Flesh sloughed off his face, red on one side, a sickly pale color on the other side, as it sloughed off the metallic red skeleton, it produced an ungodly sound, the sound of tearing flesh as it no longer held to the metallic red skeleton.
Part of the mix of real and fake teeth showed through as part of the lips sloughed off, falling to Gerald's feet. The teeth glistening with red and salvia.
Bulging out of his eye socket was Arthur's eye, stuck over Gerald's metallic eye, the burning red orb shining brightly through as the eye began slowly falling off, the cornea completely severed when Gerald was attacked by his metallic creation.
His hands exposed with the red sticky metallic skeleton, the finger "bones" sharp like claws that pushed their way through the skin, as it sloughed off to the ground.
As his mother mentioned, Paul saw the similarities between Gerald and the fictional Terminator.
"It would seem that my brother won't be needing a new body after all, Doctor," Gerald informed Paul that instead of Harold taking his body, Gerald's going to take that honour.
His brother won't be in his ear, at all.
"You… you killed him?" Taylor struggled for words as she sees the horrible sight of the man as parts of his flesh fell off from the fighting, the flesh dying as it dropped to the ground.
Maybe mother had a reason for not wanting to watch horror movies, after all!
"My brother's too stubborn to die, quite the opposite, I didn't kill him, no. I just made sure he won't be a bother when I take him!" Gerald informed Taylor otherwise.
He won't kill his brother, oh yes, years ago that might've been the case, but not now.
They're still brothers.
Once Gerald takes the Doctor's body as a replacement for the destruction of Arthur Williams' body, he'll work on following through with his plans on ensuring his brother gets a new body.
Paul continued to doubt Gerald's altruistic nature, refusing to believe that a madman who followed the teachings of another madman to turn himself and people around him into abomination wouldn't want to destroy what he considered the bane of his existence — and Gerald would agree, to some degree.
"I want him out of my head, Doctor. I'm not mad, I'm methodical," Gerald insisted that Paul got everything wrong, that Harold needed a body so he wouldn't remain in Gerald's mind.
Believe him, there were times he was tempted to exterminate his younger brother when they were at each other's throats, but Gerald saw a flaw, that if he or Harold didn't leave their shared body willingly, they'd both risked dying.
Scheme all they want; they're stuck together until Gerald gets Harold another body.
What happens thereafter is in the tea leaves.
Besides that, Gerald knows everything about these things, that Harold needed him more than he needed him, that said, there's matters that needed attending.
"Does your brother know about the book?" Paul demanded to know as Gerald raised his rapier up at him, a glint in his failing fleshy eye as his flesh body started dying, sloughing away as it no longer had blood running through it, damaged by the mechanical horror that's head was ripped open by Gerald, the wires jutting out.
A nod.
"I was upfront about it when we were fused together," Gerald informed Paul. "He couldn't understand a word in the book, though I imagine the fire didn't help."
Gerald swore that he told his brother about the book, hell it was the only way he'd get any peace, as his brother demanded to know what was in it that made Gerald do the things he did.
"Shame much of it was ruined," Gerald noted how the fire and age ruined the book, it was one of a kind, before he heard Paul state that the merchant who sold it to him wasn't doing it out of altruistic reasons.
Turning his head slightly, Gerald commanded the mechanical horror in a heap to rise from its stupor, and it did, the flesh fell in chunks, revealing the red metallic skeleton underneath as the damages done to it have finally destroyed it completely.
Slowly, Gerald moved his rapier towards Taylor, musing that his mother always lamented how he never married, perhaps he'll change that, tonight.
He summed what he had in mind, by ripping off a button from Taylor's burgundy blouse with only a flick from the tip of his rapier, the button flying in the air before landing on the ground in a rattle.
The scene drew Paul's ire as he immediately forced Taylor behind him, protecting her from Gerald's rapier, as it raised up to his eyes in retaliation for pulling Taylor away from him.
"The merchant who sold you that book wasn't helping you," Paul tells Gerald as he felt the tip of the blade as Gerald slowly pushed it close to his eye, lightly touching his cheek. "He was a madman, he wanted you to do this to yourselves, see what would happen, did you think he cared, at all, what the consequences were?"
