Chapter Nine
Christmas Day dawned with some uncertainty, the sun a pale circle of light against the white sky, like a neat hole punched in the clouds.
Freezing fog began to roll over the moor, drifting around the base of the monastery like smoke from an Arctic fire.
In the attic chamber, Ace and Robin were running out of options. Billy Coote stood above the trap door, gurgling softly. His skin was giving off a faint luminescence and his twitching, glazed black eyes were focused directly at them.
'We can't get past him,' cried Ace, looking around the room desperately. Her rucksack, with its precious load of climbing ropes, was propped against a wall, far too close to the advancing stranger for her to retrieve.
Robin popped his head through the stone arch of the window. Dawn light bled feebly inside.
He looked down at the moor. Too far to climb unaided. But the slate-covered roof of the tower was only a few feet above them.
'We can get to the roof with a bit of effort,' he said.
Ace nodded quickly. 'That's an idea. But we could wait till he moves away from the trap door and then try and get down the stairs.'
'Down the stairs to whatever was in the Hall? That's why we came up here, remember?'
Ace grinned. 'Oh yeah.' She shot another glance at her rucksack. 'If we can get...'
Billy Coote took a step towards them. His mouth clicked open, saliva dribbling over his lips. An anguished, chilling moan echoed throughout the room.
'Roof it is,' said Ace, quickly.
They clambered through the window and crouched on the stone sill. Ace looked up. It was a climb of about five or six feet, over a section of ancient lead guttering and then on to the roof. She scanned the masonry with expert eyes. There were a couple of good handholds.
Billy Coote arched his back and emitted another deep moan.
'Come on, then,' cried Ace, reaching for the lintel.
The Doctor leant against a wall, his whole frame bent with emotion.
'Susan,' he said dully.
Yet it couldn't be. Couldn't be...
A tide of regret and grief overwhelmed him and he almost cried out.
'I've missed you so much, my dear,' he croaked, breath broken by sobs.
There was already a curious luminescence in Susan's dark hair. She turned her elfin face towards him and her eyes were full of forgiveness.
'You were always such an old worrier, Grandfather.'
The Doctor's mind raced, recalling all the precious times he'd spent with her. Then a dark strand of memory rose up in his consciousness and he saw again Dalek-ravaged London, Ian and Barbara, and Susan with the man she had grown to love.
'You had to leave me with David, Grandfather. It was what I wanted, after all,' she said, as though reading his thoughts.
He'd abandoned her on an alien world in an alien time, losing his last link with all that he could call home. Since then, there had been but one brief meeting, during the Borusa incident. No time to talk. No time to make up for all those lost years.
'One day, I shall come back,' he had said. But that day had never arrived. He had been too caught up in his own selfish concerns, his ceaseless journeying through the Vortex. What was he running away from anymore? Only himself.
Susan gave a little laugh, the light, lovely laugh he had always cherished. She had called him 'Grandfather', and in that simple phrase was bound up so much feeling, so much tenderness. Had he ever let anyone else get so close?
What was before him now was not Susan. He knew that. But seeing her there, just as he remembered her, was almost too much to bear. He could feel himself moving towards her.
'Susan,' he whispered.
She smiled, and in that moment, the Doctor caught a tiny flicker in her expression. The eyes seemed suddenly colder, harsher.
'No,' he said flatly.
Susan reared up, her body elongating like an uncoiled snake. For an instant, her smiling face remained. Then it fell away, leaving only a terrible darkness around which her hair whispered.
She held out her hands in an embrace and began to giggle, an awful, sick sound that made the Doctor's hair stand on end.
Susan's body was expanding now into trails of light, her mocking laughter echoing around the deserted hall.
The Doctor cried out in anguish and grief, looking around frantically for an exit. He spotted the well of the spiral stairs and bolted across the room, running for his life.
The fog from the moor poured down the empty streets of Crook Marsham, blanketing the peal of the distant bells of York Minster, six miles away. It was a rousing, jubilant sound, greeting the festive morning effusively.
