Chapter 10

The Vampires of Venice

On the beach by the Aplan Temple, Rose sat on a rock wrapped in a blanket, cooing at Andrea in her arms and beaming a smile at the universe in general. The Doctor stroked his daughter's cheek with his finger.

'Ah. Bruised everywhere,' Rose told him.

'Me too,' the Doctor said.

'You didn't have to climb out with your eyes shut,' she said.

'Neither did you. I kept saying. The Angels all fell into the Time Field. The Angel in your memory never existed. It can't harm you now.'

'Then why do I remember it at all? Those guys on the ship didn't remember each other.'

'You're a time traveller Rose. You see the universe differently,' the Doctor explained.

'And the crack, is that gone too?' Rose asked him.

'Yeah, for now. But the explosion that caused it is still happening. Somewhere out there, somewhere in time.'

All the Clerics were back, now that the Time Field had closed. The Doctor went over to River who was waiting to be transported out.

'You, me, handcuffs,' she said saucily, holding up the high-tech cuffs for him to see. 'Must it always end this way?'

'What now?' he asked her.

'The prison ship's in orbit. They'll beam me up any second. I might have done enough to earn a pardon this time. We'll see.'

'Octavian said you killed a man.'

'Yes, I did.'

'A good man.'

'A very good man. The best man I've ever known.'

'Who?'

'It's a long story. Doctor. It can't be told, it has to be lived. No sneak previews. Well, except for this one. You'll see me again quite soon, when the Pandorica opens.'

The Doctor laughed. 'The Pandorica. Ha! That's a fairy tale.'

'Doctor, aren't we all? I'll see you there.'

'I look forward to it.'

'I remember it well.'

'Bye, River,' Rose said.

'See you, both. Oh, I think that's my ride.'

'Can I trust you. River Song?' the Doctor asked her.

'If you like,' she replied. 'Ha, but where's the fun in that?'

There was a whirl of sand like a dust devil, and River disappeared.

Rose went over to her husband and put her arm around his waist. Now River was gone, and there were no more spoilers, she could be his wife again. 'What are you thinkin'?'

He put his arm around her shoulders and looked out over the ocean. 'Time can be rewritten.'

He led her into the TARDIS, and started the Time Rotor. He checked the console to make sure everything was working as expected, and then took Andrea off Rose. 'Come on young lady, I think it's time for some father-daughter time together.'

He went through to the living room, sat on the sofa with Andrea on his lap, and started chatting away to her about this and that. Andrea looked at him and smiled, as though she understood every word he was saying. Rose wouldn't have been surprised if she did.

They spent a very enjoyable family evening together, and after putting their daughter in her cot for the night, they spent a very enjoyable night in bed together.

'What'cha think then?' Rose asked as she entered the console room. She'd been to the wardrobe to find a sixteenth century outfit for her and Andrea.

'Oh very nice,' he said with an appreciative gaze. She was wearing a pale green, silk dress inlaid with gold brocade. She had found a cream silk dress for Andrea to wear.

Next to the console, Rose noticed a beautiful, sixteenth century antique pram. 'Oh my God! That's beautiful. Where did you get that from?'

'What, this?' he said looking at the pram. 'You've seen it before.'

'I'm sure I'd have noticed.'

He gave her a mischievous grin as he activated a control on the console. The antique pram morphed into the futuristic hover-pram. 'I fitted a chameleon circuit into the electronics . . . Good huh?'

'It's brilliant. So I know when we are, sixteenth century. But where are we?' she asked him.

'Somewhere that literally oozes romance,' he told her as he headed for the doors. He stepped out of the TARDIS wearing his usual outfit of a brown pinstripe suit. 'Venezia. La Serenissima. Impossible city. Preposterous city. Founded by refugees running from Attila the Hun.' Rose stepped out behind him with Andrea in the beautifully ornate pram.

He started to walk through the busy market place. 'It was just a collection of little wooden huts in the middle of the marsh, but became one of the most powerful cities in the world. Constantly being invaded, constantly flooding, constantly just beautiful. Ah, you got to love Venice. So many people did. Byron, Napoleon, Casanova. Ooh, that reminds me.' He looked at his watch.

