Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter Eighteen: Empire of the Wolf

The minutes pass. Each tick of the grandfather clock seems like another moment wasted, or another moment closer to dawn. Maybe the creature will be gone by then.

Examining the wooden wall panels closely through rectangularglasses, the Doctor traces along the leaf carvings. "Mistletoe," he muses to himself. A symbol of peace. "Did your father put that there?"

"I don't know. I suppose," Sir Robert replies with a shrug.

"On the other door too, though a carving wouldn't be enough. I wonder..." Much to everyone's surprise, he licks the wall. "Viscum album — the oil of the mistletoe. It's been worked into the wood like a varnish. How clever was your dad? I love him! Powerful stuff, mistletoe, bursting with lectins and viscotoxins."

Frowning, Rose glances back to the sheen that sets every surface around us glistening. "And the wolf's allergic to it?"

"Or it thinks it is. The monky-monk-monks need a way of controlling the wolf. Maybe they trained it to react against certain things."

"Nevertheless," Sir Robert huffs, "that creature won't give up, Doctor. And we still don't possess an actual weapon."

"Your father got all the brains, didn't he?"

Rose sends him a warning glare. "Being rude again."

"Good, I meant that one. You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself."

And so we begin. Every volume even mentioning folklore or science is strewn out across the desks. Flicking through a book on botany, I scan every single word at lighting speed. "Getting a little on wolfsbane but no mistletoe. I mean, they are both poisons. Maybe it's just hypersensitive?"

The chatter continues, a blurred mess of words. None of us are truly listening to each other, just muttering to ourselves. I catch the mention of explosives, poisons, silver.

Approaching the table, the Doctor throws his book down. "Look what your old dad found." We crowd around, scrutinising a black ink illustration of what looks like a comet hurtling towards the hills. "Something fell to Earth."

"A spaceship?"

"Shooting star." Sir Robert points to the inscription at the bottom of the drawing and begins to read aloud, "'In the year of our Lord 1540, under the reign of King James the Fifth, an almighty fire did burn in the pit.' That's the Glen of Saint Catherine, just by the monastery."

"But that's three hundred years ago. What's it been waiting for?"

I can already see the realisation on the Doctor's face. "Maybe a single cell survived," he says. "Adapting slowly, down the generations. It survived through the humans, host after host after host."

Glancing back at where Victoria sits, stiff as a board, I lean further in and say with a lowered voice, "Why does it want her? Why the throne?"

"That's what it wants, it said so. 'The Empire of the Wolf'." Rose is quivering again, jogging one knee and gnawing on her bottom lip. I try a reassuring smile.

He pales. "Imagine it — the Victorian age, accelerated — starships and missiles fuelled by coal and driven by steam, leaving history devastated in its wake."

The Queen stands, hands clasped tightly in front of her, still holding her purse tightly. "Sir Robert, if I am to die here—"

"Don't say that, Your Majesty."

"I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me, but that's no matter. I ask only that you might find some place of safekeeping for something far older and more precious than myself."