EATER OF SOULS

Chapter Thirty Three

Bezrek coughed and opened his eyes. He looked up and saw the Doctor as he pulled the hand holding the smelling salts away from his face. He looked around and panicked when he saw that the Doctor had bound his wrists, ankles, arms and legs with the strips of linen that he had left behind when he cut them off Rose. Even more distressing was he was lying in the stone sarcophagus with the Doctor standing beside it, staring dispassionately at him as he put the stopper back on the bottle and put it in his trouser pocket.

"What is this?" Bezrek asked him.

"This is punishment for your betrayal," the Doctor said in a dispassionate voice. "The time has come for my revenge for what you did to me but especially for what you did to Rose."

Bezrek looked at his face and shuddered when he saw no compassion there. He looked around him at the sarcophagus and back up at the Doctor who was staring down at him calmly.

"You wouldn't," Bezrek said.

"I wouldn't what?" the Doctor replied calmly.

"You wouldn't entomb me alive," Bezrek said, trying to remain calm.

"Why not? You tried to do that to me, now you'll see what it feels like to be in my place."

"You wouldn't do that," Bezrek insisted as panic began to grip his heart.

"Why not? I'm Sheltek Na'barak, am I not? The scourge of the universe? The destroyer of worlds? Why wouldn't I put the lid on this sarcophagus and walk away. That's what you tried to do to me, yeah? And one thing I don't like is backstabbers. I hate betrayal so those are the ones I deal with the most harshly. And…Rose is safe now which means I can concentrate on you and your boss."

"Ap…pophis," Bezrek stammered, his heart beating rapidly when he saw the deadly calm on the Doctor's face.

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out the antigravity handle. It resembles a large metal door handle. He showed it to Bezrek.

"This can clamp onto heavy objects and when I activate the antigravity field within it, I can pick up the object with no trouble. Just in case you're hoping I have no way to put the lid back on.

Bezrek tried to get out of the linen bonds but the Doctor had tied them too tightly. The Doctor bent over, put the handle on top of the lid, switched it on and lifted the lid easily with one hand. He showed the lid to Bezrek who paled at the sight.

"Please, have mercy," Bezrek said as fear sweat broke out on his forehead.

"Why should I?" the Doctor said dispassionately. "You showed no mercy to me or Rose. Why would I show mercy to you?"

"Because you're not like me, Time Lord."

"How do you know? You lot don't know me that well. For all you know, I'm worse than you could possibly imagine. After all, I'm singlehandedly responsible for devastating whole worlds. You don't know what I did to those worlds; I could have eaten the women and children alive while their menfolk watched. I do love a good hunk of raw meat from time to time. Anyway, I have no time to stand here and chat. Goodbye, Bezrek, good luck having your hearts judged in the afterlife."

"No!" Bezrek screamed as the Doctor put the lid over the sarcophagus and lowered it.

Once it was snugly on, the Doctor turned to Apophis. He had also tied him up but he was still unconscious. He pulled out the smelling salts, pulled out the stopper and held it under his nose. Apophis grunted and his eyes opened. He tried to get up and hissed in anger when he saw he was tied up with the linen strips. He looked up at the Doctor who was putting the bottle back in his pocket.

"Free me, slave!" he hissed at the Doctor.

"Funny you should say slave," the Doctor said, pulling out the walkie talkie. "Because that's what you're going to be in a minute or two."

"What have you done to me? Let me go!" Apophis hissed at him.

"Nope, sorry, I can't do that. You're going to listen to me for a change," the Doctor said. "You have noticed the metal headband around your head."

Apophis paused for a moment so he could feel it around his head and then he resumed trying to break free of the bonds. The Doctor smirked when he wasn't successful.

"Finished?" the Doctor said when he stopped struggling.

"What are you going to do?" Apophis said.

"I'm going to enslave your mind and make you command your crew to fly you and your ship to the nearest prison planet. Then I'm leaving with Rose. Rose is safe by the way, in my TARDIS, far from your abuse and since she isn't around to see me or stop me, I can do all sorts of nasty things she wouldn't approve of. You think you've seen Sheltek Na'barak, you have yet to see the true scourge of the universe. I'm capable of far more than you can ever dream."

"You don't have the guts, Time Lord."

"Oh?"

Before Apophis could stop him, he reached down and hit the black button on the headband. Apophis went rigid and his eyes fixed in a dead stare. The Doctor pulled a small knife out of his pocket and cut the linen bonds. Once Apophis was free of them, he lifted the walkie talkie to his lips.

"Arise and stand before me," he said into the speaker.

Apophis woodenly rose and stood before the Doctor, his eyes glazed over and his posture rigid. The Doctor smirked.

"Walk into the wall," he said into the walkie talkie.

He got out of the way as Apophis walked in a straight line to the stone wall and kept on walking even when he was up against it. The Doctor watched while he kept trying to walk through the wall.

"Stop," he said into the walkie talkie.

Apophis stopped walking and stood still, facing the wall.

"Go to the sarcophagus and use the handle to open the lid," the Doctor said into the walkie talkie.

