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'What's he saying?' asked Sam.

'Shh,' said the Doctor, and then raising his voice,'Look, we really do want to help you.'

The man looked up at the Doctor and began to shake his head. 'No one can help me, no one can help me now,' he muttered.

'We can try,' said Sam.'Come on, mate, just tell us what's wrong.'

She took a step forward.The man flinched back, his body going rigid. He pointed at her with his good hand. He looked like a cornered animal.

'Keep back!' he ordered, his voice raw and shrill.'For your own sakes, keep away from me.'

'Why won't you let us help you?' asked the Doctor gently. 'You're obviously in some trouble.'

'Yes, sir, you might say that,' said the man, casting a fearful glance back over his shoulder. 'The devil himself is at my heels.'

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. 'The devil?'

'He's completely gone,' whispered Sam.

Though the man's eyes were still wild, the Doctor's soothing tone seemed to be anchoring him back into a semblance of reality.

'I've seen him, sir,' he hissed.'Back there at the factory. He fixed his eyes upon me. Horrible they were, horrible! Glowing like lanterns.'

Sam saw the Doctor glancing curiously along the towpath behind the man, though she herself could see nothing but swirling fog. She wondered if the Doctor was thinking what she was thinking, which was that the bloke's gangrene was turning his brain to mush, causing him to hallucinate.

'Which factory's this then, mate?' she asked, trying to make her voice as soothing as the Doctor's.

It didn't work. In fact, it appeared only to have the effect of enraging the man. Without warning he lunged at her, barging her into the Doctor, and as the two of them went down in a tangle of arms and legs, the man leapt clumsily over them and continued his desperate, shambling flight along the towpath.

Sam's fall was cushioned by the Doctor's body, but under her weight he stumbled backwards, cracking his head on the wall at the side of the path.

'You all right, Doctor?' she asked, picking herself up to find him sitting on the slimy cobbles, rubbing the back of his skull and blinking sleepily up at her.

'What pretty fireworks,' he remarked.'Are they yours?'

'Doctor!' Sam urged, shaking his shoulder.

He recovered in an instant, springing to his feet. 'Where's he gone?'

Sam pointed along the towpath. 'That way. Towards the TARDIS:

'Come on .'The Doctor hared off, Sam running as fast as she could to keep up with him, wishing she had a pair of Nikes instead of these bloody boots.

The Doctor's tall frame, his coat flapping behind him, became insubstantial as the fog shrouded it, and then was swallowed up altogether as he forged ahead. Sam heard him shout, 'Don't run. We want to help you.' His voice sounded flat, compressed, as if the fog was thick as cotton wool. Sam gritted her teeth, willing her legs to pump faster.

She had just sprinted past the TARDIS when an awful, gut-wrenching scream tore out of the darkness ahead.The shock of it made her jump, causing her to slip on the cobbles. She struggled to keep her balance, her arms pinwheeling, her boots skidding on the slippery stones. Another warbling scream, so saturated with terror that Sam felt cold, hard fear lodge inside her belly, seemed to shred the fog before it was abruptly cut off.

Part of Sam didn't want to see what was ahead of her, didn't want to see what had made the man scream like that.The greater part, however - her reckless bravery, her desire to help, and yes, even her curiosity - drove her onward. She licked her blotting-paper lips as she ran, trying without success to generate some saliva in her mouth. Suddenly she saw a figure ahead of her, a dark silhouette wreathed in fog.

'Sam,' the figure hissed, half turning towards her and extending an arm as a barrier,'don't move. Don't make a sound.'

Such was the authority in the Doctor's voice that for once Sam obeyed it without question. She clattered to a halt, her lips clamped shut, trying to breathe fast and hard through her nose. She saw something