-1490-
-Milan-
The genius's workshop was a disaster. Scraps of paper were thrown all about, broken models hung from the ceiling, and it seemed like everything was covered in a thin layer of dust; which was perplexing the Doctor.
"Not much of a housekeeper, is he?" Donna looked unimpressed with the mess around them.
"Donna, the man's a genius. One of the most brilliant minds of the century, one of the most brilliant minds ever. He came up in a time when religion dictated the world order, and he turned it around. He used his mind and science to make sense of it all. I think we can let him slide a little."
"S'cuse me," Donna snorted. "Didn't know you and Leo were a couple." Donna stuck her tongue out at the Doctor and Calypso did her best to stifle her own laughter. She had heard plenty about Da Vinci; he was a favorite to the Duke and not to be trifled with. He sounded like an odd man, usually buried in his workshop, experimenting with designs or paintings. It didn't look like he accomplished much though, as she surveyed the area. She wasn't sure what made him so special, and the workshop looked deserted. A low voice distracted them all, coming from somewhere above their heads.
"What's that?" Donna asked, her voice quiet.
"I dunno," The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Let's have a look." He said as he headed for the stairs. It became clear that the voice was repeating a chant, as they got closer, not what Calypso had hoped to hear. As they reached the attic, the smell of burning wax and incense was thick in their nose, along with an underlying stench that made Calypso pull her hand up to her face.
There were hundreds of candles in the center of the room, forming a large circle around a body. It lay spread out on the floor and very much appeared to be dead. An old man sat hunched at the edge of the circle, rocking and chanting quietly. He held a rosary in his hands and Calypso suddenly realized that the entire room was filled with decorative crosses, religious verses had also been painted onto the floor beneath the candles, forming another circle.
"What was that you were saying about science?" Donna asked, her smug look somewhat ruined by the hand that covered her face. "What is that stink-" She stopped as she finally recognized the body on the floor and halted any further steps she was going to take into the room.
"Well," The Doctor drawled. "I suppose we all have our quirks."
"Some more than others?"
"Who are you?" The old man had finally noticed their presence and stopped his chanting. "What are you doing here?"
"Just…taking in the view…" The Doctor faltered. "Leonardo, I presume?" The man gave a curt nod. "That's swell, lovely to meet you. I'm the Doctor. Is that a dead body you've got there?" He strode closer to the circle.
"Yes," Leonardo eyed them all suspiciously. "Are you from the church?"
"Erm, no. We're from," The Doctor stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a paper badge. "We're from the morgue, just making sure you aren't…spreading disease."
"Oh, well perhaps this will interest you then." Leonardo finally started to let a smile creep across his face. "This body yet lives; it has been imbibed with the spirit of the living." His words sounded feverish even to Calypso who had heard her fair share of madness.
"Is 'genius' time lord code for 'complete nutter'?" Donna asked innocently.
"Donna, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation-" The Doctor waved her concerns away, though there was serious doubt in his eyes. "There's all sorts of…theories about where artistic genius comes from-"
But he was cut off when the body suddenly gasped; blue light swirled around it for a moment and then seemed to dive in through the mouth. The body's chest started to rise and fall like it was breathing. And then it was moving, rising from its supine position on the floor.
"It lives!" Da Vinci cried out victoriously with a satisfied grin on his face.
"Or…" The Doctor stared in shock. "He's just raised the dead."
"Is it always like this?" Calypso finally found her voice, surprised that neither the Doctor nor Donna had run screaming from the room. The only thing that had prevented her was sheer terror; she was rooted to the spot.
"I have created life!" Da Vinci laughed and clapped his hands in the air, clearly impressed with the creature as it lurched to its feet.
"Well, no." The Doctor looked over his shoulder at Calypso guiltily. "Not really."
"And by that he means, yes. Yes really. All the time." Donna shook her head. "Da Vinci raising the dead? Honestly, it's like you cause the trouble!" She rolled her eyes at the Doctor. He shot her a look but didn't deny it either. Instead, he pulled the small blue torch from his pocket and started to point it at the body, causing the torch to whistle.
