TTR: Traces of Possession, part two, by S. Daniel Wilson
The Odeon
out on my end!
--
This Time 'Round: Traces of Possession, part two
original story copyright 1999 by S. Daniel Wilson
all rights reserved.
--
Part Two
Outside of This Time 'Round, four people were stirring, crouched behind
a
small hill just beyond the parking lot. A plan was brewing.
"We've never gotten this close before," Malorie, a maladjusted,
jumpsuit-
clad frump of a middle-aged woman said, in a tone just harshly above a
too-loud whisper.
"Quiet, fatty, you'll get us caught!" Bev spat. At twenty-six, she was
the
youngest of the four, but her outgoing personality, coupled with the
fact
that she was a butch lesbian, helped to ensure that she was the
undefied,
inarguable leader of the bunch. "Cari, are you through with those
binoculars yet?"
Cari, resplendant in her black and white checked "Body Glove" workout
attire, was perched at the top of the small rise, carefully watching the
tavern through a pair of infra-red nightscope commando binoculars. No,
she
felt like saying, I'm not through--but inside, she knew that Bev's
question was, in fact, a demand that Cari get down off of the hill and
give her the damned binoculars. With a sigh, she scooted down.
"Any sign of her?" Betty asked. She was twirling her hair around one of
her fingers--a habit that generally annoyed everybody--and loudly
smacking
her bubble gum. "Did she come in or out or anything?"
Cari shook her head. "Nothing. Just that old Doctor. The one with the
afro
and the cape. The fourth, I think."
"No, you idiot, he's the third." Bev looped the safety strap on the
binoculars around her neck and began climbing up the short rise,
military-
style. "The fourth wears that scarf all the time."
Betty blew a bubble and let it pop. "I'm _so_ sure. That scarf, it's,
you
know, like, ugly or something. I wonder where he got it."
"Maybe the scarf store?" Cari offered.
"Shut up you tubs of lard!" Bev spat from atop the hill. "I think she's
coming!"
Cari, Betty and Malorie scrambled to climb over each other to be the
first
to see the object of their affections. Bev kicked at them and muttered
curses in their general direction. Through the binoculars, she watched
as
the sixth Doctor and Mel strode through the parking lot and into This
Time
'Round.
"We've never seen her this close up before," Malorie said absently, her
gaze fixed on the spot where Mel had just been.
"You couch potatoes aren't going to flake out on me tonight, are you?"
Bev
asked in one of her favorite authoritative voices. She looked away from
the binoculars and down at her companions, who were shaking their heads.
"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" she boomed.
"NO SIR!" came the unanimous reply.
Bev grinned wryly. "Good. Ladies--it's showtime. The Servants of the
Pure
and Angelic Mel will triumph in our quest to attain absolute Melity
tonight!"
Like errant soldiers crossing a mine-laden battlefield, the ladies of
SPAM
commenced with their mission: enter This Time 'Round and declare their
undying affection to the great and mighty Mel.
* * * * *
"I'm afraid we've got a rather sloppy cleanup person here," the third
Doctor noted aloud as he knelt down next to the bar, examining an
inobtrusive spatter of blood that still stained the tan wood near the
floor. "I can only imagine what horrible demise poor Adric suffered this
time."
"It's nay Adric's," Jamie corrected him from the booth where he sat.
Zoe,
perched atop the table in front of him, nodded in affirmation, though
she
really hadn't heard much of what was going on--she simply felt like
bobbing her head up and down. Her recent change in attire--whether for
better or worse was a common debate and subject of discussion lately,
and
a purely subjective one at that--had somehow been responsible for a
moderate drop in the amount of oxygen that was pumped into her brain
each
second, and as a result, her behavior of late was, in the words of the
seventh Doctor, irresistibly peculiar.
The third Doctor frowned as he slid a finger through the crimson
leftovers. "Not Adric's? Who's then?"
"It's Turlough's. He was havin' a drink there yesterday, when all o' the
sudden, he goes and busts the glass right in his hand. Aye, what a mess
that was."
Pulling a kerchief from his pocket, the Doctor wiped his finger off and
shook his head. "Yes, I'm sure it was. He ought to be more careful,
oughtn't he?" He smiled flashily at Zoe before seeking out a booth to
spend the afternoon in.
