A/N: Thank you everyone for all the encouraging DM'S and reviews. Bit of a longer, angsty chapter.
Chapter Six:
The Doctor was watching Nova and Rose attempt to play a game of 'eye spy' but they soon gave up. They ran out of things to spot in the Scottish Highlands, as all they seem to see is endless trees, swampy marshes and woodland. To ease the child's boredom the Doctor let her inspect his sonic screwdriver, watching her face light up with joy as she messed around with it, she pressed a button and it let out a noise. "Ah no don't do that" He said taking it back off her with a smile.
"How much longer" Rose said impatiently tapping her hot pink nails on the wooden ledge of the carriage window.
"I'd say we are about there now" The Doctor responded looking up at the house they were approaching.
Their carriage finally slows to a halt outside a large gothic mansion with a glass observatory adorning the top of a tower-shaped part of the building with what looked like a rudimentary telescope peeping out of the glass, the Doctor hummed in curiosity looking up at it causing Nova and Rose to try and take a peek at the carriage window only for Rose to bonk her head against the glass.
Nova giggles at her as Rose shoots a glare before smiling at the Doctor who also let out a stifled laugh.
They finally clamber out of their stuffy carriage into the courtyard where a man greets Queen Victoria. Nova looks around 'there seems to be a strange feeling lingering in the air' She thinks accidentally projecting it to the Doctor who just looks at her with an eyebrow raised before giving her a small nod of affirmation.
Nova had managed to learn that she doesn't need to share all thoughts with the Doctor but she is lacking control over their telepathic bond with the Doctor. The Doctor has started teaching her the rudimentary 'door method' which allows her to have some privacy if she wished it. He told her today to try and practice this and only share thoughts and feelings if she needed assistance or if he needed to help her with emotions.
As Nova was lost in thought looking at the large house before her, the Queen and the group of suited people were talking as she finally started paying attention she heard the Queen reprimand, Rose. There were a gaggle of men dressed in strange robes who stood by the lord of the house.
Locking eyes with a bald man dressed in long robes, Nova felt a shudder down her spine. Images in her mind, of the moon… 'How strange' she thought but quickly shook it off.
Time skip
After a long tour around a bit of the house, they finally concluded in a large observatory. Queen Victoria makes a remark looking at the gigantic telescope sitting in the centre of the square glass room. "This, I take it… Is the famous Endeavour"
The lord of the house, Sir Robert replies proudly. But Nova was quite bored honestly and she could feel her belly rumble. She noticed that the Doctor was preoccupied with the telescope, and technically they're not in space so she didn't feel like she had to be 'glued to his side at all times as he instructed… so she decided to go for a wander around the stately house by herself wondering if she can find the room, they allocated her and Rose.
Tiptoeing around the creaky old mansion, she noticed a surprising lack of maids or servants. Just the occasional… robed men… Monks? Stranger and stranger, she thought, whilst exploring.
She couldn't help but feel a little giddy adventuring by herself, slowly speeding up from her cautious tiptoeing into skipping down the hallway. Lost in thought she didn't see the large man stood in the corridor and she walked straight into his belly and fell back on the floor.
"Are you lost little one?" He asked offering his hand to her, which she timidly accepted.
"A little… I know my room is somewhere around here" Nova said retreating her hand from his cold clammy grasp as soon as she was steady on her feet.
The man raised her eyebrow at her attire "I see you must be one of the feral children that Doctor brought in"
Nova huffed haughtily "I will have you know, I am no feral child," She said a little frustrated continuing her Scottish accent, a piece of her flaming locks escaping her braid over one eye, as she huffed making it move.
"What family are you from?" He asked pushing questions towards the child, suspicious of the Child and the Doctor, whose accents keep seemingly changing.
"The Doctor's," She said slightly squinting her eyes in annoyance at the man, she felt like this was going to turn into some sort of interrogation. He was leading her down the corridors, but she swore this wasn't the way back to her room. The man just Hmm'd at her response.