'1580. That's all right. Casanova doesn't get born for a hundred and forty five years. Don't want to run into him. I owe him a chicken.'

Rose snorted a laugh. 'You owe Casanova a chicken?'

He waggled his eyebrows and smiled at her. 'Long story. We had a bet.'

As they walked along, they were stopped by an official. 'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Papers, if you please. Proof of residency, current bill of medical inspection.'

The Doctor reached into his jacket pocket, took out his psychic paper, and held it in front of the official's face. 'There you go, fellah. All to your satisfaction, I think you'll find.'

The inspector's eyes went wide with surprise. 'I am so sorry, Your Holiness. I didn't realise.'

The Doctor made the sign of the cross with his hands. 'No worries. You were just doing your job . . . Sorry, what exactly is your job?'

'Checking for aliens. Visitors from foreign lands what might bring the plague with them.'

'Oh, that's nice,' Rose said. 'See where you bring us? The plague.'

'Don't worry, Viscountess. No, we're under quarantine here. No one comes in, no one goes out, and all because of the grace and wisdom of our patron, Signora Rosanna Calvierri,' the inspector told her.

The Doctor was intrigued. 'That's interesting. I heard the plague died out years ago.'

'Not out there. No, Signora Calvierri has seen it with her own eyes. Streets are piled high with bodies, she said.'

'Did she now.'

Rose took the psychic paper off the Inspector and saw that it said she was Vicountessa Lungbarrowmas de Gallifreya. "That's one to add to the knighthood", she thought to herself with a smile, as she popped the wallet down the front of her bodice.

They walked along a walkway adjacent to a canal, and they stopped at a stone balustrade to look out across the canal where gondolas gracefully glided by. On the other side of the canal was a large house with a courtyard. Iron gates swung open, and young ladies in white dresses with white parasols and heavy veils on their heads walked out two by two, led by an elderly lady in black clothing.

The Doctor and Rose watched with interest as a dark skinned man hurried towards the group of ladies.

'What do you want?' the elderly lady demanded.

'Where's my Isabella?' the dark skinned man asked her, as he started to lift the veils.

'What are you doing? Get away from there.'

The man lifts the veil of a dark skinned girl. 'Isabella? Isabella, it's me.'

They see one of the girls knock the man to the ground.

'Girls, come along,' the elderly woman called to the young women.

A young man in a cape put his foot on the fallen man's chest. 'She's gone,' he told him.

The man looked over to the retreating ladies. 'Isabella! It's me!'

'What was that about?' Rose asked.

'Isabella!' the man called again.

Rose went to speak to the Doctor, but there was an empty space where he had been standing a moment ago. She looked at her daughter in the pram. 'I hate it when your daddy does that.'

'Who are those girls?' the Doctor asked the dark skinned man in the alleyway where he'd caught up with him.

'I thought everyone knew about the Calvierri School.'

'My first day here,' the Doctor told him. 'It's okay. Parents do all sorts of things to get their children into good schools. They move house, they change religion. So why are you trying to get her out?'

'Something happens in there. Something magical, something evil. My own daughter didn't recognise me. And the girl who pushed me away, her face, like an animal.'

'I think it's time I met this Signora Calvierri.'

['Oi! Mush, where've you gotten to?'] Rose asked in his head.

['Oh hi Sweetheart. I managed to catch up with Guido in the alley.']

['Who's Guido?']

['The man outside the Calvierri school who was looking for Isabella, his daughter.']

['The what school?']

['That building across the way. Look, never mind that. I'm going to try and get a look inside.']

['What for?']

['Ordinary man in the street . . . well, in the canal at least. Needing someone to stand up for him against the oppression of the ruling classes. Well, not standing in the canal of course. That would be daft . . . and wet.']

He felt her smile and roll her eyes. ['Just tell me where I can find you.']

['Hang on, I'll show you.'] He sent her a mental map of the route to Guido's house.

['Ooh, that's clever. I can see how you got there.']

['Make your way here, and I'll meet you later.']

The Doctor and Guido had made their way back to the Calvierri school, where Guido argued with the guards at the gates. 'You have my daughter. Isabella!'

