The Vampires of Venice - Part One
The following morning, I suppose I received a bit of revenge from Amy. I was awoken rather abruptly by my speakers blaring, "Nine In the Afternoon," by Panic! At the Disco. The shock was so evident in my body that I actually fell out of bed, causing a wave of laughter to overpower the music.
"Okay, I get it! Next time, I'll use headphones!" I said, throwing my hands up in surrender. Being fair, Amy turned the music off and tossed me the remote.
"Thank you. You should hurry up with getting ready though. The Doctor's gonna be here with the boys any minute now," she said.
Once the Scot left my room, I turned the music back on; this time at a reasonable volume. I became presentable in a matter of minutes, changing out of my pajamas and into a pair of jeans along with a Great Gatsby crop top. It was pretty cool, actually. The shirt was a dark gray with two glasses-framed blue eyes, and a caption of, "God sees everything."
After grabbing my leather jacket and black trilby off the coat hanger, (yes, I wear trilbies. shoot me) I waltzed through the kitchen, grabbed a donut off the counter, and made my way to the control room.
As usual, everyone had already congregated around the console by the time I got there. Amy and Rory were standing on opposite sides of the console, glancing awkwardly at each other. The Doctor was on the underside of the glass floor, sitting in a swing and fiddling with some wires as the console sparked a few times. And then, there was a face I had not seen before on screen or in real life. I could only assume that the young man leaning against the door was Rory's brother, Thomas.
Honestly, he looked nothing like Rory which threw me for a bit of a loop. While both Williams boys were tall and rather lanky, Thomas had curlier and slightly darker hair, differing entirely from his older brother's sandy blond locks.
"So, I'm sending you somewhere, together," the Doctor said, taking off the goggles he was wearing.
"Have you become a date coordinator as well as a time traveler?" I asked, all eyes turning to me, "Oh, I'm Ginny, by the way." I waved quickly to both Rory and Thomas who seemed very confused by my appearance. Thomas actually waved back, to my surprise.
"I'm a man of many hobbies. Some of them just happen to coincide," the Doctor replied, coming up another set of stairs, "Amy, Rory, we will go anywhere you want. Any time you want. One condition. It has to be amazing. The Moulin Rouge in 1890. The first Olympic Games. Think of it as an early wedding present because it's either this or tokens."
"I'm gonna take another stab and say one of those coinciding hobbies is hardcore arcade gaming?"
"Stabbing correct. No. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Um, stabbing... for the kill? No. No. That's too morbid. Let me think..."
"You know what, Doc? Let's just leave it at that."
"Yeah. That's probably best." The Time Lord glanced from Rory to Thomas as he waltzed through the control room, "It's a lot to take in, isn't it? Tiny box, huge room on the inside. What's that about? Let me explain."
"It's basically another dimension," Rory said.
"It's basically another dimension," the Doctor stopped mid-explanation, "What?"
"After what happened with Prisoner Zero, I've been reading up on all the latest scientific theories," Rory said, "FTL travel. Parallel Universes."
The look on the Doctor's face was akin to a puppy that was just told it couldn't sit on the couch. Yeah, it was that pitiful.
"I like the bit when someone says it's bigger on the inside," he said, "I always look forward to that."
There was a moment of awkward silence before Thomas spoke those exact words.
"It's bigger on the inside."
This caused the Doctor to crack a smile and join Amy by the console.
"So, this date. I'm kind of done with running down corridors," Amy said, moving over to her fiance all the while.
"How about somewhere romantic?" the Doctor suggested, pulling a lever and sending us all through time and space.
While we were in flight, I decided to mosey on over to the door and acquaint myself with Thomas a bit more. Now that I wasn't on the other side of the room, I could now see that his eyes were the same pale blue color as Rory's.
What do I say? What do I say?! I thought anxiously. I'd never really been great at making small talk with anyone, but this was a guy! Actually, this was a guy, who was the brother of one of the greatest male characters of all freaking time! I wouldn't have been surprised if my tongue straight up left my mouth and abandoned its post as communicative noise maker if I hadn't made a sorry attempt at small talk within that same moment.
"Sowhatkindofmusicdoyoulike?" I asked, the words cascading out of my mouth.
"What?" Thomas asked, laughing a bit.
I laughed bashfully with him for a moment before asking again.
"I meant to say, what kind of music do you like?"
"That's what I thought you said." he had a look of concentration etched across his face, "Probably Rock. But not Classic Rock. I mean, I like some of it, but not as much as Rory does. I'm more into stuff like Alternative Rock, sort of. That's as specific as I can get. There are too many good bands to name a favorite."
Oh, my gosh. He likes what I like.
"Do you listen to Fall Out Boy?" I asked. His eyes widened, and I could almost read his thoughts. Almost. They were probably something along the lines of,
Did she just mention Fall Out Boy? I think she did. Oh my gosh she likes them too.
But I don't know because he gave a nonchalant, "Yeah. I was so bummed to hear that they're on hiatus."
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah. They said they were taking a break from the band."
