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By Root 571 0

the back of his neck. 'Well, it makes a change from finding out why one poor bastard shot another one over in the projects. That's where Art is right now. He'd be delighted to have this case instead.'

'Your partner?'

'Yeah. Sometimes we get stretched thin and have to split up.'

'What happened?'

"Three guys shot each other up over a card game.'

"This morning? Oh, I suppose for them it was the end of the night.'

"The end of everything,' said Rust.

Chapter Two Whifed Sepulchres

'I don't like it,' said Fitz.

'Well,' said Anji, 'I think it's delicious.' She took another sip of her cafe au lait. She and Fitz were in the French Quarter, sitting in a large, roofed, open-air cafe crammed with tables and tourists. On the pavement, an elderly black man was playing the saxophone, some sad, sweet melody she didn't recognise. 'Must be the chicory.'

'I don't mean the coffee.' Fitz moodily rattled his spoon inside his empty mug. 'I mean him.'

Anji wasn't sure how to respond. Fitz claimed a subtle observational power bordering on the psychic where the Doctor was concerned. Sometimes it got on her nerves. 'These dreams,' Fitz continued, since she hadn't said anything. "These dreams are not good.'

"The TARDIS defence system is working again,' she pointed out with a touch of impatience, 'so there can't be any real danger. They're only nightmares, and is it so surprising he has those?'

'He may have nightmares all the time for all I know,' said Fitz. 'But we don't hear them.'

Anji picked at the remains of her sugar-dusted beignet. He had a point there. At first, with the screaming, she'd thought she was having a nightmare. She didn't like to hear a grown man scream like that, in panic and terror, like her little brother having bad dreams when they were children. She particularly didn't like to hear the Doctor scream like that.

Thank God he'd stopped by the time they'd got to his room. Fitz had been all ready to charge the door with his shoulder but it had opened at a touch and the lights had come on and there was the Doctor on the floor, tangled up in the bedclothes, calm enough, as if he'd decided a good lie-down on the floor was just the thing he wanted. His eyes looked queer, though -

washed clean, like stones after a rain. She didn't like that. Fitz crouched anxiously beside him. 'Are you all right?'

'Of course I'm all right,' the Doctor replied, a shade irritably. 'Do I not look all right?'

'You're on the floor.'

'So?'

'Well, you seem to have fallen on the floor.'

The Doctor looked at himself and adjusted the bedcovers a bit. 'Ah, hello, Anji,' he said pleasantly. 'You're here too.'

'Yes,' she said lamely.

'Yes, we're all here,' said Fitz. 'And two of us are waiting to find out what's going on.'

'Why should anything be going on?' The Doctor still hadn't sat up.'Can't a man fall out of bed without -'

'You were bloody screaming,' snapped Fitz. 'All right?'

After a moment the Doctor said softly, 'Was I?'

'like a banshee.'

'Banshees don't scream. They wail and weep. Their hearts, such as they have, are broken with grief. If you could hear them, you would know.' The Doctor finally looked at Fitz, turning his head to rest it on his arm. 'Was I saying anything?'

'"No." I mean, that's what you were saying - shrieking - "No!"'

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. He sat up. 'It was only a dream. I dreamed something had got into the TARDIS.'

'Well, that's all right, then,' said Anji brightly. 'Nothing can get into the TARDIS.'

'Yes,' said the Doctor. 'Exactly.'

Half an hour later, when she came into the console room, bathed, dressed and fortified with morning tea, the Doctor was at the console, monitors casting blue light up into his face. He was frowning. 'We've landed early.'

Anji swallowed. 'You mean the wrong century?' she asked gamely.

He shook his head. 'No, just earlier than I expected. While I was asleep.'

'Oh,' she said, trying not to sound too relieved.

Fitz came in. 'Everything in order? Did we make it to New Orleans?'

The Doctor