Chapter Five
"Good morning, Doctor," Angelus' voice came hazily from blackness. "Well, not quite morning… Did you sleep well?"
The Doctor blinked the world down to the normal amount of spinning. "The sense of smell thing really isn't fair," he grumbled. "I can hide a lot better when you don't just go walking to wherever I am." The Doctor looked around and said a bit drunkenly, "'s like that skunk. What's it called...with the cat."
"It wasn't just the smell," Angelus said, standing bent over the Doctor as if he were a museum curiosity. "Which was beautiful, by the way. When Time Lords are afraid, they smell much sharper than humans do."
"Glad to help." The Doctor pushed himself up to a sitting position. The room turned again and his head ached horribly. He was a little cold. "You took my coat," he whined, but he smiled the more he thought about that detail. "Got tired of emptying pockets, didn't you?"
"Normal people do not carry loaded mousetraps in their pockets," Angelus grumbled, clearly irritated at the memory of finding that particular item.
The Doctor bounced once on the couch, testing the springiness. He stretched and yawned and when he had made it perfectly clear that Angelus' looming was not in any way an immediate concern to him, he gave Angelus a cursory glance. "Are those leather pants?" he asked, his expression settling somewhere between genuine shock and mock-horror. "Do you actually wear those when you're not evil, or do you keep them around just in case?"
"Little bit of both," Angelus replied. He grinned. "Judith likes them."
"Oh, help me, I've been kidnapped by a cliche," the Doctor said to himself, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "Where are we, by the way?"
Angelus straightened up, ignoring the first comment, and spread out his arms. "Mo bhaile. Do you like it?"
The Doctor stood and when Angelus didn't stop him, he paced a slow circle to take in the room. "I do," he said. "I used to have the TARDIS a bit like this. More round, of course, but you have to love wood paneling when it's done right."
"Think I missed my calling as an interior decorator?" Angelus grinned. He glanced around. "I really do love torturing people in my own home, too. It really adds to the feng shui of the place. Speaking of..." Angelus wandered around to the other side of the apothecary table, upon which was strewn a wide assortment of things from the Doctor's coat pockets. "I thought I'd let you choose what we start with, since I'm having such a hard time deciding."
The Doctor glanced over briefly from examining Angel's book collection. It would have been more interesting without a headache and if he wasn't so busy pretending he wasn't in as much trouble as he was. "The lack of restraints was an interesting touch," he said, grabbing a book and flipping through it. "Pick-your-torture-device is also cliche."
"You gave me the idea for the lack of restraints, actually," Angelus replied. "Faith doesn't only work against vampires. And the chose-your-own-torture method may not be new, but even I'm curious to see what I can do with a pair of leopard-print earmuffs if you decide to give me that challenge."
"Make people wear them, mostly," the Doctor said, not looking up from the book. "You should see their faces. So tell me, what is it that I'm supposed to believe?"
"That you can't get out. And even if you did, that you can't outrun me. Go on, take a look at the lock. I know you're just dying to..."
"It's a Triscan DNA Reader. Fingerprints probably. Generic brand. You're cheap."
"No, just old. Who needs a €20,000 security system?"
"You do. That's why you shorted out the circuit, hmmmm?" the Doctor looked up from his book. "Not confident in your knowledge of technology against mine? No, you've met me before. It's a shame, I get away so often because people haven't met me." He had to admit that it was effective. Not out loud or anything, but in the deeper, panicking part of his mind, it was a frustratingly broken closed lock.
Angelus smirked. "That, and Judith and the boys are in the system. I'd rather not be interrupted before we're done."
The Doctor placed the book gently back on the shelf. "So," he said, rocking onto his toes, "is this about art or are we trying to figure something out?"
"You tell me," Angelus replied, bending to pick up a pocket watch from the apothecary table. "Art is all about expression. If there's anything you need to work out, I'm sure I can help…" he swung the pocket watch around on its chain experimentally, "...bring it to the surface."
The Doctor wandered to the other door in the room and stuck his head through it. A small study with more books. They wouldn't help him in this particular moment. "Nope," he said.
Angelus shrugged. "If you say so… So are you going to pick or should I? Or did you want the grand tour first?" he added a bit dryly.
The Doctor found his way into the bedroom and seeing nothing in there that looked escape-worthy (he couldn't survive the jump from Angel's window) busied himself with looking inside of a closet. "I think I'm nearly done with the tour," he admitted. "And I make it a point to not be useful to people torturing me. I might have to start singing soon. You'd be amazed how annoying that is."