Yet in the village no one stirred.
An icy wind whipped through the main street, setting the butcher's sign swinging.
Somewhere, there was a soft, soft rustling sound.
One man stirred, however, and the weak sunshine made Lawrence Yeadon squint as he turned up the collar of his overcoat and made his way towards The Shepherd's Cross.
He glanced around at the eerie emptiness, straining to hear any sign of life. With a heavy sigh, he pushed open the door of the pub and stepped inside.
The taproom was silent and deserted, discarded glasses and plates littering the tables. Lawrence walked listlessly around the room, his face drawn and haggard. He glanced at the tinsel which hung across the bar and shuddered as a sob caught in his throat. Betty.
She was gone. The woman who had brought meaning to his life. Gone.
It had been hell after the death of his first wife. He had struggled to bring up Robin as best he could. No one, Lawrence included, ever really expected him to get over it. But Betty's love had helped him, healed the wounds, restored the joy to his existence.
He could see her now, just as she had been that summer's afternoon in York, the sun beating down on her hair, her laugh echoing through the hot, still streets.
Now she was gone. Claimed by some force he couldn't even begin to comprehend.
Lawrence slid into a chair. He had to pull himself together.
George Lowcock had called at Mrs Bass's place late the previous night, talking about Jill Mason having some terrible fright over at the monastery and how important it was to get everyone together for their own safety.
Lawrence had suggested the church and said he'd meet them all there at eight on Christmas morning. He checked his watch. Nearly time.
First, though, he had needed to see the pub again, needed to put himself in touch with Betty by seeing the things she'd seen.
He got to his feet and forced himself up the stairs. The police had taken away what was left of her and the bedroom door had been nailed shut.
Lawrence paused by the door and pressed his cheek against the panels, sobbing.
He checked his watch again through tear-misted eyes.
Get a grip.
He would talk to George. Everything would be fine. Everything could be explained. Then he had to find Robin. Say sorry. Make sure he was safe.
Lawrence turned from the door. There was a sudden, sharp noise like scratching. He froze.
It came again. An insistent scraping like a dog demanding to be let outside.
Lawrence looked down at the door. It was shaking slightly.
'Lol?'
His name. Stated in a dry, dead whisper.
'Lol?'
He bent down and stared at the door. Something was pawing at the broken lower panels, pleading to be released.
Quaking with fear, Lawrence put an eye to the splintered wood and peered through into the room.
He caught his breath. Then a laugh resounded through his mind. A hearty musical laugh he'd first heard on a faraway summer's day...
Vijay opened exhausted eyes, lifted his head experimentally and found his neck to be stiff and painful. Holly lay asleep next to him, a few filthy blankets thrown over her.
They had hidden themselves in the security guard's hut after a petrified dash through the station.
Luckily for them, but unluckily for Trevithick, the creatures seemed intent on pursuing the old man, racing after him into the interior of the building.
Holly had been keen to make for the village but Vijay thought this might expose them to still more danger. Better to hide till they could get their bearings.
Sometime during the night, there had been a tremendous, muffled explosion from somewhere inside the station and Vijay had uttered a silent prayer for Trevithick. If the old man had gone down, he would certainly have been fighting to the end.
Holly had slept better than Vijay and this troubled him. It was as if she had found an easy escape route from her troubles, blocking out the horrors by refusing to accept them.
Vijay stood up stiffly, carefully resting Holly's head on his discarded blanket, and tiptoed through the piles of rusted junk towards the door.
Daggers of icy wind slipped under the door. He opened it and grimaced as the harsh white daylight dazzled his eyes. He could scarcely see the moor which stretched out before him. Dense fog and heavy clouds had blended together, forming a freezing envelope around the station.
Then he noticed the fence and dashed outside, slamming the door without thinking.
The perimeter fence, whose impregnability had so impressed Dr Hawthorne, lay broken and smashed. It was how Vijay imagined a prison camp to look after a mass breakout. The steel mesh was beaten down and each post was missing or broken off like a cemetery pillar.
