In 6 Coburg Street, Jack was sitting in the armchair, and Ianto was crouching down beside him.
Bilis Manger stood by the window, arms behind his back, a gun pressed against his head by Idris Hopper. Well, not so much pressed as jabbing him like an insect, thanks to Idris’s shaking hands. Holding a gun wasn’t something the average Secretary to the Mayor’s Office did on a daily basis.
‘Jack!’
They all heard Gwen’s voice from outside.
Jack looked up at Ianto. ‘Let her in.’ He then nodded to Idris, who gratefully lowered the gun and handed it over to Jack.
A second later, Ianto came back into the room, with Gwen close behind him.
She looked about her. ‘Nice place you have here, Bilis. Decorate it yourself?’
Jack and Idris exchanged confused looks.
‘Ah,’ Bilis said. ‘Perception filters. Useful things, I’m sure you’ll agree.’
He clicked his fingers and they were inside a shop. Bilis’s clock shop. A Stitch in Time. Outside, people were walking down a Cardiff arcade, staring at other shops.
He clicked his fingers a second time, and the room became Coburg Street again, although clearly this was a surprise to Gwen.
‘The place takes on an appearance that seems familiar. It shows you an environment where you might expect to find me. Gwen, here, associates me with clocks, as did Ms Sato. Hence the shop we met in once before. The rest of you expected to see the insides of an old Victorian two-up two-down, and that’s what you got.’ He smiled at Jack. ‘Or did you see something else?’
Jack smiled back. ‘That’d be telling.’
Bilis nodded. ‘We have so much in common, you and I. A shame we find ourselves on opposing sides. Nine times out of ten.’
‘Jack,’ Gwen cut across them. ‘The people outside, they’re inhabited by Rift aliens, the-’
‘Light, yeah we know,’ Ianto finished. ‘Providing hosts until we can get them home.’
‘Then we got it all wrong,’ Gwen said. She turned and pointed at Bilis. ‘He’s not the enemy.’
‘This time.’ Bilis bowed. ‘Well, I’m just saying what you’re all thinking.’
‘We have to get Tosh and Owen back,’ said Jack. ‘I have a plan, but I need them at the Hub.’
‘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.’
TWENTY-THREE
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