The Doctor spun round. A short, bipedal creature, its thick, waxy flesh traced with dark veins, was standing between her and the closed vault door – a door that she knew she could no longer open. The same energy that had engulfed Squidget seemed to spark and flicker around the creature’s hands and horns.

‘A time-storm,’ the Doctor realised. ‘So, you’re the monster behind all this.’

‘Halogi-Kari. Bringer of time and distance.’ The creature inclined his head, black Anime eyes shining. ‘You are a Time Lord.’

‘Yes.’

‘You depend on machines for your mastery.’

‘Whereas you – your powers are all natural. You’re a Harbinger, aren’t you?’

Halogi-Kari smiled. ‘You know of my kind?’

‘Very rare. Very powerful.’ The Doctor regarded Halogi-Kari warily. ‘To travel through time my way, to observe or stick an oar in now and then – that’s one thing. To propel others through time at will is quite a feat.’

The creature chuckled. ‘Perhaps, then, Halogi-Kari is the true Lord of Time?’

‘I don’t think you’ve done anything true in your life.’ The Doctor stepped towards him. ‘Why have you placed Ace in the Anvil?’

‘For the same reasons as you.’ Halogi-Kari smiled serenely. ‘She is my emissary. Her unique cellular make-up leaves her able to inhabit the same unstable space as the Wraiths. She shall join with the Wraith Queen, give her body and voice in our coming conquest.’

‘No.’ The Doctor shook her head slowly. ‘Nuh-uh. You’re not unleashing the Wraiths on the universe again, to ravage, to kill, to destroy.’

‘Oh?’

‘And you’re going to bring back Ace. And you’re going to return the humans you took.’

‘And you will make me?’ He licked his lips with a grey slug of a tongue. ‘Even though you know Halogi-Kari to be very rare and very powerful?’

‘Even then.’ The Doctor took another step closer.

‘Even though you know I can destroy you?’

‘With a time-storm?’ The Doctor jeered. ‘I was cooking those up in the nursery. Just try and turn a time-storm on me, I dare you. Go on, try.’

Halogi-Kari gave a malicious cackle. He lowered his horns and held out his arms.

The Doctor felt an awful moment of dislocation. She had a vivid flashback to challenging Morbius, a renegade Time Lord, to a mind-bending contest long ago. The resultant psychic shock had almost killed her. Now, as Halogi-Kari began to swill raw time around her and she rose into the air, she had to resist the same urge to panic, to run. The assault was strong and extreme; he was trying to push whole millennia through her, to diminish mind and body, whittle her away like old wood. A golden glow emanated from her skin as her essence began to boil off into the mad rush of the centuries spinning by about her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

No, thought the Doctor. I can weather this.