All the doors were being locked as they passed, and windows boarded shut. They saw a group of pikemen of the city militia screaming and running while Clara held Michelangelo's hand to guide him home.
Moonlight touched the cobblestone roads of the ancient city, and the dead dogs whose bodies littered the narrow alleys. A fountain was empty, its last ripples fading on the surface of the pool of water. The statue that had once adorned its stage was missing. In fact, all the statues were missing.
And a baby was crying in the middle of the night.
"It's your turn to get the baby," the exhausted mother said to her husband in bed.
"No, it's your turn," Thomassino said, turning over to his other shoulder. I've worked all day."
His wife tugged at his sheets. "Get your daughter."
"You get her." He tugged back.
The baby's shrieks were growing louder by the second.
"This isn't a joke, Thomas! I'm exhausted and it's your turn to get up today!"
"It's not my turn! And I'm exhausted too!"
Then suddenly the crying stopped. Thomassino opened his eyes. His wife did the same.
They waited.
Both agreed without a moment's hesitation that something was not right when the silence kept going. They marched out of the bedroom and froze. The nursery windows were open. The curtains were silently moving in the chilly summer wind. As their eyes adjusted to the dark, they started to recognize the figure standing over their baby's crib.
The Angel smiled. Gently like one would rock a baby to sleep, it held her in its arms. The baby's eyes were open. She liked the Angel and the Angel liked her. In its cold arms, a child, still at the start of its life, so full of potential; a life that could change the world if it wanted to, in the right time and place.
The baby made one final sound before it disappeared.
"I can still feel it, in my head," Michelangelo said.
"Remember what we talked about," Clara replied, while keeping her eyes on her surroundings. "Don't give in to it."
"I won't, I promise," Michelangelo said. "Because I understand it now. It's temptation, and we must resist it."
Clara was getting tired. She started to lose her way in the city. In the dark, the streets all looked the same, as they moved through darker shades of blue. When she asked him, Michelangelo gave her descriptions of the streets to find their way back to the gallery, but for some reason she could never find the places she was looking for. Instead, she seemed to constantly find herself in the same place. In the shadow of a giant basilica.
"Where do you think the image of the Angel came from? It did not enter our minds. It was God-given. It was already there."
"What'd you mean by that?" Clara asked, but Michelangelo couldn't say.
"I sculpted them with these hands. I saw them with these eyes. I gave them wings and beauty because that is what they told me they looked like."
Clara's heart was pounding in her chest. She was flustered and cold. The Angels could be anywhere now the statues had begun to come to life. Not to mention there was a live one out there.
Clara imagined it around every corner, hiding in every shadow. She saw the flutter of wings in her mind's eye, heard the laughter of teasing children, but they weren't there.
It was already too late when Clara realized the trap she had walked into, when she remembered the words the Doctor had spoken. The image of an Angel is an Angel.
There was an Angel in her mind. There was an Angel in everyone's mind, since the dawn of time, the very concept of the image of an Angel that took shape and form in the imagination of children. It was guiding her to the basilica, where the Angels had been waiting for them.
Death roamed the streets of Rome that night. His sandals clip-clapped after him as he stepped over the bodies of dogs. They littered the streets as if they were simply dropped from the sky.
But there was still barking. A tiny sound, a frightened sound, coming from the shadows.
"It's okay," Death told the dog, as he kneeled on the corner of the street. "I won't hurt you."
The dog stopped, puzzled.
"You can come out. Don't worry, it's not your time yet."
It was a sort of Griffon dog, with big whiskers, short legs and sad black eyes. Its fur was wild and unkempt, grey in the light of the moon. It must've been a scavenger dog.
"It's all my fault," Death said. "If only I'd seen it sooner."
Death stroked his face with his pale hand.
"I'm just lazy sometimes," he continued, and the dog slowly neared wagging a tail.
"And it's not the first time. I once got tricked by a cult into marrying my own assassin. That never would've happened if I'd only bothered to do the research. That would have spared me a lot of fights."
He moved a hand across his face as if to indicate it, as if a thought of his face suddenly emerged in his mind and then vanished again, and he couldn't hold on to it.
"I don't know what to do now."
The dog smelled at his robe, turned around and laid down at his feet facing him. His little dark pupils glimmered whenever he spoke, as if he was listening.
"I'm sorry, but it's true. I never actually beat the Weeping Angels before. I always found a way to cheat. Yes, we've both been lucky, you and me."
Death patted the dog's raggedy head. He sighed.
"He's in here now," Death tapped his temple and looked out into the street. "And they have been for quite a while. They're mental parasites. Predators from the dawn of time. They're the things dinosaurs had nightmares about. They've been sitting on the shoulder of humanity, whispering into their ears, telling them what to do, robbing them of all potential realities and feeding off it, using it to create new form. And with perfect camouflage, because who'd ever suspect an angel? Humanity, always distracted by a pretty face…"
Death hovered a hand in front of his face again as if he suddenly remembered something, and then shook his head.
"I think they're going to win this time, but that might just be the Angel talking…"
He started to notice the hand slowly turning to stone again. Death couldn't feel his fingers.
The dog whimpered, and Death scratched behind its ear one last time before clutching his scythe again to lean on it.
"You want to come with me?" Death smiled. "And why's that then?"
The dog whimpered again.
"The sad eyes are wonderful, but you're not bringing any arguments. Really, why should I take you? You'll only slow me down."
The dog looked away.
Death stood up and dusted himself off, brushing off parts of his very existence along with it. He steadied the hood on his scalp and moved on into the night. Alone.
Ten steps later he stopped. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you…."
With a wagging tail, the dog ran after the hooded Doctor to join the hunt.
Several blocks away, inside the basilica of St. Peter, a joyous Pope finally found the schematic he was looking for. In his mind, he could already see the magnificent tomb that would be constructed in his memory, adorned by a thousand statues. The image of an Angel shone brightly in his eyes…