"I'm not particularly worried about that," Angelus replied. "Your singing will be replaced by the dulcet sound of screams soon enough." After a moment he added, "I might start humming, though. It's been so long since I've gotten to really torture anyone I'm practically giddy."
The Doctor dragged out the inevitable by looking deeply interested in the master bathroom. Or the only bathroom. There wasn't even a window. This is what happens when you make friends with people who introduce themselves as 100% evil. On the plus side, he wasn't dead and on the other plus side, Calder and Martha were nowhere to be seen. On the downside, Angel, Angelus , was so unconcerned by Calder and Martha that he could take time out of his day for recreational torture.
The Doctor fingered the lock on the bathroom door and decided that it wouldn't keep him safe for more than a few seconds and making Angelus break down his own door would only be embarrassing for both of them. The Doctor had his pride. He stepped back out into the master bedroom and noticed that Angelus was just setting down a canteen, his nose wrinkled.
That is why the Doctor should empty his pockets, he scolded himself. He didn't let his eyes linger. Angelus probably didn't know what it was.
"Come here, Doctor." Angelus said as casually as invited him for tea. "I'm ready."
The Doctor leaned against the doorway. "Honestly, this is all a bit silly."
"You're right," Angelus agreed. "I wouldn't come to me if I were you..." He stood up and strode over to the Doctor, grabbing him by the back of his shirt collar, which partly cut off his air supply, and dragged him back over the couch. Angelus threw him down on it. "That's the way to do it," Angelus muttered to himself. "No muss, no fuss..." He bent down and roughly turned the Doctor over onto his back.
The Doctor bit Angelus' hand. Using the brief moment of shock, he writhed off of the couch and scrambled to his feet. He threw a quick kick in Angelus' direction, which Angelus avoided, and ran back for the bedroom, deciding that he would like a few extra seconds, now that it came to it. He heard Angelus growl with frustration and appeared in the doorway seconds later, holding the canteen.
"Biting a vampire, Doctor?" Angelus snarled, slamming the bedroom door shut behind him and stalked toward the Doctor. "We're used to it."
Not too used to it, apparently, or the Doctor wouldn't have escaped the couch. Small quibbles, though.
Angelus took the Doctor by the neck with his free hand and threw him onto the bed.
"I was worried," the Doctor choked out, "that this might be misinterpreted as some sort of come-on. Cultural differences, you see." He wondered if Angelus would accept a long talk about sex as a form of torture.
Angelus shrugged as he stepped up onto the bed with one knee, pinning the Doctor's wrist to the mattress.
Probably not, then. The Doctor was pretty sure he'd made several terrible mistakes.
"Maybe if I swung that way," Angelus replied, stepping up with the other knee so that he now straddled the Doctor. "Though anyone looking in right now might think otherwise," he added with a grin, and lowered himself onto the Doctor's abdomen.
Angelus unscrewed the canteen again. "So what is this?"
"Milk." the Doctor said, between attempts to escape. "No, it was milk. Now it has vacuum fluid."
"I have no idea what vacuum fluid is," Angelus said, "but it smells acidic. I bet it would really hurt if you got some in your eyes..."
"I think," the Doctor said, leaning back, "that it seems a bit early to start in on the eyes. I mean, you are supposed to show me all of the awful things that you're going to do to me first. Also, vacuum fluid is-"
"The imagination, I've found, can be better at seeing than eyes," Angelus interrupted calmly. He dumped the contents of the canteen rather unceremoniously into the Doctor's face.
The liquid hit his skin cold and then burned like he'd been set on fire. The Doctor screamed before he could think better of it. Before he could worry about it getting in his mouth. He could hear his skin sizzling before the acid evaporated, fortunately, only seconds after it left the canteen. But the damage was done. When the Doctor tried to open his eyes, he found them swelled shut.
Angelus breathed in as if smelling roses and lilacs. "You're a pretty good screamer," he commented, as if complimenting a musical performance. "Did you scream like this when you were destroying Gallifrey?"
The Doctor coughed. He struggled to adjust his priorities from trying to escape to trying to minimize the damage. Angelus, at least, liked to talk, and chatting wasn't torture.
When the Doctor could finally speak he asked, "Did you scream when you got your soul? I bet you did. Something as small as you having to make room for so much life. It's amazing you survived at all."
"Tell me about it," Angelus replied with a hint of an irritated growl. "I almost didn't. Perhaps we should see how much we can fit inside you , Doctor."
"I've already got," the Doctor coughed again, "a soul. Not much room for anything else."
