She found herself walking through a forest, a pleasant, sunlit place filled with tweeting birdsong. Her hands were in her pockets, she was whistling some nameless tune, and she was gliding tirelessly along her way, but still she knew something wasn't right. She glanced over her shoulder, back along the path where the light of the forest's end could be clearly seen shining like a beacon, and there was something there. It couldn't be seen but it was there all the same, somewhere in amongst the darkly rustling trees. She turned and moved forward again, deeper into the forest, where it was bright and welcoming and full of life, and the trees didn't curve in over the path with their clawlike skeletal branches, and weren't grey and dusty, and didn't hide a thousand dark shadows amongst their twisting roots and contorted trunks. Still it was there, though, right behind her, and the faster she moved, the deeper she went into what should have been safety, the closer it got, and the more she knew its cold breath was on her neck, and the less she dared ever look back again. She was running now, fearful, desperate, but for some reason no matter how hard she ran she was still standing at the same place, her arms and legs flailing uselessly, exposed and vulnerable. But there was a ditch ahead of her, and somehow she was free to jump down into it, and pull stuff over on top of her for cover; first loose leaves and twigs, then the earth itself. She clawed with blackening fingernails, digging herself down into the ground, burying herself under ton after ton of dirt, and all the time she knew the thing was standing right there, and if she looked up, if she raised her head, if she couldn't lose herself down in the depths of this dark pit, this time it would have her for sure...
She blinked, and opened her eyes. Sitting on the edge of her bed, the Doctor smiled down at her.
"There she is."
"Doctor?"
She peered up at him confusedly. He looked tired. Coatless for once, his hair unkempt, his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow, and it came to her that something terrible must have happened while she slept. She sat up sharply, and with a nauseating lurch the room span and yawed about her like a ship in rough seas.
"Don't try and get up yet," he said.
"Cheers for the warning," she muttered and slumped back onto the pillow, eyes shut. "What's going on, Doctor? I felt fine yesterday, what's wrong with me?"
"Well, I don't want you to panic..."
"Panic?" Her eyes snapped open in her alarm. "Panic about what? What's happening?"
"All right, poor choice of words," he confessed with a sigh. "Look, you're going to be fine, nothing to worry about. But I'm going to show you something now, and you should be prepared for the fact that it's not going to be particularly pleasant."
She watched warily while he retrieved a little silver hand mirror from the bedside table. With a light touch of his fingertips on her chin he angled her head away while he held the mirror down to her left. The look in her eyes must have told him when she sighted the thick, bloodstained bandage taped to the side of her neck.
"Nasty, eh? Let's take a quick peek."
She winced at the smarting pull on her flesh as he peeled away the tapes and folded back the gauze and cotton wool pad to reveal a livid purple and yellow bruise on her throat, and a bloody wound still glistening wetly at its centre.
"Oh!"
Her shiver ran sickeningly all the way down to her stomach and she pressed her fingers quickly against her mouth. The Doctor rolled the bandage back into place.
"You're going to be fine," he said again. "But you lost a lot of blood. Lucky Jenny turned out to have your blood type or you'd be laid up for days. That little donation took some persuasion, I can tell you."
Stiffly afraid to move her head, Alison slid her eyes over to the side, and saw the primitive glass bottles, tubes and a kind of gigantic syringe made of what looked like brass. All stained with rust-coloured dried blood like the tools of a slaughterhouse. She shuddered.
"What happened? What did this to me?"
The Doctor sat back on his hard little wooden chair.
"I was hoping you might have some input on that."
"No! I mean, I slept right through it, I didn't feel a thing."
"Pity. The thing is, you were still bleeding a little when we found you, there was a good deal of blood soaking into the pillow, but not nearly as much you turned out to have lost. So I ask myself, what happened to the rest? From the marks around the wound, I'm thinking something drank it."
"Oh, you..." The spinning unreality of the situation did nothing to lessen her sense of revulsion. "You mean like a... like a..."
"Say it," he prompted her.
"Like a vampire?"
His eyes twinkled with energy and his smile curled upwards at the side.
