Editing The Bloodletters (novel)

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{{Infobox Story
|image          = The Bloodletters cover.jpg
|number         = 
|main character = [[The Corsair (The Bloodletters)|The Corsair]]
|enemy          = [[Garglespike|Miss Garglespike]]
|setting        = [[Hoppiq Minor]], [[Horsehead Nebula]]
|featuring      = [[Kamreth]], [[Caxtarid]]
|writer         = [[Ryan Fogarty]]
|cover          = 
|publisher      = 
|release date   = [[1 May (releases)|1 May]] [[2020 (releases)|2020]]
|format         = Ebook
|series         = [[Ryan Fogarty]] novellas
|next           = Wringing Off (novel)
}}
{{you may|Wringing off|n1=the action "wringing off"}}
'''''Wringing Off''''' was a novella by [[Ryan Fogarty]] published in [[November (releases)|November]] [[2020 (releases)|2020]]. 

It featured a number of [[List of DWU concepts not owned by the BBC|DWU elements licensed from their creators]], principally showcasing the characters of [[Garglespike]] and [[Zadok]], created by [[David Llewellyn]] for [[Honeymoon Horrors (short story)|one of his contributions]] to ''[[The Brilliant Book 2012]]''. Also featured under license were the [[Caxtarid]]s from [[Kate Orman]]'s ''[[Virgin New Adventures]]'' novels, the planet [[Pelagos]] from ''[[Meglos (novelisation)|Meglos]]'', the [[Steggosian]]s and [[Arcopolis]] from [[Lance Parkin]]'s ''[[The Eyeless (novel)|The Eyeless]]'', miscellaneous species and elements from [[William H. Keith, Jr.]]'s [[FASA]] ''[[The Doctor Who Role Playing Game|Doctor Who Role Playing Game]]'' modules, and even an authorised allusion to [[BBV Productions]]' spoof character, [[the Chiropodist]]. 

The story also prominently featured public-domain characters from Golden Age pirate comics, reimagined in a science-fiction setting. These included the "Corsair Queen", alias Lila Evans, from the 1951 ''Buccaneer Comics'' #25 and "the Corsair", alias Jon Gallant, as debuted in 1946's ''A1 Comics'' #3 — who were merged into a [[the Corsair (The Bloodletters)|singular, genderfluid figure]] who served as the protagonist. Despite the obvious similarities, this Corsair and their mentor, known as "[[the Monk (The Bloodletters)|the Monk]] and likewise drawn from the 1950s comics, should not be confused with the established BBC characters of [[the Corsair]] and [[the Monk]].

== Publisher's summary ==
Danger comes with the tide. A [[The Corsair (The Bloodletters)|shipwrecked traveler]] seeks help on a low-tech planet. Instead he finds a village where the local pub caters to [[vampire]]s!

Something sinister lurks under the surface. Can the traveler unravel the mystery, stop the vampires and save [[Venn|an attractive local boy]] from their clutches before they both end up on the menu?

Blood, fire and the clink of pins will roar like thunder before the tide rolls out again…

== Plot ==
=== Part 1 ===
As a [[time-tide]] recedes, space-temporal sailor [[the Corsair (The Bloodletters)|the Corsair]] wades out of the [[time shoal]]s and into the body of water it has connected to this time: a freshwater lake. After a last look towards his shipwrecked [[TARDIS|timeship]], the ''[[Silver Spray]]'', he walks onto the shore, where he finds that it is early night and hears the sounds of a village or town nearby. He makes his way there, and a [[young girl (The Bloodletters)|young girl]] points him towards the pub. As he's about to enter it, he is struck by the realisation of what's seemed odd to him since he arrived: despite the presence of a bar, he cannot see any sign of a [[brewery]] in the village.

The answer to this mystery soon becomes apparent when the Corsair walks into the bar to find that the patrons all look sallow and pale, and that "a half-dozen naked young locals" are shackled behind the bar where the bottle-rack should be, with tubes wired into their veins and dripping into crystal jars. The bar caters to [[vampire]]s. He plays it cool and orders a meal, watching as one of the boys' blood is drained while he's kept hydrated with water, and brought to a trio of vampire patrons as laced with "[[Raxian]] [[tequila]]". He realises that each of the "donors" is forcibly given various specific alcohols to drink to give their blood specific flavours. A [[Kambret]] [[vampire]] is quick to reassure the Corsair that the donors are all criminals, serving a kind of community service, and that it is not deadly.

