The Vampire of Paris (novel)

The Vampire of Paris is the fifth book in The Darksmith Legacy series.

Publisher's summary
The Doctor decides it's safe to go back in time to find Varlos before he died. From what Gisella recalls of her father's plans, they head for Paris in 1895 where they discover a city in fear. Why will hardly anyone dare venture out after dark? Who is stealing time from their victims? What will the Doctor do when he realises the killer is also after him? Find out by reading the next thrilling adventure in... The Darksmith Legacy!

Story Synopsis
Arriving in nineteenth century Paris, (Montmartre in 1895) with Varlos's daughter Gisella, the Doctor is aware that something has followed them on the TARDIS's coat-tails. The first person they meet on the unusually empty streets is Nicholas a nine-year old boy from Madame Misra's orphanage who has been aged seventy years by a creature that visited in the night, wrapped only in a blanket and the remains of a night-shirt, the Doctor takes him to a police station.

Overhearing conversations about other 'rapid-aging cases' including circus animals, the Doctor posing as Divisional Commissioner Doctor LeSmith from the Ministry of the Interior, offers his assistance to Inspector DuPont and his assistant Baron De Guerre. Whatever the creature is it is feeding on scraps of time, like a time-vampire and along with De Guerre, Gisella and the Doctor head back to the TARDIS to gather some equiptment.

En route the Doctor encounters the Darksmith Agent, who having hidden aboard the Dreadbringer ship on Despair, followed the TARDIS to Paris. But the Agent is damaged from its flight and has not yet fully repaired itself and the Doctor is able to escape.

Gisella and the Doctor accept De Gaulle's offer of hospitally but before the Doctor has a chance to open a padlocked box at his home that catches his eye, the alarm is raised that the creature has been trapped up the Eiffel Tower. The creature that Du Pont brings down is not as he (and Paris), believe, the time-vampire, but a Tower worker, Pierre Breton who has been transformed back to an earlier stage of evolution.

The Vampire and the Agent are loose on the streets, and De Guerre (having left his home in a hurry after having retrieved something from his padlocked box which the Doctor discovers contains Varlos's possessions and some skeletal remains), is missing. The house is about to be attacked by the Agent when, detecting a stronger signal from Varlos's Darksmith technology, the Agent turns away in pursuit.

The Doctor leads Gisella and Nicholas through the streets of Montmartre, following the Agent on the trail of De Guerre. The Agent is seen entering a small shelter before emerging and heading for the hillside. Further investigation by the Doctor reveals a draught coming from a small passageway in a back wall, that leads deep into the hillside. Following the route ahead of the Agent, they come across a huge chamber in the old mine working that houses not one but TWO spacecraft. One, Gisella recognises as she recalls her escape from The Darksmith Collective with her father, the other is unknown. Large and spikey, in menacing red and black, the other spacecraft belongs to the vampire creature which is waiting nearby.

Making a retreat, the Doctor, Gissela and Nicholas lock themselves in the Vampires craft where, along with weapons from future times they find De Guerre. De Guerre is not a gun-runner and explains that the vampire creature is a means of fuelling the craft. The creature is doing all it knows, collecting pure time energy from convienient and local sources.

When De Guerre is accused of hoarding Varlos's bones in his padlocked box, the truth is revealed. De Guerre's features blur and he is revealed as being Varlos. The vampires craft had come come through the same hole that Varlos had. Varlos had seen the first victim, De Guerre, die and be reduced to bones (and kept in his box). Varlos, on discovering how respected De Guerre was, assumed his identity in order to help stop the vampire. Varlos was driven by a cover-up so as not to draw the attention of the Darksmith Collective, and keep his presence quiet. Varlos has since discovered that the crew of the other ship had perished on landing, the engines are now fully powered, and the vampire, without instructions is continuing to absorb power and is near to creating an overload with devastating consequences for the planet.

The Doctor has a plan, by modifying the engines of the craft he could drain off some of the time-energy, returning it to those from who it was stolen, and storing the rest in a mock-up of the Eternity Crystal that Varlos has prepared as a trap

Leaving the craft through an escape hatch they make their way out of the mines only to be trapped between the vampire and the Agent. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to create a resonance in the rock which sends the agent dropping down into a lower cavern but not before a stray shot hits the vampire and turns it into a time bomb ready to go off. Wounded the Vampire stumbles out onto the streets as all around people up till now still celebrating the death of what they believed was the Vampire, scream out. The Doctor tells Varlos to give him the other crystal that he can use himself as a conduit for the energy from the vampire to the crystal, but Varlos refuses and instead takes Gisella's hand and reach out to the vampire.

In a burst of energy Nicholas (and all the others) are given their time back. The Doctor takes Varlos and Gisella's hand joining the connection and wills the vampire back to the vortex free at last and ending its pain, lonliness and the madness it has known for so long. As Varlos dies he is unable to tell the Doctor how to destroy the Eternity Crystal, but he does tell the Doctor he is Gisella's creator not her father, more than a robot she is "life conjured from metals and plastics."

Gisella's recover is quick and after sending the alien craft back to where it came from, the Agent reappears. The Doctor tricks it into believing he knows where to destroy the Crystal before leaving in the TARDIS. His plan is to wait until the Agent in the Darksmith craft heads off ahead of them, at which point the TARDIS will follow but Varlos had left a trap in case he was followed and the slipstream has been charged with destronic particles capable of ripping the TARDIS apart...

Characters

 * The Doctor
 * Gisella
 * Varlos
 * Nicholas
 * Baron De Guerre
 * Inspector DuPont
 * Pierre Breton

The Books

 * Interspersed with the main fiction is;
 * TARDIS Data Bank (extra information on 'Paris', 'Montmartre', 'Eiffel Tower' and 'Sacred Heart')
 * Activity pages x3 (The puzzle solutions give the reader the chance to think like the Doctor!)
 * The Story so far, next installment cover preview and opening preview.


 * The Darksmith Legacy's overall story was devised by Justin Richards who contributed four of the ten titles.
 * The Darksmith Legacy was certificated to 13, with under 13's needing parental approval.
 * This first book in the series was released along with the second before the remaining titles saw a monthly release throughout 2009.
 * Each book in the series was priced £4.99 (UK) and featured a foiled cover with illustration by Peter McKinstry

Interactive Website Content
By visiting the website and participating in the Quest participants can unlock additional content like computer wallpapers to download. The Quest itself features; games - (like finding a specific target in an image, by using the sonic screwdriver as a detector, to hone in (to register 100 on the scale). Once located the 'Target' then provides additional information used in further puzzles involving both words and numbers.

Continuity
to be added

Timeline
The Darksmith Legacy adventures occur after the Doctor has left Donna Noble back on Earth. This latest adventure in Paris ,follows on directly from The Depths of Despair and are immediately followed by those in The Planet of Oblivion.