Doctor Who: Nightshade Part 34

'No, Ace! You don't know what you're doing. It'll destroy Robin tugged at her sleeve and led her to one side. 'He's you!'

lost it, Ace. Can't you see? We can't wait for him to get us The Doctor hared across the room and stood by her, out of this. It's up to us. If we can get out of the village...'

hands shaking.

'We can do what?' spat Ace, angrily. 'Call the police? The 'I have to know if you've succeeded, Doctor. That we've army? Look, Robin, we haven't a clue how to even begin to both come through it together. It's the only way to make fight this thing. Besides...'

you see. You're the only hope we've got of destroying this 'Besides?'

b.l.o.o.d.y thing!'

'I have to believe in the Doctor. Otherwise there's no point 'No! Ace!'

in going on.'

The Doctor reached out a hand to touch her but Robin lowered his eyes, defeated.

immediately swung round as light began to dance through Ace looked around the control room.

the air.

Vijay was sitting in a chair, hugging himself, Cooper with Ace smiled to herself. She had to be strong. Concentrate.

a consoling hand on his shoulder. The Doctor sat close by, Remember. She let distant images swim before her mind's head bent, eyes closed.

eye.

There'll be no better time, thought Ace. And this was the Yes, that would do...

only way to prove to herself it was true.

She was small. Perhaps five or six. The sun was hot and She picked a chair some distance away from the others very high in the cloudless sky. There was sea and the and closed her eyes.

rea.s.suring tumble of the frothy waves. White horses, her Robin noticed it first, a chill spreading through the air and mum always called them. Mum...

a pungent smell which reminded him of Dr Shearsmith's 'Dory?'

278.

279.

Her mother was calling for her now. Across that stretch of Lowc.o.c.k shoved a young boy down the crypt steps and yellow sand on a faraway summer's day. And calling across looked around anxiously. There was no one left to come. No the years...

one except ...

Ace could feel gritty sand between her toes, taste warm Andrew Medcalfe was backing away from the window, a lemonade and tomato and egg sandwiches. Feel her cheeks fair-haired man in a trenchcoat advancing down the aisle burn as she was forced to change into her little swimming towards him.

costume without the camouflage of the beach towel. Feel the 'Andrew!' bellowed Lowc.o.c.k. 'Get down here!'

crack of her mum's hand across her backside when she'd Medcalfe stumbled and almost fell over his own feet. He pee'd in the car on the way home...

looked over his shoulder, panic-stricken, as Lowc.o.c.k 'Mum?'

scrambled out of the crypt.

'Dory?'

'Get away from me, John!' shrieked the old soldier.

The voice came to her like a rolling wave, breaking on the 'You're dead. You can't be here!'

bank of her subconscious.

'But I am here,' purred the fair-haired apparition. 'Just an old friend coming back to see you. It's been so long...'

A burning, delicious yearning swept through the Lowc.o.c.k swivelled his eyes and fastened his gaze on the Sentience and it rippled with pleasure. There was a radiant church's eagle lectern. With a cry, he stormed up the aisle contact somewhere out on the moor.

and lifted it into the air.

It paused in its attack on the church and sent a portion of Cleminson's ghost marched relentlessly towards Medcalfe itself shooting towards the telescope.

and the old man fell to the floor, his knees cracking off the floor tiles.

Lowc.o.c.k stood on the threshold of the open vault. The 'Please, John. Leave me alone.'

church had become unnaturally quiet, the ghostly soldiers 'You were lucky that day, Andrew,' hissed the apparition, falling back from their a.s.sault and stumbling about as its voice disintegrating into a low rustle. 'Some of us weren't though struck blind.

so fortunate. I've come back for the future they stole from Lowc.o.c.k lost no time. 'Everyone! Down into the crypt.

me.'

Quickly!'

He extended a khaki-clad arm and grasped Medcalfe's He gestured feverishly with his hands and ushered the chin in his pale hand. 'Now, old man,' Cleminson breathed.

villagers through the floor and into the vault. If they were Lowc.o.c.k sprang up behind the figure and swung the lucky, whatever was directing the attack wouldn't know ma.s.sive lectern with every shred of his strength. The great what had happened to them.

bra.s.s eagle slammed into Cleminson's head and took it off in one movement. There was an appalling crack of splintering bone and the head thudded into the pews.

280.

281.

