[This is a crossover tale involving the Tenth regeneration of the Doctor into the world of 'Path of the Vampire'. An on-line grid/role play game. In this the Time Lord meets my creation, the irrepressible mystic gypsy vampire: Zodiac. I lay no claims to anything from the Doctor Who universe or Path of the Vampire ( www. mooncalfstudios .com) and its locations, powers, etc, but the characters Zodiac and Ginny are my own. and will be featured in a future copyrighted work. ]

Whooshing in the Darkness

Chapter One

The night mist wrapped the backstreets like the arms of a gigantic ghost. At times a soft annoyance at best while in other spots thick and obscure. The silent footsteps pushed the figure through the swirls of condensation in equal silence as she searched about. Occasionally the thinness of the night veil and the streetlamps gave a clue to the night walker. The dark purple cloak trimmed in white fur almost black in the lighting available. The hood was raised and the open parasol the woman carried over her head blocked the scant light from revealing much of her face to any that would happen to encounter her in her travels.

"Where are you?"

Violet colored lips did not move, but crystal blue eyes sat into an alabaster face peered about intently. The heavy black decorations surrounding her purple shaded eyes only made the natural color stand out even more. She made not a sound nor spoke an audible word, but her thoughts danced in the night searching.

"Where are you?" Her thoughts called out again. The one her telepathy called to did not ignore her as the norm. She was not worried yet. Sometimes these hunts would take hours when the conditions were right. No matter, the evening was young. The girl was well fed and ready to explore, so the game of hide and seek in the fog was a welcome diversion. She moved on, moving deeper into the mist now. Occasionally she called out again as her eyes picked out details around her. Muffled sounds trying so hard to be silent caught at once by her overly sharp hearing. In the gloom, two people struggled. One trying in vain to free themselves from the death grip the second had on them as they fed upon them. Each second passing meant the mortal was closer to death now. The attacker had to be a fledgling, or one recently returned to be so hungry. She continued on. It was not her problem, for now.

Other scenes were glimpsed as well. Many of them not vampire in nature. The world's oldest profession played out no matter what the weather was. Dealers sold their wares to eager souls craving a shot of beyond the normal. She smirked and shook her head. The victim she saw earlier had a better chance of achieving such a goal if he survived being turned. Like a ghost escorted by a larger ghost, she passed them all without being noticed. She walked this gauntlet of danger without a worry.

She was, after all, vampire.

"Meow..."

She froze in mid step at the sound while her hearing tried to gauge what direction it had come from. "Where are you, Miss Ginny?" her thoughts drifted again, and again, the long drawn out note of feline confusion answered. Anyone who spent a large amount of time with any animal learned they made distinct sounds for different reasons. To a non animal person, a meow was a meow, but to her she had heard this before when her cat found something beyond her normal experiences. Gently, her free hand slipped under her cloak and unsnapped the safety strap off her hidden weapon. The first time she had heard her cat make that noise, she walked around a corner and found herself face to face with a fadebeast for the first time. Ginny 'knew' what they were now, so this was no fadebeast she was trying to figure out. She aimed herself in the direction the meows came from and was on guard more than ever.

She found her familiar sitting looking down a alleyway. A soft light revealed her in the mist that was coming from the direction the cat was staring at so intently. She crouched just short of being seen by whatever had the cat's attention and whispered again.

"What is it, darlin'?" she asked. Ginny, as if finally hearing her turned its head sharply in the girl's direction and walked to where she was. Meowing and moving about her almost frantically. Slowly, she leaned forward and peeked into the alley.

"What the...?'

The light was coming from a large box. At first she thought it was a phone booth, but it was all wrong for that. Truthfully, she could not recall the last time she had even seen a phone booth -or even pay phones- in the new cellular world they all lived in now. It was blue with the curious words

POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX

across the top above the small door. What was a call box? Despite the fact she lived in Harper Rock in Canada, she was born a Texas girl and the term meant nothing to her. She had never seen anything like this in her exploring of this town before, and part of her was debating how to take this home. What a bizarre conversation piece this would be sitting in the corner. A few plants around it, some ambient lighting. Her mind was buzzing now. It obviously was connected to some power source for the inner lights and the small strobe (?) lamp on top to be burning.

As she stood up to go investigate, Ginny meowed again, much louder. "What?" she paused to pet and adore the large black cat for a bit. "You smell something odd about it. hmm?" Ginny was agitated now, but the girl could not tell if it was fear or excitement that fueled the sounds escaping her mouth. Carefully she stepped into full view of the curiosity. She saw a door, actually a set of doors, in what she assumed was the front of it. After a few moments deliberation, she knocked.

Nothing. As small as the box was, it was not like if anyone was inside they would not have heard her knocking. Zodiac imagined the knocking would be quite loud in such a confined space as this. What was it for?

She placed her hands against the surface and focused her thoughts, only to jump a step backwards as if shocked by electricity.

