CHAPTER 13

I do not own Doctor Who, and I am making no profit off of this.

The two stone gargoyle statues were heading straight at Donna when Ileana grabbed them both in mid-flight with lightning speed and flung them away from her and into the side of a nearby building. They immediately got back up and launched themselves at the four women again with no ill effects.

Michelle closed her eyes in concentration and several figures in the forms of men emerged from the ground made out of dirt and rock. They grabbed ahold of the two gargoyles and began to fight with them.

"Two can play that game," Michelle said with a grin.

The gargoyles futilely tried to escape from the vice like grip of Michelle's creations, but nothing they did worked. They even tried hitting them with their heavy stone fists, but the dirt men felt no pain so their pile driver like blows had no effect on them.

Donna pulled out her sonic screwdriver and started scanning the statues with it.

"That's what I thought. It's a group of aliens called the Daemons. The Doctor ran across them once before when they tried to give their power to the Master so that he could take over the Earth in their name. They're making the statues come to life in a similar way that the Nestene Consciousness does to plastic. So all I've got to do is to cut off the signal," Donna said with a triumphant grin.

She found the right setting and used her sonic on the statues and immediately they stopped moving.

"I did it. I actually did it! I even sounded like the Doctor, didn't I?" Donna asked happily.

"If you mean that you sounded arrogant and self-congratulatory, then I'd say you certainly did sound like him," Ileana joked with a large grin.

"Oi! We don't need to hear any of your lip, Fang Girl," Donna said with a pretend scowl on her face that quickly changed into a smile.

"Who are these Daemons?" Victoria asked Donna.

"They're aliens who've been interfering with Earth all throughout its history. They think that it's fun to play with people's lives. It's all an experiment to them. They have to be summoned though with ceremonies using positive or negative emotions. The person summoning them can then ask them for some of their power," Donna explained.

"Negative emotions like the ones that have been felt around this neighborhood since the Daemons attacked it?" Ileana asked.

"Exactly. Someone is using the fear around here to keep summoning them. They'll keep doing it until they get the power that they want from them," Donna said.

"That means that one of these people is working with them as an accomplice then," Michelle reasoned.

She ordered her creations to put the statues back on top of the building where they were, and they slowly climbed up it while dragging the statues behind them.

"People are going to wonder why the gargoyles are in a different pose than before, but at least they'll be back up there where they belong," Michelle said.

"Good work, Mirror Girl. Those weird powers of yours are coming in pretty handy," Donna said.

"Why are you always calling us by little nicknames like that?" Michelle asked her curiously.

"I always give my friends nicknames. It's how I show affection. Do you find something wrong with that?" Donna asked with a menacing tone in her voice as she got in Michelle's face.

Michelle looked scared, and Donna immediately let her face turn into a smile. Donna had to remind herself that Michelle didn't understand that she was just playing around with her. She thought that Donna was being serious.

Donna put her arm around her as she said, "I'm just playing around, Michelle. You take everything too seriously."

Michelle breathed a sigh of relief as she said, "Sorry. I still don't understand human interactions yet. You'll have to keep that in mind."

"I'm with you though, Michelle. I'm getting tired of being called Fang Girl," Ileana said grinning.

"Get used to it, Night Gal. That's what I do," Donna said.

"Night Gal? I kind of like that one better," Ileana said thoughtfully.

"That's it then. Fang Girl it is," Donna said with a mischievous grin on her face.

"You're terrible," Ileana said with a giggle.

"Let's get back down to business. It's obvious that the gargoyles were being used on us to stop us from searching for the truth about what's going on here. We must be on the right path. Let's keep interviewing the neighbors," Donna said.

They walked through the neighborhood and talked to each and every one of the people on the list of witnesses given to them by Martha.

Most of the witnesses told a similar story to Mark's. They were attacked in their homes by a Daemon and managed to run away from them and somehow escape with their lives while the Daemon rampaged through their houses and did incredible damage to them.

There were two others though who had different accounts. One of them was named Penelope Gates. She was a plump middle aged woman who lived alone in a small house a few blocks away from Mark Spiegel.

