The Doctor's Kind of Town
By Alan Smithee
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor and Peri encounter a threat in Chicago.

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Calvary Catholic Cemetery, the oldest in Chicago, lies far north of the city, almost nestling up against the suburb of Evanston. It had once existed closer to the city, but health concerns and the increasing value of land forced the City Government to move it. This was in 1859.

Although not abandoned, it was fairly neglected for a number of years. Weeds grew thickly, cut only by infrequent visits from volunteer caretakers. Vandals had knocked over many of the tombstones. Graffiti, some of it Satanic, sprawled across many of the ancient mausoleums.

It was a dreadfully cold and overcast October afternoon. Calvary sits on the lakefront and has a breakwater of piled up limestone boulders. The lake effect rain threw a persistent horizontal shower across the cemetery. Chicago Detective Frank Madden considered himself an idiot for trudging along through the mess. The girl walking alongside him, Peri Brown, gave him a not-so-reassuring smile, but said nothing.

She was petite, very pretty, in her early twenties and carrying a heavy leather bag. She was dressed in riding pants, riding boots and a thick black turtleneck sweater. Best thing really, considering all the rain and mud they were tracking through. Her companion, on the other hand, was dressed in clothes that would give any dry cleaner a heart attack if they were ever to get dirty.

"It’s just a short matter of finding his tomb," called back the man Detective Madden had come to know as the Doctor. Madden figured him to be one of those people from the Albert Einstein school of genius. The kind that had a closet full of the same outfit, so he wouldn’t have to worry about what he wore throughout the week. For the past week or so that they had been working together, Madden hadn’t ever seen him in anything but the cream-colored coat, white sweater, striped pants and white shoes.

The stalk of celery had intrigued him and he had asked Ms. Brown about it. She shyly admitted to him in Area Two Police Headquarters that she had no idea, but had been dying to ask him herself. She had yet to gather up the courage. Madden noticed that despite the mud and muck, the Doctor had somehow managed to stay clean.

***

Madden would have cursed himself for being talked into coming out here, but what he’d just experienced in that strange blue box had thrown him for a loop. And six unsolved deaths in two months provided a good catalyst. All of the victims were female teenagers, murdered with precisely the same modus operandi. All of them were found within a few miles of this vicinity, puncture wounds to the throat, bodies drained of blood. Justice for the victims overruled his inability to grasp what the Doctor had told/shown him in the brief time they had known each other.

The Chicago papers were plastered with headlines about Satanic rituals and sacrificial killings. Mayoral orders came down to solve this whole nightmare quickly. Madden had drawn duty to solve the case. Which was when Madden met this Doctor character and his companion, whom the Mayor himself had set over from City Hall. Apparently the Mayor had prior experience with the Doctor and had personally requested his assistance.

The three agreed to work together. Peri, he discovered, had never been to Chicago, so he made it a point to show the lovely girl around town. Madden later learned over lunch at Mr. Beef’s that she had only just started traveling with the Doctor.

"You could say I have spent several lifetimes following vampires," the Doctor said at lunch.

Madden locked eyes with Peri. Lifetimes? Peri shrugged, not knowing what he was talking about either.

"As incredibly outrageous as it may sound to you, Detective, your murders are clearly attacks by a vampire. I think I can help find him and destroy him."

"A vampire?" Madden scoffed. The words "nut case" sing-songed into his head.

"Yes, a vampire. Obvious, isn’t it?" the Doctor said, a white napkin at the collar of his shirt, preventing any Italian beef sauce from dripping on his sweater. "If I’m correct, and I think I am, judging from the vicinity of the deaths, it’s one Cesar Novotia, entombed within the family crypt in 1873. A few years after your great fire.

"Several months after the fire there had been numerous deaths such as these in the vicinity. Described as anemia at the time. Novotia had been known to dabble in the black arts. Allegedly died under strange and unspecified circumstances. I knew better at once. We opened his coffin clandestinely and drove a stake through his heart. After the staking, the deaths stopped."

Madden threw his sandwich down. "Now come on! You’re kidding, right? How do you really know all this?"

The Doctor removed his napkin, a hurt expression on his face.

Peri squirmed a little in her plastic chair. "Here we go," she muttered.

"Detective," the Doctor sighed. "I know because I was there. My companion and I were looking for a particular key and we were sidetracked to your lovely city. I even dropped a dog whistle in the tomb."

What followed from Detective Madden was a barrage of traditional Chicago Police Departmental jargon. Many of which were new words to the Doctor. Peri had to translate some of the more descriptive ones for him. Nonplussed, the Doctor merely smiled and said, "Let me show you something."

When the TARDIS materialized outside the west entrance of Calvary, beneath a large stone gate with three Gothic arches, Detective Madden had to admit that he was in over his head.

