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

by Paul Cornell

  Nyssa flew into the air. The vehicle skidded to a halt.

  She kept on flying, spinning over and over as she fell up into the chilly night.

  By the time the driver had got out, Nyssa was a white and red speck in the sky, lost in the neon glare.

  "Is that Mr. Lang?"

  "Speaking. How are you? Are you okay?"

  Pause. "No. I've been thinking about things, and I think I can remember ... bits of it. Names, places and stuff: They take children, you know, they take children ..." The voice rose a fraction in pitch.

  "Let us come and get you. Just tell me where you are, and we'll be there within half an hour."

  "I can't tell you, I have to get back -"

  "No, wait." Lang's voice was calm and reassuring.

  "Don't go. I don't mean to come over there all guns blazing. I just want you to know that you're not alone, that there are people who can help you."

  "Can you get me soon?"

  "Of course we can. Tell me where and when."

  "I'm not sure. I'll call and tell you. I can tell you all about them, what they do and where they do it. It's a whole ... coven, is that what it's called? They're taking all the kids right now. I'll tell you all about them. I have to go now."

  "Okay. Be sure to call me tomorrow night."

  "I will."

  "Goodnight, Madelaine."

  "Good night." Madelaine dropped the phone back onto its hook and opened the door of the phonebox. On a deserted suburban pavement, a circle of dark individuals stood round her in the streetlight.

  "Well?" asked Jeremy Sanders.

  Madelaine sighed, brushing her hair back with a hand. "We've got a bite."

  In the shelter of a shop doorway, a homeless boy reached into the pocket of his coat. The streets that night were deserted. No club-goers to ask for cash. It was just him and the cold.

  He wished that he hadn't been so narky with her, but you got like that sometimes. You didn't want to answer stuff like that. She'd been coming off something, having a really hard time, but at least she'd talked to him. They'd had a long conversation in fact, not that he could remember much about it. At the end of it, she'd leaned close to him, and for a minute he'd thought that she was going to kiss him. He wouldn't have minded that.

  She'd whispered her thanks in his ear, her breath hot on his cheek, and had slipped a golden bracelet off her wrist. He spun it in his hands now, wondering how much it was worth. A few meals, no problem. Maybe more.

  She'd given it to him and said that she was going to go on a long journey. And he wasn't. He'd taken it as cruelty at the time. But, thinking about it, maybe she was just being kind. From the look in her eyes, the boy didn't think that he wanted to end up wherever she was going.

  Four

  " Vun, vun gothic battlement! Two, two gothic battlements! Ah, ha ha hah ha!" Jake hopped around the stonework happily, looking down on the forest below. The castle was elegantly dark, with slim towers and moody battlements. Gargoyles leaned out from the walls and an imposing drawbridge was drawn up to isolate the place inside its moat. In the hummocks and low hills of the forest, with a light evening mist rising, it was an eerie sight.

  Madelaine lay along the slated roof of the kitchens with her sunglasses on, bathing in the moonlight: the only way for a vampire to get a tan. She sighed at Jake. "You're really into all this, aren't you?"

  "Yeah, "spose so." Jake looked crestfallen for a moment. "Something different, isn't it?"

  "But we can still go if we want, can't we?"

  "Of course we can. We don't want to end up like Eric."

  "Couldn't we go back to Australia? I liked that. We could have fun there."

  "Yeah, fine, any time you want to go, but what about the stuff you're doing for Yarven, the phone calls?"

  "He can find somebody else, the melodramatic sod. Every call I make it feels more dangerous."

  "Probably is. So why've you doing it?"

  "It's something about the man. Lang. I'm curious. I want to know what his angle is."

  Jake frowned at her. "Christianity. That's his angle."

  "Yeah. Only in his case, I think it's ... I can just sniff something about him, that's all. If I met him, I'd know."

  Jake took a long, contemptuous snort of the night air. Trees and small woodland creatures. Clear and fine. He grinned. "Hope it's on your terms, love. Good castle though, eh?"