"And who exactly is the Doctor" He pried more, wondering who this man was that has gotten in the middle of his plans.
"My father" Nova responded bluntly.
"This doesn't seem like the way to my room," She said to the man, stopping in her tracks looking at him who had a slightly blank expression.
"Ah no, sorry I was going to take you to the Kitchen first for a snack," He said stepping forwards to her again making her take another step back.
"You didn't say that to me" Nova replied trying to still stay polite backing away further.
"Ah sorry I was preoccupied chatting to you about your… Doctor" He said grasping onto her slim little wrist.
"What are you doing, Let go!" Nova protested trying to use her free arm to pry him off.
"Feral child indeed," he said pulling out a cloth from his long robe which he used to cover her nose and mouth. And Nova fell into semi-familiar unconsciousness.
The man carried the sleeping child into the basement before retreating upstairs to put on a suit and get the guests ready for dinner.
TIMESKIP
The Doctor felt anxious, he noticed that Nova had slipped out the room when he was preoccupied over the… pretty rubbish telescope honestly. He kept trying to reach out to her with their bond but he got static silence, he wondered if he did something to upset her to cause her to block him out.
When he asked one of the servants where she was the balding man said she had gone out to play with the children in the house. But it was odd the Doctor thought, he didn't see any children when they had a house tour. But something else was going on in the house, that was piquing his curiosity. So many odd ends that don't quite connect.
Finally, sometime later, Rose had been sent upstairs to borrow one of the lords' wife's dresses for their dinner with Queen Victoria.
The Doctor, the Queen and her guards as well as the lord of the house were ushered into an elegant dining room lit by candles on silver candelabras. There's a peculiar smell in the air… Mistletoe, the Doctor thought to himself, looking down at the green table cloth that lined the table.
That's when the bald butler he saw earlier had returned, only this time donning a suit, suitable to serve an evening meal.
"Your companions apologise, sir," He said addressing the Doctor "The clothing has seemed to delayed them," He said whilst shuffling into the side of the room looking out the large window facing the table. The full moonlight shining into the room shining on the silver candlesticks.
"Oh so they're together then," The Doctor said, looking at the food put before him by a very timid maid.
"Indeed sir, they are," the man said with a strange glint in his eye.
"We'll save them a bit of ham then ey," The Doctor said looking up the Victoria shifting back into his broguish Scottish accent causing the Queen to look at him.
"That blonde feral child could probably eat it raw" The Queen jested eyeing up the Doctor whilst she took a sip from her glass cup.
"Oh, very wise Ma'am, very witty" The redcoat officer Reynolds said laughing slightly at the Queen's jest.
"Slightly witty, perhaps," The Queen said shifting her gaze to her captain "I know you do rarely get the chance to dine with me captain… but do not get too excited. I shall contain my wit in case I do you further injury"
"Yes M'am, sorry Ma'am," Reynolds said rather glumly, like a dog that had just been sent outside in the rain.
"Besides, we are all waiting on Sir Robert. Come to Sir" The Doctor started gesturing towards the Lord lingering by the doorway. "You promised us a tale of nightmares"
_
Meanwhile in the musty dark cellar, lit only by a few dying candles and the shaded moonlight obscured by clouds. Rose was cradling Nova's head in her lap, she was only just stirring.
"Are you all right?" Rose said sitting Nova up as she looked into her eyes.
"I'm fine, where are we…" She said gazing around the room noticing the shackled maids as well as herself being imprisoned and then finally her eyes panned across the room noticing a caged man hunched over in the centre of the room.
"Don't make a sound" A lady hissed at them both "They said if we scream or shout, then he will slaughter us"
"But he's locked up a prisoner like us?" Nova asked curiously eyeing up the woman who was clad in finer clothes than the rest of the women down here… she guessed with was the Lord's wife who had been locked down here with the maids.
"He's nothing like us, that creature is not mortal it's a demon," Lady Isobel said fearfully.
The man turns his head almost like an owl, gazing at them with his piercing voids. His eyes are completely black.