After leaving the pub, however, the Corsair ruminates on his gut feeling that there is more going on than a "completely legitimate vampire business venture". As he moodily swings his [[trellwand]] around to blow off steam, he gets a flashback to his early fencing training by [[the Monk (The Bloodletters)|the Monk]] in [[Cartago]], the [[colony]] of [[the Homeworld|their Homeworld]] where the Corsair grew up; even then, during one lesson, as the Monk was teaching the Corsair to stab through [[silverleaf palm tree]]s, the conversation turned to vampires, [[Time Lord|their kind]]'s ancestral enemies. Even as he continues to run the memory through his mind, the present-day Corsair realises that he is not the only one using this forest's trees for fencing practices, and follows a trail of destruction, wondering if he's looking at the evidence of a sparring session or an actual battle. 

Eventually, he finds the corpse of a [[Caxtarid]] [[Caxtarid (The Bloodletters)|vampire hunter]], with his eyes ritually removed from his skull and all his holy weapons removed from his person. He finds a medal for the [[Order of Hull]] on him, a high dignity for vampire-hunters, and concludes that only a far more powerful vampire than the "three guys in the pub" could have defeated him, an [[S-Rank vampire]]. Finally looking up in the sky, the Corsair realises that this planet is part of the [[Horsehead Nebula]], and concludes that he has stumbled into "the middle of the [[Ghost Wars]]".

=== Part 2 ===
Rather than go back to the village, [[the Corsair (The Bloodletters)|the Corsair]] sleeps in the forest, using a discarded wheelbarrow for a bed. As he sleeps, he ponders his situation, remembering how [[the Monk (The Bloodletters)|the Monk]] told him about the nature of the [[Ghost Wars]], a [[Change War]] in constant historical flux, where "the [[Time Winds]] blow strong". He realises that the temporal maelstrom of the Ghost Wars was what drew his ship off-course.

In the morning, he returns to the village, where the "blood donors" from last night — alive but feeble — are being released back to their families, who seem unhappy but resigned about the situation. The Corsair notes that the "prettiest" of the young men from last night, the one from whom blood was drawn under his very eyes, doesn't seem to have anyone waiting for him. He entices the younger man to eat with him and tell him more about the situation. 

As he eats his fill, the boy, [[Venn]], explains that he was indeed assigned to blood-duty as punishment for an alleged petty crime, when the Widow [[Sebastine]] told the [[Magistrate (The Bloodletters)|Magistrate]] that he'd been chucking "white eggs" at her shed, which he insists he hadn't, having only chucked ''blue'' eggs (which is apparently less rude in their culture). He also describes the operator of the pub, [[Garglespike|Miss Garglespike]], and the [[pastcanopic jar]]s she uses to conserve the blood. When Venn mentions that he's been nabbed twice now, while others seem to always escape the duty no matter how much they misbehave, the Corsair begins to suspect that a specific [[blood type]] is being sought after by the vampire. Before long, the Corsair is kissing Venn, taking him to a bedroom. After three passionate hours, the Corsair reveals that, although pleasurable, the entire enterprise has mainly allowed him to smell Venn's blood type ([[Q-Negative]]) based on "the body's [[Qi²]] levels during an ecstatic state". 

Later, the Corsair walks out into the village to ponder what he's learned, as the clues refuse to resolve into a meaningful solution. He finds the brewery, which is abandoned but contains nothing of note. Walking back down main street towards the pub, he finally comes across Miss Garglespike, a grey-haired woman whose entire upper body is covered in a veritable armour of [[pin]]s, taken from her victims. Watching her from the shadows, he is enraged when he sees [[the President Kodachrome]]'s old [[cat]] pin among her trophies. After she passes safely by, the Corsair leaves his hiding place and goes to the pub, where he finds that today's collection of blood has already been completed, with the day's five victims resting in beds and the three pastcanopic jars already lined up on a shelf behind the bar. Looking closer, the Corsair notes that Garglespike is keeping the jars safe from anyone but her via a barrier of vaporised [[holy water]], held over the threshold by two pins. Having learned all he could, including that Garglespike is far more powerful a vampire than he suspected, he leaves again.

=== Part 3 ===
After spending the night with [[Venn]] again, [[the Corsair (The Bloodletters)|the Corsair]] wakes up in the morning in a good mood, going over his options. Since he wants to be able to make his getaway in the ''[[Silver Spray]]'' immediately after he wrecks [[Garglespike]]'s plans, he reflects that he must wait for the [[time tide]]s. With Venn in a talkative mood, he learns that the planet's name is [[Hoppiq Minor]], as well as the reason for the closing of the brewery (the vampires didn't want prospective donors to have cheap beer in their system to dilute the flavour of the high-quality alcohol they desire). The conversation strays to the topic of [[marriage]], an institution whose traditions on this planet are quite unusual, but which is beginning to turn towards what Earthlings would recognise as conventional romance, something which Venn thinks is unwise. 

