by Paul Cornell
"Wow," she gasped. "Hey, do you think that could be what we're looking for?" Castle Yarven basked in the sunlight, its darkened windows sucking in the glare and its long shadow sweeping like a pendulum as the day ticked away across its low valley.
"Come on," the Doctor murmured grimly and scrambled down the dirt hillside.
Nyssa lay exhausted, panting, her hands covered with lacerations. The fear came and went in waves. How far underground was she? Were they going to leave her here permanently - she suppressed another shout - or just until after the full moon? Wouldn't that be horrifying enough if she couldn't sleep? Sleep. She wasn't asleep because ... because she was a long way underground, and a new vampire needed reference to the sun for its sleep cycle? Perhaps. Perhaps this was the vampire version of ... what had Tegan called it? Jet lag.
If she was underground, where was the air coming from? Nyssa took a few experimental breaths, then realized. No air. She was breathing from habit, not having noticed whether the older vampires had given it up. The creatures were obviously capable of ignoring basic biological needs altogether. If there had been air, there would have been an air vent and she could have flown up it as a mist. She tried for a moment to diffuse through the roof of the box. The mist rose up to the wooden surface, but the soil was packed tight, full of thousands of tiny passages but none that Nyssa, at least with her clumsy learner's instincts, could navigate her whole gaseous form through.
Still, being in that shape felt more comfortable.
The worst thing was the hunger. It came in waves beside the fear, a red tide. Nyssa felt empty and strained, and terrible carnivorous fantasies kept tugging at her mind. The frustration of it was building in the background all the time.
Surely they must let her out before she started to ... would she eat her own flesh? Would that even be satisfying? The mist floated in the box, waiting.
The moat was going to prove a problem.
The Doctor and Tegan walked around it once, looking up at the castle from time to time for any sign of life or movement. There was none.
"We could strip off and swim for it," suggested Tegan, with little enthusiasm.
"I'd prefer not to," the Doctor replied. "Not all of this place's defence systems will be vampiric in nature. I'm sure quite a few of them will be up and about and waiting for us." He picked up a twig and threw it out into the middle of the water.
After a moment there was a sudden concussion and the twig vanished, leaving only a ripple on the surface. "There are few creatures as paranoid as a sleeping vampire, and with good reason. Together with all their other vulnerabilities, their aversion to daylight is what stopped them taking over the galaxy centuries ago."
"Why do they have all these problems, anyway? I mean, you'd have thought they'd have evolved out of them or died out?"
"Good point, Tegan. You're starting to think like a scientist. No, the Undead don't evolve as such. They still obey the physical laws that were laid down for them in the first few seconds of the universe. They're the sort of beast that the Black Guardian delights in, creatures with random flaws and perfections. Yes, I think it would take an intelligence like his to put in that bit about the full moon. However, none of this gets us over this moat."
"Right. And I can't see anything that would."
"Patience." The Doctor squatted down on the leafy soil and fumbled in his coat pockets. "I'm starting to have my suspicions about this castle. Tell me, when you were young, did you ever steal a car?"
Tegan frowned and squatted beside him. "There was an old combie that we liberated once, but that didn't really belong to anybody. They don't look kindly on you having a criminal record when you go into the air travel business."
"In that case . . " the Doctor had extracted his spectacles and balanced them on the end of his nose, peering at the TARDIS key, "you won't identify with what I'm about to do at all." He took a small needle-like device from his pocket and used it to attach tiny drops of liquid metal to the key. "There are times," he murmured, "when I rather miss the sonic screwdriver. I really must get around to making another one. There!" He looked up. "This is the key to our problem. Now, what does every key need?"
"A lock" Tegan stood up and looked around. "As in canal?"
"As in door. But where?" The Doctor bounced up, dropping his glasses back into his pocket. "Let's see if we can find it, shall we?" He jogged off round the moat again. Tegan followed, her breath starting to form faint clouds as the afternoon drew on. Either they were getting somewhere or the Doctor's troubled brain had finally thrown in the towel.
The Doctor slowed for a moment beside a small hillock that looked like it might have been made by moles, and then ran on. He finally stopped at a group of three small trees growing together at the edge of the moat. "Of course!" he grinned. "I should have seen it before." He briefly inspected the tree trunks and shook his head. Then he began to scuff at the spot between the trees with his feet. "Come on Tegan, help me!"
Tegan joined in. "What are we doing, Doctor?"
"Looking for a lock. Ah!" He bent suddenly and brushed some final dirt away with his hand. Revealed was a bright new lock, set in metal that seemed to run under the trees. The Doctor fitted his altered key into it. "Ready? When I say run ..." He turned the key. "Run!"
Tegan followed the Doctor, who'd just as swiftly jerked the key out again and ran towards - towards the moat? Which was flapping up and down like a ribbon.
Tegan stared at the physical impossibility of water, water that she had seen to be deep, rippling up and down, leaving great shadowy gaps between it and the ground like it was a loose groundsheet or something.
The Doctor ran back and grabbed her by the hand. "Come on!" Together they sprinted under the moat.