'No, you're not coming in,' the guard told him. 'Just stop there. Look, we've told you . . .'

While Guido distracted the guards, the Doctor sneaked past and around to the water gate where he sonicked his way in.

'You have my daughter. Isabella! I demand you let me see my daughter.'

'Go away.'

'Isabella, it's me. It's your father.'

'We will arrest you.'

'Isabella!'

'Give it up, will you. Move off.'

The Doctor went down a stone staircase to a cellar with a vaulted roof. There was an ornate mirror on one wall opposite three doors.

The Doctor walked over to the mirror. 'Hello, handsome,' he said to himself as he straightened his swirly tie, lifted his chin and turned his head from side to side.

'Who are you?' a female voice asked behind him, which surprised him as he couldn't see anyone in the mirror.

He turned to see five young ladies behind him, and then turned back to the mirror. 'How are you doing that? I am loving it. You're like Houdini, only five slightly scary girls, and he was shorter. Will be shorter. I'm rambling.'

'I'll ask you again, signor. Who are you?'

'Why don't you check this out?' He took out his wallet and held it up in front of him.

The young ladies looked blankly at the wallet, which wasn't the reaction he was expecting. He looked at the wallet, and saw a picture of his first ever face.

'Library card. Of course, it's with . . . Down her cleavage. I need a spare, although I'll enjoy retrieving that later.' He looked back at the mirror, which still showed there was just him in the cellar, and then addressed the young ladies. 'Pale, creepy girls who don't like sunlight and can't be seen. Ha. Am I thinking what I think I'm thinking? But the city. Why shut down the city? Unless . . .'

'Leave now, signor, or we shall call for the Steward, if you are lucky.'

The girls teeth turned into needles. 'Ooh,' the Doctor said as they started to advance on him, hissing.

'Tell me the whole plan,' he suggested as he slowly backed up the stairs. 'One day that will work . . . Listen, I would love to stay here. This whole thing. I'm thrilled . . . Oh, this is Christmas.' He ran back up the stairs.

Rose was pushing Andrea through the narrow streets of Venice, slowly making her way to Guido's house. She smiled at a young woman who was selling flowers from a hand basket. She turned a corner, and heard the flower girl say "Flowers, signor?" to someone who must have been walking by.

Moments later, Rose heard a scream from behind her and turned the pram around and hurried back down the street. She turned the corner, and saw the man in the cape from the school courtyard. He was crouching over the flower girl, who had two puncture wounds in her neck. He looked up, saw Rose and bared his teeth, which were long and needle like. He hissed at Rose, raised his cape and hurried away.

Rose stooped down and quickly checked for a pulse as Martha had shown her. The woman was alive, so Rose took off in pursuit of the assailant. She chased him through the narrow streets until she came to an alleyway which opened straight onto the canal.

'What the hell?' she said to herself. Where had he gone to? She remembered Christopher Lee in those Dracula films, and looked up to the evening sky, wondering if he'd turned into a bat and flown away.

She made her way back through the streets towards Guido's house when she saw a familiar figure coming towards her. 'Doctor!'

They both spoke excitedly at the same time. 'I just met some vampires.'

'I just saw a vampire.'

'And creepy girls and everything,' he told her.

'Vampires,' Rose repeated. Zombies, werewolves and now vampires. In the "I-Spy book of mythical monsters", she'd got the set!

'Okay. So, first I need to get back in there somehow,' he said.

'Back in where?' Rose asked him.

'Back in the Calvierri school. Guido's daughter is still in there.'

'What, the school with the creepy girls? The creepy neck bitin', blood suckin' girls?'

'Yeah, that's the one,' he said with a smile. 'Come and meet my new friend.'

In Guido's home, he had a vellum map of Venice laid out on the table. 'As you saw, there's no clear way in. The House of Calvierri is like a fortress. But there's a tunnel underneath it, with a ladder and shaft that leads up into the house. I tried to get in once myself, but I hit a trapdoor.'

'You need someone on the inside,' Rose suggested.

'No,' the Doctor said abruptly.

Rose knew he hadn't been in her mind. 'You don't even know what I was gonna say.'

