And we are back with more Tooth and Claw!
The room had filled with smoke; there was no sign of the wolf. Zuri squeezed the Doctor's hand in trepidation.
He squeezed her hand back. "Alright you men, we should retreat upstairs, come with me." He announced.
"I'll not retreat," The Steward said, "the battle's done. There's no creature on God's Earth that could survive such an assault."
"I'm telling you, come upstairs!" The Doctor shouted.
Zuri tightened her grip on the Doctors hand, fearful for the man in spite of his stupidity. "Please, sir. Come away. It's not of this earth. Don't throw your life away."
But it was clear his mind was made up.
"I'm telling you, sir, that I will sleep well tonight with that thing's head upon my wall." The Steward strode across the room to look down the corridor, checking on the wolf.
The Doctor watched in concern as Zuri held her breath.
Apparently seeing nothing, he returned with a triumphant look on his face. "Must have crawled away to die." He began, before he was lifted clean through the ceiling.
Rose gasped as Zuri buried her face in the Doctors shoulder.
The sounds of the wolf chowing down on the Steward seemed to echo in the dead silence.
The Doctor brushed a hand through Zuri's hair even as he pulled them from the room. "There's nothing we can do for him! Out!"
The trio ran, but several of the firing squad froze.
Zuri found herself fighting tears as they were caught and killed. There was nothing she could do if they didn't run when it was obvious they were in danger. She lost her grip on the Doctors hand as they hurried up the stairs. Her hands occupied by the hindrance of her full skirts.
Zuri, Rose, the Doctor, and Sir Robert rushed into a room up the stairs.
The Doctor locked the door behind himself with the Sonic.
Sir Robert called for the Queen, and she appeared descending the stairs. "Sir Robert! What is happening? I heard such terrible noises."
The Doctor ducked out the side door.
"Your Majesty," Sir Robert addressed, "we've got to get out. But what of Father Angelo? Is he still here?"
"Captain Reynolds disposed of him." The Queen dismissed.
Zuri sent her a look. She knew the Queen had shot him. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted when the Doctor returned.
"The front doors no good, it's been boarded shut. Pardon me, Your Majesty, you'll have to leg it out of a window." He gestured through a doorway, and Queen Victoria obliged with her head held high.
"Excuse my manners, Ma'am," Sir Robert apologized. "But I shall go first, the better to assist Her Majesty's egress."
"A noble sentiment, my Sir Walter Raleigh." She responded.
"Yeah, any chance you could hurry it up?" The Doctor sassed impatiently.
Sir Robert, climbed up into the window sill but had to immediately dodge backward out of the way, as Monks outside in the courtyard shot in his direction. The Doctor peered out the window wide-eyed, and had to be yanked back by Zuri.
"I reckon the monkey boys want us to stay inside." He shrugged.
"Do they know who I am?" Queen Victoria asked.
Rose spoke up then. "Yeah, that's why they want ya. The wolf's lined you up for a... a biting."
"Now stop this talk, there can't be an actual wolf." The Queen's statement was no sooner out of her mouth when a howling rang through the house.
The whole group turned as one, alarmed, and rushed back to the hallway.
The wolf was battering at the locked door to the upstairs, snarling.
"What do we do?" Rose cried.
"We run," Zuri answered darkly.
"Is that it?!"
"You got any silver bullets?" The Doctor snarked.
"Not on me, no!" Rose flailed her arms in frustration.
"There we are then, we run. Your Majesty, as a Doctor, I recommend a vigorous jog." He jogged on the spot to demonstrate.
"Good for the health, come on!" He grabbed Victoria's hand and lead her from the room.
Running as fast as they could up the staircase, they heard the wolf smash through the door. "Come on! Come on!" Finally reaching the top of the stairs, they ducked down the corridor. The wolf closed in, nearly on them. It was ready to pounce when Captain Reynolds appeared with a gun.