Nova tried to use her bond to connect to the Doctor to ask for help but it hurt her head to do so. She grabbed onto her head it hurt so bad. Was it that thing that's causing it? Rose noticed Nova's reaction to the creature in the middle of the room.
"Who are you?" Rose said shuffling on her bum towards the creature as much as her restraints allowed.
"Don't enrage him" One of the Butlers whispered.
"Where are you from? Clearly not from Earth… What planet are you from?" Rose asked hurriedly towards the feral man.
"Oh… Intelligence" He said tilting his head left, and then slowly tilting it right bending in unnatural ways.
"And… something not quite human," He said sniffing.
"Not quite human what does he mean?" The lady said looking between the girl curled up on the floor in foetal position clamping her hands on her head, and the blonde scantily clad woman who was provoking the beast.
"Where were you born," Rose said ignoring the pleas of the maid and lady.
"This body? Ten miles away. A weakling, heartsick, stolen away at night by the breather for cultivation. I carved out his soul and sat in his little tiny heart" It gloated, tilting its head side to side.
"Okay so, the body is human, but what about you… the thing inside?" Rose pressed.
"So far from home…" It whined.
"If you want to get back home maybe we can help," Rose said encouragingly
"Why would I want to leave this place? Such industry, such workforce and warfare… I COULD BEND INTO SUCH A GLORIOUS PURPOSE" He shouted at Rose.
"How would you do that" Rose retorted uncowering before the enraging beast.
"The holy monarch, with one bite, her blood… infected… the empire of the world… so many so many… QUESTIONS" He roared lunging at the cage causing Rose to jump back.
"Look into your eyes, you've seen it too… you both have" He growled at them.
"The wolf, there is wolf about you" He sniffed
Nova felt the wolf inside her brain, unconsented… she couldn't kick it out of her mind yet. She wasn't strong enough, her psychic abilities are weak. She felt useless.
All she could hear in her head was 'YOU WILL BURN LIKE THE SUN'
Before the beast roared again and shouted out loud "YOU BURNT LIKE THE SUN BUT ALL I REQUIRE IS THE MOON" He let out an unholy howl as the moonlight shines in onto his metal cage… the doors opening as the moon peeks out from its cloudy waves.
An unnatural wind shudders the room as all the candles are blown out.
"ALL OF YOU! STOP LOOKING AT IT" LISTEN TO ME, GRAB THE CHAIN AND PULL!" Rose said pulling onto their joint shackles "PULL! COME ON PULL!"
The man growling and snarling, his bones cracking as he bent and retched his body. Fur growing onto his fleshy human body as it contorts larger into something more canine… Long black claws searing their way through his hands that are slowly turning into pawlike attachments.
"ONE, TWO… THREE! PULL!" Rose shouted, as Nova perked up through the pain of her head and pulled along.
The end of the chain breaks free from the stone wall.
Just as the Doctor and Robert kick down the wooden cellar door.
"OUT! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out! Out!" The doctor shouted frantically searching the crowd of maids for Rose and Nova. He moved his arms like a traffic warden trying to usher them out of the room.
He notices Nova and Rose holding each other's hands and he moves them behind him before he notices the opened cage lit up by moonlight in the centre of the musky cellar.
He stares in admiration at the moon drunk beast, then he quickly ducks pulling down Rose and Nova as a piece of the metal cage is thrown at them. "Out!" He shouts pulling them out of the door behind him locking it with a hum of his sonic screwdriver.
Running past the gun room the steward and some guards are aimed at the door. "Take the women, get them through the kitchen" Lord Robert begs his wife.
"I can't leave you, my love, what will you do" She pleads.
"I must defend her majesty, now darling…please don't think of me, just go," He says planting a passionate kiss on her sweating forehead.
The Doctor meanwhile is removing the shackles using his sonic screwdriver from all the ladies and Rose.
"It could be any form of light modulated species triggered by specific wavelengths, did it say what it wanted." The Doctor asked Rose and Nova.
