Doctor Who_ The City of the Dead - Lloyd Rose [36]
"The pillar of cloud by day!' he crowed. 'The pillar of cloud by day!'
'Oh, shut up!' The Doctor grabbed him before he could reach the circle.
From the corner of his eye, he saw with relief that the coven had fled.
'I did it!' Dupre was bellowing. 'I did it!'
'You didn't do anything, you idiot! Nothing! Do you hear me? Nothing!'
'You're afraid! But the circle will contain it.'
"The circle will not contain it,' the Doctor hissed, still struggling to hold Dupre back. 'The circle won't contain it because it isn't anything and can't be contained. Listen to me!'
'Let me go! I have mastered the wonders! I have - What's happening to it?'
The Doctor looked. The darkness was spiralling in on itself, growing fainter.
Of course, he thought. It can only manifest when I'm unconscious. He watched as the black cloud faded like a dream. In his grip, Dupre sagged.
'No, 'he groaned. 'No '
The Doctor dropped him. He left him sprawled face down on the floor, moaning along with the whales.
Downstairs, everyone had gone, except the girl in the spiked corset whom he found hiding in one of the bathrooms.
'I can't get it off,' she whispered, red with embarrassment.
'It's all right.' The Doctor helped her unencumber and handed her a towel.
She wrapped it around her, still so embarrassed she couldn't look at him.
'Go and get dressed,' he said gently. 'I'll take you home.'
'I want to take a shower,' she mumbled.
'By all means,' said the Doctor, and politely withdrew.
He returned to the third floor. The CD had finished. The Doctor crossed to Dupre, who didn't appear to have moved, and sank softly down beside him.
'I was in Budapest ten years ago,' he said conversationally, not looking at Dupre or anything else in the strange room but fixing his eyes on the dark doorway. 'New Orleans reminds me of the city then. Not in spirit - or climate, obviously. The buildings. I suppose you've seen pictures.
Budapest's golden age came during the Art Nouveau period and the city is filled with grand residences and public buildings. Four and five storeys high, and decorated with stone garlands and lions' heads and half-draped female figures. Male, too. Domes and towers and steep roofs. All going to pieces. Hungary had a hard war, you know. Both of them. Then it had the Soviet invasion. It's been poor for going on a century.
'So the buildings are just dropping in little bits. Nothing dramatic, just a gradual shedding. Like falling leaves. You can stand in one of those huge mansions with its dozens of rooms and staircases ten feet wide, and there are puddles of rainwater on the marble floors, and the walls are blotched and spotted with dirt and damp, and where the stained-glass windows are cracked or broken the wind comes in. It's like a concrete metaphor for the decline of old Europe.'
The Doctor had drawn up his knees and rested his chin on them. Now he was silent for a moment. 'It looks very like that here,' he went on. "The architecture's different, of course, except for the wrought iron. And there are no bullet or shell scars. But there's that sense of slow deterioration.'
He looked at Dupre, who gave no indication he had heard any of this. 'The difference,' he continued in a firmer voice, 'is that the people in New Orleans like it. They don't make merry over decay in Budapest; they're stuck with it. When they can, they refurbish the collapsing grandeur. But they can't very often. They haven't the money. The people who live in the French Quarter or houses like this one do have money. Decay is just an interior-decorating style to them, like a Hallowe'en skull mask they can put on or take off. They choose to let the rain and heat have their way. The Hungarians have no choice'.
He leaned toward Dupre and spoke quietly. 'Death will come to you someday, Dupre, and you'll have no choice. In the meantime, let it be. Take these poor remains and bury them, as they deserve.