Gary Russell - The Twilight Streets

‘A plan?’ asked Bilis. ‘Perhaps you would care to share your plan, Captain?’

‘Not yet.’ He looked at Idris. ‘You in?’

Idris was horrified to hear his own voice reply, ‘God, yeah.’

‘Good. Bilis, you now have the book, the diary. That should be able to store the light creatures, if they trust you enough to go back into it.’

‘Correct.’

‘Then why’d you give it away to start with?’ asked Ianto.

And for the first time, Bilis’s demeanour lost its benign, slightly patronising look.

‘The Light had a job to do, helping Abaddon. By keeping the diary away from the agents of the Dark and Pwccm, I ensured that the Light could not be harmed. Once Abaddon was destroyed, the Light were vulnerable, so I needed to get the diary back and return them… to where they belong. To survive. To protect this planet in my Lord’s absence.’

‘Good,’ Jack said, dismissing Bilis’s evangelical tirade as swiftly as possible. ‘Now get out there and do it. Ianto, go with him.’

They left with the diary.

Jack turned to Gwen. ‘You saw the future?’

‘Did you believe it?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Not really. It’s just a possibility.’

‘Jack, I’m so sorry. We did-’

Jack held up a hand. ‘No. No you didn’t, and that’s the point. The light creatures were telling us what could happen if the balance between them isn’t restored. Presumably it’s how they communicate. Nice, if a bit melodramatic. Now, I think we can open the Rift and draw the Dark light creatures into it, but we need a booster. The Rift Manipulator at the Hub isn’t enough. It needs something to fine tune them, as it were.’

Idris moved forward. ‘There’s always-’

But Jack cut him off. ‘Hang on. Gwen, what if we let them swamp someone?’

‘That’d be suicide.’

‘Excuse me,’ Idris tried again. ‘But I know of a point where-’

Gwen waved him quiet and looked back at Jack. ‘I mean it, there is no way we’re letting you take on that responsibility.’

‘It’s my choice, Gwen, don’t forget that.’

The door to the room crashed open. It was a breathless Ianto. ‘Got a little problem.’

Outside the house, Jack and Gwen stared at Ianto’s ‘little problem’.

The Light had left the people. Bilis triumphantly clutched the diary to his heart. ‘I just need to use the Rift energy to return them home,’ he murmured.

‘Sure you do,’ said Jack. ‘Doesn’t help us with that!’

Everyone on the street now looked as Toshiko did. Eyes full of Dark light stared at the Torchwood group.

‘Did you do this?’ Gwen asked Bilis.

‘No,’ said Ianto. ‘I reckon he was as surprised as I was.’

Jack grabbed Bilis, swung him round. ‘So, you gonna disappear on us or help?’

Bilis just looked serenely up at him. ‘Help, of course. I can’t release the Light if the Dark is still at large. We need to imprison the Dark in the box.’

‘Via Rift energy,’ Jack finished. ‘Got it.’

A clown stepped forward. Jack realised it was a disguised Owen.

The clown pointed at the diary.

Jack nodded. ‘Yeah, we got the point. You want the little Light guys. We don’t want you to have the little Light guys. Eternal war, across the dimensions, yadda yadda yadda. Tough.’

He turned away from Owen.

‘Gwen,’ he hissed. ‘What broke Bilis’s little spell on you?’

‘Remembering the future,’ she replied.

‘But Ms Cooper was infected by the Light,’ Bilis insisted. ‘It is the Dark that controls these people.’

‘Same principle must work though,’ said Ianto. ‘You put the Light in us, those two must have lost it, and that let the Dark in. How?’

Bilis shrugged. ‘Perhaps, in some tiny gap between expelling the Light back into me and before wakefulness, the Dark took hold.’

‘Why not me or Jack?’ Gwen looked at the diary. ‘It’s something to do with that, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Bilis. ‘I think it’s the prison box. I used the very last of the Light on the Captain here, the prison is empty of everything now. Perhaps with nothing to link either Dark or Light to the prison, it all had to go somewhere. So the Dark took hosts, just as the Light had.’

Idris raised his hand, like a school kid.

‘What?’

‘You need something to focus this Rift energy you keep talking about, right? The tallest building in Cardiff has a great big aerial on top of it. Can’t you use that?’

Jack hugged Idris. ‘Stadium House! Idris, you’re a genius!’ He turned to Bilis. ‘I can stop this. We boost the power to the aerial, tune it to the Rift frequency. That high up, the Dark light will flock to it. Once captured, we drain it back via the Manipulator in our Hub and straight into your prison box. Job One done. Job Two, you’re responsible for. You have to get your Light out of the diary and into the ground or whatever. You need Rift energy for that, but we can’t risk the Dark and Light combining. So you do that when we’ve dealt with the Dark, right?’

Bilis understood. ‘I need to be here to do that.’

‘You need to be where I tell you,’ snapped Jack. ‘And for now that’s at the Hub. Ianto will show you how to rig your prison box into the water tower.’

‘He will?’

‘I will?’

‘Yeah.’

‘No, Jack. I haven’t got a clue. You need Tosh or Owen or both for that. Sorry.’

Jack deflated slightly.

‘How did you get the Light into Jack and everyone?’ Idris asked Bilis.

‘I absorbed it myself, then spread it into them. It’s easy, the Light likes new hosts.’

‘So,’ Idris said slowly, ‘if we could drain Owen and Tosh of their Dark and then re-host it, they’d be free, yes?’

Bilis nodded. ‘I am able to play host to the Dark. I am strong enough. But if I am its host for too long, it will learn everything I am, discover everything I do. It will know of my connection to the Light. It would use me to destroy everything.’

‘How long would it need to be in you before you lost the ability to pass it on?’

Bilis thought about this. ‘I believe not more than thirty seconds. I just don’t know how much longer I could fight it.’

Idris looked at Jack, then took his hand. ‘Listen to me, Jack. Listen good, cos you rarely do. I’m useless to you here, I’m not part of your Torchwood gang. But let me do this. Get Bilis to use his magic whatnot to draw the Dark out of your guys and into me. They’ll be free, and you’ll have a better chance of defeating it. And then I’ll be fine. Along with all these other people. You asked me earlier if I was “in”. Yeah, yeah I am. Right in.’

Jack shook his head. ‘Too risky. No.’

Bilis shrugged. ‘It is a good plan. And I believe it would work.’

‘The day I trust you with a friend’s life is the day hell freezes over,’ Jack snapped.

Gwen moved between Jack and the others, easing Idris away. ‘Jack, it’s a plan. It’s a good plan. Stupid, too, because Idris could die, but it’s his choice. You know it’s the only way.’

Jack looked at Idris, then across to the painted Toshiko and Owen, standing there, utterly consumed by a power that could devastate the world.

‘There’s a flaw,’ Ianto said. ‘Idris knows our plan, too. If the Dark can read Bilis’s mind, it could certainly read a weaker one like Idris’s.’ He glanced at Idris. ‘No offense,’ he said without sincerity.

Equally untruthfully, Idris replied, ‘None taken.’

Jack looked at the young men. ‘Boys, don’t squabble over Uncle Jack, it’s not very becoming.’ He looked at Gwen. ‘It’s a risk.’

‘It’s all about risks. Everything we do always is.’