Doctor Who - [New Adventure 29] - [Vampire Trilogy 2] - Blood Harvest

by Terrance Dicks

  I tried to argue, but you just can't argue with Doc. We called Happy Harrigan off the door and gave him a drink.

  "Meet your new bosses, Happy," said Doc. "Luigi and Mr. Dekker." Happy was pleased, but a little worried too.

  "Maybe Mr. Dekker don't want no ex-con working here, him being a private cop and all."

  I pounded him between the shoulder-blades. It was like hitting a brick wall. "Happy, as long as we've got a saloon, you've got a job. Right, Luigi?"

  Luigi smiled. "Wouldn't be Doc's Place without you, Happy."

  It was going to be Doc's Place without Doc soon, I thought - and without Ace.

  It was quite a night. By the end of the evening even the band got tired, and Doc took over from Sam. Doc played a mean piano, and some friend of his, a helluva nice dame called Benny, sang the blues like she knew what they meant.

  Me and Benny were having a drink at the bar later, and getting on real well when Ace came by and gave Benny one of those looks dames give other dames. Benny gave me one of those "some other time" looks and drifted away.

  Ace took over her stool. "Buy me a drink, soldier?"

  She was wearing the slinky black number I'd first seen her in, and carrying the same black purse.

  I raised a finger to Luigi and a couple of Jim Beams appeared. I tried to pay but Luigi shook his head. "Owner's privilege."

  I looked at Ace. "Doc gave me half the joint."

  She nodded. "I know."

  We sat sipping our drinks. "I could stay, you know," said Ace.

  "Sure you could. I could get a house in the country with a white picket fence and you could buy a pink gingham dress with a lace collar."

  Ace sighed. "It's not us, is it?" She looked around the crowded, noisy, smoky joint. "We've still got Chicago."

  "We'll always have Chicago." Ace put her hand over mine. "And we've still got tonight."

  Doc was over at the piano with Benny. I looked over and caught his eye, and he raised his hand in salute.

  Benny saw us too, and smiled and waved.

  "Well, no one seems to need us here," I said.

  We finished our drinks. As we left the bar, Doc was playing, and Benny was singing the blues.

  EPILOGUE

  But that wasn't the end - not quite.

  Much later that same night Bernice Summerfield, who was in a somewhat elevated state by now, remembered she was an archaeologist and that she had a crate of largely unsorted specimens in the TARDIS control room.

  She had a bourbon-fuelled fancy to have a preliminary look at them and borrowed the TARDIS key from the unsurprised Doctor. He never seemed to sleep himself, and didn't expect anyone else to.

  Bernice opened the TARDIS door and stared owlishly at the crate. She could unpack it in the control room, but the Doctor probably wouldn't like it. She could take it right into the TARDIS, but that seemed like too much trouble. The simplest thing seemed to be to drag it out of the TARDIS and into the empty store-room. So that's what she did. As she said later, it seemed a good idea at the time.

  She'd had no time to nail up the crate, so it was easy enough to lift the lid. She did so and saw Yarven staring up at her, eyes glowing and bloody fangs gleaming. She screamed and jumped back and he sat bolt upright like a jack-in-the-box.

  As he sprang out of the crate, Bernice gave another scream, a real glass-shatterer. Yarven, who seemed as frightened and confused as she was, made no move to attack her. He flung himself out of the store-room, right across the empty gaming room and out of the still-closed front window.

  She ran to the window and saw him scramble to his feet and stagger away, disappearing into the shadows of the vacant lot.

  Her screams and the sound of shattering glass produced first the Doctor, then Dekker wearing a sheet and a Colt .45, followed by Ace wearing a Browning and an extraordinary garment in black silk, followed by Happy Harrigan in night-gown and shotgun.

  The Doctor shooed them all away, calmed Bernice down and managed to get a coherent story out of her. He took her back down to the now empty bar and gave her a drink to steady her nerves.

  When she realized what had happened, Bernice was appalled. "He must have hidden in the crate sometime after the battle - when it was still stored in Ivo's barn."

  "Very probably," agreed the Doctor, not seeming at all perturbed. A thought struck him - or rather, a memory.

  "Of course ... So that's how..."

  "But don't you see, Doctor, he must have been one of them - a real vampire! We brought him back to Earth and now he's free. You've got to do something!"

  The Doctor smiled. "It's already done."

  Bernice stared at him. "Already - but how...?"

  "Don't worry, Bernice," said the Doctor. "I took care of it ages ago." *

  * A reference to the events in "Goth Opera", a companion novel to this one.