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

by Paul Cornell

  He was going to go out there and minister to this crowd.

  He was going to lead them to redemption.

  And he would get there himself. Of course he would.

  "Heads!" The Doctor looked at Tegan apologetically. "I'm terribly sorry, Tegan, but she's right, you know. I've always wondered what was going to become of the Time Lords, and Ruath offers an elegant solution."

  Tegan backed away. "You can't ... not after all this!"

  "The trouble is," the Doctor continued, "you've always thought of me as a human being. Even fooled yourself into thinking that there could be some sort of friendship between us. In reality, I've always seen you more as ... what's a good analogy? A pet. Like an affectionate dog or a cat. They can be relaxing to have around, but when the time comes for them to be put down, well, only a child would make a fuss about it."

  Ruath laughed as Tegan looked between them. "Yes, my dear. Gallifreyan loyalties run deep. Now Doctor, do you want to, or shall I?"

  The Doctor waved a hand. "By all means."

  Ruath grabbed Tegan by the hair and exposed her neck, bending to bite it.

  Tegan screamed and reached behind her.

  Using all her strength, she used both hands to smash the woman aside, and ran at her with the stake she'd slipped down the back of her jeans.

  Ruath smacked the wooden spar aside and halted Tegan with a look.

  Tegan watched the Doctor's face as Ruath approached. She didn't think that she would feel the teeth entering her throat. A great despair had welled up inside her, and her heart felt like stone. If the Doctor was going to go over to the side of the vampires, then what was her life worth? His expression as Ruath bore down on her was distant and empty, focused on the vampire. Then he seemed to make a serious decision.

  "Ruath," he called, just as the Time Lady was about to make the first incision. "I've made up my mind. Forget the human. I'll show you my loyalty to your cause in the most direct way possible. Take me now." Ruath spun from Tegan, her eyes full of excitement. She advanced on the Doctor. "Bare your neck," she said. "And be my next consort."

  The Doctor undid a button on his cricket shirt. "Do be careful," he advised. "I have enough trouble washing the collars as it is."

  Yarven's audience had climbed the stairs of the castle with him, up to the roof of one of the turrets. Stacked there were a large number of black canisters, each about the size of a fire-extinguisher, fitted with a screw-top aerosol release nozzle.

  Yarven pointed to the canisters. "The fruits of Lady Ruath's research, my people. Take them now, up into every level of the atmosphere, and release the genetic material inside. Do not worry about the sun, Sanders has a few hours before the end of his glorious sacrifice, and long before that ..." he paused, glancing at some of the faces in the crowd, "I shall have made sure the day will not come again. Now, go!"

  The vampires flew to the cylinders, grabbing them and spiralling up into the sky, hundreds of them rising like a flock of bats against the near-full moon.

  Yarven watched, delighted, as they went. He was aware of a weight on his hand, and looked down to see a death's-head moth sitting there.

  It flew up and blossomed into the humanoid form of Nyssa. She panted, her eyes glowing with the blood madness.

  "Be still a moment, and then tell me what you have seen and heard," Yarven advised her. "Then I shall give you the blood you desire."

  Ruath raised her head. Her fangs were covered with gore.

  Tegan stared. The Doctor had stood gamely through the whole experience as if he'd been waiting at a bus stop. Now, he glanced down.

  "Finished? Oh good." He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at the twin wounds in his neck. "I can't say that was a pleasant experience, but it was certainly an interesting one."

  Ruath laughed and licked her lips. "I always wondered what Time Lord plasma would taste like. Yours is delicious."

  "I got the impression that you didn't like the vintage. What with my compatriots and I going out to see the universe and all that. But if I remember correctly, you were considering coming along as well."

  Ruath turned aside. "I don't want to talk about that. Not now, when everything's so close to being perfect."

  "My dear, what are you doing down there?" Yarven was standing on the edge of the pit, smiling warmly.

  "I was ...debating our plans with the Doctor." Ruath waved a hand airily while the Doctor turned aside to hide his wounds. "He can't bring himself to agree. Look what his ape tried to do to me!" She playfully tossed the broken stake up into Yarven's hand.

