He uses the sonic to tap into the intercom and leaves Gibbis with Howie. He quickly explains his plan to the rest and heads up to the spa they passed during their wandering.
"Bring me death! Bring me glory! My master, my lord, I'm here! Come to me. I'm waiting here for you. He has promised me a glorious death. Give it to me now. I want him to know my devotion. Praise him. Praise him." Howie says happily over the speakers.
The creature enters the room and he hears Rita and Rose slam the door behind him.
"Jack he's in" Rose calls out.
Jack closes and jams the other door. He takes out his sonic and turns the lights off.
"Let his name be the last thing I hear. Let his breath on my skin be the last thing I feel. I was lost in shadows, but he found me. His love was a beacon that led me from darkness to light, and now I am blinded by his majesty. Humbled by his glory! Praise..."
"That's quite enough of that." He says and pulls out the wires.
He looks at the Minotaur standing in front of him. "Nothing personal. I just think we should take things slowly. Get to know each other. You take people's most primal fears and pop it in a room. A tailor-made hell, just for them. Why?"
The Minotaur snarls at him.
"Did you say they take? Ah, what is that word? The guard? No, the warden? This is a prison." He says suddenly the truth of the matter dawning on him. "So what are we, cell mates? Lunch? We are not ripe. This is what Joe said, that we weren't ready. So, what, what, you make us ready. You what? Replace? Replace what, fear?" The creature snarls again. "You have lived so long even your name is lost. You want this to stop. Because you are just instinct. Then tell me. Tell me how to fight you."
He waits for the Minotaur to reply but instead he hears "My master, my lord. I'm here! Oh, bring me death."
"No, no, no, no, no! Jack, watch out"
Rita burst through the Door with Rose slightly behind her, holding Kiam's hand tightly. "Stay back!" He tells them.
The Minotaur smashes a glass door and knocks Jack down as it heads out of the room."
"Rose, bring the fish." He calls out as he takes off after the Minotaur.
"What, the fish? Oh, the fish." Rose calls after him.
"Where'd he go?" He says as he runs the corridors looking for the Minotaur or Howie. He comes across Howie's glasses first. Looking further down the Corridor he sees Howie's body. He kneels down and gently puts the glasses in Howie's hand. He hears footsteps in front of him and looks up to see Gibbis appraching him. "He got free. He overpowered me. It might leave us alone now. Maybe now we'll be safe." He ignores Gibbis and leans down and picks Howie's body up and heads back down to the kitchen. "Wait!" Gibbis calls after him.
-DW-
He is back on the first floor landing with Jack. Rose continued down to the Lobby with Kiam to find somewhere to set down the fishbowl.
"Have you found your room yet?" He asks Jack.
"No. Is that good or bad?"
"Maybe you're not scared of anything." He tells him.
"Well, after all the time I spent with you in the Tardis and all the time I have been alive, what is there left to be scared of?"
"You said that in the past tense."
"No, I didn't. You know, Howie had been in speech therapy. He'd just got over this massive stammer. What an achievement. I mean, can you imagine? I'd forgotten not all victories are about saving the universe." Jack said sadly. Rita comes down the stairs in front of them.
"Rita! Brilliant! How are you? Not panicking, are you? I am just about to get us out of here."
"Why?"
"Excellent question. Why what?"
"Why is it up to you to save us? That's quite a God complex you have there." Rita tells him.
"Because I brought them here. That is my Rose and my child and Jack, is well, Jack. I would say it was her choice in the beginning but offer someone all of time and space and they'll take it."
He heads down the corridor and as he does he hears a noise coming from behind one of the doors with the number 10 on it. He knows he shouldn't but he heads over it and opens the door. The room is lit red and he hears the cloister bell. He sees himself standing there eyes glowing gold from the Heart of the Tardis.
"Of course. Who else?" He says quietly to himself as he shuts the door and puts the Do Not Disturb sign on the handle. He heads back down to the lobby.