  "Mm." Maddy sniffed one of the chimneys on the kitchen roof. "They're dishing out in a minute. You want to go down and join them?"

  "Why, you want to do something else?"

  Maddy raised her eyebrows pleadingly. "We could pop out and get a take-away."

  Yarven stood on the balcony, looking down into a magnificent banqueting hall. Tapestries hung from the walls, depicting humans running and cowering before an army of the Undead. Below was a long table, at which sat nearly fifty vampires. Some of them were locals, answering the call that Ruath had put into the night air over the last few evenings. Some were new converts, amazed at the society they had become part of. A few had even journeyed from the continent, hearing the news that something important was going on.

  They were enjoying Yarven's hospitality, his larder a result of the continual raids that his followers were conducting. Each course was brought to the table bound but not gagged. The noise was part of the festivities, screams mingling with laughter and music. There was blood everywhere, and the heady scent of human fear. This was how it should be, Yarven reflected, the path that his homeworld should have taken. Here was a demonstration of the pure fact of power. Tonight's new Undead were enjoying it. They were always slow at first. Yarven had learnt to watch the decision in their faces, as their hunger overcame their old ethics. Once they'd bitten, ripped or gouged, it was over, there was never a decision to make again. The taste of blood held them, told them what they were: the future.

  The humans who had been his ancestors had thought that going into space was somehow a conquest, that when they made landfall on some distant planet, they were advancing the species. A species that had ceased evolving at the level of an ape. Yarven had grown up in E-Space, knowing that somewhere there were more stars than the handful he saw in the sky. His parents had been of the nobility, friends of Lord Veran, that poor, fearful old man. Yarven was just old enough to remember the end of what the peasants called the Dark Time, when everything he was part of was overturned. His father had hidden the children in a secret room while he negotiated with his servants that night. Yarven had heard his father's voice, distantly, pleading and cajoling. It was not the voice of a noble man. It was at that point, looking back on it, that he had become convinced of his bastardry. Veran's troops had arrived, an unlikely and swift mixture of Black Guards and peasant militia, and Yarven's family had been spared an ignominious death.

  He had never seen the Three Who Rule except as an image in stories. But Veran's son, Vetar, said he had. The two of them had met at a distance from Yarven's father's grave, during the funeral. "Death is not the end," Vetar had said. Yarven had asked him what he meant. Vetar had looked into his eyes with that otherworldly stare of his, and Yarven knew. They'd walked that night in the forest, under the clouds of swirling bats, and they had talked of the past that the nobles were trying so hard to forget. Vetar said that he was also unsure of his parentage, for Veran gave concessions to the rabble every day. Veran was going to ask Yarven to take the place of his late father as his most trusted aide. How did Yarven feel about that? Yarven said that he was horrified, that he could never join such a cause, believing what he did. He would have to decline.

  Vetar told him to accept the offer. There was a way that, in such a position, he could serve the last feeble remnants of the Great Race. If he could find a way to turn the peace process around, to throw the planet back into chaos then the Children of the Night, the handful that remained, might begin to prosper once more.

  Yarven had offered Vetar his neck, there and then.

  Nights later, he had woken with a sudden
start, his hand clutching his chest. He felt the stake, and knew that Vetar was dead. It was the same place, oddly enough, where he now carried the mark of that peasant's arrow. The arrow that had wounded him before he'd had his second, his most disturbing encounter with Agonal.

  Ruath entered the balcony behind him. She'd changed into a black ball gown. She was chewing on a bone. "Enjoying yourself?" she asked.

  "Yes, my dear. It is good to see so many new converts."

  "One from Pakistan, just arrived."

  "Really? Good, good, I'll welcome him later."

  "It was a brilliant decision of yours to repeal the edict against uncontrolled feeding. We're getting random bite victims as well as deliberate converts. They come here out of instinct. The little dears feel that this is their spiritual home." She kissed him, transferring a little meat to his teeth.

  "And how is your research progressing?"

  "It's very boring: Ruath hopped up onto the rail of the balcony, taking a sip from the goblet of blood that Yarven was holding. "Oh, thank you. My Lord, you know we must really see about getting some human slaves. The youngsters down there are content to serve in shifts, but it really isn't fitting."