"Huh," He said, bringing the torch up to his face and looking grave. "Wasn't expecting that again."
"What is that?" Calypso asked, realizing that he wasn't using the torch to provide light in the room filled with candles.
"The Gelth, they're an ancient race from the Draxious system. They-" He stopped and looked over his shoulder at Calypso who had her eyes focused on the blue torch. "Oh, this? This is my sonic screwdriver." He twirled it up in the air and caught it. They all jumped when the man tried to leap from the circle of candles, but he was stopped by an invisible wall, falling back to its knees once again. "How did it do that?" The Doctor pulled out a pair of black spectacles and peered at the air around the circle.
"The candles," Leonardo pronounced with a knowing nod. "They keep him contained. I could not just let him wander about outside."
"Well, maybe he's just short of completely off his nut." Donna shrugged her shoulders.
"No," The Doctor said, making a wide path around the circle. "It's some kind of containment field, something keeping the Gelth trapped, not only in the circle, but in the body." He spun around the room and scanned with his screwdriver again. "But where's the rift? Where are they getting through?"
"Gelth?" Donna scowled. "You mean there's an alien in that…thing?" She exclaimed, more concerned with that then the idea that the dead had reanimated.
"Well, yes. It uses the gasses in the body, as it decomposes it's possible to replace-" He paused just long enough to recognize the sour look on both Calypso and Donna's faces. "They used to have physical form, but now they can take others. But the Gelth are trapped in the void, so I don't understand why they're here."
"Well who told you that?" Donna asked with her arms crossed over her chest.
"No one told me. I was there when it happened." He scowled at the circle, looking for what it was he was missing.
"Well, you did a real crack job, professor!"
"Oi, I don't remember you being there to offer any help." The Doctor said in his defense.
"Um…" Calypso felt her voice falter, she wasn't terribly interested in interrupting their argument, but something was bothering her. She couldn't look at the man, the creature, it was too horrifying. Its eyes were completely white save for two small dark pupils that gave her the worst sense of dread when they crossed over her. So she had been focusing intently on the floor and the circle of candles. Beneath the candles had been the painted verses, following the same round pattern. But she had noticed that when the man moved, the paint flickered. She thought it was a trick of the candlelight, but there was no breeze to disturb the flames in the room.
"Well maybe if I had, space man, we could have a normal trip for once in your long life!"
"Doctor!" Calypso called resolutely this time, certain she had seen it. It wasn't just flickering either, it was glowing, the same blue color that had appeared around the man when he first rose.
"Yes Calypso?" He asked with a sigh, trying to remove the annoyance from his voice.
"The paint," She pointed to the floor. "When he moves, the paint is flickering."
"Paint?" He started to turn back to the circle. "What paint?" He followed the direction of her pointing finger and tilted his head. "Oh," He said, surprised, watching it for a moment before he too saw the color flicker. "Oh, that's interesting." He dropped down to his hands and knees, pressing his cheek against the floorboards, making his eyes parallel to the paint.
"What is it, Doctor?" Donna seemed to be focused again on the fact that there was a dead man in the room. He dragged his finger through the letters and licked his finger once, tasting carefully.
"There's void dust in this…" He peered at Da Vinci curiously before jumping back up to his feet. "Have you been seeing ghosts? Phantoms?"
"Of course not, I'm no madman." Da Vinci scoffed at him. "I haven't believed in such things since I was a child. This is not a ghost, this is real." He said, pointing dramatically to the man who paced the circle now.
"Yes, it is." The Doctor frowned biting his tongue. "But why is it coming through? How can the Gelth be here without the rift?" The Doctor rapped his knuckles against his head. "Think, think!" He commanded himself.
"This is the next step in modern science!" Da Vinci seemed convinced. "We will live forever, and I have discovered it!"
"No," Donna shook her head disbelieving. "There's no way, cause I've never seen anything like this." She looked to the Doctor for confirmation. "There ain't walking dead in the future, Tell 'im, Doctor."
"Time is always in flux, Donna." He said in a very non-reassuring tone. "But when I last ran into the Gelth, they didn't just want to use bodies. They wanted to take over the planet. Why is this one different? Who are you? What do you want?" He finally turned and asked the man in the circle. He blinked slowly and opened his mouth, taking a moment before remembering he could speak.
