"What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels. Their eyes are not the windows of the soul. They are the doors. Beware what may enter there. That which holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel."
He read aloud to Kiam who was sitting on his legs. Not really a story for an almost two year old, he thought to himself but then again Kiam didn't have a normal life. Doctor Song had given him the book on the Weeping Angels and why a lot of the information was useless that part he found interesting.
Rose had wandered away back on to the ship to look at the footage again.
"Doctor Song? Did you have more than one clip of the Angel?" She called.
"No, just the four seconds." River replied.
"There's something wrong with this book." He said and flipped through the pages. Trying to figure it out. "Aha," he yelled finally causing Doctor Song to jump.
"This whole book, it's a warning about the Weeping Angels, so why no pictures? Why not show us what to look out for?"
"There was a bit about images. What was that?" River asked.
"Doctor! It's in the room!" Rose called out from the ship.
"Rose" He sets down Kiam and runs to the ship. "Are you all right? What's happening?"
"It's coming out of the television." She sounded scared. "The Angel is here."
He tries to open the door and finding it locked tries to sonic the keypad. "Don't take your eyes off it. Keep looking. It can't move if you're looking."
"What's wrong?" River asks.
"Deadlocked." He tells her.
"There is no deadlock."
"Don't blink, Rose, don't even blink." He tries to cut the power and finds that deadlocked as well. "No good, it's deadlocked the whole system."
"There's no deadlock."
"There is now." He says angrily to her.
"Doctor, help me!" Rose says.
"Can you turn it off?" When he receives no reply he tries again. "The screen. Can you turn it off?"
"I tried." She says.
"Try again, but don't take your eyes off the Angel. Don't Blink."
"I'm not blinking. Have you ever tried not blinking? It just keeps switching back on."
"Yeah, it's the Angel." He tells her.
"But it's just a recording."
"No, anything that takes the image of an Angel is an Angel."
"Doctor, what's it going to do to me?"
"Look at the Angel but don't look at the eyes." He tells her avoiding her question."
"Why not."
"The eyes are not the window to the soul."
"What did you say again about the images."
"Anything that takes the image of an Angel is an Angel."
She goes silent and a moment later the door clicks. He pulls it open and rushes in fearing that she has been taken again. He is relieved to see her standing there shaken but okay. He runs to her and wraps her in his arms and kisses her. "You are amazing Rose Tyler." he says proudly.
"I froze it. There was a sort of blip on the tape and I froze it on the blip. It wasn't the image of an Angel any more." She tells him.
"So it was here? That was the Angel?"
"That was a projection of the Angel. It's reaching out, getting a good look at us. It's no longer dormant." He says. There is an explosion outside and he turns pale. "Kiam" he starts to run outside and then notices the little boy sitting on the steps looking at the book. Relief floods through him. "You two are going to be the death of me." He calls back to Rose.
"Doctor? We're through." Father Octavian said coming over to them.
"Okay, now it starts." He grabs Kiam's hand and heads with Father Octavian to a hole leading down in the temple. A rope ladder extends downwards.
"Coming" he calls back to Rose seeing she hasn't moved.
"Yeah, I just have something in my eye." She rubs her eye and then comes over to him. He takes off his jacket and then looks at Rose.
"Put Kiam on my back and give me your coat." He tells her. She scoops up Kiam and he feels the little boy wrap his arms around his neck. He hands Rose his coat and watches as she puts it on. Smiling at how she looks, he takes her coat and ties it around himself securing Kiam tightly to his back.
"Hold on tightly, Kiam and don't let go until Daddy tells you it is safe." He says and starts down the rope ladder slowly.
They reach the bottom of the Cavern and he unties Rose's coat and sets Kiam down on the ground holding his hand. He tries to look around and sees only shadows.
"Do we have a gravity globe?" He asks. One of the Clerics hands him a globe.
"Where are we? What is this?" Rose asks.
"It's an Aplan Mortarium, sometimes called a Maze of the Dead." River replies.
"What's that?" Rose ask.