A moment after they'd got to the far bank, it crashed back down again and became a stretch of deep water once more.
Tegan turned to look at it. "Should I even ask?"
"I'll explain later. We haven't got much time left."
Tegan rested for a second, leaning her hands on her knees. "Were you good mates with Moses or something?"
"For a while." The Doctor looked earnest. "But he didn't like my corrections to those stone tablets of his." He grinned, then turned and headed towards the castle.
"You know," Tegan muttered to herself, "I never know when he's being serious."
Lang stood before an empty stadium and took the microphone in his hand. "Testing, testing. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. One, two, three."
"And high," a technician called from backstage.
"La, la, la. Sorry, I can't go that high."
"That was high enough. And low..."
Backstage, Olivia was on a portable phone, staring at a clipboard. "What do you mean, you thought it wasn't going to happen? You know that Mr. Lang goes into retreat a few days before each event. Now, you get your crew down here and we'll say no more about it. All right?" Olivia had had her job made infinitely worse by the town council, who had insisted that no more announcements concerning free entry and the gates being open be made. The police, it was said, were going to be denying entry to those without a ticket. Olivia was aware, however, that the word had got onto the streets, mainly thanks to New Light. At some point in the evening, she'd have a word with the officer in charge and point out that letting them in was less of a hazard to public safety than keeping them away. The police were already busy with rioting on some of the estates, they wouldn't want to risk a major incident that they could avoid.
Stewards from the New Light group were already going about their business, being briefed in groups by their leaders. Prayer sheets were being distributed in the seating, which had taken up most of the football ground, and technicians were wandering the stage, checking the sound balance of every microphone. Behind Lang, a huge white cross was being erected by carpenters, and lighting crew members were running a wash of white light across it.
Lang turned back and looked at the cross, a mixture of apprehension and awe on his face
. "Not long now," he said, and his voice echoed across the stadium.
The Doctor had pushed at aside door, found it unlocked and gone inside. A moment later he came out again. "Come on through," he told Tegan. "But hold on to my hand and keep your eyes closed."
Tegan took his hand. "What's in there?" she asked.
"The kitchen."
"Oh." She closed her eyes.
As she was led through the dark, she whispered, "Where did this castle come from, anyway? Something like this would be on all the tourist routes, wouldn't it?"
"Indeed. I don't think it's been here very long." Tegan heard a door closing. "You can open your eyes now."
They were in a dark hallway. Tegan let go of the Doctor's hand and put her hands on her hips. "So what was so terrible that I couldn't see it?"
"The Undead's idea of haute cuisine. Not very pleasant. Now, I think we've got about three hours until the sun sets. This is when vampires are in their deepest sleep."
"Good news."
"So we'll split up."
"Bad news.
"Tegan, we need to cover an entire gothic castle in under three hours, and then get back to the TARDIS safely. We don't have time to stay together. Here." He handed her a pen-sized object. "That's a directional transducer. If you find Nyssa, or anyone who looks like they might be in charge, press the button and I'll follow your signal. We'll meet back here in two and a half hours."
Tegan took the transducer. "Wait a minute. If I'm going to wander about a vampire-infested castle on my own, I want some protection. Give me a stake and a hammer."
"Tegan, you are not to go staking vampires without - "
"Just to make me feel better, huh?"
"All right. But try not to wake anything up." The Doctor reached into his cricket bag and produced the relevant objects.
"As if," Tegan grinned.
They set off in opposite directions, Tegan tiptoeing apprehensively along the hallways, the Doctor setting off upstairs.
Tegan met her first vampires where the hall intersected with another. They were lying along the wall under a line of portraits, a gang of straggly teenagers, their clothes caked in old blood. They looked dead, no movement disturbing their sleep, but Tegan knew better than to check.
She inched past, stepping carefully over the outstretched hand of one of the boys. As her shadow passed over it, the limb twitched upwards, narrowly missing her ankle with its reflexive movement. Tegan contained a squeak of fear and stepped swiftly along to the end of the hallway.
A vast banqueting hall lay before her, with rugs stretched across a marble floor. On the chairs, tables, and floor itself lay what must have been over a hundred of the Undead. A great stain of blood began on the table and spread in thin lines across the room. In the blood were remains.
Tegan did her best to ignore the feast. At the end of the table a great throne stood, ornately carved and inlaid with gold. Now that would be where the boss sat. Pity he wasn't still in it.
Something crunched under Tegan's heel. She looked down, hardly daring to wonder what she might have stood on. Soil, a thin trail of it. It had dribbled out of the hand of one of the young creatures that lined the hall. He had a fistful of it. Clutching it like a security blanket.
Well, that bit in the movies must be true. Vampires did like their home soil. And where do you find soil? Tegan turned around and looked for a stairwell that headed downwards.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was picking his way through the bedrooms, more than a hundred of them. He knew enough about gothic architecture to put him on course for the most important suites, but the contents of the rooms fascinated him.
Undead in numbers. That in itself was a frightening thought. In the normal way of things, these creatures had skulked around the margins of civilization, one or two in every fifth star system. Now they were as prolific as a viral plague, and just as lethal. .