"Don’t give it a moment’s thought, Detective. Disbelief is a daily occurrence to me," the Doctor smiled, pulling on his panama hat and exiting.

***

Still following the Doctor, Madden asked. "Why is it this Novotia is suddenly on the prowl again after all these years?"

"I should think it has something to do with all this graffiti, Detective. Some would-be Satanists most probably broke into the Novotia crypt, opened the coffin, saw the stake through his heart, and removed it to see what would happen. The worst thing ever, really. It released him. But I was younger and more bohemian back then. I won’t make the same mistakes this time."

"I see."

The Doctor examined a small pocket watch. "Just past midday. We can find his crypt before darkness and destroy him before he kills again.”

There were quite a number of new graves since the Doctor last visited, but eventually their search proved fruitful.

"There it is!" The Doctor pointed to the mausoleum. It had been smeared with graffiti; the door had been forced open and was lying at a crooked angle against the entrance.

Madden envisioned an assortment of wanna-be suburban Goths and Vampires, performing asinine rituals here. He observed with disgust empty cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, broken syringes, used condoms and dirty blankets scattered all around.

"Vampires sleep by day, right, Doctor?" Peri said, easing up behind him.

"Those legends are indeed true, Peri. We should find him resting in his coffin."

"I don’t think I can watch someone having a stake driven through them."

"Brave heart, Te…Peri," the Doctor mumbled, putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "That is not what I have in mind this time."

The trio entered the short, squat mausoleum. A vandalized coffin rested in the far corner. It bore evidence of having been forced open recently, and the verdigris-covered bronze tablet read: CESAR NOVOTIA: 1830 - 1873. MAY HE REST FOREVER.

"Now then," the Doctor gestured over to Madden. "Help me open the coffin and I will show you your killer."

The Doctor and Madden lifted the petrified coffin lid. In the dimming light of the setting afternoon sun, Madden peered inside to find the coffin… empty.

The Doctor was speechless for a moment. "They must’ve moved his body."

Peri shrieked behind them and the two men spun on their heels. A figure stepped out from the deepest shadows at the back of the crypt. He had Peri in one long bony hand.

"After so long a sleep," Cesar Novotia said, "I find that I have come down with a case of insomnia."

Madden pulled his revolver, but the Doctor gently eased the gun down with his right hand. "Careful. You may hit Peri."

Novotia sniffed the air. "I know that scent. Could this be the Doctor? Have you a bit of vampire or sorcerer in you?"

"Nothing of the kind, I assure you."

Peri struggled at the monster’s grip. The leather bag she had been carrying lay close to the Doctor’s feet. Thank Rassilon the girl had thought to unzip it, the Doctor observed. He nudged Madden slightly, using his eyes to indicate the vampire standing in front of them.

"And what fine taste treats you bring me. I haven’t had a bite all day!" Novotia said, bringing his face close to Peri’s neck.

Madden screamed and lunged forward, creating just the diversion the Doctor wanted. Novotia now had two humans grasped by the neck in each hand. Novotia snarled into the face of the Detective with burning red eyes. "I shall kill you next."

"I shouldn’t think so!" The Doctor shouted in his highly animated fashion, and held up a device containing three fragile rods. Novotia, Peri and Madden looked at it quizzically.

The Doctor thumbed the switch on the battery pack beneath the rods and the entire mausoleum was filled with a bright purplish light. The vampire immediately released his two captives and shrieked insanely. The clothes on his body burst into flames. He attempted to rush towards the coffin, but the Doctor blocked his path with the strange contraption.

Forcing the creature back, the Doctor pressed forward. Novotia himself started to crumble into dust. Peri had never seen a vampire die before, but she couldn’t be sure which was worse? Watching one being staked, or watching one fade into non-existence.

Madden managed to circumnavigate the creature and threw open the rest of the door as best he could. What remaining daylight there shot in and finished the job the Doctor had started. All that remained of Novotia was some smoldering clothing and ashes. The Doctor grimaced slightly and then put the device back in the leather bag.

"What was that?" Madden asked.

"Hmm? Oh! You’ll pardon me, Peri, but I took the liberty of dismantling the self-tanning UV light fixture from your room in the TARDIS. Nothing quite destroys a vampire quite like sunlight. I should have this reinstalled before too long, I imagine." The Doctor kicked at the ashes with his sneaker, scattering the ashes as best he could from the clothing.

Madden walked up behind him. "How exactly do I put all this on a report, Doctor?"

"Detective Madden, I am quite sure with your colorful dialogue, you will find a way," the Doctor poked at the floor of the mausoleum, brushing more ashes into the wind and pulling something metallic from the dirt in the floor. It looked like an old dog whistle.

The Doctor waved it from its ring in front of Madden and Peri. "See? Told you so. Now, Madden, do tell me all about this meal called Chicago-style deep dish pizza. It’s all they ever talk about in the Draconian Cluster."