"The Queen" Rose started
"The empire" Nova finished looking fearful, causing the doctor to pause for a second. He realised just the danger he put her in, through the excitement of it all… She might be too young to regenerate yet if anything goes wrong, a little bit of panic set into his hearts as the werewolves howl echoes defyingly throughout the house.
There is a crash of something that bursts through the wooden door. The Doctor pushes Nova back and goes out to investigate it, he sees a flash of fur at the other end of the passageway as he quickly runs back and grabs both Rose and Nova.
"fire FIRE!" Steward shouts causing a blast of gunpowder to fire from their muskets simultaneously.
Once the assault was over, the wolf retreated back for a moment.
The Doctor turned to the men "RETREAT! upstairs come with me" He said pulling Nova and Rose up the stairs expecting the rest to follow him.
"I will not retreat. The battle is done, there is no creature on God's earth that can survive such an assault" The steward said firmly stood in place outside the gun room.
"I'm telling you please, come upstairs" The Doctor shouted at the man, he didn't want to leave him behind but if he had to choose between Nova and this Human. He would choose his daughter.
"so be it," The Doctor said coldly as he pulled the protesting girls up the stairs with him. As they retreated there were sounds of grotesque snarling and wet… flesh... meat... ripping and blood-curdling screams.
"You could have saved him!" Protested Nova trying to pull the Doctor's white-knuckled firm grip on her wrist. "You could have shouted at him" She cried, overstimulated by all the sounds and emotions she just felt. A man had just died in front of her in such a brutal way and all they could do was run away it wasn't fair.
"Your life is more important," He said blankly.
"What because I'm a time lord? And he is just human? No... all life is important, why do you pick who lives or dies we aren't gods" She cried at him.
"NO, BECAUSE YOU ARE MY DAUGHTER" He shouted slightly losing his temper, he saw the fearful look both Rose and Nova were giving him, he loosened his grip on them both.
"I'm… sorry" He started. Before there was another ear-shattering howl piercing through the house.
"What do we do.." Rose asked unsure of how to respond.
"We run," The Doctor said pulling them both along, a looser grip but still firm nonetheless.
"Is that it?" Asked Nova "Like a coward?"
"Well have you got any silver bullets?
"No" Nova replied sheepishly but still with a burning anger in her eyes.
"there we are then, we run" He replied flatly, as the trio ran into the Queen and her guard.
"your majesty, as a Doctor, I recommend a vigorous jog. Good for the Health. Come on" The Doctor impishly said to the queen trying to lighten the mood.
"You think we have time for such jest" The Queen huffed running alongside them.
The werewolf smashes down the door at the end of the corridor behind them and stalks them.
"COME ON RUN!"
The howling beast nearly caught up on their tail when Reynold turns and shouts. It pauses and slightly retreats a few paces.
The Queen's guard, Reynold stood his ground "I will take this position, and hold it. You keep moving, for GOD SAKE! Your Majesty. I went to look for the property it was taken the chest was empty.
"I have it, it's safe" The Queen responds as she pats her dress, revealing an odd-shaped lump by her hips.
The group were slowly backing towards the library door, Reynold kept his aim on the beast staring at them.
"Then Remove yourself, Ma'am. Doctor, you stand as her Majesty's Protector, And you." He said pointing at Sir Robert "You Sir Robert, are a traitor to the Crown" He spat.
"Bullets can't stop it!" The Doctor said, not wanting another person to die in front of Nova.
"They will buy your child some time to escape. Now run!"
Hesitantly the Doctor pulled the girls into the library door pulling it shut, and using his sonic screwdriver to lock it.
Reynold shoots frantically. Nova whips out the Doctors sonic screwdriver from his hand, unlocks the door and pulls the soldier into the library and slamming the door right into the werewolves face. A large thud banged against the door as she tried to seal the door once more. The Doctors body trembled with a mixture of panic and anger, he swiped the screwdriver out of the child's hands and sealed the door himself.
The wolf erupts a lonely howl, it sniffs the door and leaves.