-DW-
He finds a security room with nine televisions in it showing different parts of the hotel. He stares at them searching for the Minotaur when he notices Rita walking on the one in the corner. He looks at the nearest room number to her picks up the phone and dials the number. He watches as she stops and turns towards the room heading inside of it. The phone picks up but she doesn't say anything.
"Rita, where are you going?" When he didn't recieve an answer he asked. "Can you take the phone into the corridor? Will it reach?" He sees her appear on the camara again. A huge grin is plastered on her face. "You started to praise it, didn't you?" He says sadly and she nods. "Rita, come back, please. We'll find a way to stop it, I swear to you."
"No, I need to get as far away from you all as possible." Rita finally says.
"No, you don't. The creature only wants whoever's praising it." He tries to explain to her.
"And then you'll put yourself in its way."
"I'm coming to get you. Block out the fear and stay focused on your belief." He tells her.
"The hotel will keep us apart. I could be fifty miles away by now. I want you to do me one last favour, Doctor. I can feel the rapture approaching, like a wave. I don't want you to witness this. I want you to remember me the way I was."
Rose, Kiam and Jack enter the room.
"What's going on? Rita's disappeared. What's she doing there?" Rose asks him.
"Rita. Rita, please. Let me find you." He says desperate to save her. He had all ready lost two people he didn't want to lose a third.
"You stay where you are. Please, let me be robbed of my faith in private." Rita says over the phone.
"Rita. Go into the room. Lock the door." He finds himself begging her.
"I'm not frightened. I'm blessed, Doctor. I'm at peace. I'm going to hang up. Goodbye, Doctor, Thank you for trying." She hangs up the phone. He watches her smiling, as the shadow of the Minotaur is cast over her. He feels Rose's hand on his shoulder and he pulls out his Sonic and shuts the screen off.
-DW-
Finding her body was easy after that. He took her and laid her in the kitchen next to the others and then he felt his rage and frustration over take him. He smashed the plates sitting on the counter. Threw the glass against the wall. He saw a china cabinet and walked over to it and with a little effort tipped it over. Then acting if nothing happened he walked over to where Rose was sitting and picked up Kiam off the chair and sat down with the little boy on his lap. He put his arm around Rose and pulled her close to him wanting to feel her warmth.
"Okay. It preys on people's fear and possesses them. But Rita wasn't afraid. She was brave and calm. Maybe it's something to do with the people, some connection between the four of you that'll tell me how to fight it."
"Yes, you keep saying that, but you never do. And while we wait, people keep dying. And we'll be next." Gibbis says.
"Look, he'll work it out. He always does. Just let him riff and move anything expensive out of his way." Rose tells Gibbis in the same voice she used when she was talking to Kiam.
"No," he says suddenly.
"Doctor, what is wrong?"
"It's not fear. It's faith. Not just religious faith, faith in something. Howard believed in conspiracies, that external forces controlled the world. Joe had dice cufflinks and a chain with a horseshoe. He was a gambler. Gamblers believe in luck, an intangible force that helps them win or lose. Gibbis has rejected any personal autonomy and is waiting for the next batch of invaders to oppress him and tell him what to do. They all believe there's something guiding them, about to save them. That's what it replaces. Every time someone was confronted with their most primal fear, they fell back on their most fundamental faith. And all this time, I have been telling you to dig deep, find the thing that keeps you brave. I made you expose your faith, show them what they needed." he said turning pale.
"But why us? Why are we here?" Jack asks
"It doesn't want you. That's why it kept showing you a way out. You're not religious or superstitious, so there's no faith for you to fall back on." He turns his head to look at Rose, "It wants her."
"Me? Why?" She asks.
"Your faith in me. That's what brought us here." He says finally.
"But why do they lose their faith before they die and start worshipping it?" Jack asks him confused.
"It needs to convert the faith into a form it can consume. Faith is an energy, the specific emotional energy the creature needs to live. Which is why at the end of her note, Lucy said..."