  "No." Yarven stroked her chin. "I'll do something about that. Boring, you were saying?"

  "Yes. I wasn't prepared for that, the idea that regeneration would sap me of all interest in science. Still, dull or not, it has to be done. It's just a question of calibration, of getting the details right. What I'm attempting is something that normally takes the full executive powers of Gallifrey. And a bit of a variation, at that. Not easy, my love."

  "Indeed. I appreciate that. So we have your work in the cellar, we have Lang ... ah, yes, we do have Lang, I can feel the power of his desire even at this distance. What else do we need?"

  Ruath handed him the cup again, grinning red. "We need a little service from you, and we need the Doctor."

  "Ah yes." Yarven stepped forward, and raised his voice over the noise of his guests and their food below. "The Doctor!" he called, raising the goblet in a toast.

  The call came bellowed back: "The Doctor!"

  "What?" The Doctor was staring straight ahead, sitting on the edge of his bed.

  "She's a vampire, Doctor." Tegan was pacing about the room, her arms wrapped around her. "She tried to have a go at me, and ran away when she smelled the garlic. Her room's full of blood."

  "Are you certain she's -"

  "She's got fangs. What are those, Traken wisdom teeth?"

  "Well..." The Doctor took a long breath, and frowned down at his slippers. "I seem to have erred. I should have taken more notice of the signs -"

  "Oh, don't just sit there blaming yourself. What can we do about it?"

  "As I was about to say," the Doctor hopped up, grabbing his pullover from a nearby stool, "a vampire only properly becomes a vampire on the next full moon after they've been converted. That gives us a week or so."

  "A week to do what?"

  "To find whoever's in charge, stop them and rescue Nyssa." His tone was deceptively light, but Tegan could tell how seriously he took the words. "I've lost one companion already this regeneration. I'm not about to lose two. Now," he folded the pullover in his arms, "if you'll give me a moment to put my trousers on ..."

  "What?" Tegan glanced down at his dressing-gown. "Oh. Sure. Sorry."

  They met a few minutes later in the console room, Tegan having dressed also. The Doctor stood by the console for a few minutes, listening to the details of Tegan's story, tapping his lips with a finger as if waiting for inspiration. "I see" he concluded. "Now, help me think, Tegan. Where would Nyssa have gone?"

  "To find food?"

  "Exactly! But she doesn't want to grab innocent bystanders. No, judging by the way you describe it, she's still almost herself. She can just about keep her urges under control unless provoked. What are the central facets of Nyssa's character?"

  "Erm, caring? She cares about people?"

  "True, which means she's not going to go hunting if she can help it. Apart from that?"

  "Learning. She always wants to learn things."

  "Correct. So she'll go to where she can find out most about vampires. The headquarters of whoever we're up against. Find that and we find her."

  "So how do we find that?"

  "We follow Mrs. Beeton, Tegan."

  "What?"

  "First catch our vampire." The Doctor hit the door control, and chilly night winds blew in. He pointed to the cricket bag. "Let's see if my shopping expedition's been successful, shall we?"

  Nyssa folded the ferns about her. The gully was just a crack in the rock, and she was aware of some slight cold. That was one good thing, that the chill night air was no longer so harsh on her skin as she sat here. She wiped the blood from her lips. A cow, anaesthetized and gently asked for as much as she could safely give. Nyssa wasn't sure if that would pass on the condition, but the idea of a vampire cow seemed ridiculous enough for safety. Animal blood wasn't very satisfying. She thought that she would need much of it and often, and she was aware that she'd grow thin and weak on such unsuitable food. But at least it kept the terrible hunger at bay.

  Her first flight had been a sickening thing. She'd spun up into the sky, uncontrolled as a leaf on the wind, arms spiralling randomly. She'd kept on going up until she was above the clouds, the moonlight reflecting on them like islands in the darkness. The city was an expanse of tiny lights far below. If she continued to rise, she realized, she'd go straight out of the atmosphere and into space. Surely this was impossible?