Vijay spun around, the telescope dish looming overhead, and took in the devastation. Something extraordinary had happened during the night.
Holly appeared, rubbing her face. She seemed a little brighter, kissing her lover full on the lips and hugging him close. She saw the fence over his shoulder and gasped.
'Think it was those things?'
Vijay shrugged. 'Can't have just been them, the whole fence is down.' He peered across at one of the posts. 'Hang on.'
Holly pulled her blanket tightly around her as Vijay wandered over to the fence. She watched him feel about in the heather for a moment then look around himself again. 'Holly!' he called.
She wandered towards him, stepping over the remains of the fence.
'The ground's uneven,' said Vijay, wonderingly.
'Subsidence?'
'Must be. The fence hasn't been knocked down, the ground itself has been disrupted.' He squatted on his haunches and indicated the heather. 'And look at this.'
Holly bent down. 'It's scorched.'
Vijay nodded and swung his arm around in an arc. 'All the way round, I reckon.'
Holly frowned. 'Like a giant fairy ring.'
An icy gust ruffled her hair. 'What about Mr Trevithick ... and Cooper?'
Vijay sighed. 'Maybe they got away.'
Holly hung her head despondently.
Vijay stood up. 'We'll drive into the village. They must have some idea what's going on by now. Maybe we can do something.'
'I think we should find the Doctor.'
'Yeah. So do I. But let's get away from here first, eh?' Vijay hooked his arm around her and held her chin in his other hand. 'I love you, you know.'
She smiled sweetly, squeezed his hand and set off for the Land Rover.
Vijay pulled open the door and leant across to open the passenger side. He stiffened as a low groan murmured through the air. Holly looked at him through the windscreen and shrugged. Vijay got out of the Land Rover.
The groan came again, stronger this time. Vijay pushed Holly away from the truck and pricked up his ears. It was coming from underneath the vehicle. Gingerly, he squatted down and blinked into the shadows.
'Christ! Holly! Give me a hand!'
He thrust his arm under the chassis and pulled at the prostrate figure lying there. The grizzled hair was matted with blood and the fierce blue eyes flickered weakly.
'Dr Cooper!' cried Holly delightedly, shunting her colleague into a sitting position against the wheel.
Cooper lifted an eyelid. 'Holly?' She inclined her head. 'Vijay?' A sigh bubbled from her lips. 'Thank God.'
'We thought you were dead,' said Vijay. Cooper coughed. 'Should be, by rights. Those beasties...' She shook her head disbelievingly. 'One caught me across the forehead but I managed to get under here. Must've passed out.' Holly hugged the older woman. Cooper patted her back affectionately.
Vijay stood up suddenly, his keen gaze fixing on something. He wandered away towards the fence.
'Hawthorne?' croaked Cooper weakly. Holly shook her head. 'The old man too, probably. The Doctor went off to the monastery.'
Cooper nodded, her eyes closing. 'Holly?' Vijay's voice cut through the moan of the wind. 'Will you be OK a moment?' asked Holly urgently. Cooper nodded, fingering the wound on her forehead with some distaste. 'Holly!'
Vijay was walking up and down in agitation just beyond the edge of the fallen fence. Holly ran over to him, the question on her lips answered by the sight of the great, tumulus-like mound of earth heaped before her.
The subsidence had opened a gash in the moor some thirty feet across. The soil yawned above a crooked cave mouth, with broken stones and clods of earth littering the entrance. The ring of scorched heather extended right around it.
'What did the Doctor say this place was built on?' said Vijay, knowing the answer. Holly nodded excitedly.
Vijay turned back to the pitch-black chasm. 'I think we've just found his palaeolithic quarry.'
The stones of Crook Marsham's little church had echoed to the sound of Christmas Day worship for almost nine hundred years. Rows of creaking pews gave on to an aisle so worn down that it formed a channel rather than a straight path, making the whole interior resemble a heavily rigged ship, the towering pulpit looking like some ecclesiastical fo'c's'le.