Leering at him, Gerald spat, "How would you know?"
Swallowing the air trapped in his throat, Paul asserted, "I knew him and you don't know him like I did."
Paul didn't care what Gerald thought, laugh at him all he wants, Paul was telling the truth, he knew the merchant who sold Gerald the book.
"How could you not think it was sorcery?" Paul questioned why Gerald never gave thought as to why a merchant would sell him a book containing what would be considered nothing more than spells and rituals during the time period that Gerald and his family lived in.
He hardly made a noise when Gerald gently dug the tip of his rapier into his cheek as he heard Gerald reply, "He never told me it was sorcery, Doctor, only that it would be what I needed to be normal, again."
To walk without a cane, again, to prove to his father he was fit to be lord of the Thornton household, that's all Gerald wanted.
"At what cost!?" Taylor called out to Gerald, wanting to know if the book was worth the tragedy that Gerald caused, the lives he'd taken.
Subtly, she tried gripping Paul's arm, as her emerald eyes see the shine off the rapier in the burning fire of the fireplace behind them, flinching as she sees the rapier slowly moving towards her, again, as Paul pushed her behind him.
Blood running down his cheek, Paul put on his bravado as he prepared to send Taylor through a tear, focusing his mind on it, as he kept Gerald and the lurching mechanical horror busy by doing what any Doctor does in a situation like this: talking.
Nonsensical he knows, but he couldn't exactly put up a fight against both Gerald and the mechanical horror, it'd be akin to fighting a mechanized gorilla and a terminator with a rapier, even if there's worse odds, Paul wasn't opting to test his luck, and his priorities were ensuring Taylor escaped unharmed and with the book.
After that, hopefully the TARDIS will provide some answer as to what it had in mind dealing with the mechanical horrors.
It won't be pretty, but those before him had even worse odds, including his late-grandfather, Taylor wouldn't be happy with him, but that is the life of the Doctor, dealing with the unknown, and having painkillers stockpiled.
"Curious," Gerald mused as he noticed the cut in Paul's cheek slowly healing, the blood glistening from the fireplace behind them.
His desire wanting answers drove him into slicing another part of Paul's face, enough to cause him to kneel as he held his face, Taylor holding him as blood ran down his face once again, covering his palms as he flinched from the sharp pain with the air coming into contact.
"I didn't think you heal, too, Doctor," Gerald's surprised at the sight, but then he saw his fault, as he mused that Paul had to been something, else he wouldn't have survived being hooked.
Blood running down his face, Paul scowled at Gerald.
Almost… almost…
The energy is getting there, but something's wrong, Paul doesn't know if it's because he can't concentrate due to the pain of Gerald's rapier cutting into his face like butter or something in the air.
The energy is fluctuating in a way that Paul can't get a grip on it, that if he pushed Taylor through right now, the tear could take her anywhere other than the TARDIS.
She might even be killed, sent to the surface of the sun, tore apart by a black hole, he can't do anything to send her through a tear.
"You swine!" they're startled by a sudden shout by Harold, but it didn't come from the shambling corpse of Arthur Williams.
Instead, it was coming from the mechanical horror.
Harold had somehow jumped from the inside of Gerald's metallic mind without his brother's acknowledgment, and seeing him control the mechanical horror tentatively proved Paul's point.
Even though they call themselves brothers, the Thorntons would easily betray each other for something tangible, such as a body that healed on its own.
The mechanical horror roused as it turned its head towards Gerald.
Wielding his rapier at his brother, Gerald shouted, "You dare call me a swine?"
His temper flaring, Gerald shouted at his brother, while Taylor pulled Paul away from the arguing brothers while he kept his hand over his bleeding face.
Gerald's rapier left a long cut from Paul's left cheek up to his nose ridge, leaving a stream of blood falling down his face as he felt his body begun working on healing the cut after finishing healing the cut from prior.
"Doctor…" Paul heard the same voice in his head as before. "Be prepared!"