  Tegan had come round front her paralysis. She looked carefully between Ruath and Yarven. "Hey," she muttered, "what's going on here?"

  "These evil beings are toying with us, Tegan." The Doctor tried to take her aside, but she shrugged his hand from her shoulder.

  "What, you mean you don't want me getting in the way of your sweet little deal with Vampirella here? I'm not going to just shut up and letglununff…" The Doctor had plucked the mashed-up celery from his lapel and pushed it into her mouth.

  Luckily Yarven didn't seem to have noticed. He was helping Ruath from the pit. "The children have started to seed the wind," he told her. "Soon, my love, we shall have all we ever wanted."

  "Indeed we shall, my Lord," Ruath grinned.

  "Seed the wind?" The Doctor frowned at Yarven as if Ruath hadn't explained anything to him. "What are you up to?"

  "Scattering genetic material, Doctor. Vampire DNA. One drop of it on human skin, and within minutes that individual will be a fully developed vampire. We're being rather efficient too, now I think about it, releasing it on the night before the full moon. Once our community is fully established and there are more vampires than humans, I shall allow the cycle to progress by one day, and seal all our new conversions in their fate."

  "My dear..." Ruath put a hand to his breast sadly.

  "Ah yes, I was forgetting. By then I shall be insensible, and after our plans for Earth are complete, I will give my life that the Undead may prosper. Such a pity that I shall never see them rule the stars."

  "This genetic material," the Doctor asked casually, "has she taken it from you yourself?"

  "Why yes," Yarven replied proudly. "This generation of the Undead shall literally be my children. A thought to take to my grave. Now, we must see how the seeding is progressing. When I return, Doctor, prepare yourself to suffer torment beyond endurance. Until then . . " He let the sentence trail off as he marched Ruath to the door.

  "Until then," the Doctor murmured grimly.

  Tegan spat out a lump of mashed celery. "What the hell are you up to?" she demanded.

  "Just taking advantage of circumstances, Tegan. Ruath's totally insane, of course, but from our previous association, I thought she might still retain some fondness for me."

  Tegan raised an eyebrow. "So you're not going over to their side?"

  The Doctor sighed. "Tegan, do try to keep up. What's better, do you think, being Ruath's consort or being tortured over a period of days?"

  "Give me your coin and I'll tell you. What did you two get up to back on Gallifrey, anyway?"

  "Oh, we introduced cats into the Gallifreyan ecosystem, altered the local gravity in the Panopticon so that a graduation ceremony took place in mid-air ..." A nostalgic grin spread across the Doctor's face. "Do you know, once we even electrified Borusa's perigosto stick."

  "Charming. So she stayed behind and you went away?"

  "Yes, and I think that's what's been irritating her all these centuries. She's been brooding on it so long that I actually think she believed my rather sudden conversion. I suspect that I fulfilled her dearest wish."

  "Certainly had me fooled. How did you fake the bit with the neck, anyway?"

  "Fake?" The Doctor dabbed at his wounds once more. "Tegan, I hate to tell you this, but if we don't get this sorted out soon, you may have to start locking your door at night. I wonder what it's like, being a vampire?"

  Madelaine and Jake had flown hig
her than their comrades, up over the countryside until all the cloud was below them and the Earth's atmosphere was a curve shining with moonlight.

  They looked at the cylinders each one carried. "How do you operate these things, then?" Jake asked.

  "You just unscrew the top and pull off the toggle," Madelaine murmured absently. "I hope they're ozone-friendly."

  "Not going to be important, is it, when the world's all vampires?"

  "No. You're right. It's not."

  Jake stopped his fumblings with the tap on his cylinder. "Do you want to do this?"

  "I don't know. Just because this lot are vampires ... I haven't liked every vampire I've met, have you?"

  "Not most of them, really, no. I just thought that it was all right that somebody was on our side for once. I'm sorry."

  "I did my share, Jake. All that stuff with Lang."

  "So what do you want to do? It won't make any difference, two cylinders, will it?"

  "No," Madelaine sighed. "No, I suppose it won't..."