Attendance had dwindled to such an extent that the church had been closed for all but the most special occasions. Those villagers still devoted enough took the bus over to York. George Lowcock, however, kept the keys in the bottom drawer of his desk and that Christmas morning, he opened the ancient doors to convene his meeting.
Now the dingy interior was crammed with villagers. Lowcock had done his rounds late on Christmas Eve, telling everyone to be in the church for eight the next morning as there was a bit of a flap on. He was shocked to discover how few people answered his knock. It was almost as though they had all gone away.
Mr Bayles, Crook Marsham's butcher for thirty years, seemed to have upped and left, fresh turkeys abandoned on his counter. Old Mr Pemberton at the post office, who had never been more than thirty miles from the village in his life, had similarly vanished.
It was only when Lowcock called on Win Prudhoe that his suspicions became a sick certainty. These people hadn't left Crook Marsham. They had been taken, consumed, just like the others they had found.
He'd knocked lightly on the door and pushed it slowly open until it banged against the umbrella stand. There was a burnt smell in the air and clouds of what appeared to be steam hanging low under the rafters.
Gingerly, with heart pounding, Lowcock walked through the sitting room, looking about at dusty furniture and old photographs. There was one of Jack Prudhoe and old Andrew Medcalfe, shoulder to shoulder on the day they had both gone off to war.
'Hello? Mrs Prudhoe?'
He knew, with a dread that made his head reel, that she was no longer alive. Easing open the kitchen door, he noticed at once that the kettle had boiled itself dry on the stove, little tongues of gas flame licking at its blackened underside. Then he glanced down at the bundle of rags in the corner and failed to stifle a scream.
'Mrs Prudhoe, then?' Jill asked him as he ushered the last of a depopulated village into the church. Lowcock nodded heavily. 'Same as the others. Withered. Decomposed.' He slammed shut the church doors. 'You sit yourself down, love. You've done enough.'
'I'm all right,' said Jill determinedly, resenting his patronising tone in spite of her experiences.
The confused residents of Crook Marsham, some fifty or sixty people, were conversing in low, frightened voices. Lowcock strode up the aisle and mounted the pulpit to make the most difficult speech of his life.
The Doctor was running blind, the curved walls of the tower blurring past him. He forced himself to concentrate on the steps under his shoes, stone by stone, as he rose ever higher. The Abbot's landing appeared and then was gone.
Stone by stone. Stone by stone.
Up and up he ran, his legs wracked with pain and his mind reeling, a succession of confusing images glittering before his eyes.
Susan.
Susan but... not Susan. Why did it have to be her? As if the thing were focusing in on his darkest thoughts, exacerbating the very feelings which had brought him to such a crisis.
It knew. It knew.
With a cry, the Doctor banged into the trap door which led into the attic chamber. He sat down wearily, wheezing for breath, and buried his head in his hands. The steps up which he had run remained dark and silent. There was no sign that the apparition had followed him.
The Doctor's head brushed against the trap door and he stood up, pushing against the wood with the flat of his hands until it gave, crashing against the stone floor of the attic chamber.
He poked his head through and peered into the gloom. A moaning wind, accompanied by a beam of weak, diffused sunlight, was blowing through the glassless window. All else was shadow.
The Doctor hauled himself through and, with a grunt, slammed shut the trap door.
He walked to the window and gazed out on to the moor a hundred feet below. The light made him wince and he turned back to the room. Tears sprang to his eyes. Just the light, he told himself, just the light.
Sliding down the wall, the tails of his duffel coat folding under him, the Doctor breathed in deeply. He'd been through so much. Ridden so many of the waves of Time.
Yet, for all those years, he'd put his own feelings to one side, tucked them away as if they were of no importance. Now the full weight of his troubles was becoming clear.
Instead of trying to confront his insecurities, like any rational being, he had buried them deep in his psyche.