The box had an aura. Every living thing had an aura but this was the first time the mystic found a man made object with one. She simply had to see.

"Mrow," Ginny was moving about her feet now. Clearly her council on the matter was 'Let's go find something else to mess with'., but the gypsy ignored her furry friend as she focused her powers on the lock. Among her kind the gift was known as 'Uninvited Guest' and a soft click sounded as the door drifted inward an inch as light from inside pushed at the darkness surrounding her. She pressed her eye against the crack to see what lurked within and it opened wide.

"Oh, my goddess!" She eased the gap wider and stepped inside. The cat gave a final hiss of warning before following her. The door slowly eased shut and relocked, but the girl was not panicked. She was confident she broke in and would be able to break back out when she was ready. The room being larger than the outside suggested was a curiosity, but her focus was on the door again. "We...crossed a line of some sort." she frowned. Her beliefs told her such things were possible. Her own grandmother told her stories of witches who had grown to the point of not only transporting themselves from one place to another, but able to stop and explore the place 'in between'. Any of the vampires who teleported had that moment of blankness in the middle of the act as they passed through such a place. Now she found herself in such a place that came with a door back into her own normal place.

"Someone boxed up a place between the places," she marveled. The box itself was only a doorway in or out. The real mystery was surrounding her now. She lets her eyes take in the 'room' she found herself in. She could see doors leading away from here and she ached to explore them all. Did they take her deeper into this place or did they open to other planes of existence like her own. First was where she stood. Ginny had already made herself comfortable on one of the rails that surrounded the 'altar' in the center of it all. If alter it was. It resembled a combination of things that made no real sense to her.

"Don't push any buttons" she reminded herself as she made a slow circle around it. Parts of it looked like trash strung together while other parts of it she could not fathom at all. The aura she sensed outside was strong here and she paused at a more empty part of one of the central panels that made up the arrangement. Her fingertips touched the surface as she opened her thoughts.

"Hello," she whispered. Only to grow weak in the knees and collapse onto the floor as the aura she had felt answered her back. Her instincts kicked in just before falling into darkness and summoned the shadows to hide her from view.

The silence of the night was broken by the sound of tennis shoes softly padding in an even, calm pace as the man walked along. His attention fixed on a device he carried in his hand, only looking away enough to make sure where he was going. By the look on his face, he seemed somewhat frustrated.

"It's like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of a city and the needle keeps moving." he muttered. His attention shifted again as the device began to beep softly. He checked the screen and took off running down an alleyway to find the source that was causing the device to sound off. Only to slow down and stop at the sounds quit.

"They come and go so fast, I need something that can lock on faster than this." He dropped the device into the pocket of the brown trench coat he wore and got his bearings. He turned into the gathering mist and began to walk again. This had not been the most normal place to be exploring he had concluded. Nothing specifically he could put his finger on, but a feeling of unease. Things spied from the corners of the eye that vanish once you look for them abounded here. He was used to such odd occurrences in his travels, but something in the air told his this was not just a passing thing. This was a constant for this place and a place that could generate such a feeling was not one to stay still in for too long.

As he turned down the alley where the large blue box the girl had found earlier sat waiting, he pulled a key from his pocket and looked around to be sure no one was near. A twist of the key and the man vanished inside and closed the door.

"Stationary orbit above the town." he concluded as he hung up his coat. "Try and use the TARDIS' scanners to zero in on the anomalies I've been picking up." The man approached the central controls and made several adjustments to the settings before throwing a switch. A deep, resonating sound could be heard as the machine came to life. Outside, the top light on the box began to pulse in time with the sound. As the noise grew in pitch, the shape of the box began to fade from view. For an instant, the was a empty spot in the mist where the box had once stood, but was soon filled in by the night.

A few moments later, the box reappeared high above the planet and took a point that held it in place as it matched the seed of the rotation of the globe and kept it directly above the town miles below it. Inside, the man began to works the controls again.

The silver ship limped along slow and determined. Still faster than anything humanity had managed to put into space in its current condition, it moved with a grim purpose.

"Report" a cold emotionless voice spoke from the commander's chair on the bridge of the ship. "Are we still in pursuit of the target?"

"Leader. Confirmed. Scans show the Time Lord's craft followed this current course."

"Damage report and repair status."

"All un-centralize units working. Estimate ship still at 62.7% effectiveness."

"And the cause of our sudden damage?"

"Unconfirmed. Prototype craft entered the time vortex and was in pursuit of the TARDIS. 23.7 seconds in flight, the TARDIS hit a unknown distortion that caused it to jump time streams. 2.9 seconds later this vessel hit the same distortion and damage occurred. Possibility the TARDIS was also damaged in the event and the Time Lord is seeking a place to effect repairs."

"Report. Is the technology we liberated from the Daleks performing to specifications?"

"System upgrades operating at 97.3% of projected norms."

"Continue repairs and pursuit."

"Leader."

The damaged craft began to pick up speed as it cleared the asteroid belt and raced in the direction of Mars.