"Praise him." Rose finishes.
He starts to look happy and then realizing the smile on her face, his face falls. "No, Rose, No. Please not you." He held her tightly.
She breaks free from his grip and takes off out of the kitchen. Not even pausing to think he stands up with Kiam and takes off after her.
"Rose, What are you doing?" he says when he catches up to her.
"He is beautiful." She says with the same smile.
"Leave her! Just leave her!" Gibbis tells him
He grabs Rose around the waist and struggling he half drags her and half carries her into the nearest room. He lets her go as Jack shuts the door behind them and leans against it. He turns to see another Rose standing in the room looking out the window. She is wearing the same clothes she was wearing when he had tried to leave in Pete's World.
Rose drops to her knees and he sets Kiam down and drops to his knees beside her and puts his hand on her back.
"Doctor, it's happening. It's changing me. It's changing my thoughts." She says.
"I can't save you from this. There's nothing I can do to stop this." He says every word tearing into his heart and he has to struggle to keep his voice calm.
"What?"
"I stole your future away from you and now I've led you by the hand to your death. But the worst thing is, I knew. I knew this would happen. This is what always happens. Forget your faith in me. I took you with me because I was vain." The Minotaur breaks into the room.
"Because I wanted to be adored. Look at you. Rose Tyler, the Bad Wolf. I'm not a hero. I really just leave people behind when I tire of them. And it's time we saw each other as we really are." He listens but the Minotaur isn't getting any closer. "Rose Tyler, I think it's time I took you and Kiam home." He turns away from the tears streaming down her face. Wanting more than anything to apologize but knowing he must finish this first. He sees the Minotaur collapse on the floor and then the lights flicker. He stand up and goes over to it.
"I severed the food supply, sacrificing their faith in me." He says softly to it. "I gave you the space to die." He strokes the Minotaur's fur comforting it as it lays dying. The hotel disappears and he finds them standing in a type of holodeck.
"What is it, a minotaur or an alien? Or an alien minotaur? That's not a question I thought I'd be asking this morning." Jack asks him. He watches Jack go over and help Rose up. Comforting her as she continues to cry in his shoulder.
"It's both, actually. Yeah. Here we go. Distant cousin of the Nimon. They descend on planets and set themselves up as gods to be worshipped. Which is fine, until the inhabitants get all secular and advanced enough to build bonkers prisons." He says.
"Where are the guards?" Jack asks.
"No need for any. It's all automated. It drifts through space, snatching people with belief systems and converts their faith into food for the creature."
"According to the in-flight recorder, the programme developed glitches. It got stuck on the same setting, the fears from the people before us weren't tidied away." The Minotaur Growls.
"What's it saying?" Jack asks him.
"An ancient creature, drenched in the blood of the innocent, drifting in space through an endless, shifting maze. For such a creature, death would be a gift." He pauses. "Then accept it, and sleep well. I wasn't talking about myself." The Minotaur stops breathing.
"Could I have a lift? Just to the nearest galaxy would do." Gibbis asks.
-DW-
He dropped Gibbis off and then sent the Tardis back to the Time Vortex. He heads down to Rose's room. He hears sobbing coming through the door and not bothering to knock opens the door slowly. He sees her laying on her bed. Her body curled in the fetal position, her eyes closed and her face is stained with tears. The sight breaks his heart and he has to fight to keep from crying to. He goes over to the bed and sits on the edge of it and touches her back. She jumps at his touch and that is all it takes. The tears flow freely down his face. He lays down in front of her and pulls her close to him.
"Rose," he says "You're not going anywhere. You and Kiam are my life. I am sorry. I am so so sorry, I had to say those things to save your life." He tells her. She stays tense crying against him but not pulling away.
"Promise," She chokes out.
"Promise" he says and she collapses into him and he lays there holding her knowing the day was coming when she would leave him and he knew on that day he would die as well.