Paul reached out to the voice in his head as he questioned it, "What are you planning on doing?"
He got his answer watching the Sonic Screwdriver still in Gerald's free hand suddenly go off, blinding him to the point it caused him to drop the Sonic Screwdriver.
It led to an opening punch by Harold using his newfound body as he began attacking his brother.
Squabbling they attacked each other, Gerald attempting to slash at him, but it didn't do anything to stop him, as he was no longer bound by flesh, nor cared that the little flesh that remained on the metallic skeleton gone away.
Paul used this as means of obtaining his Sonic Screwdriver from the brothers, once it was safely in his hands, Paul sees the fireplace flickering unusually, as if something's coming down the chimney.
It even drew the brothers' attention as they noticed this, turning their heads as a strong current of air forced its way down the brickwork chimney into the fireplace.
So strong, it plunged the room into complete darkness as the flames couldn't withstand the strong current of air blasting them.
"Doctor…" Paul heard the voice in his head. "Run!"
Turning his head, Paul sees a tear had opened adjacent of him and Taylor.
As he looked at the tear, a familiar smell hit his nose, causing his angel eyes to widen as he recongises it.
The broken flume began spewing gas well-into the room, the brothers took notice instantly as they put aside their fighting, too preoccupied with the desire of surviving another day, to which Paul refused to allow them to escape into the night.
The voice in his head guided him and he listened, it didn't want them going into the tear just yet, it wanted them to wait, until Gerald raised his rapier, again.
Chewing on his inner lips, Paul agreed to follow along with the voice's plan until that plan involved using the book that they found.
"You've no idea!" Paul refused to use the book as a way to draw Gerald's attention and have him raise his rapier, but the voice insisted on him doing it.
It urged him with, "Doctor, you must… you must use it…"
Paul struggled as he asked, "You must know what importance the book has, don't you?"
He heard back, "It… is… dangerous…"
Even the Doctor shouldn't have the book.
That terrifying that the voice urged him to destroy it and seeing as how the erratic nature of the brothers attacking each other and trying to escape before there's a spark, Paul's forced to agree to the voice's terms.
He shouted at the top of his lungs, using the book he sought out from the library as the shield when Gerald lunged at him.
Having no interest in the book anymore, having studied it enough, Gerald didn't have qualms attacking Paul as he held it.
With his rapier, Gerald was able to swiftly cut into the book as he tried getting to Paul's face.
Dead or not, the Doctor's good enough for Gerald, his brother will have to go without for another spell, though given the brothers deceived each other, Harold will have to find another body on his own, and begin a feud of a lifetime.
… If Gerald doesn't kill him first, the fiend's taking delight watching Gerald busied with the Doctor.
He lunged, he slashed, but the Doctor deflected his attacks with the book.
"I am Lord Thornton!" Gerald triumphantly swore to Paul as he attacked him mercilessly.
If he can't have the Doctor's body, then nobody will!
Harold went after Taylor during this, wanting her body as a quick replacement for the one he hijacked, figuring that he could use her body to lure a replacement he wanted.
If he doesn't kill his brother first, of course.
Though that never came to pass, as a thunder loud enough to deafen the room broke the tension, and the air tingling around them.
Taylor's usually straight ruby hair started frizzing uncontrollably, she felt electricity running through the air, and yanked Paul away from Gerald, hurrying towards the waiting tear that the brothers didn't see.
Mid-swing, Gerald held his rapier high, intent on killing them all, but was stopped when a lighting tore through the housing, not only hitting him, but causing a fire to erupt.
Within seconds, the Williams household erupted into a hellish blue fire.
The sight drew attention as passersby see the blue flames engulf the Williams household.
Screams, crying, shouting as passersby hurried to contain the blue flames that decimated water as if it were nothing.
Amazingly, despite firemen fighting for minutes, the fire continued burning, until it gone out, finally, on its own.
Nothing remained of the household, the fire burnt so hot, it left no ash, that no one could be certain that if anyone was in the household at the time of the fire.
By morning it was undetermined if Arthur Williams was in the home when the fire broke out.