"It's just a labyrinth with dead people buried in the walls and if you happen to be a creature of living stone, the perfect hiding place." He drop kicks the globe in his hand into the air, where it illuminates an array mausoleums and statues. All the statues looked old and decaying.
"I guess this makes it a bit trickier." Father Octavian says.
"A bit, yeah." He replies looking around.
"A stone Angel on the loose amongst stone statues. A lot harder than I'd prayed for." He turns to his men. "Right. Check every single statue in this chamber. You know what you're looking for. Complete visual inspection. One question. How do we fight it?"
"We find it, and hope." He says and takes Roses hand in his free hand and starts walking deeper into the maze.
They had been walking for awhile when gunfire sounds behind them. He passes Kiam to Rose and runs back to the main group. He sees a young cleric standing there with his gun pointed at one of the statues.
"Sorry, sorry. I thought. I thought it looked at me." The young cleric says sheepishly.
"We know what the Angel looks like. Is that the Angel?" Father Octavian scolds.
"No, sir."
"No, sir, it is not. According to the Doctor, we are facing an enemy of unknowable power and infinite evil, so it would be good, it would be very good, if we could all remain calm in the presence of decor."
"What's your name?" He asks stepping forward.
"Bob, sir. It's a Sacred Name. We all have Sacred Names. They're given to us in the service of the Church."
"Sacred Bob. More like Scared Bob now, eh?" He questions.
"Yes, sir."
"Ah, good. Scared keeps you fast. Anyone in this room who isn't scared is a moron. Carry on." He looks Father Octavian in the eye and smiles before heading back to Rose and taking Kiam's hand back.
"We'll be moving into the maze in two minutes. You stay with Christian and Angelo. Guard the approach." Father Octavian says.
-DW-
"Isn't there a chance this lot's just going to collapse? There's a whole ship up there." Rose asks.
"Incredible builders, the Aplans." River says.
"Had dinner with their Chief Architect once. Two heads are better than one."
"What, you mean you helped him?" Rose asks.
"No, I mean he had two heads." He smiles at her. "Lovely species, the Aplans. We should visit them some time. Very relaxed, sort of cheerful. Well, that's having two heads, of course. You're never short of a snog with an extra head."
"Doctor, there's something. I don't know what it is." River speaks up.
"Yeah, there's something wrong. Don't know what it is yet, either. Working on it." He says to River and then turns back to Rose. "Of course, then they started having laws against self-marrying. But that's the Church for you. Er, no offense, Bishop."
"Quite a lot taken, if that's all right, Doctor. Lowest point in the wreckage is only about fifty feet up from here."
"The Church had a point, if you think about it. The divorces must have been messy." Rose jokes but he stops suddenly, feeling himself go pale.
"Oh."
"What's wrong?" Rose asks.
"Oh." River says.
"Exactly."
"How could we have not noticed that?" Rose asks catching on.
He leans over slowly and picks Kiam up. "Low level perception filter. Nobody move. Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are. Bishop, I am so sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in terrible danger."
"What danger?"
"The Aplans. They've got two heads." Rose says.
"Yes, I get that. So?" Father Octavian says confused.
"So why don't the statues? Everyone, over there. Just move. Don't ask questions, don't speak." He herds them into an alcove away from the statues. "Okay, I want you all to switch off your torches."
"Sir?"
"Just do it. Okay. I'm going to turn off this one too, just for a moment." He turns the light off and then flicks it back on immediately.
"Oh, my God. They've moved." Rose says. He hands Kiam to her and then takes off down the nearby passage. All of the statues have moved and they are heading towards them.
"They're Angels. All of them." He says not able to keep the fear out of his voice. Every statue in this Maze, every single one, is a Weeping Angel. They're coming after us."
"But they can't be." River says.
"Clerics, keep watching them."
"But there was only one Angel on the ship. Just the one, I swear." River tells him
"Could they have been here already?" Rose ask.
"The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?" He asks River, mentally kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner.