He didn't need to go into her mind. He knew his wife so well. 'Er, that we pretend you're an applicant for the school to get you inside, and tonight you come down and open the trapdoor to let us in.'

'Oh. So you do know what I was gonna say,' Rose said sheepishly.

'There is another option,' Guido told them, indicating some barrels in the corner. 'I work at the Arsenale. We build the warships for the navy.'

The Doctor sniffed the barrels. 'Gunpowder. Most people just nick stationery from where they work . . . Look, I have a thing about guns and huge quantities of explosives.'

'Yeah. He loves to blow things up,' Rose said with a lopsided smile.

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, and then thought about Henricks. And then about Sneed and Company Undertakers in Cardiff, although technically that wasn't him. And Number Ten Downing Street, Deffry Vale High School, Battersea Power Station in the alternate universe, the Family of Blood's space ship, Vesuvius, and a Sontaran space ship. Although again that wasn't really him.

'Er, not this time,' he said. 'This time we need stealth.'

'What do you suggest, then?' Guido asked. 'We wait until they turn her into an animal?'

'No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,' the Doctor said, thinking furiously. He slapped his forehead and pointed at Guido. 'The trapdoor, was it wood or metal?'

'It was a metal grating, but what's that got to do with anything? You can't open it from the outside.'

The Doctor reached inside his pocket, took out his sonic screwdriver and flipped it in the air. 'I think we have the solution.'

'What is that?' Guido asked.

'An inside from the outside lock opener,' he replied with a smile.

The Doctor was sitting on a throne in the House of Calvierri, having been delivered there by Guido in his Gondola. Rosanna, the head of the school entered the room. He'd worked out who Rosanna and the rest of the vampires really were.

'Long way from Saturnyne, aren't you . . . Sister of the Water?'

'No, let me guess. The owner of the psychic paper. Then I take it you're a refugee, like me?'

'I'll make you a deal. An answer for an answer. You're using a perception filter. It doesn't change your features, but manipulates the brainwaves of the person looking at you. But seeing one of you for the first time in, say, a mirror, the brain doesn't know what to fill the gap with, so leaves it blank, hence no reflection.'

'Your question?'

'Why can we see your big teeth?'

Rosanna laughed. 'Self preservation over rides the mirage. The subconscious perceives the threat and tries to alert the conscious brain.'

'Where's Isabella?' the Doctor asked her abruptly

'My turn. Where are you from?'

'Gallifrey.'

'You should be in a museum . . . Or in a mausoleum.'

'Why are you here?'

'We ran from the Silence. Why are you here?'

'Sightseeing. The Silence?'

'There were cracks. Some were tiny. Some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people, and through others we saw Silence and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours, and the crack snapped shut behind us. Saturnyne was lost.'

'So Earth is to become Saturnyne Mark Two?'

'And you can help me. We can build a new society here, as others have. What do you say?' she asked him seductively.

'Where's Isabella?'

'Isabella?' Rosanna asked with a frown.

'The girl who showed me the way out of the cellar.'

'Oh, deserters must be executed. Any general will tell you that. I need an answer, Doctor. A partnership. Any which way you choose.'

'I don't think that's such a good idea, do you? I'm a Time Lord. You're a big fish. Think of the children.'

Rosanna called for the steward. 'Carlo? You're right. We're nothing alike. I will bend the heavens to save my race, while you philosophise.'

A man dressed in black, entered the room.

'This ends today. I will tear down the House of Calvierri, stone by stone,' he told them as Carlo manhandled him. 'Take your hands off me, Carlo. And you know why? You didn't know Isabella's name. You didn't know Isabella's name.'

'Open the gates,' Carlo called to the guards.

The Doctor left and returned to Guido's house.

'Argh. I need to think,' the Doctor told Rose and Guido as he banged his head with his palm. 'Come on, brain. Think, think, think. Think.'

'If they're fish people, it explains why they hate the sun,' Rose said.

He put a finger on her lips. 'Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush.'

She ignored him. 'It's the school thing I don't understand.'

He put his hand over her mouth. 'Stop talking. Brain thinking. Hush.'