The Adric Defense Force sat quietly in one corner, looking as brooding
and
militaristic as their current state of sober-or-so would allow. They
were
pretty uptight over Nyssa's sneaky going off and blowing Adric away the
night before, and they were just waiting for her to arrive. Perhaps
there
would be some unsanctioned, unmotivated gunfire later on. Di grinned
sadistically at the thought of Nyssa's shoulder being pinned to the wall
with a bayonnette....
The lonely, white Dalek sat in his booth, quiet and still, his eyestalk
hanging lazily and watching the glass of gin that sat on the table
before
him. Once he was sure that nobody was watching, he made the gin
disappear.
A moment later, his audio receptors picked up somebody commenting on how
they had no idea how the Dalek was able to consume a beverage. The Dalek
made the internal, mechanical equivelant of a smile. Keeping them
guessing
was much more rewarding than simply running around shouting
"EXTERMINATE!"
and shooting at people.
The door swung open, and Turlough strode in nonchalontly. He took his
regular stool at the bar and ordered a bloody mary from a very
dishevelled
looking Ian.
"You sleep last night?" Turlough asked.
"Not a bloody wink. I'm thinking of quitting this bartending nonsense.
The
hours are deadly, you know." He poured the drink and, after plunking a
celery stalk into it, handed the glass to Turlough. "Do me a favor and
don't break this one, eh?"
Turlough grinned sheepishly. "I'll keep that in mind." He hunched over
and
took a long sip.
"Kill the Doctors," Jamie said behind him.
Turlough froze, panic rising in his chest like wildfire. Slowly, he
turned
his head and looked at Jamie. "What did you just say?"
"I asked how your hands were doing," Jamie answered, a little uneasy
with
the look Turlough was giving him. "Just concerned, is all."
"Oh." Turlough shifted slightly on his stool. "Sorry. They're fine,
thanks." Suddenly expressionless, he turned back around and resumed
sipping his bloody mary.
'..._And the bad blood slows and turns to stone_.' He recited the lyrics
in a low tone; the old song seemed appropriately fitting, all things
considered. Though he tried with all his power not to show it outwardly,
the fear consuming him was serious and real, and it gripped him like the
frigid claws of a cold demon, tearing him from his lifely moorings down
into the dead, wintry depths of an arctic Hell. Turlough couldn't help
but
shudder.
"Jellyfish," he heard Zoe say from behind him. "I want to go someplace
where they've got jellyfish."
"You'd better get your old clothes back on, Zoe," Jamie said stolidly.
"This new outfit is makin' you daft."
He could hear them, but their voices seemed far off, as if at the far
end
of a tunnel, and he found that he loathed the sound. Pointless
chittering,
that's all it is. Enough to drive me--
...crazy.
The voices and other verbose sounds of the tavern coalesced into an
ambiguous murmur that filled Turlough's head and threatened to drown out
his thoughts. The edge of his sight turned black and hazy, the blur
closing in on itself and blocking out the picture that his eyes sent to
his brain. Soon he found himself in total blackness and absence of
discernable noise. Dizziness set in; softly at first, like a mild
sensation of vertigo, and it quickly scaled upward to a zenith of
complete
disorientation. He felt as though he were drifting backwards in the
darkness...
"You will kill the Doctors." The hooded figure appeared from out of
nowhere, shattering a corner of the darkness, illuminated only by the
ethereal glow from its eyes, a dull yellow wash that pulsed with untold
energies, giving its face an injurious radiance that was almost more
potent than its voice. Turlough's dread intensified as the Dark Guardian
lifted a robed arm and pointed an indignant finger at him. "You will
kill
the--"
"Stop it!" Turlough screamed the words so that his throat rumbled and
burned. There was a sharp pressure on his back, like he'd been hit with
something large and heavy. The wind was knocked out of him, but only for
a
moment.
"Leave me alone!" He wailed his protests at the top of his lungs,
but the Dark Guardian's merciless laughter danced at the edges of his
ears.
He felt a hand come down on his shoulder. He flailed violently, sure
that
one of the Guardian's hellspawn minions had slyly crept up behind him,
ready to kill if he refused to bow to the wishes of the dark one...