"I'll remember that night for the rest of my life. I was in my house watching my favorite show on television when I heard a lot of noise outside. It sounded like someone was using a hammer and pounding on something very hard. I looked outside to see a horrible horned devil standing there hitting the door to my garage. He was trying to break into it! I screamed in fear, and that immediately brought me to his attention. He started racing for my front door, and I then passed out in terror. When I woke up, the thing was holding me in one of its arms as it carried me through the street. I started screaming again as you might imagine, and some of my neighbors came out and started shooting at it. The creature then dropped me and ran away in the opposite direction. It was the worst experience of my life! I have no idea what it would have done to me if they hadn't helped me," Penelope said with a look of sheer terror on her face.

"Who were these neighbors? Could we talk to them?" Donna asked her.

"I'm not sure who they were. I'd never seen them before or since that day. I'm glad that I saw them that night though whoever they were," Penelope said with gratitude.

"So you don't know that they were in fact your neighbors then," Donna said.

"No, I guess not. I just assumed that they were. Why else would they have been there that night?" Penelope asked.

"Why indeed?" Ileana asked thoughtfully.

Ileana and Donna both exchanged a look between them that said that they both thought that something was odd about those people just happening to show up at the right place and time when they did. It was also odd that something as powerful as a Daemon could be driven off with mere bullets. Something even stranger than they thought was going on here if Penelope's story was true.

The other story different from all of the others was from a Marsha Taylor, a woman in her 30's who lived with her husband in a house almost in-between Mark's and Penelope's. The husband was at work when the women were there to interview her so she was all alone at the time.

"That night I was outside going through my car trying to find an important document that I needed for work and had lost. I had been searching in a blind panic throughout the car for several minutes when I heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind me. I turned around to see a demonic figure looking at me with evil in its eyes. It stared at me for several minutes as if daring me to move. I was terrified, and I couldn't do anything more than stare back at it. We looked in each other's eyes for a long time in a bizarre kind of staring contest until finally I blinked. I couldn't stand looking at it anymore, and I hopped into my car and raced off in it for my life. That wasn't the end of it though. The thing chased me down the road for several blocks. It was running as far as my car and was right behind me all of the way! Finally, I slammed on the brakes as fast as I could, and it slammed right into the back of my car. Then before it could react, I backed over it. Then, I put the car back into drive and get out of there as fast as I could. I didn't see it ever again after that, and I was glad," Marsha said with fear in her eyes as she finished her story.

"That was quick thinking," Donna said.

"Not really. It was the only thing that I could think of to do. I was just running scared," Marsha admitted.

"I haven't heard anyone tonight mention any of the demons that they saw shooting electricity out of their hands. Did yours do that or did you hear any stories of anyone else seeing that happen?" Donna asked.

"No. I never saw that happen, and I haven't heard of anyone else seeing any of them do that either," Marsha said.

Afterwards, Ileana said, "Do you think that that makes Mark their accomplice? He knew something about them that he couldn't possibly have known that they could do unless someone told him or he witnessed it firsthand. Was that a slip up?"

"I'm not sure yet. Just because no one we interviewed told us that doesn't mean that someone that we didn't talk to didn't see it happen. Mark is certainly on my suspects list though," Donna said.

"How about adding Penelope as a suspect? Her story sounded a little odd about mysterious neighbors who just happened to be there at the right time to save her and drive the alien off with bullets," Victoria said.

"That's true. I didn't know whether to believe her either," Donna said.

"Does that mean we don't consider Marsha a suspect?" Michelle asked.

"Not necessarily. Just because her story sounded plausible doesn't remove her from the list of suspects. Why didn't the Daemon attack her immediately? It didn't have a problem attacking the others as soon as it knew they were there," Donna said.

"Maybe I shouldn't go on a date with Mark. He could be working with them," Michelle said.

"No you don't, Mirror Girl! You're just using that as an excuse not to go out with him. You're going through with this. If nothing else, you may find out something that we could use as evidence. You also might manage to actually have some fun," Donna said with a grin.

Michelle groaned. She was not looking forward to this.

Next: Michelle's date. It's a lot more eventful than you would think when a Daemon shows up to crash it!