Sarah Pinborough - Into the Silence

Ianto didn't feel his mouth open, and Drew definitely couldn't see how impressed his apprentice was because his own eyes were closed, his knees bending and body swaying as he set the song free to fill the church with its message of love more effectively than any sermon could.

Suddenly Ianto felt an ache inside, wishing he could have heard Ben Pritchard singing alongside his lover rather than his own wooden baritone. Even from a few metres away, he could make out the tears that ran occasionally down Drew's face, as if, for the first time since Ben's terrible death, he was truly letting his grief out, singing it out to the world. It was beautiful.

Jack drummed his fingers on the steering wheel inside the SUV. Sitting around doing nothing was not something he did well. Even with an apparently endless life ahead of him, it was a frustrating waste of time. Behind him, DI Cutler beat out a similar quiet rhythm on the back of the leather seat. It seemed the policeman wasn't too hot on inactivity either. No one spoke. They'd long ago run out of conversation, and the tension of the alien's no-show hummed throughout the car.

Gritting his teeth, Jack stared out into the gloom of the falling night. Where the hell had the creature from the Silent Planet gone? It had to be out there somewhere and why the hell had it stopped attacking after such a frenzied start? And who the hell knew where it was really from anyway? All he had was guesswork and probability.

As the hours ticked past, he had found he was starting to doubt himself, and self-doubt was another thing Captain Jack Harkness didn't do well. It irritated him. But this case had the taste of unfinished business, and that he couldn't doubt. The feeling came from his gut and that was rarely wrong. There was a chance he might mess up the small details, but never the big picture. He'd seen too much not to trust his instincts. Maybe the alien was lying low for a while. Maybe they'd have to sit around waiting until they'd all gone crazy, or Ianto was taking to the stage of the Millennium Centre, or next year's competition came round, but it would be back. Jack just knew.

Beside him Gwen bristled, and Jack knew what she was going to say before her mouth opened. His pulse quickened.

'Rift activity.'

'Where?' The drumming of fingers stopped.

'Everywhere.' Gwen frowned at the screen. 'Tiny spikes. Nothing major. I don't understand. They seem to be all over the city.'

'That's not helping, Gwen.' Jack gripped the car door handle. They couldn't screw this up.

'I'm just telling you what the machine is telling me.'

'Don't just read it. Predict where it's going.'

Gwen flashed her dark, angry eyes at him. 'I'm not bloody Tosh. I'm doing my…' Her gaze back on the screen, she tilted her head. 'Hang on. They're converging. This is weird. It's like they're pulling together or something.' Recoiling, she flinched. 'Shit! We've got a big spike.' She looked up. 'It's coming together here! At the church!'

Jack was out of the SUV before she'd finished her sentence, arms pumping as he sprinted up through the alley, Cutler's heavier tread echoing his own a few paces behind. The church grew up from the corner and he pushed himself towards it.

Drew was just reaching the peak of his piece when Ianto's muscles stiffened slightly, his primal senses aware of danger even before it had quite arrived. Lost in the music, Drew sang on, but Ianto was no longer absorbed in his talent, the sound now merely a distraction as he glanced around trying to home in on what had disturbed him. He shivered, a chill running down his spine. Something was wrong.

He looked up, just before a window set high in the wall above him smashed, sending shards of crimson-coloured glass plummeting to the floor like bloodied hail and carrying within it a figure that disintegrated into nothing as he tried to focus on it, becoming only a substance hidden between the fragments. Ducking instinctively, Ianto yanked the portable device free and, crouching, peered upwards. Where the hell was it?

Drew had stopped singing and the backing music continued plaintively as the chubby man stared desperately at Ianto, fear wreaking havoc in his eyes before something caught at his chest and, as he gasped, his gaze dragged reluctantly to his left. Staying low and hidden by the aisle, Ianto moved forward, looking to see what Drew was staring at with such unconfined horror.

A dark void of blackness that was smeared against the wall of the church began to re-form, shaping itself into something solid. Watching the moulding of limbs and torso completing, cold gripped Ianto's chest and it took all his effort to touch his earpiece.

'Jack.' The name was suddenly unfamiliar, and for a moment Ianto couldn't see Jack's face in the space in his brain where it belonged.

'It's here.' The words rasped out of him, no purity in the sound and no breathing from his diaphragm, just sheer effort and desperation, and the minute he'd spoken he wasn't sure he could repeat the sentence, even if his life depended on it.

Life.

He dragged his head upwards against the weight of emptiness that was pressing his soul into isolation. Drew's life . The chubby man was just a few metres away, gazing, his mouth drooping open as if he'd forgotten how to close it. Ianto didn't look over at the alien. He couldn't. If he did, he was afraid he'd never move from the spot again.

Keeping his eyes down, he rushed towards the frozen Drew, needing to come between him and the creature. In the corner of his eye there was a sudden movement and, twisting his head, he saw the strange metallic man, his solid body a network of sharp fractures. Caught in that frozen moment as they both leapt towards Drew, Ianto thought the black silent void of its home planet leaked through those cracks, infecting the air around it with sheer emotional desolation, as if there was too much for the one creature to house.

Ianto wanted to weep, but had forgotten how. His own action was clumsily human, slow and heavy, but the alien moved fast and jerkily like the flickering image of a broken film; in one spot at one moment, and beside Drew in the next, its attention focused only on the chubby man as if the Torchwood operative didn't even exist.

Shrieking like a savage, Ianto threw himself at it, his finger on the button of the portable prison. The power of his cry deadened in the air around the alien and, taking a deep breath, Ianto's hand grabbed the creature's arm. His shriek died with the contact and what it brought with it. Coldness shocked its way throughout his own system and an instant silence emptied his mind. The world was empty. The world was dead. With the last drip of thought, he squeezed his numb finger down.

The alien tossed him aside as if he were no more than an irritating gnat, hurling him sideways and into the piano. His head slamming hard into the sharp edge of the wood, Ianto watched in despair as the portable prison tumbled to the back of the church, activated, but with nothing in its field but empty air. Blood trickled into his eye, and he was glad of its warmth. Black pain throbbed through his head and, just as unconsciousness gripped him, he heard Drew Powell begin to scream.

Jack pushed through the double doors from the vestry, not pausing in his stride as his eyes took in the scene ahead. Broken glass littered the pews, crunching underneath his boots. Beyond the altar and the piano, the blue light of the prison cylinder shone upwards but it was empty; Jack didn't even have to look at it to know that.

Drew Powell lay on the floor, the alien crouching over him. Its head was tossed back in an awful mockery of a howl, the pit of its mouth stretched open in a silent scream, pouring black emptiness out into the church. Its arm stretched out towards Powell's neck, the limb dissolved towards the end, the hand nothing more than a black streak that cut into the singer's neck like a scalpel.