Cleminson's body stood for some seconds like a side- 'It's OK, Doctor.' She stood up. 'I'm fine,' she repeated, show dummy and then toppled to the floor. Medcalfe stared turning to address the apparition. 'It's you that's in trouble.'

at it in horror.

Audrey smiled. 'Come on, Dory. Don't play games. We're 'George...' he began.

going to the school today to see the Head about that nasty Lowc.o.c.k grabbed his arm. 'No time. Come on.'

boy Chad Boyle.'

He thrust him down the stairs into the crypt and followed Ace half smiled. It had done its homework. 'You're not immediately after, slamming shut the floor plate with a my mother,' she said quietly. 'Whatever you are, you're not resounding boom.

her. You're not real and I'm not afraid of you. I deny your Ace had formed a picture of her mother now, a composite reality. You have no claim on me! '

of every Christmas morning, summer holiday, every blazing The Sentience within Audrey grew taller, glaring down at row. How many times had that face burned itself into her Ace, its face darkening in fury.

sleeping mind. She had hated it. Hated it.

'You cannot...'

The Doctor was standing with his back to the wall, staring The voice began to tremble a little, breaking up into a soft up at the auroral display which crackled through the air.

rustling sound.

Cooper moved behind the consoles in disbelief. 'Look!

'You cannot...'

Can you see...?'Need She jammed her fingers into her mouth as a figure Need s.h.i.+mmered into view, hovering a few feet from where Ace The Sentience felt the great hollowness returning. There was sitting.

was nothing for it here.

It was a pretty, middle-aged woman, her face wreathed in 'Get out! Get out of here!' shouted Ace.

smiles.

Audrey's image began to disintegrate; glittering particles 'h.e.l.lo, Dory, love. Where on earth have you been? I was swirled into a vortex around it.

worried sick.'

Ace picked up a sheaf of papers and hurled them at the Ace opened her eyes and jumped, shocked at the apparition.

perfection of the apparition.

'Get out!'

The Sentience had found the image of Audrey easy to The papers fluttered to the floor. When they settled, the a.s.sume. There was much bile in the girl's memory, much Sentience had gone.

resentment. It s.h.i.+vered inside the golden particles of the 'Ace!' Robin ran to her and flung his arms around her. She woman's body, light bleeding from every pore.

grinned broadly and kissed him.

'I'm fine,' said Ace, carefully.

'Don't worry. I knew what I was doing,' she lied.

'Ace,' said the Doctor, concernedly.

282.

283.

Ace turned to the Doctor who was staring at her in Need disbelief. 'I can face my past, Doctor. Now, what about There was still energy to be had, however.

you?'

It would simply concentrate its efforts on the church.

The Doctor continued to stare and then ran across the Drain those creatures dry.

room to Cooper, his hands flapping in agitation. 'Show me Then came another contact. Begging it to stay, demanding your nova! Show me!'

it to stay. A strong contact, no... an unprecedented contact. It Cooper tapped some figures into the console. The was the creature from the monastery again! And this time, Doctor's eyes flicked down the screen. He drummed his he wasn't s.h.i.+elding himself.

fingers against the console and ran a hand through his hair.

There was so much energy there, such a wealth of Ace felt a bit deflated. A bit of recognition wouldn't do experience - almost as if he had lived several lives.

any harm, she thought.

The Sentience pulsed an urgent signal and finally pulled The Doctor turned full around and his face was suffused free of its earthly prison. Light blasted from beneath the with joy.

moor, sending tons of soil shooting into the heavens.

The bulk of the Sentience joined with the portion wrapped Lowc.o.c.k held his breath. The crypt was completely dark around the church eves and scorched across the moor, but he felt a little cheered by the close proximity of his coagulating into a vast, glorious cloud around the dish of fellow villagers. Several had pressed themselves between the telescope.

ancient tombs, as if trying to vanish into the walls themselves.

'At your mark, Doctor,' said Cooper coolly.

Above them, the stone floor echoed with the sound of The Doctor nodded and shut his eyes. Ace had shown him footsteps.

the way. If he could only manage it half as well as she...

Lowc.o.c.k crossed his fingers.

Memories flooded his mind.

Please, please, please...

That first visit to Revolutionary France. Times before that.

Jill Mason grasped his hand. He could hear her frightened He and Susan travelling alone in the TARDIS, or the s.h.i.+p as breathing fluttering in his ear.

he had liked to call it then.