"Lost." He said, the voice as unearthly as anything Calypso had heard.
"It can talk!" Donna seemed horrified at the prospect.
"Lost? How are you lost? Where are the other Gelth? Where are your people?" The Doctor ignored Donna for the time being.
"The War." It whispered. "We were destroyed."
"Yes, yes." The Doctor waved his answer away. "I know that bit. But you survived as spirits, why are you here alone?"
"Small crack." It spoke slowly, as though remembering. "Was afraid. Ran."
"There's more of them?" Calypso asked, unsure that she really wanted to know.
"No," The Doctor spoke over his shoulder. "Well, yes. But not here. Not now."
"You're telling me there's more alien zombies out there somewhere?" Donna nearly shrieked.
"Not the time, Donna." The Doctor warned her. "Leo, can I call you Leo?" He put his arm around the man's shoulder. "When you said you hadn't believed in those things since you were a child, do you mean that you just grew out of it, or did you actually see something when you were little?"
"Well," Leonardo shrugged. "All children have a wild imagination; it's no more than a phase…" He frowned at the Doctor. "Who are you people really? The morgue does not employ women. They've not the stout for it."
"Oi, I'll stout you, old man!" Donna started forward with her fist raised but the Doctor held out his hand pleadingly.
"Donna, Donna, it's alright. No need for stouting. Now," He turned back to Leonardo when he was certain that she wasn't about to start a fight with the original Renaissance man. "I'm the Doctor, and you're going to need my help. So why don't you just tell me what you remember?"
He looked as though he wasn't going to answer for a moment, a frown etching deep lines into his face. But he at last gave a long sigh and relaxed. "I was just a child." He shrugged. "I, like many boys my age, was prone to fancies about having an imaginary friend." The Doctor nodded encouragingly. "It was while I lived with my mother, but when I left for my father's estate, I left those fantasies behind. What does it matter?"
"Oh, it may matter a great deal." The Doctor said very seriously. "Did it ever ask you to do anything? Ever had an unusual experience?"
"Not that I recall…" He frowned.
"Um, Doctor…" Donna called from the stairs, sounding afraid. Calypso looked to see what was bothering her. The Gelth seemed also to have lost interest in what the Doctor was saying and it stood at the edge of the circle, holding its hand palm faced out. She saw that it was facing toward a corner of the room where a few paintings were stacked against the wall, and then one of them shook. She thought she had imagined it when it wobbled again, tilting so far that it fell flat on the floor and she flinched.
"Did you do anything different before? Do you remember any changes?" The Doctor was still too busy questioning Da Vinci to have heard Donna's voice.
"I don't know," He shook his head. "I suppose that was when I started to paint, as my father planned on educating me in the arts."
"That might be something…" The Doctor frowned, scratching his head thoughtfully. "But what?"
"Doctor!" Donna had backed almost to the stairs, watching the painting as it slid across the floor and toward the man in the circle.
"Thinking, Donna, need quiet." He held his hand up for silence and then looked up. "What's that noise?" He turned to them with a queer look on his face.
"I think your zombie friend is doing something…" She pointed as the painting knocked over the candles and slid into the man's hands.
"We are free." The man turned the painting over in his hand and grinned. He tucked the canvas under his arm, stepped across the broken barrier of candles, and started to march toward the stairs.
"Donna, get out of there!" The Doctor shouted, seeing that she was between the creature and his ultimate goal. Donna hesitated, her mouth open in shock as the creature lumbered forward. Calypso felt her muscles release for a second as she dove forward and snagged Donna's arm, dragging her back from the stairs as the man approached. He bared his teeth and hissed at them as he walked past, but they were beyond his reach and he didn't seem interested in chasing them. Instead, he focused on the stairs and they all watched as the figure disappeared down below.
"Did we just let the alien zombie escape?" Donna asked, finally snapping out of her stunned silence. "Did we just let the naked alien zombie escape?"
"Yeah," The Doctor said with a frown. "That's not going to end well."