He came to the bedroom that contained Jake and Madelaine and stood at the end of their bed, looking down at the couple curled round each other. There was a space between them, an enforced depression that suggested a missing person. The Doctor reached forward and plucked a brown hair from the pillow. He rubbed it between his fingers and sniffed it.
Nyssa's hair. So this was the home she'd found. But where was she now? He almost felt like waking the vampires and asking.
The Doctor carefully examined the sleeping Undead that littered the room, and even glanced under the bed. Where on Earth could she be? Angry at such a near miss, he finally moved on, carefully replacing the hair on the pillow.
He wondered, as he did so, whether the two vampires missed her presence as much as he did.
Tegan had found her way to the pit room, and peered down the pit as she walked past. Obviously some place that they kept prisoners, but it was empty right now. She found the downwards stairway and opened the door. Unlocked. Far too many unlocked doors in this place. Still, if they didn't expect anybody who couldn't fly to get in...
She stepped down into the laboratory. This was getting more like an old horror movie every minute. Where was the monster and the electrodes? She glanced at the globe of the world. Something important was going on here. If only the Doctor was about, he might be able to work out what.
There was nobody down here, though. Certainly no Nyssa. Tegan slumped against the wall.
And fell straight through it.
The Doctor had come to a locked room. Now, amongst a people with such slight regard for privacy, that was a very rare thing indeed.
He worked at the lock with a small metal implement for a few seconds, and it clicked open. Cautiously, he entered.
The master bedroom. At least, it had been. There was no bed in the opulent room, but up against one wall stood two tall silver cabinets. The modern version of coffins.
The Doctor crept across to them. Left or right? He fumbled for a coin, flipped it, and slapped it on to the back of his hand. Left it was. Carefully, he put his fingers to the edge of the door of the left-hand cabinet, these things not being designed with handles, and levered it open.
Inside was a tall, slim, elegant man with a neatly trimmed beard. He lay against red velvet, fully dressed, his hands folded across the black silk of his shirt.
This, presumably, was the vampire called Yarven. Not that the Doctor recognized him in the slightest. He was probably personally responsible for the existence of a great many of the vampires in the castle.
The Doctor wondered if the thought crossed his mind out of anger, but then he put such doubts aside. This was no time for moral scruples.
He went to his bag and found his stake and hammer.
One stroke, a moment of decision, and these creatures would be a leaderless rabble; many of them, those Yarven had bitten within the last month, waking to find themselves human again. That number might include Nyssa.
He poised the point of the stake over Yarven's heart.
Tegan tumbled down a short flight of stairs into a scene that she found quite familiar.
It was the console room of a TARDIS.
Different in some respects, certainly. The panelling was of oak and leather, and the console itself looked rather more advanced than the battered old version that the Doctor kept on about reconditioning.
But this meant that the whole castle ... Tegan slapped her forehead. That was what the Doctor had meant about stealing cars. He'd realized that the castle was a TARDIS and had sprung the lock somehow. The moat must have been part of the whole ... whatever. Tegan had seen enough mind-boggling changes in TARDIS structure to know that virtually anything was possible.
Various items of equipment stood in the corners of the console room, including what looked like an electric chair. Well, Tegan wasn't going to take a rest in that. The illusory wall had put her on her guard.
One of the TARDIS's internal doors stood open.
Tegan took a deep breath and walked further into the craft. If Nyssa, or indeed the boss, were going to be anywhere, this was as good a place as any.
After a short stretch of corridor, she came to another open door. A blank room. For a moment, Tegan thought that it might be a Zero Room, but the chamber had none of that place's calming effects.
Then she looked up.
The roof was made of soil. At intervals across this tiny inverted field, little gold chains hung down, with handles on the end. One of the handles had a tag attached, like something you might use to mark a seedling in a more ordinary garden.
"All right, I'll buy it." Tegan reached up and grabbed the tagged handle, standing well back. The thought struck her that this might be the vampiric idea of a nice soft bed, so she took the hammer in her free hand and shoved the stake under her arm.
She read the tag. Subject One. Very helpful.
"Here goes nothing," muttered Tegan. She pulled the chain.
A torrent of earth spilled down from the roof, in a limited area. Obviously it was held up by some sort of forcefield. The rain of soil continued for some time. Then there was a clatter as a trapdoor swung open.
To Tegan's delight, Nyssa fell out of the ceiling and landed in a heap on the floor.
"Nyssa! Thank God!" Tegan ran to the dazed girl and started to brush the soil off her dress. "Come on, we're getting out of here."
Nyssa stared up at Tegan, blinking the earth and light out of her eyes. They were full of red, full as her stomach was empty.
She had been left hungry for so long.
And now here was meat showing its fat neck to her.
Nyssa closed her eyes and mouth, screwing everything up against the rage and lust that were erupting inside her. But her mouth burst open in a scream across her fangs.
Tegan staggered backwards and found her gaze locked by Nyssa's. Her eyes were blank red, and they pinned her to the wall.
Nyssa swept forward and slapped Tegan sharply across the face, one nail drawing a splash of blood from her cheek.