He was the Doctor, after all, and expected to be immune to such things. Above such trivial matters as emotion and longing and... love.
It was only a matter of time before all those repressed feelings flooded his system like poison from an untreated wound.
Something glinted in the hard winter sunlight and the Doctor reached out a trembling hand to pick it up. It was a flat, coiled metal object, cool to the touch. With a start, the Doctor recognised it as the earring Ace had picked up on their visit to Segonax. The one she had taken to wearing in her left ear.
'Ace?'
She was here then, or had been. The Doctor stood up, sensing movement in the dusty shadows.
Twin oak beams dominated the far corner and, between them, a shambling figure was stirring.
The Doctor recognised Billy Coote from their encounter in the Great Hall. But there was something different about him now.
As the Doctor moved closer, Billy emerged into the light, stumbling forwards on his knees as though in great pain. His face was deathly pale and clammy with little beads of sweat.
The Doctor shuddered as tiny particles of skin fell away from Billy's face like old plaster, allowing radiant points of light to shine through the pock-marks.
The Doctor put out his hand with some trepidation.
Billy Coote's eyes snapped open and the Doctor gasped. There was no colour in those orbs now, not even the opaque black which had so scared Ace and Robin. Billy's eyes were utterly transparent, like two spheres of aspic jelly, a strange, dull light exposing every capillary and nerve.
Ace jammed her feet into the guttering and clung on to Robin. He responded by nudging closer, placing his warm hand over hers.
They had been lying against the slates in this way for some time. It was freezing cold and Ace would rather have attempted escape, but without her rucksack it seemed impossible. Still, she could wait. And as soon as that bloke in the attic got out of the way...
Ace remembered suddenly that her rucksack might contain something even more useful, that was, if she'd bothered to pack it. She looked up at the featureless sky.
Any attempt to negotiate the frost-covered roof would be suicidal, so they had remained perched on the sheer slates, clinging together for dear life and bodily warmth. Under different circumstances it would have been a delight, thought Ace, tightly gripping this lovely bloke, feeling the pressure of his warm body against hers. But circumstances weren't different. They were the same as they always were when travelling with the Doctor. Bloody dangerous.
Ace checked her watch. It was well after eight in the morning.
'Ace?'
She jerked alert as the Doctor's voice sounded from the room below.
'Robin!' she hissed. 'It's him. The Doctor! He's in there!'
The boy craned his neck to look at her. 'What can we do? Get him up here?'
Ace shook her head. 'No point. Maybe things've quietened down in there. If the Doctor got in, we should be able to get out.'
Carefully, she slid down the roof and leant over the gutter, straining to hear more. She closed her eyes, feeling sick, as the ground jumped into view a hundred feet below. What was the Doctor doing in there?
Billy Coote was slumped against the wall like an abandoned scarecrow, his arms limp at his sides. The Doctor was crouched on his haunches, gazing in awe at the old man's luminous eyes and the weird light streaming from every crevice of his leathery skin.
'Who are you?' said the Doctor gently.
Billy stirred slightly, his hair rustling agitatedly as energy began to build around him. Filigrees of electric-blue light shivered over his flesh.
'Who are you?' said the Doctor again.
Billy's eyes rolled in their sockets, the dull light suddenly blazing intensely from them. He opened his wizened mouth and a chunk of light, solid as a film beam in a dark cinema, poured out.
The Doctor moved back a little.
Some sort of mental link, he thought.
Possession?
Billy Coote's wizened chest began to heave. From deep, deep within his ribs came a rustling sound. He began to mouth noiselessly, his lips splitting and cracking as light flooded through.
Something inside the old man gave out a dreadful croaking moan and the Doctor shuddered. Then it spoke.
Nightshade was running.
There wasn't much time, he knew, and the rocket had to be launched soon or else - or else ...
Around him, the air steamed and hissed, smoke belching from the massive steel furnaces which crowded the complex.