"Exactly like a vampire!" With a sheepish look he backtracked a little. "Well, perhaps not exactly. I don't think we're dealing with an overdressed aristo with a comedy accent. You have one wound, not two, and the flesh has been torn, not punctured. So..." He put his head on one side and scratched his ear. "I'd say what we're looking for is a creature without working teeth or mouth parts, which therefore has to consume protein in liquid form through some sort of sucker. Blood would be ideal. I can't honestly say the description rings a bell."
"Ugh," said Alison with feeling. "And this thing crept in here while I was asleep and just sat there slurping away at my neck till it was full, and then left me here bleeding?"
"Yes, and without waking you up." He held up a glass phial a quarter full of dark red fluid. "I took this to analyse later. I'm betting I'll find traces of some sort of natural anaesthetic."
"I had weird dreams."
She was embarrassed at having come out with this inconsequential point, but the Doctor looked interested.
"Really? Like what?"
"Well, like there was something after me, and I just had to keep hiding, and pulling stuff over me, burying myself deeper and deeper to get away from it."
"Hmm." He stroked his chin contemplatively. "I wonder if it uses a kind of psychic anaesthetic. Keeps its victims asleep by using anxiety to make them suppress their own conscious thought processes."
"Yeah, probably." Alison shifted uncomfortably in bed, feeling a stab of pain from the wound in her neck. "Where is everyone, anyway? Shouldn't they be rallying round, bringing me soup and grapes and stuff?"
The Doctor looked shifty.
"Ah, well, I don't think you'll be getting any other visitors for a while. Not until I've left you alone, anyway." He glanced round at the firmly closed bedroom door and continued with a shrug. "The flow had almost stopped, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have bled to death even if we hadn't found you, but stepping in here, seeing the sheets and the pillow all drenched in blood..." His eyes flickered away in recollection. "I may have overreacted slightly."
"Oh, I see." Alison wasn't sure whether to be sorry she'd missed this scene. "Well, that's no good, is it? Not if we want them to help us catch this vampire or whatever it is. You'll have to use your charm on them."
"Yes..." The Doctor reflected on this with arched eyebrows, chewing his lip. "I think I'm going to do that right now." He gave her a pat on the arm while he jumped to his feet. "Feel better."
With a sense of purpose he headed for the door.
--------------------
The Doctor shook his sleeves back down to his wrists and shrugged his coat back on. He headed down towards the main hallway where Carstairs awaited him at the bottom of the stairs.
"Doctor." He was nervous, fidgeting warily at his guest's approach. "Is she any better?"
"She's awake," the Doctor said. "She just needs to rest. Something to eat would be a good idea, too."
"Ah, fine." Carstairs looked relieved at being given something to do. "I'll tell Jenny to get Cook to make some soup."
"Good. Before you do that, can I have a brief word?"
With the pressure of just his fingertips on Carstairs' shoulder, the Doctor guided him out of the hall and into the drawing room, where Charlotte sat unmoving in an armchair, looking cold despite the firelight dancing on her pale skin. They halted in the centre of the floor.
"Well, what can I do for you?" Carstairs asked. "Does the princess..."
He was choked to a halt by the Doctor's fist knotting about his tie. Startled, he put up no resistance as he was thrust backwards into a chair, the impact of his bulk almost overbalancing it, and recoiled from the Doctor's tautly furious face inches from his own.
"You chicken-hearted excuse for a man," the Doctor hissed malevolently. "She could have died. She could have lain there alone and bled her life out onto the floor and all because your little family secrets have to be kept in the family. I asked you to tell me what was happening once. I asked you nicely. But now..."
He straightened and strode over to Charlotte, sitting watching the scene with blank, sorrowful eyes. She gasped as he seized the edge of her high collar and ripped it apart, exposing her throat and the livid twisted scar by the vein. He rounded on Carstairs.
"I knew it. How many times has this happened?" He advanced on the man, eyes narrowed, while with a sob Charlotte scrabbled to repair her collar and cover the mark. "And just where is this son of yours?"
At this Carstairs looked up with sudden spirit.
"My son is dead," he spat out. "Those things killed him three weeks ago."
"Things?" The Doctor straightened, a chill passing over his face. "You're telling me there's more than one?"