Oh wait. This is before they got back together. Riiiight.
I smirked and raised my eyebrows, "You wanna know a secret?"
Thomas suddenly looked very serious and nodded. I leaned in close and so did he.
"They get back together in 2013," I whispered.
The look on the guy's face was priceless. It was a mix between disbelief and complete joy, and the outcome was that of complete numbness.
"H-how do you know that?" he asked, still coming to terms with the knowledge he just obtained.
"It's a long story. I'll tell you when we land."
And just as I said that, land we did. The Doctor rushed right for the door, causing me to back right into Thomas. It was at that moment I noticed how much taller he was. I mean, if he was an Elf in Middle Earth, then I was probably a Hobbit. That's how much of a height difference there was between us. I awkwardly backed away from his torso, apologizing every two seconds as we shambled out the doorway with Amy and Rory.
Our astounded eyes were greeted with gondolas floating in the turquoise water before us, and all around us, a bustling market was going through daily trades and routines. There was even a woman walking a goat around the place, not to mention the numerous people in Renaissance attire.
I began to wonder what the people around us were thinking as the Doctor spread his arms out.
"Venice!" he exclaimed, "Venezia. La Serenissima. Impossible city. Preposterous city. Founded by refugees running from Attila the Hun. 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." We began to make our way through the market, closely following the Time Lord as he went on in his musings,
"Constantly being invaded, constantly flooding, constantly just beautiful! Ah, you gotta love Venice. So many people did. Byron, Napoleon, Casanova."
The Doctor looked frantically down at his watch, "Ooo, that reminds me. 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."
Rory stopped in his tracks, "You owe Casanova a chicken?"
Thomas had just asked me the same question when the Doctor gave his vague answer.
"Long story. We had a bet."
As we were about to walk into the city itself, we were stopped by a man in black clothes with lilac and black striped sleeves.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Papers if you please. Proof of residency, current bill of medical inspection," the gatekeeper said.
The Doctor held the Psychic Paper up to the man's eyes, "There you go, fellow. All to your satisfaction, I think you'll find."
The gatekeeper suddenly looked very embarrassed, "I am so sorry, Your Holiness. I didn't realize."
"He's a clergyman too?" Thomas asked me.
"It's psychic paper. It tells a person what they need to know in order to get the holder of the paper into places. Only a handful of people can't be fooled by it," I said.
"Who's in that handful?"
"Shakespeare to name a big one."
"What, really?"
"Yeah!"
"So that's how he wrote all those sonnets with ease."
I stifled a laugh and tuned back into the conversation between the gatekeeper and the Doctor.
"I heard the plague died out years ago," the Doctor said.
"Not out there," the gatekeeper pointed out to the sea, "No, Signora Calveirri has seen it with her own eyes. Streets are piled high with bodies, she said."
"Did she now."
With that the Doctor began to enter the city, Amy following behind him. Rory now had the psychic paper and appeared slightly appalled.
"Er, according to this, I am your eunuch," he read.
Thomas laughed and took the paper from Rory, checking it for himself.
"Well, you can't woo her now. That's for sure," he teased, laughing. Rory shoved Thomas a bit, but also cracked a smile.
"Oh, shut up," Rory said, catching up to Amy.
"Not a chance, eunuch!" Thomas shouted to Rory, "Come on. Let's not get lost out here."
"Yeah, that would be pretty bad," I agreed, and we jogged up to the bouncing red hair and short skirt some twenty feet ahead of us. We regrouped at a balcony over one of the canals. Across the road of water there was a procession of girls in cream colored dresses, all holding parasols and covering their faces with pale purple veils.
"It's the Calveirri Girls," someone close by said in a dreamy tone, as if she too wanted to join them as they walked two by two along the courtyard.
Then, from behind one of the many stone walls, an aged man stormed onto the courtyard and began lifting the girls' veils one by one.
"What do you want?" the woman leading the girls asked firmly.
"Where's my Isabella?" the man asked.
"What are you doing? Get away from here."
The man did not listen and kept lifting veils, until he lifted the one which must have been covering Isabella.
"Isabella? Isabella, it's me," the man pleaded.
Before any kind of happy reunion could play out, one of the other girls knocked the man to the ground. There was something very animalistic about this girl, and that something was her teeth. They weren't like the pearly whites you'd find on a human. These chompers were much sharper, and needle-like in shape. She bared these fangs and hissed at the man, who was too dumbstruck to do anything.
"What the heck?!" Thomas exclaimed. I quickly shushed him, but apologized afterwards. A younger looking man in a cape and the most pompous hat in all of fashion's history swaggered out and brought his foot down on the man's shoulder. He said something I couldn't hear over the chatter around me, flared his cape and stode off with the girls. Some guards come out and drag the man off the courtyard. In his distraught state, the man continued to yell after Isabella, even after he was out of sight.
"What was that about?" Amy asked, looking across and assuming to be met by the Doctor, but when I looked over as well, I saw that he had skedaddled to do some investigating.
"I hate it when he does that," Amy said.
"You and me both," I added, "You and me both."