THE MAN WHO FORGETS, doctor who [book 02]

xii. time's decaying angels

     The Doctor grabs Octavian's walkie-talkie. "Bob, Sacred Bob, it's me, the Doctor."

     "I'm talking to—" Octavian gets cut off.

     "Where are you now?"

     "I'm talking to my—"

     "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up."

     "I'm on my way up to you, sir. I'm homing in on your signal."

     "Ah, well done, Bob. Scared keeps you fast. Told you, didn't I? Your friends, Bob. What did the Angel do to them?"

     "Snapped their necks, sir."

     "That's odd. That's not how the Angels kill you. They displace you in time. Unless they needed the bodies for something."

     Octavian steals his walkie-talkie back. "Bob, did you check their data packs for vital signs? We may be able to initiate a rescue plan."

     The Doctor snatches it back and rolls his eyes. "Oh, don't be an idiot. The Angels don't leave you alive." He presses the talk button on the walkie-talkie. "Bob, keep running. But tell me, how did you escape?"

     "I didn't escape, sir," the young Cleric replies. "The Angel killed me, too."

     "What do you mean, the Angel killed you?"

     "Snapped my neck, sir. Wasn't as painless as I expected, but it was pretty quick, so that was something."

     "If you're dead, how can I be talking to you?"

     "You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion."

     "So when you say you're on your way up to us..."

     "It's the Angel that's coming, sir, yes. No way out."

     "Then we get out through the wreckage," Octavian growls. "Go! Go, go, go. All of you run."

     "Doctor," Amy calls.

     "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming. Just go. Go, go, go," the Doctor exclaims before turning to Octavian. "Yeah. Called you an idiot. Sorry, but there's no way we could have rescued your men."

     "I know that, sir," the Bishop replies. "And when you've flown away in your little blue box, I'll explain that to their families."

     "Angel Bob," the Time Lord says into the walkie-talkie. "Which Angel am I talking to? The one from the ship?"

     "Yes, sir," the disembodied voice replies. "And the other Angels are still restoring."

     "Ah, so the Angel is not in the wreckage. Thank you." The Doctor runs past Amy. "Don't wait for me. Go, run."

     "I can't," Amy says. "No, really, I can't."

     "Why not?"

     "Look at it. Look at my hand. It's stone."

     Violet curses the Scottish girl for looking into the eyes of the Weeping Angel in the drop ship, but doesn't stick around to help, knowing that the Doctor is more than capable of taking care of the redhead. The man refuses to lose yet another companion to the evil in the night, stubborn as usual, and that's one of the good traits about a man such as him.

     She comes to a stop inside a cave-like area; a convergence of tunnels, and stares upwards, eyes trained on the Byzantium as it creaks and releases glumps of radiation. "There's no Human way of getting up there... And I'd much rather keep my father's genes tucked away at the moment."