  The Doctor turned to Tegan. "Well, rather remiss of them to put two of us in here together, don't you think?"

  "Why?"

  "Because at least one of us has shoulders, Tegan. I suppose I could dissolve into a mist, but I'm not sure how long it takes for a novice vampire to learn to do that sort of thing. Up you get." He bent and allowed Tegan to clamber onto his back. "Ready now? Hup!" He stood upright, and Tegan leapt over the edge of the pit.

  "There's nobody about!" she whispered. "Grab my hand and I'll - " Nyssa appeared behind her and felled her with one blow.

  The Doctor stared up at the creature his companion had become, a look of horror washing over his face.

  Yarven and Ruath had gone to check on the state of the temporal baffles in the laboratory, heading down into the depths by a circuitous route through the cellars. It might have crossed Yarven's mind that Ruath wasn't just enjoying walking with him, but was actively trying to waste time.

  Then again, it might not.

  "Poor Jeremy ..." Ruath sighed at the laboratory door, fumbling with her keys. "He cannot have long left now."

  "Indeed." Yarven opened the door and ushered her inside. "Let us see how he's managing. I wouldn't want to miss my great destiny."

  Before he followed her, he reached into his waistcoat pocket and removed a little moth on the end of his finger. He blew at it and it flew off: "Go," Yarven whispered. "Do as I bid you."

  He turned back to the laboratory and followed his consort, rubbing his hands together in gentle anticipation.

  "Nyssa ... I'm so sorry."

  Without a word in reply, the young woman snarled and leapt into the pit. She reached for the Doctor with both hands.

  The vampire genetic material poured into the night sky, spilling into the winds like fine rain. The older vampires, masters of the stratospheric currents, advised the younger ones on how to disperse it.

  The deadly liquid would be spread randomly across Britain within the hour. Within what had been days it would work its way across Europe and eventually into the daytime of Asia. There, it would cause the initial panic that would serve as a prelude to the greater horrors the night would bring.

  And there would be more. Flasks for the Americas and Africa, scatterings across the globe until everybody knew what this life of darkness and doubt was like.

  Until everybody was a vampire.

  Yarven stared sadly at the blistering forehead of Jeremy Sanders.

  "He was a good servant. He deserves more than this."

  "He was a willing sacrifice. When I explained the principles to him, he leapt at the chance to prepare the way for you." Ruath straightened up from the sensors she'd been checking. "Complete cerebral decay will happen at some point within the next three hours. The chance gets greater every moment."

  "And when that happens?"

  "It's day again. To keep the device powered up indefinitely, we need somebody who can instinctively calibrate temporal conditions, somebody with symbiotic nuclei in their bloodstream."

  "Somebody such as myself."

  "Indeed. That is why I gave you my blood, my Lord."

  "Just so." Yarven turned to the window and stared into the night sky. "Have I ever told you, my dear, about my second encounter with the spirit called Agonal?"

  "Second?" Ruath stopped, suddenly fearful. "But you said - "

  "That I only met him once? Well, a King must have secrets, even from his most ... trusted confidantes."

  Ruath took a deep breath. "Indeed, my Lord."

  "I was stumbling away from my encounter with that idiot Tarak, making my way out of the forest with an arrow in my chest. I was thinking only of escape, of that reflex of ours that calls us to our native earth in times of peril. When I got back to the inn, the man in black, the one who had shown me the shed where No kept his tools and told me to use them on Veran ... he was waiting for me. He told me that he was called Agonal, and that he was my real father."

  "What!" Ruath exclaimed. "But Agonal was merely a disembodied energy matrix, a spirit, he - "

  "He had come to my mother as a shower of rain," Yarven explained impatiently. "I knew that my parentage and my great destiny would be revealed to me eventually. All my life I had anticipated that. Agonal showed me where to hide and explained my coming to Earth. Agonal told me all that I needed to know."

  "But I came to do that, I am the messenger of - "

  "He said that I would rule all vampirekind, forever. That I and I alone would be their King."

  "Well, that's true, in a sense. As Vampire Messiah you'll rule in proxy, while doing your people a great service ..." Ruath smiled and moved casually across the room.