"It's gone," The Doctor said his ear pressed against the door.
Large footsteps are stomping around the room, and growling echoing outside the walls as it stalks around the circumference of the room.
"Is this the only door?!" The doctor said pulling the Lord by the collar.
"Yes. No!" The scared man shouted pointing to the door facing the other side of the room.
They all rush quickly to barricade the other door using assorted furniture.
"Don't you ever do that again" Growled the Doctor to Nova in a low tone, a scary glint in his eye as he reprimanded her. "You could have died"
"Well I didn't, but so could he" She whispered back, trembling in trepidation. She flinched as the Doctor raised his hand to scratch the back of his neck. He noticed her flinching and took a step back. Hurt. He lost his temper again. He swallowed hard.
He turned on his heels "Something inside this room… What is it? Why can't it get in?" He said a bit more jovial as he paced up and down the room his trench coat fluttering beside his legs with every long stride, as he pondered out loud.
"I'll tell you what though" Rose interrupted trying to cheer the Doctor and Nova up.
"Werewolf," She said giddily
"I know. You alright?" He said with a serious tone whilst glancing back at Nova who seemed to be prodding at the woodwork.
"I'm sorry Ma'am it's all my fault... I should have sent you away… I… Did try and suggest something was wrong. I thought you might notice, did you think there was nothing strange about my household staff" The lord cried.
"Well yeah, they were bald, athletic.. your wife is away. I just thought you were happy" The Doctor quipped.
"I will tell you what though Ma'am, I bet you're not amused now," Rose said trying to also alleviate the tension once more.
"You think this is funny?" The Queen snapped at Rose silencing her, as Rose apologised.
"What, exactly, I pray to tell me, someone, please. What exactly is that creature?" She asked directing the question to the Doctor.
"You'd call it a werewolf, but technically it's a more of a lupine wavelength haemovariform." The Doctor stated matter of factly as he watched Nova… Lick? The wood carvings. What on earth...
"And should I trust you, sir? You who change your voice so easily? What happened to your accent?" The queen interrupted his thought causing him to be flustered as he tugged on his ear trying to think of a quick response.
"Oh right sorry that's" He started
"I'll not have it. No, sir. Not you, not that thing, none of it. This is not my world." She snapped at the Doctor, glaring both at Rose and him.
The Doctor strides over to Nova who seemed to be preoccupied with the wood carving. He wet his finger, slid it across an unlicked part of the wood and then tasted it. Mistletoe.
'Clever girl' He told her telepathically, he felt her project annoyance but a hint of pride.
"Mistletoe. Sir Robert, did your father put that there?"
"I don't know. I suppose."
The Doctor walked over to the other door doing the same thing ": On the other door, too. No, a carving wouldn't be enough. I wonder."
"Viscum album, the oil of the mistletoe. It's been worked into the wood like a varnish. How clever was your dad!? I love him". Powerful stuff, mistletoe. Bursting with lectins and viscotoxins." The Doctor said breaking out of his mood getting excitable again.
"And the wolf's allergic to it?" Asked Nova
"Well, it thinks it is. The monkey monk monks need a way of controlling the wolf, maybe they trained it to react against certain things." The Doctor replied
"Nevertheless, that creature won't give up, Doctor, and we still don't possess an actual weapon." Robert sighed.
"Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he?" said the Doctor genuinely
"Being rude again." Warned Nova.
"Good. I meant that one. You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have" He said laughing spanning his arms wide circling whilst holding a book, he lobs a book at everyone in the room.
"Arm yourself." He said flicking through the books along the bookshelf.
"Biology, zoology. There might be something on wolves in here" Rose said trailing her finger along with the dusty leather-bound books.
"Hold on, what about this? A book on mistletoe." Nova said throwing a book to the Doctor.
"Hmm, that's the sort of thing, clever girl," He said again to her.
"Wolf's bane, what about that?" Rose asked peering over the Doctors shoulder reading into the book.
"Look what your old dad found. Something fell to Earth." The doctor pointed into the book which illustrates a shooting star crashing into a glen by the monastery.