Three domes, their fabric buckled and blackened, loomed into view and he chose the first, scurrying up the twisting ladder on to the gantry section. He looked down at the flat concrete far below and felt queasy. Heights had never been his strong point.
But what was that below? A body? Lying lifeless on the baked ground, its features coated in black slime. Of course. Barclay! How could he have forgotten? Barclay was dead. Barclay had sacrificed his life so that they might escape. But where had he, Nightshade, been? Why hadn't he even tried to save the young man?
There had been something else. Something very pressing.
'Nightshade...'
That voice again. Chuckling. Chuckling.
And suddenly the complex vanished, replaced by the deeply inset window of an eighteenth-century farmhouse. Nightshade looked down. There was a television in the corner of the room and his own face was on the screen, grimacing in horror as a vicious insectoid claw burst through the window.
Nightshade turned around and retched as an appalling smell assaulted his nostrils. This was all wrong. This belonged to someone else's life.
He fell back against the armchair as the window shattered, a great, glistening black claw ramming its way inside.
'Trevithick,' rustled the voice.
Trevithick
Trevithick
Trevithick blinked twice and opened his eyes. He was lying with his back against the wall of the same corridor into which he had tumbled the previous night.
He craned his neck and looked over towards the tiny portal through which daylight was streaming. The dish of the telescope dominated the view.
Of course, he was on Level 18. That's where he'd reached after destroying the creature. Then he must've dropped off to sleep.
He cursed his old body again. This wasn't the time for frailty. He had to make sure the others were all right. He had defeated that monster, but there had been at least five others. Getting back to the control room was now a priority.
Trevithick looked about for a doorway, expecting an entrance to a flight of stairs, but the corridor walls were blank. He turned and regarded the closed lift doors with dread. That was obviously his only way down.
He struggled to his feet and, with some trepidation, pressed the summons button. The doors sprang open immediately.
There was a strong smell of burning inside the lift and Trevithick held his breath as he crossed the threshold, carefully avoiding the gaping hole which the creature had ripped through the floor.
His jacket lay in tatters in the corner next to the tubular ashtray and there were black bloodstains all over the walls. It had been real, then. He breathed out noisily.
Trevithick pressed the Level 8 button and the doors slid shut with a soft click.
He had little idea what he would do when he got to the control room; after all, daylight was only safe in fairy stories. What if there were more of them waiting for him? It would certainly be the end. He hadn't the strength left to...
Trevithick frowned as the floor indicator reached Level 8 and then continued downwards. A cold chill ran through him. Not again. Not more.
He'd always had a horror of being inside a plummeting lift. Was this it? Wasn't there a position he had to assume, bend his knees or something? Or was that just an old wives' tale?
The lift, however, continued to descend in its own stately way.
Trevithick jabbed at the Level 8 button again but there was no response. He glanced down at the floor and felt compelled to peer through the hole out into the dark shaft.
Grunting with effort, he crouched down on his hands and knees and put his face as close as he dared to the hole.
Expecting only darkness, Trevithick was taken aback by the sight which met his eyes.
The lift was descending into a network of glowing light, wisps of fiery energy cocooning the entire shaft like a spectral spider's web.
There was a deep, throbbing pulse emanating from the light as it progressed upwards.
Upwards.
Trevithick got to his feet and pressed the first button that met his trembling fingers. Nothing happened.
He swore savagely and kept his finger on the button until the nail whitened.
It seemed as though the lift were being dragged inexorably down into the pulsing entity below.
Insubstantial tendrils were already groping their way through the hole in the floor.
Trevithick panicked and stabbed at the 'doors open' control, his whole frame shaking in fear. The floor indicator showed Level 5.
To his inexpressible relief, the doors sprang open and he threw himself out of the lift into another darkened corridor.
Trevithick groped his way through the blackness and his hand clapped on to a cold, steel banister. Thank God, at least there were stairs at this level.
He forced his weary legs on to the damp concrete. It was now vital that he found his friends. There was something alive down here. Alive and growing.