  The thought stopped her. She hovered, gazing down at the cloud layer quite placidly. It wasn't cold. She wasn't afraid of falling. It was like a dream, because it was all so imposs -

  She fell straight through the cloud and found herself hurtling down towards the city.

  Good! This was impossible! Impossible! Nobody could fly, she couldn't fly, she'd hit the ground and -

  A picture of her father flashed into her head and she stopped and stood on air. She couldn't die while there was still a chance of seeing him again. Besides, there was no guarantee that hitting the ground would harm her any more. And she might hit some innocent bystander.

  Reluctantly hovering, as she was, Nyssa smelled it for the first time. A faint scent on the breeze, something that touched her emotions like the smells of family life or, more accurately, the urgent smell of fire or gas. She had to find out what it was, she couldn't be content without that knowledge.

  She glanced down at Manchester. She should go back to the Doctor and explain, say sorry to Tegan. But what could they do? Just suffer every time she got an urge for blood. She couldn't put Tegan through that again.

  The scent came to her once more. There was something interesting on the end of it, something informative. She flew after it, learning how to modulate and control how she moved through the air.

  She hadn't expected it to tire her, but it did. That's why she'd landed in the forest a long way south of the city. She half wanted to sleep, but that might mean waking in the sunlight, and she was terrified of doing that.

  There was a cough from behind her. "Well, hello ..." Jeremy Sanders smiled down at her from the rock where he stood. "What you're looking for isn't far from here. Come with me." He held out his hand.

  After a moment's pause, Nyssa took it.

  On the bench by the Cathedral, opposite the Mitre Inn, Russell sat. He was a student, went for Salford 'cos of the night-life, and he'd found some. Like tonight, when this girl down at the Banshee said that she'd see him here in Cathedral Close after hours. Three, she'd said, and of course she was having him on. Maybe it was just to spite her boyfriend, a moody sort who'd stood at the bar all night looking cool. Maybe she wanted somebody a bit more intellectual. Still, where was the loss? He'd drunk six pints of cider and was having a good time looking at the architecture. In a minute, he'd wander down to the road and catch a cab back to Withington. Or he could walk. No problem.

  "Oh, there you are, yo
u waited!" She sat down on the bench beside him, like she'd just dropped out of the sky. Her hair was a mass of black, and her face was powdered white over a spiked choker. On her neck she'd painted circles around two fake fang marks.

  "Nothing else to do," Russell grinned. "I was just looking at the church, I'm an archaeology student."

  "Really. That must be so exciting."

  "I like the way you look. It's dead good."

  "Thanks. Well, have you heard the news, what they're saying about vampires?"

  "No. Well, the two girls in our house have stopped going out and all, but it's drugs, gangs and stuff, isn't it? Nobody's taking all those rumours seriously."

  "Oh, Russell. Perhaps they should." The girl looked down at her lap, somewhat embarrassed. "If somebody said to you: "join us or die?" which would you choose?"

  "Oh, I'm a man of principle. I'd choose death."

  "What about: "live forever or die?" "

  "Who wants to live forever?"

  The girl paused, flummoxed. "All right, how would you react to: "Join us and live forever?" "

  Russell frowned. "You a Jehovah's Witness or something?" The girl raised her hands, defeated. "You'll thank me later," she decided. "Now, do you want to snog or what?"

  "What." Russell reached for her, but she diverted her mouth towards his neck. Goth through and through, Russell thought. What the hell.

  "Now Tegan!" A cricketer with a mad stare leapt out of an alleyway, and flung what looked like a loop of hosepipe in their direction. The girl jumped off Russell, startled, and the loop landed around her like she was a goldfish at a fair.

  Russell stared at it. It was a hosepipe, a length made of two pipes bound together, opening out into a ring which encircled his would-be goth snog. Behind the cricketer, a young woman with short hair was standing beside a water main. She had turned on the valve. She must have opened it with one of those tools that firemen use. Russell's cider-addled brain tried to stack all these facts into an order of priority and failed completely.