Setting out to continue the investigation into Garglespike's activities, the two deduce that Garglespike must be storing her large stash of excess blood somewhere, and decide to ask [[Tvankk]], the old woman who washes Garglespike's jars for her. The old woman directs them "east into the forest", and after a little searching, they find the large blue barrels of blood, equipped with [[stasis field]]s, hidden in a stash beneath a deep-rooted tree. However, they are soon jumped by [[Atrenor|the blue-skinned vampire]] from the bar, whom the Corsair had not seen coming, not realising that any other vampires than Garglespike were sunlight-proof. He is knocked out.

=== Part 4 ===
In a dream that is ''almost'' a memory, where [[the Corsair (The Bloodletters)|the Corsair]] and [[the Monk (The Bloodletters)|the Monk]] are fishing together, the Monk explains how [[the Homeworld|their Homeworld]]'s [[binary system]] is almost certainly something [[Rassilon|He-of-Many-Epithets]] engineered as a weapon against the [[vampire]]s: the peculiar day-night cycle whereby "the region in darkness shrinks like an iris and closes like a fist" creates specific frequencies in the spectrum of the stars, an interference pattern that causes even day-walking vampires to burn on the Homeworld. After stating that this all goes to show that "when it comes to vampires, our people do not mess around", the dream-Monk wakes the Corsair up by throwing their dream-self into the water.

He wakes up to find an irritated [[Garglespike]] going through his pockets and becoming frustrated with the [[Dimensional transcendentalism|unlikely amounts]] of random items, from slingshots to [[Toilet rolls]]s, that she is pulling out. When she briefly unshrinks a book-shaped pin on her jacket into [[Isari Revised Dictionary 1978|a real dictionary]] and back again, wanting to cross-reference something, the Corsair realises that she is a practitioner of [[acumancy]], and an incredibly advanced one at that. He proposes to surrender, simply asking Garglespike to release Venn unharmed. She is willing to do so, since it is not in her habit to kill villagers, but the blue vampire, [[Antrenor]], has other ideas, and demands some other snack in exchange if he can't kill Venn — either some of Garglespike's secret stash, or the Corsair, with the latter option becoming the focus when Garglespike mysteriously states that Antrenor "wouldn't like" the blood from her stash.

However, when Venn spits in Antrenor's face to try and delay him killing the Corsair, his spit inexplicably melts through Antrenor's eye. Taking his chance, the Corsair leaps to his feet and stakes the vampire using a stick torn from a nearby tree. Garglespike seems strangely unconcerned, and merely uses one of her pins to create a lifelike illusion of a normal forest clearing to disguise the mess and her stash from the other vampires when they come here looking for Antrenor. She then transforms another one of her pins into a literal [[firebird (The Bloodletters)|firebird]] to attack the Corsair, even as the [[Kamreth]] vampires fly in from the village. While trying to down the flying opponents, the Corsair and Venn managed to wrap Garglespike and the Kamreth in rings of the toilet paper she removed from the Corsair's pockets earlier — which seems ineffectual until they lure the firebird in the entrapped vampires' direction, and they find themselves set ablaze. 

However, this isn't enough to down Garglespike, who emerges unscathed and also proves immune an electric attack from the Corsair's [[trellwand]]. Pulling out one of her trump-cards, she activates a portable sunset pin, which creates a dome of night-time one hundred metres high, returning their full powers to herself and the other vampires who escaped the fire. With the Corsair's guidance, Venn still manages to down another vampire, a [[Mobur]], by setting a box of sanitary wipes also drawn from the Corsair's pockets on fire and turning it into a makeshift [[Molotov cocktail]]. As the portable sunlight ends, the Corsair finally realises the truth: the water Garglespike gives the donors after hours, before drawing more of their blood for her personal stash, is holy water, meaning the supply of blood she's building up is laced with the stuff. The whole thing is a plot to create poison, in his favourte flavour, with which to assassinate the [[vampire]] [[king]] [[Zadok]], against whom Garglespike bears some kind of grudge. This disturbs the Corsair, as Zadok's death was meant to be a recorded historical event which he seems to have averted, or at least delayed, but it's too late to back down.