He fired at the wolf, sending it reeling back down the hall. "I'll take this position and hold it." The Captain said. "You keep moving, for God's sake! Your Majesty, I went to look for the property, it was taken. The chest was empty."
"I have it. It's safe." She responded.
"Then remove yourself, Ma'am. Doctor, you stand as Her Majesty's protector. And you Sir Robert, you're a traitor to the Crown." He cocked the gun.
"Bullets can't stop it!" Zuri shouted.
"Then I'll buy you time. Now run!" He positioned himself at the end of the corridor, gun held at the ready.
The Queen and Sir Robert were heading down the corridor already, followed by the Doctor and Rose.
Zuri glanced back at the Captain with dismay. As the others reached the library, she stopped outside the door. Frozen in horror as the wolf pounced on the firing Captain, ripping him apart.
"Zuri!" The Doctor shouted, grabbing her around the waist to yank her back into the library. Just in time to slam the door shut.
Sir Robert and Rose hurried to help him barricade the door. Zuri stood back in the corner, eyes glazed over with fear. It was beginning to hit home how dangerous the life with the Doctor was.
"Wait a minute, shh, shh, wait a minute." The Doctor hushed them. "It's stopped. It's gone."
Footsteps could be heard padding around the outside of the room.
"Is this the only door?" The Doctor asked, tracking the wolf's progress around the room.
"Yes." Sir Robert nodded. "No!" He remembered a side door, dashing over with the Doctor to block it off as well.
They listen, terrified, until the footsteps could be heard, padding away.
"I don't understand," Rose whispered. "What's stopping it?"
"Something inside this room." The Doctor answered, confused. "What is it? Why can't it get in?"
"I'll tell you what though." Rose began.
"What?"
"Werewolf!" She finished with excitement.
"I know!" He hugged her. "You alright?"
"I'm okay, yeah," Rose answered.
"Zuri, you okay?" He turned to the girl, stopping short. "Zuri?"
She was huddled in the corner, arms around her head, shaking.
He slowly stepped closer to her, reaching out one hand. "Zuri, it's gone. It can't hurt you." But she shook her head.
"The Captain. He's dead and I did nothing. I should have..." She crumpled further in on herself.
The Doctor finally reached her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. She shuddered, finally giving in to the tears that had been threatening for a while now. He shushed her softly, stroking her hair. "It's not your fault. He made his choice, to help you get out alive. You mustn't think it's your fault. Never. I've got to get us out of here, but we'll revisit this later, alright?" She nodded with a sniff, and the Doctor slowly released her, before bounding over to the others.
"I'm sorry Ma'am." Sir Robert began. "It's all my fault. I should've sent you away. I tried to suggest something was wrong, I thought you might notice. Did you not think there was something strange about my household staff?"
"Well..." The Doctor shrugged. "They were bald, athletic... You're wife's away, I just thought you were happy."
"I'll tell you what though, Ma'am, I bet you're not amused now." Rose prompted.
Zuri sighed. She warned them, warned them not to try.
"Do you think this is funny?" The Queen demanded.
Rose ducked her head. "No Ma'am. I'm sorry."
"What, exactly, I pray someone please, what exactly is that creature?"
The Doctor scratched the back of his head. "You'd call it a werewolf, but technically it's more of a lupine wavelength haemovariform."
"And I should trust you, sir? You who change your voice so easily? What happened to your accent?"
"Oh right. Sorry." He at least had the sense to look sheepish.
"I'll not have it," Victoria announced. "No sir, not you, not that thing... None of it. This is not my world."
The Doctor ran his hand over the woodwork framing the still barricaded door. A small carving was sitting in the center of the door. "Mistletoe... Sir Robert, did your father put that there?"
"I don't know, I suppose."
"On the other door too... a carving wouldn't be enough... I wonder." The Doctor leaned over, and disgusting Zuri, he licked the door frame. "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."
"And the wolf's allergic to it?" Rose asked.
"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."
Sir Robert shifted in his chair. "Nevertheless, that creature won't give up, Doctor, and we still don't possess an actual weapon."