In unrelated news, it was found that Ethel Hershel, Arthur Williams' maid, was found dead from a broken neck.
Her body was discovered when workers went down into the sewers and found her face down, her body was partially eaten by both bacteria and rodent that propagate within the underground sewage system.
The death was cited as murder, as there were large handprints around her neck.
She been down in the sewers for a few days, at most, and investigators began looking into everyone in her life for answers.
Though, they'll never hear Arthur Williams' side of the story.
Investigators believe he perished in the fire from that last night, believing that he was in his study when the lighting hit the house, he was engulfed in flames instantly.
Cooks that worked for him came out to talk about the odd experiences they had working for him, but investigators felt this was unrelated, and would only cloud the investigation.
They would go on to work elsewhere throughout the area.
It is expected that the plot will be redeveloped for another home sometime next year, since no one could find a beneficiary for the Williams will.
Only Arthur Williams was listed on Irving Williams' will as his beneficiary, no one else.
With no one claiming it, the county took the land, set to redevelop it.
After throwing off his ruined clothes and washing off the blood, Paul sat on their bed as Taylor gently looked him over, concerned about his wounds, though they've healed considerably, it's in Taylor's nature worrying about him whenever he gotten hurt.
Thankfully Gerald was careful when he hooked Paul, had he been aggressive and hooked him through one of Paul's hearts, well, Taylor opted not to think about such a thing.
"I can't wrap my hand around it, Paul, why on earth would he turn himself into that if he only wanted to walk without a limp?" Taylor questioned why Gerald went through the efforts he did turning himself into a metallic fiend.
Paul gave his explanation, "He saw power."
Common as common goes, Gerald saw more to that book, and wanted nothing more than achieve a perverted attempt at immortality.
No matter the cost.
Sitting beside him with his long arm wrapped around her waist, Taylor sighed as she shook her head, this wasn't an adventure she expected.
"He could've had us stay the night, something," Taylor wondered why Gerald didn't attempt keeping them from leaving that night, even if he didn't think Paul, was the Doctor.
To which Paul replied, "He didn't live this long making foolish mistakes. Though he did."
Slowly nodding, Taylor accepted Paul's answer, but he knew her long enough to know something bothered her and she admitted that she wanted to know what was in that book that made Paul react the way he did.
The way he reacted, the things he said, it was almost unbecoming, that Taylor wanted to know who Paul was referring to when he spoke to Gerald.
A frown appeared on Paul's face as he pulled Taylor closer to him, his angel eyes fell to his lap as he tells her what happened years ago.
There was a cruel man.
A brilliant one at that.
Used his knowledge and the knowledge he stolen to create chaos, to hurt others, for his own benefit.
He used people, like the Thorntons, didn't care what happened to them, only what they can do for him.
He'd almost kill Paul's mother hadn't his late uncle stopped him.
But he's dead, now.
His father and everyone else ensured that he couldn't hurt anyone else, again.
"You never told me," Taylor gently chided Paul for keeping that from her and he admitted that it was poor choice keeping that from her.
He didn't want to even utter the cursed name, because of how foul of a man that man was, and how grateful he was to his late uncle and the efforts by the other Doctors.
"What about the book?" Taylor asked about it as Paul held her close to his chest.
Frowning, Paul expressed that the book had intricate designs and maths that would make Einstein look like a toddler with a chalk stick.
Somehow, it clicked in Gerald's mind.
Resting her head on his chest, Taylor heard his two hearts beating, as she wondered, "What would've happened if Gerald never obtained it?"
What would have changed?
"Some things happen regardless of that, Ramsey was destined to die from his illness and their mother was always going to become a Sabbek," Paul gave his guess.
He could very well be wrong in this assumption and while he has the TARDIS, he doesn't feel the need seeing the what-ifs.
For now, he just wanted to relax.
Tomorrow's another day.
His wounds are healing and Taylor kindly administrated some painkillers for him.
Wrapping his arms around Taylor, Paul let himself fall backwards on the plush bed, his eyes closing on their own.
THE END