Holly and Vijay helped Cooper through the double doors and then into the control room.
'Now what?' said Holly. 'The village?'
Vijay shook his head. 'No, this changes things. If Dr Cooper survived, then maybe old Trevithick did too. I think we owe it to him to at least look.'
The room was buzzing with energy once more, the noise from various machines almost deafening.
'Any change?' said Vijay as Cooper hobbled back to her consoles.
She sifted through a sheaf of paper and frowned. 'There's a real pattern now. Still makes no sense, but it's a pattern. Regular. Like a pulse.'
'A pulse,' said Holly calmly.
Vijay ran his fingers through his hair. 'I still don't see how a nova could produce this kind of data.'
Holly slapped herself across the forehead. 'It's so bloody obvious!'
Cooper smiled. 'What is?'
'The Doctor was right all the time, only he didn't know what about. We've been acting on the assumption that all this data is coming from space. Because that's where it's supposed to come from!'
'From the nova?' said Cooper quizzically.
'No! We couldn't see the wood for the trees. The nova is incidental. The energy isn't coming from space at all. It's underneath us.'
Cooper whistled. 'That would explain why it's flooded the systems. Too local to make any sense.'
Vijay looked at her excitedly. 'But what is it? The Doctor's ghost thing?'
Holly shook her head. 'I don't know.'
Cooper sat down and pouted her lower lip. 'Well, call me alarmist if you like, but it strikes me we're not in the best of positions here.'
Vijay looked down gravely. 'We're sitting on a powder keg.'
The Doctor rocked on his haunches.
'How long?' he whispered.
Billy Coote inclined his head, his whole frame now flickering with light.
'How long have you been here?' urged the Doctor.
There was a strange, whispering groan, merging with the familiar rustling sound. Then the voice, halting, dry and dead as stone: 'All time. Since before the world.'
The Doctor frowned. 'Before the world?'
Billy raised a spindly arm along which flurries of blue light were dancing. 'All time.'
The Doctor changed tack. 'What are you?'
The thing within Billy Coote seemed to shudder and for an instant there was a vile movement beneath his transparent skin, like a specimen in a jar suddenly jerking to life.
'Know not,' it mumbled. 'Know not. Just am.' Billy's head slumped on to his chest, columns of light bursting from every pore. 'So tired. So tired.'
The Doctor rubbed his chin thoughtfully and moved back still further. Energy seemed to be seeping from Billy's body, pooling under his legs and beneath his back.
'Do you know ...' the Doctor began. 'Do you know where you've come from?'
The voice gave a guttural choke, as though willing itself back into life. 'Only ever here. Alone. Cannot rest. Cannot rest.'
The light in Billy's eyes seemed to blaze again for an instant.
'Need!' it rustled. 'Need!'
Ace was hanging from Robin's legs as he hooked his fingers into the guttering. It was horribly unsafe and he gritted his teeth, mixing blind optimism with prayers to his neglected deity.
'OK?' he gasped.
'Yeah. Hold on.' Ace scrambled down his legs and pushed her boot into the same wall crevice she had found the previous night. If she could just keep a grip on the stone and swing herself back through the window...
'You get back on the roof!' she shouted to Robin. 'I'll get the rope strung up and then you can come down. OK?'
He hissed his assent, struggling to breathe as Ace clambered down him.
She reached his ankles and her feet found the top of the stone window. Carefully, she pushed her fingers into the crumbling masonry and scrambled through into the attic chamber.
'Doctor!'
He held up his hand to silence her. Ace gawped at the thing in the corner.
Billy Coote's whole body was alive with crackling light, billowing around him in nebulous clouds.
'He's possessed,' whispered the Doctor. 'Possessed by whatever it is.'
'All time,' it burbled, ectoplasmic fluid gushing from the light-blanched mouth. 'Need! Need!'
The Doctor leant forward as close as he dared. 'What do you need?'