Eventually, the Corsair manages to pin her against a tree with his blade, which he snaps in half and "seals" using the anti-vampire charm he took from the dead Caxtarid, ensuring she cannot easily remove the blade and free herself. Although they know she will eventually free herself, they run away. With the [[time tide]] coming in, the Corsair is on the verge of departing again. After one last tender moment with Venn, the tide is ready, and he departs, reflecting on whether this adventure (which cost him his trellwand, though he did keep one of Garglespike's magic pins for his trouble) was worth it. 

== Characters ==
* [[The Corsair (The Bloodletters)|The Corsair]]
* [[Young girl (The Bloodletters)|Young girl]]
* [[Caxtarid (The Bloodletters)|Caxtarid]]
* [[Venn]]
* [[The Monk (The Bloodletters)|The Monk]]
* [[Garglespike|Miss Garglespike]]
* [[Antrenor]]

== References ==
* [[The Corsair (The Bloodletters)|The Corsair]] tells himself that he's "still got the reckoning to be a [[Weatherman]]". 
* The Corsair recent lost his [[shirt]] in a card game with a [[Steggosian]].
* The Corsair believes his dress sense, brash as it is, remains less conspicuous than [[the President Kodachrome]]'s.
* Among the patrons of the pub are "bird-like [[Kamreth]]" and "four-armed [[Mobur]]s".
* The Corsair pays for his food with "a hemispherical copper [[coin]] from the [[Arcopolis|Arcopolian]] [[Arcopolian trading era|trading era]]".
* The [[ocean]] of the colony-world where the Corsair grew up was "big and green and filled with large chelonians which liked to heat those young Homeworlders foolish enough to venture out onto the water".
* [[The Governor]] of [[Cartago]] was the Corsair's father. The Corsair was educated at [[Cahlough Academy]] on [[Gallifrey|their Homeworld]] for a while, but didn't get along with the other students, seeing them as "pampered, book-learned know-nothings".
* The Corsair's weapon of choice is an [[Ydar]]ian [[Trellwand]], which can deliver electric shocks at close range thanks to a [[capacitor]] in its hilt.
* The Corsair knows [[Thenibarian reflexology]].
* The Corsair detects "[[Dæmon|dæmon]], animist influence" in the local culture and believes that this means [[homosexuality]] is presumably accepted in their society.
* [[Humanoid]], [[homeworlder]]-like, and [[xertonoid]] are apparently synonymous terms in terms of describing physical appearances.
* Notable historical events in the Ghost Wars include the involvement of the [[Black Cauldron]] of [[Proxima Centauri (planet)|Proxima Centauri]], the death of [[Zadok|Zadok]] the Gory, and something to do with a male individual called "[[Phoenix King]]".
* The Corsair's kind are referred to as "[[Archon of Time|Archons of Time]]". They are a [[Type IV civilisation]].
* The Corsair jokingly claims that his pockets are bigger on the inside thanks to "[[wiktionary:Gallimaufry|gallimaufryan]] technology". Sensing the pun, Garglespike states that she "will be quite irritated once she locates a [[dictionary]]" and finds one in the form of the ''[[Isari Revised Dictionary 1978]]''.
* The Corsair describes [[Antrenor]] as a "little [[Nosferatu]] fool".
* When salivating at the prospect of eating the Corsair, Antrenor speaks of "little meaty, bloody bits that [[Regeneration|glow and fizz]] on the way down".
* The Corsair is familiar with [[Ek Wan]] plexus strikes, but this move would necessitate more physical strength than he possesses in this [[incarnation]].
* Venn considers running away and "hiking down to the [[Drekel Pulpberg]]" to start a new life.
* [[Pelagos]] is on the other side of the [[Horsehead Nebula]] from [[Earth]].