"Oh, your father got all the brains did he?"
"Being rude, Doctor." Rose pointed out.
"Good, I meant that one." He walked over to the shelves lining every inch of the walls. "You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world." He pulled out his glasses and planted them firmly on his nose. "This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself." He chucked a book at each person in the room.
The four of them flipped through books as the Queen watched, talking over each other.
"Biology, zoology... There must be something on wolves in here." Rose muttered.
"...some form of explosive..." Sir Robert thought aloud.
"That's the sort of thing. Ooh..." The Doctor jumped down from a ladder, holding a book which he placed on the table. "Look what your old dad found. Something fell to Earth." The other's gathered around to look at an illustration of a rock falling to Earth from the heavens.
"A spaceship?" Rose asked.
"A shooting star." Sir Robert responded. " 'In the year of our Lord, fifteen forty, 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."
"But that's over three hundred years ago, what's it been waiting for?" Rose wondered.
Zuri spoke up from where she sat again on the floor, "Only a single cell survived. Adapting through the generations, the monks helped it survive through humans. Host after host. They stole children and made them into the wolf."
"But why does it want the Throne?" Robert wondered.
"That's what it wants, it said so. The... the Empire of the Wolf." Rose answered him.
"Imagine it," The Doctor added solemnly. "The Victorian age accelerated. Starships and missiles fueled by coal and driven by steam... Leaving history devastated in its wake."
The Queen suddenly stood. "Sir Robert. If I am to die here-"
"Don't say that, Your Majesty."
"I would rather destroy myself 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 opened her bag.
"Hardly the time to worry about your valuables." The Doctor commented, not looking up from the book before him.
"Thank you for your opinion, but there is nothing more valuable than this." She reached into the bag and pulled out the largest diamond Zuri had ever seen. It barely fit, resting in the palm of the Queen's hand.
"Is that the Koh-I-Noor?" Rose asked as she and the others shuffled forwards to look closer.
"Oh yes, the greatest diamond in the world." The Doctor reached up to straighten his glasses.
"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."
Zuri rolled her eyes, still red from crying. "That's true of anything if you own it long enough. May I?" She held out a hand tentatively.
The Queen placed it squarely in her palm, and her hand dipped from the weight of it before she caught it. "It's beautiful."
"What's it worth?" Rose asked.
"They say," the Doctor began. "the wages of the entire planet for a whole week."
"Good job my mum's not here. She'd be fighting the wolf off with her bare hands for that thing."
"And she'd win." He muttered.
Zuri glanced around at the silence. The wolf was being too quiet. She tuned out the conversation of the annual cutting of the diamond. She took that brief moment to think, what was about to happen? The wolf was... The wolf was climbing on the skylight!
"Doctor!" Zuri shouted. But he had made a realization of his own.
"Unfinished... Oh, yes! There's a lot of unfinished business in this house. His father's research, your husband, Ma'am, he came here, and he sought the perfect diamond, hold on, hold on..." He violently ruffled his own hair in his eagerness for the thoughts to complete themselves. "All those 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?"
"Obviously."
"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."
"Doctor." Zuri tried again.
"Not yet, not yet. And they planned against it. Laying the real trap not for you... but for the wolf." A fine sprinkling of plaster fell from the ceiling.
"Doctor, look up." Zuri finally managed.
Everyone looked up to see the wolf. Walking across the glass dome above their heads, looking down on them and growling. The glass of the dome began to crack, and everyone ran to clear the blockage from the door.
"Out! Out! Out!" The Doctor hollered. The werewolf crashed through the glass, landing on the table they had all been gathered around, moments before.
"To the Observatory!" The Doctor called as they careened around the corner, the werewolf close behind.
Zuri and Rose glanced back, and Zuri paused. The wolf took that brief pause, bounding towards her. Just as it reached her she screamed, the Doctor calling her name.
Lady Isobel appeared, splashing the wolf with a bucket of liquid.