"We'll see," Angelus replied, and his weight lifted from the Doctor's body as he went to find his next torture device.
Judith could hardly breathe the entire way to the Renatos for fear that she would never see Calder again; that Angelus would find him en route to the Renatos and-
Closely following that was fear for her own safety. For the first time, she was immensely glad that William and Keiko lived out of the city. What if she wouldn't live to see her first grandchild born in a few months? She would need to contact him; let him know what was happening in case- Give him a chance to flee.
It was all Judith could do not to vomit on the tram.
Why did these things seem to keep happening? For years, ever since William had decided to retire from Champion-hood and become a husband (and now a father), things had been wonderfully peaceful and quiet. And then, nine months ago, Judith had allowed Angel into her bed and this was the third time since then that lives were in danger. The second time directly because of who Angel was without his soul.
Was it her fault, somehow? Was this punishment? Or warning?
Even though she couldn't seem to get enough air, when Judith got off the tram she practically ran down the lane that led to the Renatos estate and tapped the doorbell several times in quick succession.
The door opened almost immediately and she knew right away that Calder and Martha must have already gotten there because it was Alejandro himself, not a staff member or a bot, who answered. He must have already been up at this late hour as he was still in his dressing gown, and he pulled her inside quickly, giving her a brief hug after he closed the door.
"They're alright," he said quickly, his upper class English accent gently tinged with Spanish. "Come, they're in the parlor."
"Thank god," Judith said, finally able to take a full breath.
She followed him into the parlor, where a real wood fire was crackling in the marble fireplace and Calder and Martha stood near a round table with a brass bowl, several candles, and a book that Judith recognized as Angel's.
Claire, Alejandro's wife and a good friend of Judith's, was also there and she threw her arms around Judith almost immediately upon entering.
"Oh, Judy!" Claire cried, prone to melodrama (but it was probably appropriate in this case). "Are you okay? It's just awful! Calder and Martha have told us everything. What do you need? Tea? I'll have tea made. With brandy."
Judith knew Claire well enough to allow her to make the tea (or 'have it made'); less because Claire was the type who needed to feel helpful and more because Claire was the type who needed to feel involved in the drama. After Claire let her go and opened her Palm to start the tea brewer in the kitchen, Judith went straight over to Calder and pulled him into a tight hug.
Calder was not her biological son, but he was close enough. In some ways, she had been more involved in raising him than his own parents and she loved him just as deeply. He held her back as tightly as she held him.
"We're fine," Calder told her reassuringly. "We didn't even see him."
Judith nodded and after a little extra squeeze, let him go. Then she turned to Martha, whom she didn't know at all, but said as they caught eyes, "I'm so glad you both made it safely."
"We're glad you made it, too," Martha replied. She had kind, intelligent eyes, and Judith could immediately see why the Doctor had chosen her as a traveling companion. She was glad; the last time Judith had seen the Doctor he had been alone in that vast time-and-spaceship of his with all its endless possibilities, and he had seemed sad. Like he needed someone to share it with.
"Have you heard any word from the Doctor?" Judith asked.
Martha shook her head, her kind eyes darkening with worry. "No. Nothing."
Judith nodded, understanding the sickening lurch of fear that Martha must be feeling. "It will be over soon," she said comfortingly. "Alejandro will help with the spell. Won't you?" she added turning to Alejandro.
"Yes, of course," Alejandro nodded. He gestured toward the book that sat on the table, which was so old that the gilding on title was worn off but the textured embossment still read Rosenberg's Compilation of Countercurses for the Cursed. "I've looked over the spell; it seems quite doable and shouldn't take long. You say you have an orb of Thessulah?"
Alejandro had directed his question at Calder, but Martha replied, "Right here," as she reached into the bag on the table. She withdrew a bundle of what looked like kitchen towels, but Judith soon saw that it was a glass (or perhaps crystal) sphere wrapped protectively in a towel.
Claire stepped forward, looking at it curiously. "What does it do?" she asked.
"It channels the soul," Alejandro replied professionally. "It's sort of the…holding place, if you will. The spell pulls the soul from the ether and attracts it to the particular crystalline structure of the orb, and then the magics channel the soul through the orb and to the host."
It was so strange hearing Alejandro speak so knowledgeably and authoritatively on the subject. Until only four months ago - the last time they had all been in mortal danger because of Angel's soulless past - Judith had thought that she was the only one of her friends to have any real knowledge of the supernatural world. It turned out that an entire half of her social circle had been regularly meeting in secret to study the occult for decades.