'I say we take the fight to them,' Guido said.

'Ah, ah, ah,' the Doctor said, potting a finger to his lips for Guido to do the same.

'What?' Guido asked, and then put a finger to his lips.

'Ah. Her planet dies, so they flee through a crack in space and time and end up here.'

'Is that the same crack in Amy's wall and on the Byzantium?' Rose mumbled from behind his hand.

The Doctor pointed at her and smiled in confirmation. 'Then she closes off the city and, one by one, starts changing the people into creatures like her to start a new gene pool. Got it. But then what? They come from the sea. They can't survive forever on land, so what's she going to do? Unless she's going to do something to the environment to make the city habitable . . . She said, I shall bend the heavens to save my race. Bend the heavens . . . Bend the heavens? She's going to sink Venice.'

'She's going to sink Venice?' Guido asked in disbelief.

'And repopulate it with the girls she's transformed.'

'You can't repopulate somewhere with just women. You need men,' Guido said.

Rose suddenly realised where the vampire she'd followed had disappeared to. 'She's got blokes.'

'Where?' the Doctor asked her.

'In the canal. That one I chased disappeared at the canal. I thought he'd flown away like a bat, but he must have dropped into the water.'

'Only the male offspring survived the journey here. She's got ten thousand children swimming around the canals, waiting for Mum to make them some compatible girlfriends . . . Urgh . . . I mean, I've been around a bit, but really that's . . . that's eugh.'

There was a thump and a creak from upstairs, and the Doctor looked up to the ceiling. 'The people upstairs are very noisy.'

Guido looked up also. 'There aren't any people upstairs.'

'Y'know . . . I knew you were going to say that,' the Doctor said. He looked at Rose and Andrea. 'Did you know he was going to say that?'

'Is it the vampires?' Rose whispered nervously.

The Doctor took took a UV lamp out of his jacket. 'Like I said, they're not vampires. Fish from space,' he said as a window broke. Vampires gathered at the doors and windows.

'Aren't we on the second floor?' Rose asked.

The Doctor waved the lamp at them, then used his sonic screwdriver to reveal their true appearance.

'What's happened to them?' Guido asked.

'There's nothing left of them. They've been fully converted,' the Doctor told them. 'Blimey, fish from space have never been so buxom . . . Okay, move.'

Rose put Andrea in the hover-pram and sealed the lid. 'Come on.'

They hurried down the narrow staircase, when Guido stopped on the turn. 'Give me the lamp.'

Guido held back the vampires as they made it down to the outside door. Rose pushed Andrea outside, followed by the Doctor. 'Go, go, go, guys. Keep moving. Go, go, go.'

Guido stopped at the door, looked at the Doctor, and went back inside, slamming the door shut. 'Stay away from the door, Doctor,' he called from inside.

'No. Guido, What are you doing?'

Guido made his way back up the stairs towards his apartment, forcing the vampires back with the light.

'I'm not leaving you,' the Doctor called through the door. 'What are you doing?' He used the sonic screwdriver on the lock. 'Argh, bolted.'

He could hear Guido through the door. 'Come on. That's it, keep coming. Come on.'

'GUIDO!' the Doctor shouted. He had a horrible suspicion that Guido was going to do something incredibly brave, incredibly selfless, and incredibly stupid.

In his apartment, Guide picked up a lit candle and backed towards his collection of gunpowder barrels. The vampires moved forward. 'Come on. Come on. Come on.'

The Doctor ran away . . . very fast.

'We are Venetians!' Guido announced to the vampires and put the candle to the barrels.

KaBOOM! The Doctor was propelled through a stone archway, landing at Rose's feet. 'Ow!'

Rose's face appeared in his field of vision as she leaned over him. 'Are you okay?'

'Er . . . yeah. Well . . . I don't know. Well . . . probably.'

'What happened? Where's Guido?'

He lifted his head off the cobbles and looked at the smoking remains of the building. 'He was in there. He ignited the gunpowder. Pay back for his daughter I suppose.'

Clouds started to swirl over the city rapidly as gas spewed from a tower on the corner of the House of Calvierri, creating a violent thunderstorm.

