Chapter Seventeen

"Right," the Doctor said, as he landed with a thump on an office building. "I think this is a good place to make a stand. It's early in the morning and most people are asleep now so I don't think there's a chance anyone will get hurt."

"Except us."

The Doctor looked at Rose.

"Sure you wanna do this, Rose?" he asked. "I can take you back—"

Rose held up her hand.

"I said I'm in it with ya, and I mean that," she said.

The Doctor shrugged.

"Okay," he said slapping his hands together. "How do we lure the little bugger to us?"

The Doctor nearly jumped out of his Converses When Rose screamed out, "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEY, WE'RE OVER HEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!" behind him.

"Um…Rose?"

"Yeah?" Rose said turning around.

"I don't know if you know this or not; but vampires have extremely sensitive hearing and thanks to you, I have a tremendous headache now."

"Sorry."

"Besides, I doubt if that wor…"

He looked behind Rose, and his eyes widened.

"On second though, here he comes," he said. "Hide now!"

Rose looked around and noticed a shadowy area in the far corner of the building. She ran to it and crouched down low. The Doctor nodded, satisfied that she could not be easily detected and turned his attention to his adversary who was fast approaching the building.

"Evening," the Doctor said. "Nice night for flying. The air is unseasonably warm this time of year."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, rocked back, and forth, as Ian landed in front of him.

"Very cute, Doctor. You won't think it so funny when I rip your head off your body."

He glanced around.

"So, where's Rose?" he asked him.

"Dunno."

Ian raised his eyebrow.

"Don't give me that. I heard your little lover screaming at the top of her lungs a moment ago."

"Oh! That! That was me," the Doctor said proudly.

"You?"

"Yeah, I'm great at mimicry. And what better way to lure you over here than to imitate your future bride. And what'd you know, your need to do the mattress mambo with my Rose led you right into my trap. Oh my! This must just be so embarrassing for you, eh? A man who has only been a vampire for a couple of hours outwitting a 200-year-old bloodsucker. Guess it's something to tell the boys at the office, huh?"

He scratched his ear.

"Come to think of it, do we even have an office?" the Doctor asked. "I mean, do we all get up at the crack of dusk, report to our workplace to punch in and get our schedules; and then after a hard day's night, we all gather around the plasma cooler and swap amusing anecdotes?"

"You think you're cute, don't you?"

"Yeah, I do, actually. Well, at least, Rose says I am. I'm not a judge of beauty by any means, but she seems to prefer this body over the last one. Of course, the last body had these enormous ears that put elephants in Africa to shame, but on the plus side, it did provide lots of shade for Rose wherever we went and…"

"ENOUGH!"

The Doctor frowned.

"What? I'm answering your question," he said. "I'm only trying to answer your question. I'm just being polite and I…"

The Doctor ducked out of the way, as Ian leaped at him.

"Enough talking, let the battle begin!" he screamed.