Billy Coote's body flickered for a moment and then, like a distant image in a heat haze, vanished into the shimmering wall of light.
Ace spotted her rucksack, now a good few feet from what was left of Billy Coote. She scrambled across the room and picked it up, immediately retreating to the window.
'We've got to get out, Doctor!'
The Doctor glanced at the trap door, which was now totally enveloped by the clouds of whispering energy.
'Need!' bellowed the disembodied voice.
Ace found a coil of rope in her rucksack and hastily tied one end around the nearest beam. It was further from the window than she would have liked but it would have to do. She ran back to the window and fed the rope down the wall. It was a good twenty feet short.
'Robin!' cried Ace, pushing her head through the stone arch. 'Come on!'
'What do you need?' shouted the Doctor to the air around him.
A tendril of energy appeared and stroked his face almost tenderly.
'Need you,' gushed the voice. 'Need your life. Warm life!'
'Doctor!' screeched Ace. She tipped up her rucksack. No more rope. Just a small collapsible ladder and... and...
Two globes of nitro-nine-A.
She'd been right then. Thank God she had foresight.
It was the same formula she'd brewed up in Nazi Germany during their fight with the Timewyrm. Bit of an unstable formula but effective. And that was what they needed now.
Robin pulled himself through the window but Ace immediately shook her head.
'No time! Get down the rope!'
'It's too short!' he cried.
'Just have to try it, mate,' she said, smiling.
Robin launched himself back through the window and began to descend the rope.
Ace cupped the explosives in her hand and turned around. The Doctor was against the wall, the huge miasma of energy floating about him. It was roaring with power now, beautiful colours like frozen flames rippling within its nebulous structure.
'Need you!' came the chuckling voice.
'Doctor! Get away from it!' cried Ace in a hoarse whisper.
She rolled the globes of nitro-nine-A across the floor.
'No, Ace!' yelled the Doctor.
The cloud's tendrils retreated a little, slipping around the explosives inquisitively.
Ace grabbed the hood of the Doctor's coat and dragged him towards the window. She found the rope and pulled herself through, abseiling down the face of the tower. Freezing wind bit at her face and hands. She looked up. The Doctor was just emerging through the window. Looking down, she saw Robin gazing up at them. He was all right.
Ace pushed her feet off the stones and slid down the rope, trying to ignore the vicious burning sensation it induced.
The end of the rope came in sight and she jammed her fingers into the brickwork. Twenty feet to go. Twenty feet. And that nitro was so unstable...
She looked up anxiously. The Doctor was still too high up.
'Come on, Doctor!'
Her voice was blown back at her by the wind.
'Ace!' Robin cried, holding out his arms to grab her. 'Jump! You're close enough!'
She saw that there was only ten or twelve feet to go. Time to put some of that training into action. She thought of Sergeant Drew Smith and the parachute team he had brought to Perivale Youth Centre one wet bank holiday. He'd been one of her earliest crushes. This one's for you, Drew, she thought.
Ace threw herself to the ground, rolled expertly and found herself gripped by Robin's hands. He kissed her gratefully. Then they both looked up at the tower.
The Doctor was reaching the end of the rope. He swung in the wind, trying to get a grip on the loose masonry of the tower wall.
In the attic chamber, the cloud of energy shimmered over the globes of explosive. There was potential energy in there, it knew. Delicious energy. And any moment now...
The tower roof erupted in flame as the entire attic disintegrated. Chunks of stone and roof-slate blasted into the air. The whole structure tottered on its foundations.
The Doctor felt the heat first and a blinding light as he lost his grip on the rope. Then there was terrible empty air around him and his senses cried out in shock, his stomach lurching. He hit the ground with tremendous force.
Ace and Robin were by him in an instant.
'Doctor!' Ace wailed, running her fingers over his blackened face.
The ruined tower crackled with flame behind them and lumps of stone continued to fall. Robin coughed as a blanket of smoke drifted down to ground level.
The Doctor lay sprawled on the grass, deathly still.
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