Zuri fell backward and the Doctor barely caught her before she hit the ground. The wolf backed down the hall.
"Good shot." The Doctor acknowledged.
"It was mistletoe." The Lady responded.
She and her husband shared a kiss and a wish for each other's safety before Robert sent her back downstairs. He then turned to guide the rest of them to the observatory. The Doctor lead the charge into the room.
"No mistletoe on these doors, your father wanted the wolf to get inside. Get inside, I just need time! Is there any way of barricading this?"
"Just do your work, and I'll defend it," Robert stated firmly.
The Doctor seemed to be ignoring him. "If we could bind them shut with rope or something..."
"I said I'd find you time, sir. Now get inside." He was clearly determined, and Zuri began to cry again.
"Good man." Was all the Doctor could say.
"Zuri... the diamond?" She handed it to him, ignoring his attempt to catch her eye.
"For what purpose?" The Queen asked.
"The purpose it was designed for." He said solemnly.
"Rose, Zuri." The three of them fought to turn the wheel on the massive telescope.
The screams of a dying man echoed through the halls and Zuri fought back sobs. The gears continued to grind as the Queen prayed in the corner. The Doctor and Rose snarked at each other about stargazing, but Rose quickly came to realize exactly what it was they were doing. At last, it was properly aligned.
They stepped back from the telescope gears as moonlight bounced off the prisms inside. Just as the werewolf broke through the door, light spewed forth from the end of the light chamber onto the floor. Just short of reaching him.
He advanced on the Queen, but the Doctor dove across the floor, throwing the diamond into the beam of light. A fantastic, prismatic beam of light struck the wolf, lifting him into the air. As they looked on, he transformed back to a human form.
"Make it brighter, let me go." The host said softly.
The Doctor moved back across the floor, reaching to the light chamber and flicked a switch. With a final howl from the wolf, the creature vanished and the light shut off.
Rose breathed a huge sigh of relief, but Zuri was watching the Queen.
Victoria was staring at a cut on her wrist.
"Your Majesty? Did it bite you?" The Doctor asked.
"No, it's a cut, a sliver of wood when the door came apart."
"If that thing bit you... Let me see."
She pulled away sharply. "It is nothing."
Lady Isobel and her maids watched on as Zuri, the Doctor, and Rose knelt before the Queen.
"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub thee: Sir Doctor of TARDIS." She tapped him on each shoulder with a sword.
"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub thee: Dame Rose of the Powell Estate." She tapped Rose on each shoulder.
"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub thee: Dame Zuri of TARDIS." And she also tapped Zuri on each shoulder.
"You may stand." The Queen finished.
"Many thanks, Ma'am." The Doctor stood.
"Thanks! They're never going to believe this back home." Rose gushed.
Zuri smiled softly, her eyes still saddened by the death she had witnessed in that house. "Thank you, Ma'am."
"You're Majesty, you said last night about receiving a message from the great beyond. I think your husband cut that diamond to save your life. He's protecting you even now Ma'am, even from the great beyond."
"Indeed. Then you may think on this also, that I am not amused."
The Doctor groaned while Rose looked jubilant. "YES!"
"Not remotely amused." The Queen continued as Zuri glared at the two of them.
Rose made an effort to wipe the smirk from her face.
"And henceforth... I banish you."
"I'm sorry?" The Doctor looked stunned.
"I rewarded you, Sir Doctor. And now you are exiled from this empire, never to return. I don't know what you are, the three of you, or where you're from, but I know that you consort with star, and magic, and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death, and I will not allow it! You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you managed to stray so far from all that is good. And how much longer you will survive this... terrible life. Now leave my world. And never return."
A cart was found to haul the three of them back out to the TARDIS, but Zuri never made it. Popping away before the Doctor could speak alone with her. He had wanted to make sure she was okay after all that, but it would have to wait.
So that was the second half of Tooth and Claw. Up next... Silence in the Library