'Rosanna's initiating the final phase,' the Doctor told Rose.

'We need to stop her. Come on,' Rose said, grabbing the handles of the pram and heading down the street. He shook his head and smiled as he set off after her, wondering when Shiver had actually become Shake.

In the Throne Room of the House of Calvierri, the Doctor opened the back of Rosanna's throne.

'You're too late,' Rosanna told him. 'Such determination, just to save one city. Hard to believe it's the same man that let an entire race turn to cinders and ash. Now you can watch as my people take their new kingdom.'

'The girls have gone, Rosanna.'

'You're lying,' she said uncertainly.

'Shouldn't I be dead, hmm?' She realised the truth of his words and stormed out of the room.

The Doctor called after her. 'Rosanna, please, help me. There are two hundred thousand people in this city.'

'So save them.'

'Get out. I need to stabilise the storm,' he told Rose.

'I'm not leaving you,' she replied as the house shook, knocking them off their feet. 'What was that?'

'Nothing. Bit of an earthquake.'

'An earthquake?'

'Manipulate the elements, it can trigger earthquakes. But don't worry about them.'

'No?'

'No. Worry about the tidal waves caused by the earthquake. Right, Rosanna's throne is the control hub but she's locked the programme, so, if you're staying, tear out every single wire and circuit in the throne. Go crazy. Hit it with a stick, anything. We need it to shut down and re-route control to the secondary hub, which I'm guessing will also be the generator.'

Rose started pulling fibre optic cables out of the throne, while the Doctor ran out of the room to the bell tower. He found a junction unit at the base of the tower which had a number of cables attached to it, one of which went up the tower.

He looked up to where the bells were rocking and ringing, and ran up the steps with his hands over his ears. 'Shut up. Shut up.' When he reached the top, he hung on to the clapper to stop it swinging. 'That's better.'

He started to climb up the outside to the big metal lightning conductor, with the help of the generator power cable. He reached the big brass globe at the top and looked down at the square below. He was reminded of another lightning conductor he'd climbed up. At least it wasn't as high as the Empire State building.

The Doctor opened the brass ball on top of the bell tower to reveal a clockwork mechanism spinning around. 'Oh. Oh. Okay.'

As a large cog wheel turned, the Doctor saw a tiny switch and flicked it to stop the mechanism. Instantly the rain ceased, the clouds vanished and birds started singing again. He could hear the people below cheering and applauding, and a familiar voice calling to him.

'You did it!' Rose cheered.

'Right. Time to find a Saturnyne Sister of the Water,' he said to himself as he climbed down the tower. He made his way through the House of Calvierri to a stone jetty on the canal outside. He saw Rosanna on the end of the jetty, dressed in just her white cotton shift.

'Rosanna!'

'One city to save an entire species,' she said sadly. 'Was that so much to ask?'

'I told you, you can't go back and change time,' he said as he cautiously approached. 'You mourn, but you live. I know, Rosanna . . . I did it.'

'Tell me, Doctor. Can your conscience carry the weight of another dead race? Remember us. Dream of us.'

She stepped off the jetty into the water.

'No! No!' the Doctor called out in despair as the water bubbled and foamed where her sons consumed her. He watched sadly as the water became calm and still once more, and turned his back on the canal. He made his way outside where he hugged and kissed Rose.

'Is it over then?' she asked him as he leaned over the pram and pulled funny faces at his daughter.

'Yeah,' he said sadly as he took the handles of the pram and started to make his way back to the market place. 'Another species that preferred to eradicate itself rather than accept my help.'

Rose linked her arm through his, not knowing what to say to comfort him. The Inspector walked by and gave them his deepest, most respectful bow.

They arrived at the TARDIS, and Rose unlocked the door. 'I'll put the kettle on,' she said as she went inside.

The Doctor pushed the pram through the door, when the busy market place suddenly fell silent. 'Rose, listen to that.'

Rose came back and popped her head out of the door. 'Er, what? All I can hear is silence.'

They looked around, and the all the people had vanished.

'Yeah. Exactly,' he said, with Rosanna's words echoing in his mind. "There were cracks. Through some we saw Silence and the end of all things."