It also turned out that her ex-husband had been one of them.
(They would have had words about that, but Judith would have been a hypocrite to be upset, since she knowingly allowed their son to befriend a vampire around the same time that Sam had joined this group. The irony was deeply unpleasant.)
"So this is the only kind of magic crystal ball that'll work?" Claire asked, pushing a long lock of deep red hair out of her eyes and behind her ear as she bent over the orb. She was still dressed in a long silk night robe, her feet bare, but any trace of sleepiness in her eyes was gone in her excitement at this emergency in a brand new world.
"Yes," Alejandro replied. "And it's crucial to the spell."
Claire nodded, backing away. "So…don't break it," she concluded. Her Palm made a delicate dinging noise and she jumped slightly. "Your tea, Judy! I'll go add the brandy!" And she hurried off to the kitchen.
Martha set the orb in the middle of the table, nestled in its towel like a precious egg, while Alejandro started lighting the candles with real matches and Calder opened the book to find the right spell again.
"So…" Martha said after making sure the orb was secure, "...you said something about the orb calling the soul from the ether?"
" Si ," Alejandro replied as he adjusted the positioning of the candles. His Spanish tended to come out the more stressed or distracted he was.
"Ah," Martha nodded. "So what if the soul is in some sort of a container? Can the orb call the soul out of the container?"
Calder looked up from his book and swore softly, looking worried.
Alejandro looked up, too. "Are you saying Angel's soul is encased somehow?"
"Well, yeah," Martha replied. She glanced at Calder. "Remember? It was a piece of the gun the Doctor was examining. A little…cylinder thing. You could even see the soul in it all glowy and misty."
"Gun?" Judith asked.
"Yeah," Martha nodded. "That's how his soul got pulled out. There was a fairy lady and she was extracting people's souls with this gun and Angel- Well, she shot him."
Judith's stomach twisted sickeningly again. One of the fae was extracting people's souls? With a gun? How was that…a thing? And more importantly, "Where is this gun, then? Or the…soul-cylinder?"
Martha swallowed and took in a deep breath. "Well, the gun is broken… Angel kind of fell on it. The Doctor thought he might be able to fix it, so we left all the pieces with him while we went to try to do the spell. Which, apparently, wouldn't have worked with the spell contained in something."
Calder swore again, more bitterly this time.
"Judith," Martha said, sounding urgent, "are you sure you didn't see any…you know, glowy cylinder things when you were at Calder's?"
Judith shook her head, the dread sinking lower in her gut. "No. I wasn't looking, of course, but… I suppose it could have gotten knocked under the couch or something. It looked like there had been quite a struggle."
"God," Martha whispered, also looking sick. "I need to find-"
A sudden gust of wind cut her off, swift and smelling of a deep, ancient forest. The fire in the hearth swooped, the pages of the book in Calder's hands flipped rapidly, and one of the candles on the table was knocked right off. And then the orb of Thessulah rose up and before anyone could think to stop it, flew across the room as if thrown by an invisible hand, hit the marble hearth, and shattered.
The woody wind gusted again and several rooms away they heard a similar shattering sound, and then everything became still again.
Breathless and speechless with shock, the three of them stood there for a solid ten seconds, processing what had happened, when Claire returned with Judith's tea, apparently oblivious to the whole event.
"I put in the expensive stuff, Judy," Claire said. "It goes really well with this-" She froze, looking at their faces and the disheveled state of the room. "What happened?"
"I should like to know that myself," Alejandro replied, a little weakly. He went over to inspect the fireplace and shattered crystal all over the floor.
Calder started swearing again.
A moment later, Claire said from near the fireplace, "I thought we just said we shouldn't break these! What the hell happened?"
"An excellent question, my dear," Alejandro said. "There was a wind and it…it carried the orb up and…"
"Threw it," Calder said. "It was definitely thrown. Someone threw it."
Claire looked at him, eyes wide with alarm. "Someone? How did they get in? We have a great security system."
"And wards," Alejandro said.
"And wards!" Claire agreed. She set the mug of tea-laced-with-expensive-brandy down on a small side table and wrung her hands together. "It couldn't have been Angel, right?"
"No," Alejandro said quickly. "I've never invited him into the house."
Judith swallowed nervously. "But he knows we need the orb. It has to have been him, indirectly."
Everyone else nodded grimly, brains processing all the new information.
After a moment, Martha was the first to speak. "So…regardless, we still need that soul cylinder thing. And after that, either a new orb of Thessulah or a new gun."
