Chapter Two
"Doctor?" Amy Pond called uncertainly. Her voice sounded eerily muffled among the maze of books as she tiptoed through the rows of shelves that towered more than twice her height.
"Rory?"
She ran her fingers along the spines of books next to her; the entire section seemed to be nothing but dictionaries from the 1920s. Emergency lighting glowed red from above, creating long, dark shadows. At the end of the room she found a door. Thank god, she was about to die from dictionary overexposure.
Actually, two doors. And a third one down in a dark corner of the room.
Amy sighed. "Wouldn't kill him to put up a few signs, would it? Library, left. Frisbee factory, right. Console room, straight. Husband: two corridors to the left and down the stairs until you smack into him…"
Amy opened the first door. Behind it stretched a seemingly endless hall. One of the endless halls with those circle things on the walls.
"My favorite," Amy said, stepping in and pulling the door closed behind her. She wasn't entirely sure what unnerved her so much, but between the emergency lighting, the utter silence of the ship, and the fact that she had been wandering around for a solid ten minutes and not gotten anywhere all amounted to very, very bad in her well-tuned internal Something Bad's Happening-o-meter.
"Rory?" she called a little louder. Not that she expected more of a response the dozenth time, but it was something.
The circle-y walls pulled in the sound of her voice as if she were in a small closet instead of an empty hallway. Amy straightened her shoulders nervously. That was new.
New was bad. Right? New seemed bad.
Amy almost reflexively turned to look at the Doctor to demand answers and solutions, but she stopped herself. That would have been completely pathetic, she told herself. You're on the TARDIS, for godsake, Amy. Nothing can even get in here. Pull yourself together.
"I am together," she said out loud to muffling walls. "I'm so together, you can just call me… Mrs. Together...Lady. Person." She made a noise of frustration and shook herself, a little glad that no one was around for that.
But she had made a good point: the TARDIS was pretty much an impenetrable fortress. Nothing could get in unless the Doctor let it in. And even if something did get in, "No way in bloody hell could they find where they're going in this maze," she muttered out loud.
"Oh," a sympathetic voice said behind her, and Amy whirled around in shock. A dark figure stood silhouetted at the corner of the hall she'd just turned from, maybe ten meters away. She could see his outline perfectly, the red emergency lighting cutting the shape of his tall form, long (clawed) fingers twitching at his sides, and stance that said, I'm ready to run. Are you?
Amy bit back a terrified curse.
"Are you lost, little girl?" he simpered (it was definitely a he, though his voice was high for a man's and had a raspy quality that didn't sound quite human). Okay, alien. She could deal with aliens. She lived with an alien, so she ought to have the practice by now.
Amy found her own voice and schooled it into something that she hoped sounded stern and commanding. "Who are you?"
The head of the figured tilted ever so slightly to the left. She could hear the grin in his reply, "Your worst nightmare."
A chill ran up Amy's spine at about the same rate as the retort to her tongue. "Oh, great." She rolled her eyes. "So you're a cliche-throwing alien, then. God help me, this one's actually going to kill me."
So: Alien That Wanted to Kill Her. Not quite as easy as dealing with the alien she lived with (although the Doctor seemed to think that playing with her patience was a terrific game), but it wasn't like this was a new situation, either. The key, she'd found, was to stall. Put of the Killing Amy part as long as possible, and the Doctor would eventually turn up and set things right. Usually at the last second, but when was the Time Lord ever on time?
The figure took a step forward to the edge of one of the emergency lights. The light and shadows fell sharply on his face, elongating talon-sharp, already too-long teeth and deepening the ridges on his forehead. His eye sockets were in deep shadow, but the light caught something in his eyes that made them glow orange. Amy's breath caught in her throat.
You've seen worse, she told herself. Much worse. She tried to remember what those worse things were, just to give herself perspective, but in the face of this one, she was drawing a terrific blank.
Where was the Doctor? Something evil was on his ship. Something evil had gotten in, and neither the Doctor nor Rory were anywhere to be found. Amy forgot to breathe for several moments. It could only mean one thing, couldn't it? If the Doctor couldn't stop this thing from getting in...
"This one is smart," the thing said. "But she has a sharp tongue. It will be a pleasure to eat from her still-screaming mouth."
Amy's breathing quickened and she tried to hide the tremble that shook her body. "DOCTOR!" she screamed. "RORY!"
The creature took another predatory step forward. "By all means, keep calling for your friends. They aren't faster than I am." He took another step. Amy swallowed dryly. "Want to see if you are?"
Amy didn't need to be given a second opportunity. She ran.
Rory chased after Angel at a bit of a run. After only a few sniffs and several weirdly quick steps down a seemingly random hallway, the vampire was almost too far ahead for Rory to catch up. Rory was used to being several steps behind Amy and the Doctor, but not quite this literally.
"Er-" Rory hesitated saying Angel's name. It was such a strange name for a vampire-let alone a white American male vampire-that Rory still wasn't sure he'd heard it correctly, and wouldn't that be an embarrassing (if typical) mistake? He sucked in a quick breath of courage. "Angel?" Rory ventured. "I can't-"
Angel slowed, glancing briefly at Rory with something that looked like embarrassment himself. "Sorry," he said. "Sometimes I forget…"
"Right, yeah, no problem," Rory shook it off, finally drawing level with Angel. Angel started moving again right away, but seemed to be letting Rory set the pace, which he did at the level of Cautiously Quick. "Er, the TARDIS has this bit that lets it track where passengers are," he said. "If the Doctor gets it going, maybe he could find Amy without us...having to find Amy."
Angel nodded once. "We should be more worried about the Master," he said. "I assume Amy isn't a soulless meglomaniac."
"She is Scottish," Rory said. "And ginger."