The third Doctor sidestepped intuitively as Turlough's arm swung thorugh
the air toward him. The boy jumped up violently; the Doctor nimbly
jabbed
two fingers into a nerve cluster at the the meeting of Turlough's chest
and neck, momentarily parilyzing him.
"Turlough!" he said, his voice harsh and just a hair above a whisper.
"Turlough, snap out of it man!"
Looking around, Turlough realized too late that the blackness hadn't
been
real. Not in the sense of reality that he knew, at any rate. He was
lying
on the floor, having fallen from his stool. The third Doctor was knelt
down beside the boy, hand on his shoulder. All eyes were on Turlough; he
could only imagine what he'd been doing. Out of his peripheral vision,
he
saw something move on his other side. A curt glance that way saw the
short, unfettered seventh Doctor leaning on the bar next to him, red-
handled brolly swinging gently from the coat pocket from which it hung.
"What was happening, Turlough? Who were you shouting at?" The seventh
Doctor narrowed his eyes slightly, and Turlough had the impression that
the man was genuinely and deeply concerned over what was going on.
Turlough felt his legs twitch, and realized that the other Doctor had
released his Venusian Karate nerve grip. The eigtht Doctor stood just
off
to his side, sipping something blue and swirly.
"I--I must have been imagining something... I don't know..." He wanted
to
tell, desperately wanted to tell, but the words refused to form and
report. "Let's get you back up," the third Doctor said. Both Doctors
helped him back up onto his stool.
The Dark Guardian was perched across the bar from Turlough once more.
This
time his hood was pulled back, and Turlough thought he recognized the
face... it was so familiar. Maybe he'd be able to place it later.
The seventh Doctor must have noticed Turlough's expression change
starkly;
he grabbed his arm. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"The Dark Guardian is here," Turlough mumbled in a slurred monotone. The
third Doctor, confused, looked about the room. The seventh Doctor became
more obstinate. "Where?"
Turlough pointed across the bar. "There. Over there." His voice was
trancelike and barren. Both Doctors looked. At the opposite end of the
bar, Peri, hovering over a pina colada, paused in mid sip and glared
back
at the Doctors. "What?" she exclaimed accusingly, and surreptitiously
pulled her loose shirt together.
"He's hallucinating," the third Doctor observed.
"I'm not," the eigtht Doctor remarked, still gazing peculiarly at Peri.
"That or he's under some malevolent influence," the seventh Doctor
offered.
The third Doctor sneered. "Yes, well, you always say that."
"And I'm nearly always right. Help me get him to the TARDIS."
"Which one?"
The seventh Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes. "ANY one. They're all the
same, you know."
"Mine," the eigtht Doctor declared. "We'll take him to mine. I've got an
idea." He ushered past his former self and grabbed Turlough under the
arms. "Give me a hand, eh? This one's a bit on the heavy side today..."
In Turlough's mind, the Dark Guardian dispersed and became a very
annoyed-
looking Peri. He gasped, then felt himself being hoisted up and led off
somewhere.
He knew he recognized the Dark Guardian's face. If only he could
remember...
* * * * *
The Dark Guardian watched from the confines of the void, pleased, as the
two Doctors carried Turlough out of This Time 'Round with a certain
degree
of difficulty. The image appeared to him via a traingular photonic
projection that spun in the blackness, just beyond his reach. He smiled,
seeing the morbid fear that swirled and spewed from Turlough's being
like
so much burning sewage. The Dark Guardian remembered a time when he'd
been so vulnerable, so cowardly, so wavering and infirm. That was a
different time; a time before the promises of his master had been made
manifest. A time before he'd been shown just how real Truth could be.
"He is certain that the Black Guardian is here for him?" a deep,
powerful
voice said, the edges of the words echoing off of one another in the
darkness.
The Dark one turned away from the projected image. "Yes, my lord. Just
as
you have wished."
"Excellent. And the Doctors?"
"One of them--the fifth--is almost certain that it is the influence of
the
Black Guardian. The others are unsure or undecided."
The crack of patient footsteps on a hard floor pushed back the silence
that fell between words. The owner of the deep voice was approaching.
"Just as well. For when they do believe, they won't see me coming. And I
will crush them."
* * * * *
--
----------------------
"Say hello to the sofa of reasonable comfort."
Doctor Who fiction by S. Daniel Wilson-
http://members.xoom.com/doctorwho