  "Agonal said nothing of that." Yarven didn't turn from the window, his voice remaining level. "But he did say that my Queen would betray me. And you've just done that, haven't you?"

  Ruath froze, her hand on a wall panel. "What do you mean?"

  "Your conversation was reported to me." Yarven spun, bellowing, "The Time Lords would use the Undead as breeding stock, would they? A noble of the House of Yar isn't good enough to rule Gallifrey, is he?!"

  "My Lord, no, you've got it all - " Ruath snatched the gun she'd used on Nyssa from the wall and fired it at him.

  But Yarven wasn't there.

  A great shadow swept over Ruath and she froze, looking up into the Lord of the Vampires' piercing eyes and shivering like a rabbit. "Silence," he whispered.

  The doors burst open, and in rushed the masses of the Undead, Nyssa amongst them. They carried the Doctor before them.

  Yarven turned from the paralysed form of his consort, and bared his fangs at the Time Lord. "Doctor ... I gather you were expecting a wedding. I fear you have been misled. You see, I have come to a very obvious conclusion. If a vampire with symbiotic nuclei can hold the night forever, then surely a Time Lord can do that just as well? While you're having your brain burnt out over the centuries, I can get on with my destiny. The conquest of Earth, Gallifrey, and then all time and space."

  There came a cry from inside Ruath's machines. Sanders was in the last throes of his agony. Yarven pointed to the Doctor. "Give him to the machine."

  Eleven

  The spotlight picked out Victor Lang as he walked onto the stage.

  The crowd roared and applauded, but he waved the applause aside.

  "My friends ... I know you're frightened. We're all frightened. But I'm here to tell you, after night there is dawn. And after such a night as this there will be such a dawn. The dawning of God's city on Earth, when all evil will be swept away. It's true, it's simply true, I'm here to tell you that it's true." The applause washed over his words. He could feel their need as he extended his arms, an embrace to them all.

  But as he made the gesture, he felt something give inside him again. It didn't matter. It didn't matter if he was dying. He had this job to do. "I have a daughter," he began, and he found himself thinking of Madeleine's eyes and of the way she'd looked inside him. "And she's far from
here. She's far from me in spirit, as well as in the flesh. I want us all now to think of those who aren't here. Ask for their protection. Ask for them to be shown the way of the Lord, while there's still time.

  "You see, she berates and threatens me, calls me up and threatens to tell the papers about us, about our love, and yes sir, I would call it love - " He stopped, realizing what he'd just said.

  The audience's love had snapped off like a light. And the stadium was dark. He could hear whispers and scattered shouts and a scared, embarrassed silence.

  They were going to crucify him, he thought giddily.

  The air was thick and full, really full of something.

  And then something split inside his stomach lining. And he started to laugh. "What unites us all?" He guffawed, picking out individual faces as the spotlights remorselessly swept the audience. He coughed and tried to stop giggling. "What unites us all? Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you the only thing that any of us in the glare of the last crummy years of the twentieth crummy century have in common."

  He grabbed the microphone stand in front of him and found a sharp edge on it. "This is it, folks, this is all that we've got in common! Saints and sinners like we all are! Just the blood!" He made a slicing motion, and felt a huge surge of relief as the liquid spouted from his forearm. He watched it go, and thought of his daughter's voice.

  The crowd was shouting, a noise of terror and wanting.

  Lang felt their fear and their pleasure, and the last traces of secrecy died inside him. With a roar of laughter, he hit the control in his hand that ordered the cameras to zoom in.

  He opened his mouth, and showed his fangs to the audience.

  They cried and wept and shouted. They loved him for it.

  Lang dived forward, scattered screaming altar boys from an on-stage table, and seized the cups that were ready for communion. "Come and get it!" he bellowed, filling them with the glorious warm liquid. "Drink of the blood of common ugly humanity, eat of its flesh! So I'm not perfect, so neither are you! What a revelation that is, huh?" The crowd screamed and swayed, and Lang in his ecstasy couldn't be sure if they wanted to hurt him or cheer him on. A number of them were climbing up onto the stage.