"Nobody knows." River responds.
"They don't look like Angels." Father Octavian says.
"And they're not fast. You said they were fast. They should have had us by now." Rose says.
"Look at them. They're dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving."
"Losing their image?"
"And their image is their power." He pauses. "Aha, Don't you see? All that radiation spilling out the drive burn. The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up."
"We need to get out of here fast." River says.
"Bob, Angelo, Christian, come in, please. Any of you, come in." Father Octavian says into his walkie.
"It's Bob, sir. Sorry, sir." He says over the walkie.
"Bob, are Angelo and Christian with you? All the statues are active. I repeat, all the statues are active."
"I know, sir. Angelo and Christian are dead, sir. The statues killed them, sir." Bob replies.
He takes the walkie from Father Octavian Bob, it's me, the Doctor. Where are you now?"
"I'm on my way up to you, sir. I'm homing in on your signal."
"Ah, well done, Bob. Scared keeps you fast. Told you, didn't I. Your friends, Bob. What did the Angel do to them?"
"Snapped their necks, sir."
"That's odd. That's not how the Angels kill you. They displace you in time. Unless they needed the bodies for something. Bob, keep running. But tell me, how did you escape?"
"I didn't escape, sir. The Angel killed me, too." The reply comes over the walkie and he feels his blood go colder.
"What do you mean, the Angel killed you?"
"Snapped my neck, sir. Wasn't as painless as I expected, but it was pretty quick, so that was something."
"If you're dead, how can I be talking to you?" he wonders.
"You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion."
"So when you say you're on your way up to us"
"It's the Angel that's coming, sir, yes. No way out."
"Then we get out through the wreckage. Go! Go, go, go. All of you run. Father Octavian orders."
"Doctor." Rose stops mid stride.
"I'm coming. Just go." He yells at her and watches her run off. He turns to Father Octavian. "Sorry, but there's no way we could have rescued your men."
"I know that, sir. And when you've flown away in your little blue box, I'll explain that to their families."
"Angel Bob. Which Angel am I talking to? The one from the ship?" He asks over the walkie.
"Yes, sir. And the other Angels are still restoring."
"Ah, so the Angel is not in the wreckage. Thank you." He tells the Angel and then takes off running. He sees Rose stopped on a bridge. One hand grasping the rail tightly and the other holding Kiam's hand.
He stops. "Rose, we need to run."
"I can't."
"Why not?" He asks softly.
"Look at it. Look at my hand. It's stone." She says.
"You looked into the eyes of an Angel, didn't you?"
"I couldn't stop myself. I tried."
"Listen to me. It's messing with your head. Your hand is not made of stone."
"It is. Look at it."
"It's in your mind, Rose, I promise you. You can move that hand. You can let go." he says trying to remain calm.
"I can't, okay? I've tried and I can't. It's stone. Take Kiam and run."
"The Angel is going to come and it's going to turn this light off, and then there's nothing I can do to stop it, so do it. Concentrate. Move your hand." He says fiercely to her.
"I can't." She says softly, tears filling her eyes. You've got to go." She says.
He sees the statue arrive out of the corner of his eye.
"Rose, Keep your eyes on it. Don't blink."
"Run, please. Just take Kiam and run."
He listens to the second part and scoops up Kiam but he stays where he is. "You see, I'm not going. I'm not leaving you here. I can't lose you again Rose, you need to move your hand."
"It's stone."
"Rose Tyler, you are magnificent, and I'm sorry."
"It's okay. I understand. You've got to leave me." She says the tears now streaming down her face.
"Oh, no, I'm not leaving you, never. I'm sorry about this." he leans over and nips the back of her hand.
"Ow!" She cries out.
"See? Not stone. Now run." He grabs her hand and starts pulling her with him.
"You bit me." She says.
"Yeah, and you're alive."
They run until they reach a dead end. The entrance into the Byzantium is above them. The lights start to flicker as the Angels drain the power.
"There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you have a really good idea." River says to him.
"There's always a way out." He tells her.