"A shooting star" Lord Robert reads "In the year of our Lord 1540, under the reign of King James the Fifth, an almighty fire did burn in the pit. That's the Glen of Saint Catherine just by the monastery"
"uh, that's over three hundred years ago. What's it been waiting for?" Rose said out loud.
"Maybe just a single cell survived. Adapting slowly down the generations, it survived through the humans, host after host after host." The Doctor explained flicking through the book at a rapid pace.
"But why does it want the throne?" Nova asked startling the Queen slightly. "That's what it wants. It said so. The Empire of the Wolf" Nova explained to the Queen.
"Imagine it. The Victorian Age accelerated. Starships and missiles fuelled by coal and driven by steam, leaving history devastated in its wake"
"Sir Robert, Captain Reynold If I am to die here." The Queen started her face laced with despair as she stared at her beloved guard and the treasonous lord.
"Don't say that, Your Majesty." Captain Reynold pleaded.
"I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me. But that's no matter. I ask only that you find someplace of safekeeping for something far older and more precious than myself." She finished sadly.
"Hardly the time to worry about your valuables." The Doctor stated.
"Thank you for your opinion, but there is nothing more valuable than this." She pulls out a 105.6-carat white diamond from a hidden pocket in her bustled skirt.
"Is that the Koh-I-Noor?" Rose asked looking at it in awe.
"Oh, yes. The greatest diamond in the world." The Doctor said, impressed.
"Given to me as the spoils of war. Perhaps its legend is now coming true. It is said that whoever owns it must surely die"
"Well, that's true of anything if you own it long enough. Can I?" The Doctor asked as the Queen hesitantly handed him the diamond.
"That is so beautiful." He said watching the diamond reflect the moonlight from the window above them.
"How much is that worth?" Lord Robert asked.
"they say the wages of the entire planet for a whole week." He said glancing at Rose and Nova "Or at least in this day and age"
"Good job my mum's not here. She'd be fighting the wolf off with her bare hands for that thing." Rose joked, which got a smile out of the Doctor.
"And she'd win." He laughed.
"Where is the wolf? I don't trust this silence." Said the Queen's guard anxiously as he peered around the room listening through the walls for any noise.
"Why do you travel with it?" The Doctor asked the queen whilst handing the Diamond back.
"My annual pilgrimage. I'm taking it to Helier and Carew, the Royal Jewellers at Hazelhead. The stone needs recutting." She says looking at it sadly whilst almost petting it, then putting it back into her pocket.
"Oh, but it's perfect."
"My late husband never thought so"
"Now, there's a fact. Prince Albert kept on having the Koh-I-Noor cut-down. It used to be forty per cent bigger than this. But he was never happy. Kept on cutting and cutting." The Doctor states thinking about the diamond, thinking back to when it reflected moonlight in his hand.
"He always said the shine was not quite right. But he died with it still unfinished."
"Unfinished. Oh, yes." The Doctor said jumping up as the dots all connected together in his brain.
"There's a lot of unfinished business in this house. His father's research, and your husband, Ma'am, he came here and he sought the perfect diamond. Hold on, hold on. All these separate things, they're not separate at all, they're connected. Oh, my head, my head. What if this house, it's a trap for you. Is that right, Ma'am?" He said excitably as he paced back and forth formulating a plan In his head.
"Obviously" The queen retorted haughtily.
"At least, that's what the wolf intended. But, what if there's a trap inside the trap?"
"Explain yourself, Doctor."
"What if his father and your husband weren't just telling each other stories. They dared to imagine all this was true, and they planned against it, laying the real trap not for you but for the wolf." He finished rather impressed with himself piecing it all together.
Then there was a large bang from the ceiling as pieces of plaster dust fall from the roof. They look up to the domes skylight.
"That wolf there" The Doctor stated as the glass began to crack in the skylight under the massive weight of the werewolf's claws.
"OUT! OUT! OUT!" The Doctor shouted.