hell are you?" she shouted.

  "My name's Jeremy. Delighted. I was just going to bite you on the neck, if that's all right. That is all right, isn't it?"

  His eyes closed on hers, and a dozen hard suggestions thudded into her brain. Tegan suddenly imagined a snake inside, roused ever so slightly, raising its head out of sleep with a wicked gleam in its eye. The image distracted her. He was talking into her again, trying to make her submit to what he said. They were inches apart now, his eyes bearing down on hers.

  "Are you a vampire?" she asked. Back in Brisbane, before he died, Tegan's old Serbian grandfather had told her endless stories about vampires. She hadn't believed a word of it, even when she was little.

  "Oh yes," Jeremy replied. "Wouldn't ask otherwise."

  "Yeah, okay then, go ahead." Tegan suddenly turned aside and unbuttoned the collar of her nightgown. "Careful about it I don't want to have to go around with a jacket on all summer."

  Jeremy frowned, a trifle unsatisfied. "Very well. Pardon me." He bent to his task.

  Tegan's hand had reached behind him, and stealthily grabbed one of the books on her table. As Jeremy closed on her neck, she slammed the spine of the Gideon Bible into the back of his head.

  The vampire screeched and swished off the side of the bed like a cartoon character. Tegan leapt out of bed, brandishing the Bible before her. It seemed that a lot of the stuff Grandad had said was spot on.

  Sanders was clutching his skull in pain. Amongst his immaculate hair, a tiny white cross had burnt through to the flesh, a reflection of the one on the book's spine. "Very clever of you," he told her. "But that only worked because you thought it would. You have no real religious faith, certainly not in that collection of pious lies you're holding. You can't hold me back with it." He took a step forward.

  "Yeah, but you couldn't hypnotize me, could you?"

  "Indeed. You have great strength of will. All that means is that this is going to be more unpleasant for you."

  "I've got faith in lots of things. Qantas, the republic, James Reyne."

  "None of which you can bring strongly enough to mind at present. You'll have a go, fail, and then I'll eat you. Wouldn't it be better to go out with some dignity, old girl?"

  Tegan glanced about the room, looking for some familiar icon. If she'd been at home, it'd be easier, but hotel rooms weren't full of objects of faith. Exactly the bloody opposite. Then she glanced down at the book she'd knocked onto the floor. She squatted quickly and grabbed it. "Try this!" she called, making herself step towards the advancing vampire. "I've got faith in the words of Primo Levi!"

  Sanders faultered. "You really shouldn't-"

  Tegan flicked open a page and began to read at random and with force, drowning out the vampire's words. She kept on walking until she was nose to nose with the creature. "You can't lay a finger on me, can you?" she told him. "I've got a good book in my hands, and a dirty great snake in my brain so get back!" She emphasized the point with a finger stuck very nearly up Jeremy's nose. "Or I'll bite your head off"

  Jeremy looked around, distraught. "We'll return," he told her. "You can't keep this up forever."

  "Yeah? Well, my mate's a Time Lord, and if I had any Aussie wine handy it'd be like holy water, so you just flap off and terrorize someone else, you big wuss."

  Sanders stared at her for a moment, and then gave a little snarl of defeat. He dispersed into a mist again, and swiftly hissed out under the window.

  Tegan sagged and sat down on a chair, near to tears. Vampires were real. That was all she needed. Just as well he hadn't seen through all that rubbish. If he knew how scared she'd been-

  There came a cry from another room, a male shout.

  "Doctor?" cried Tegan, jumping to her feet. "Hang on I'm coming!" Primo Levi held before her, she ran out of the room.

  The door of the Doctor's room was, surprisingly, open. Tegan burst in to find the Time Lord, in his dressing-gown, holding a conversation with a bald man who was standing in the corner. The man was surrounded by several small pieces of bread.

  "Ah, Tegan!"
The Doctor didn't look at her, but concentrated his concerned gaze on the visitor. "This is Eric. Eric's a vampire. This is my friend Tegan. She's not. I hope." He glanced at her and nodded. "Good."

  "I'm not telling you owt." Eric folded his arms. "Let me out of this circle and we'll see who's boss."

  "Sorry, but I think that would be a very unwise thing to do. Mrs. Capricelli's garlic bread is particularly strong. Garlic affects our perception of vampires, Tegan, rather like faith. The herb chemically interferes with the process by which the quantum world, the world in which anything including vampires is possible, is translated into the world of classical physics in our brains. It increases one's ability to see the straight and narrow, rather like an anti-psychedelic, and has thus become renowned as a defence against the supernatural."

  "Faith works like that too?" Tegan took a look at the rather ordinary-looking vampire and tried to stop herself shaking.

  "Oh yes: The Doctor looked down his nose at the man called Eric. "In big enough doses, either can make a vampire vanish from this world entirely. But what worries me, Eric, is what you're doing here in the first place. I dealt with the last vampires in the cosmos only recently, or so I thought. Tell me, are you from E-Space?"

  "I'm not telling you anything."

  "You already have. You're from the south of England - "

  "The south?" The vampire laughed. "I'm from Manchester, lad!"

  The Doctor nodded. "I thought so. And your clothes suggest a modern origin. Early nineteen nineties."

  °I was attacked by one too," Tegan muttered. "They're working together."

  "So, teamwork amongst a predatory species. That's interesting, isn't it? Tegan," the Doctor's voice hardened, "go and find Nyssa."

  Nyssa was talking to Madelaine. She'd been expecting somebody for hours. It was a relief when the young woman had appeared at the window and tapped to be let in.

  "What is happening to me?" Nyssa had asked her.