Angel half-smiled in concession, which Rory counted as a full win in his Jokes-That-Worked tally.
"I always kind of liked redheads," Angel said. That was the first time that Rory noticed just how smooth and low Angel's voice was. He glanced sideways at the vampire. Yup, and how handsome he was.
"And she's my wife," Rory added, swallowing the self-conscious tone as much as possible. He opened a door as they came to it, flicked the light on inside, looked around at the empty tennis court, flicked the light off again, and shut the door.
"Got it," Angel said. Rory moved on, but Angel suddenly stopped, looking interestedly at the door to the tennis courts. He opened the door, flicked on the lights, and after a moment of consideration, said, "Come on."
"They're not in there," Rory protested, following anyway.
"There's a door on the other side," Angel said, as if this answered all possible questions as to where they were going. "I should probably warn you," Angel said as they crossed the tennis court, "the Master has hypnotic powers. Don't look into his eyes."
Rory opened his mouth and closed it again. He nodded a few times and continued forward. "Does not looking into his eyes actually help with that?" he asked. Hopefully, Angel would have helpful advice; as opposed to the Doctor's advice, which often included instructions for things he should do with his organs. Organs that he didn't even have.
"Yes," Angel replied.
They had reached the other side of the room and he pulled it open. There was an aquarium tunnel on the other side. Rory couldn't see how far it went because it curved away, but he also couldn't see the far walls of the tank through the water, so he thought it must be quite long. Angel hesitated visibly before stepping into it with a pace that was faster than a walk but slower than a jog.
"Eye contact is how vampires contact your mind to manipulate it," he added.
"Good," Rory said, glancing to the left at a manta ray that was following their quick progress. "Maybe the Doctor will get the TARDIS going properly and he'll...disappear." He shivered. "I'm never going to sleep well at night."
Angel grunted. "He can't just disappear. He has to go back. Important things need to happen."
"Like what?"
Angel shrugged the question off. "A cheerleader needs to kill him. Twice. It's a long story."
But an interesting one, it sounded like. Long stories weren't so bad if they were interesting, but Rory recognized the code for, I Actually Just Don't Want to Tell You This Story, so he didn't press it. Something that looked like a cross between a cuttlefish and a seahorse passed over them.
"So you've been here a long time?" Angel asked.
"Yes, and sorry, I don't think it gets more specific than that." Rory's expression turned joking again. "I mean, it hasn't been years, but it's been a while. Amy loves it. Travel, culture, meeting a wide variety of intimidating people."
"And you?"
"I love Amy," he said. "Which sounds boring in this context."
"You're here because of her," Angel said. "Not because you like it, too."
"It's not like it's always sorting out vampire infestations," Rory said. "We've been to some lovely places." He quite liked the red beaches of New Venus, for instance. Until he found out exactly why they were red.
Angel made a grunting sound in the back of his throat. "And Martha Jones? Is she around?"
The question was phrased casually enough, but there was a hint of interest that went a bit farther beyond casual. Rory eyed Angel curiously, but answered, "Martha Jones? No, I think she just traveled with the last Doctor. From what it sounds like-it's hard to ever tell for sure, you know? Why?"
Angel shrugged one shoulder. "Just trying to keep things straight in my head. Time traveling gives me a headache."
Rory let out a laugh. "So you're one of the Doctor's past kidnappings, too?"
"No," Angel replied. "Just a… We've run into each other here and there. I'm not really the being-kidnapped type."
"I didn't think I was either…" Rory replied quietly. "Who'd want to kidnap me?" he added in a too-loud joking voice.
The joke fell very flat.
They hurried on. The aquarium stretched on, much like the silence.
Rory looked up at Angel, taking in his furrowed brow of concentration and darting eyes, focusing on things in the dim light that Rory's couldn't. It suddenly hit Rory that he was wandering the ship with a vampire and thought it might behoove him to figure out exactly why he was. After all, the vampires he'd met in Venice were less than helpful.
"So..." he said, a slight quaver to his voice.
"I'm not going to eat you," Angel replied before Rory could even get the question out. "It's a thing with a curse and a soul."
"Oh, right," Rory nodded casually, now beginning to doubt the whole needing-eye-contact-to-mind-read thing. "Good to know."
The Doctor banged his head on the lip of the console as he climbed out to check the monitor. He slapped his hand over the pain in his forehead, wondering if he stopped banging his head if he would remember the special logistics of the TARDIS he'd been traveling in most of his life.
Given the likelihood of him going without a head injury for any sufficiently large quantity of time, he doubted that he'd ever know.
"Ow ow ow..." he sang to himself, squinting at the readouts on the screen. "Yeah, you too, huh? That's the last time we do that, I promise. Vampires just are not good house guests."
The damage readouts were extensive, extreme, and exhaustive-he was exhausted just looking at them. Grumbling about vampires in general, the Doctor pushed the screen away and ran a finger along the thin crack running up the central column. He could feel the stinging heat of leaking time energy, but it wasn't growing, and would probably heal within a few hours.
"How would he even know to go after the psychic circuitry like this?" the Doctor complained. "Unless- Dracula had some hypnotic powers, didn't he, Old Girl? Great book! You'd love it! Assuming the same rules, he might have been picking up on the psychic energy, which meant he ripped wires out of all the important stuff."
He ducked under the console and went to work stripping the loose ends of the yellow lighting wires. "Which reminds me, I need to stop by the library." He reached for the other end of the yellow wire.
"So, in order of priority," he said, "you need your security system working, navigation so we can take him home, my psychic connection to you would be nice as I'd like to be able to navigate myself, and, new first priority! If we get the comms up, we can try to talk to Amy."
The Doctor dropped the yellow wire and reached for the dangling red wires instead. "Good plan," he said. "I love our discussions."