== Notes ==
* The acknowledgments gave thanks to [[Kate Orman]] and [[David Llewellyn]].
* This story and [[Wringing Off (novel)|its follow-up]] both follow the ''[[Faction Paradox (series)|Faction Paradox]]'' custom of referring to what are implicitly [[Gallifrey]] and [[Time Lord|its people]] as [[the Homeworld]] and "[[Homeworlder]]s". Although it was not itself operating within the ''Faction Paradox'' license, meaning it could not legally be using the same equivalence ''Faction Paradox'' exploits, it also found its own way to establishing that Fogarty's Homeworlders were implicitly Time Lords by making licensed use of [[the Colonel]], a Time Lord, and depicting him as another member of the Corsair and the Monk's race.
* The Corsair is noted to have particularly good [[night vision]], a peculiarity of their "bloodline" that [[the Monk (The Bloodletters)|the Monk]] does not share. This implies that the Corsair is from [[House Arpexia]], noted in ''[[The Book of the War (novel)|The Book of the War]]'' for possessing "hyperaesthetic characteristics" including "night-vision, hallucinatory hysterics, and a highly developed sense of magnetism".
* The figure [[the President Kodachrome]], also referred to as "the [[Lord President Emeritus]]" and "the President-Who-Would-Not-Serve", is implied to have been the [[Sixth Doctor]]: there are multiple jokes about his fashion sense, and it is mentioned that he wore a [[cat]] [[pin]], a notable part of the Doctor's costume. During the thirty-two days when the President Kodachrome was dead until the [[Ghost Wars]]' timeline shifted again, multiple stars retroactively disappeared from the sky as he would no longer save them from destruction in the future: a similar thing occurred when [[the Doctor's time stream]] was temporarily perverted by the [[Great Intelligence]] in ''[[The Name of the Doctor (TV story)|The Name of the Doctor]]''. However, for obvious copyright reasons, the link is not made explicit.
* The Corsair mentions having once met a [[Time Agent (The Bloodletters)|Time Agent]]. Although [[Time Agent]]s have appeared in many aspects of the [[Doctor Who universe|''Doctor Who'' universe]], the copyright page specified that this was, in this instance, a reference to the Time Agents featured in {{w|Andre Norton}}'s 1958 novel ''{{w|The Time Traders}}''. 
* The true name of the "Corsair Queen" in one of the two distinct comics universes merged into one continuity by Fogarty was Lila Evans, as stated on the copyright page. The Corsair here gives "[[Lily Evans]]" as an alias before remembering, first, that "that's a ''[[Harry Potter]]'' character", and second, that they are currently in a male incarnation — the implication being that the earlier, female incarnation used "Lily Evans" as an alias, and was misheard as "Lila Evans". 

== Continuity ==
* The [[Milky Way]] is also known as the [[Stellarian Spiral Galaxy]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Human Nature (novel)|Human Nature]]'')
* Before going [[Renegade Time Lord|Renegade]], [[the Monk (The Bloodletters)|the Monk]] was acquainted with [[the Colonel]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[CIA File Extracts (novel)|CIA File Extracts]]'')
* Some of the bloodlines on [[the Homeworld]] have an inherited talent for [[night vision]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Book of the War (novel)|The Book of the War]]'')
* The Corsair uses the swear "[[Cruk]]". ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Love and War (novel)|Love and War]]'', etc.)
* The [[Ghost Wars]] are described a war between the [[Malakh Imperium]] and "basically everyone else in and around the [[Horsehead Nebula]]". They are a [[Change War]], its history "written in [[Palimpsest universe|palimpsest]] and smoke": because too many of the sides are time-active, they are constantly being rewritten, meaning they are considered "ongoing" by [[the Homeworld]] despite occupying a bounded period in linear time. [[Sarah Jane Smith]] once interacted with the outer fringes of the [[Uvodni-Malakh War]], fought between the [[Malakh Empire]] and the [[Uvodni Empire]] of the Horsehead Nebula, and stated that it was part of "the Ghost Wars of the Horsehead Nebula". ([[TV]]: ''[[Warriors of Kudlak (TV story)|Warriors of Kudlak]]'')
* As an "initiate", the Corsair, then just a boy, had to return to [[the Homeworld]] to stare into "[[the Tourbillon]]". ([[TV]]: ''[[The Sound of Drums (TV story)|The Sound of Drums]]'')
* The Corsair once met the Monk at a "seedy" spacesport "near [[Frontier in time|the end]] of the [[Humanian Era|Humanian era]]". ([[TV]]: ''[[Frontios (TV story)|Frontios]]'', [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Book of the War (novel)|The Book of the War]]'')
* Garglespike later opened [[Miss Garglespike's World of Pins]] in [[Sardicktown]], where [[Dr Henry Fizzog's Museum of the Macabre]] also exhibited the [[Mummy|mummified]] remains of [[Zadok]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Honeymoon Horrors (short story)|Honeymoon Horrors]]'')
* [[The Homeworld]] is in a [[binary system]], with two suns, one of which rises in the East. ([[TV]]: ''[[Gridlock (TV story)|Gridlock]]'')
* The Corsair recalls how [[voodoo]] [[doll]]s and [[blood]] [[magic]] are "quite popular" among a [[Faction Paradox|renegade faction]] on his Homeworld. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]'', etc.)
* [[Antrenor]] briefly refers to the Corsair as a [[Chronarch]]. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[4-D War (comic story)|4-D War]]'')

== Footnotes ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [https://www.amazon.com/Bloodletters-Ryan-Fogarty-ebook/dp/B087Z8VR92 '''''The Bloodletters''''' on Amazon]
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[[Category:2020 novels]]