"I have an orb of Thessulah," Alejandro said, "but I'm willing to bet quite a lot that that was the second crash we heard." He gestured toward where the sound had come from. "I keep it in the study."
"So we need a new gun," Martha concluded. "Or we need to fix the old one."
Calder nodded in agreement. "Sounds like we're going back to my place," he said. "See if the soul and the pieces of the gun are still there."
"And any clues leading to the Doctor," Martha added.
"Right," Calder agreed.
Judith was not thrilled about any plan that required them leaving the safety of a warded house, but she couldn't see any other way around it. They were going to have to venture out again. It was strange how exceedingly dangerous Out There felt at the moment. After all, it wasn't like Angel was any larger or in multiples now that he was without a soul. He was man-sized and (as far as she knew) could only be in one place at one time. Unless he was actively stalking them, they weren't guaranteed to run into him. And if he was pursuing magical ways of destroying orbs of Thessulah, he probably wasn't actively stalking them.
At least not at this moment.
It was actually a reasonable window for them to leave while he was distracted.
Judith looked at Alejandro and asked, "What spare weapons do you have that we could borrow?"
Alejandro blinked at her, surprised. "I didn't know you were trained, as well."
"I'm not," Judith replied. "But I know which direction to aim the sharp end and it's better than nothing."
Alejandro nodded. "I'll see what I have. But let me get dressed; I'm coming with you."
"Me too!" Claire said.
Alejandro looked for a moment like he wanted to protest, but knew it would be futile. "And furthermore," he added, turning mostly to Calder and Martha, "I actually might know someone who can help us. He has extremely wide influence and knowledge in this city. He may be able to enlighten us about the soul-extracting gun."
"Not Viggo?" Claire asked, looking at her husband.
"No," Alejandro shook his head. "His name is Seth Aisner."
"You've never mentioned him," Claire said, a little accusingly.
"He requested that I didn't," Alejandro replied, not meeting his wife's eye. "But these are exceptional circumstances and if he can- Well, I'm sure it'll be fine."
"I know that name…" Calder said slowly. "Isn't he the vampire that runs the fake ID ring here in Galway?"
Martha blinked and looked at him. "The what?" she asked.
"You know," Calder shrugged. "Demons like Angel who can pass for human need IDs to like, rent apartments and whatever, but don't have other legal documentation to get it. I mean, did they even have birth certificates when Angel was born? And if they did, it's not like his driver's license can say that he was born in 1750 or whatever. They need fake IDs. And Seth Aisner is the one they go to for that, right?"
Alejandro nodded once. "That is one facet of his business," he replied. "He does other things, owns a lot of property, and such. He's quite the businessman. That's how I came to know him. And anyway, as a vampire, I'm sure we won't be disturbing him so late at night."
"Okay," Martha nodded, "in that case, I say we split up. Calder and I will go find the soul and the Doctor, and you three go see if this Seth guy can help with the issue of the gun." She lifted her eyebrows, looking around for objections.
Still, there was a deep part of Judith that didn't like the whole idea of leaving, not to mention breaking themselves up into smaller groups. On the other hand, Angel really couldn't stalk two groups at once. It was probably safer to divide. On top of that, Alejandro seemed comfortable approaching Seth Aisner (whom Judith had heard about from Angel, too, and it sounded like he wasn't as evil as most other soulless vampires), and that seemed like a path less likely to end in combat.
Resigned, Judith nodded. Alejandro and Claire agreed, too.
"I say we meet back here," Martha said. "If, you know, everything falls apart. Or if it goes well."
"Agreed," Alejandro said. "Here- Let me give you my contact information so our two groups can stay in touch." He pulled out his Palm and waited for Martha to present hers so that he could transfer his information.
For some reason, Martha looked both exasperated and amused. "Sorry, I have an old model. I'll just have to tell you my number."
"Really?" Alejandro asked, looking astonished.
"Yeah, and it doesn't do video," Martha added. "Just audio."
"Good lord," Alejandro murmured, but prepared to manually type in her number anyway. It took a long minute.
Martha gave him her number and Alejandro tried calling just to make sure it worked. When her phone started ringing and she took it out of her back pocket, Judith, Claire, and Alejandro gasped with shock.
"Look at that!" he cried, "It folds! Like a book!"
"It looks like one of the first models of cell phone," Judith said, her inner historian excited despite all the other dire circumstances.
"Just wait till I show you my pager," Martha said with a small smile. "We can admire it later, let's save the world."