Apophis turned, walked to the tomb and lifted off the lid. The Doctor walked over and looked in at Bezrek who was now completely pale and terrified.

"Set the lid down," the Doctor said into the walkie talkie while Bezrek watched.

Apophis set the lid down and stayed in a hunched position.

"Stand up," the Doctor commanded.

Apophis stood up.

"What are you doing?" Bezrek said.

"I'm the master of your Master now," the Doctor said to him. "I control his mind and I can order him to do anything I want. Watch…" he said as he brought the walkie talkie to his lips. "Pick up Bezrek and hold him in your arms."

Bezrek watched in silent horror as Apophis obeyed, picking him up out of the crypt and holding him in his rigid arms. The Doctor walked around the tomb and stood at Bezrek's head while Apophis stood as still as a statue.

"Now, I can order my new slave to snap your back in two like a twig," the Doctor said to him. "Would you like that?"

"No! Have mercy," Bezrek said. "Have mercy on me, Sheltek Na'barak. Don't kill me."

The Doctor's eyes bored into him and Bezrek swallowed hard at the lack of compassion in his eyes. He trembled when the Doctor raised the walkie talkie to his lips and held it there, waiting to speak to his slave. The Doctor drew out the suspense, enjoying the fear on Bezrek's face. Finally, he spoke.

"Put Bezrek down and order your pilot to take us back up to the ship," he said to Apophis.

Bezrek breathed a sigh of relief when He laid him down on the floor and pulled a communicator out of a pouch suspended on a leather belt around his waist. The Doctor took back his handle and put it in his pocket and came in close to Bezrek while Apophis ordered the pilot to activate the transmat beam in a dull voice. Then a light surrounded them and they were back on the ship in a heartbeat. The Doctor looked around at the guards who were still unconscious and spoke into the walkie talkie.

"You will round up all your guards and Bezrek and lock the away in your prison cells. Then you will fly the ship to the nearest maximum security prison planet and you will surrender yourself and your crew to them after telling them your crimes."

"You won't get away with this," Bezrek said as Apophis moved to obey his master.

"Seems I am getting away with it," the Doctor said, pointing to Apophis who was starting to gather together the unconscious guards in a heap so the transmat beam could take them down to the prison cells. The Doctor watched him for a moment and then reached into his pocket for the remaining gas grenades. He held out three of them as he spoke into the walkie talkie.

"You will use these on your crew if you encounter any resistance," he said.

Apophis stopped what he was doing, took the grenades and put them in his pouch. Then he went back to piling up the guards. The Doctor looked at Bezrek.

"S'pose this is goodbye, Bezzy-boy. Have fun in prison."

"You won't get away with this! We'll find a way to defeat you, Doctor!" Bezrek snarled at him.

"Please, it's Sheltek Na'barak," the Doctor said over his shoulder as he headed to the door. "Do get it right, will you?"

He calmly walked out the door, heading back to his TARDIS while Bezrek screamed curses at him.

(Three weeks later…)

"Ah, sunny California," the Doctor said as he and Rose stepped outside the TARDIS.

Rose looked around at the quaint little suburb they had landed in.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"I believe it's called Hill Valley, beautiful, isn't it?" he said. "Let's take a walk and see what we can find and…"

He trailed off and Rose threw him a questioning look. Then her eyes followed his stunned gaze and they widened in shock when she saw something familiar in a nearby backyard.

"Hey, isn't that the steam engine we saw in Egypt?" she said, pointing to it.

The locomotive was sitting halfway out of a huge cave in a backyard. Across the yard was a two story white wooden house with a porch. Rose was about to say something to the Doctor when he sprinted across the street, leapt a white picket fence that surrounded the property in one huge leap and ran towards the house.

"Oh no," Rose muttered as she ran to the fence, climbed up and over it and pursued the Doctor.

By the time she reached the Doctor, he was repeatedly jabbing his finger on the doorbell and she could hear a ding, dong, ding, dong coming from inside. Then the door opened and a familiar man with wild white hair glared at the Doctor.

"Quit that!" the man said, "What do you want?"

The Doctor stunned the man when he slapped him across the face.

"That's for causing us trouble!" the Doctor said. "Stay away from us in future with that steam engine thing. This is your first and only warning. Now have a good day."

Rose hid her face from the man, blushing a deep fire engine red, as the Doctor calmly turned and walked off the porch, leaving the old man to stare at him in a confused silence.

"Don't mind him, he's insane, completely barking mad. He just got out of the insane asylum yesterday because they couldn't handle him," Rose said to the old man after she lowered her hands. "Have a good day though, and…sorry, about the bitch slap. Won't happen again, promise."

Rose turned and quickly followed the Doctor back across the yard. The man watched them go and when they were over the fence, he shook his head and went back inside.

"Clara," he yelled as he closed the door. "I'm thinking about moving us to Atlantis. The neighborhood is becoming stranger by the minute. What do you think about packing right now and hightailing it out of here before we end up in a loony bin along with the neighbors?"

THE END.

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