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By Root 576 0

and you'll interrupt when I need correcting. Your father practised magic, and very diligently - but in the end he overreached. He called down a water spirit and things went very, very wrong. You eventually ended up in foster care with some subhuman beings in New England. The naiad, as I'm sure you've guessed – I remember how upset you were when you found Flood's body - ended up married to a petty thief. She was under your nose all the time. How does that make you feel? I don't think we'll be seeing her again, do you?'

Rust smiled without humour. 'I might have known you were there. You're always on the spot, aren't you?'

The Doctor shrugged. 'It's a gift. Let's stay with you. The ability to perform what is generally called "magic" is quite rare in human beings. You may have inherited it. Or you may have been infected by the summoning. In any case, you had developed enough by the time you were fourteen - I imagine the talent became more intense at puberty - to fake your death, create a stock and slaughter your foster family' The Doctor's eyes clouded. 'You know, I'm a sentimentalist. I want to hear sweet stories with happy endings.

Tell me you became a homicide detective in order to make up for your own murders.'

'I'd kill the Brownes again tomorrow,' said Rust. 'It happens I'm good at my job, but that's by the way. I joined the Homicide Department because it gave me access to the dead.'

'Parts of them?' said the Doctor in disgust.

'You don't actually need that much. A scrap of clothing is sometimes enough. Hair. A little blood. There was always plenty of blood. You needn't be so outraged. The alternative was for me to kill more people than I did.'

'And how many was that?'

'Not so many,' said Rust quietly. 'There was no sense in it. No one had what I needed.'

'Ah. Whereas I do.' The Doctor grimaced and flopped on to his back. He winced. 'What have you been doing with me? Who was that you were trying to kill?' Rust said nothing. The Doctor glared at him. 'Oh, really, isn't the time past for being mysterious? You've captured me; you can at least tell me what's going on. How did you finally do it, for example? I thought I was safe when I was awake, but you made me sleep.'

'Did you smash that bottle in that room of Dupre's?' The Doctor nodded.

'Then when I cut my hand there, our blood must have mixed. That would have given me the connection I needed. Otherwise I'm not sure I could ever have caught you.'

'Serendipity,' said the Doctor sourly. He shut his eyes. 'What have you done to me?' he muttered. 'I'm weak as water'

'I'll show you.'

The Doctor could hardly stand. Rust pulled one of his arms across his own shoulders and supported him through the doors. The veranda was actually a continuous gallery running around the inner U of the house's three wings, an outdoor connecting hallway. Rust helped the Doctor along this and through another set of doors into the end room. The sun was very low now, and its near-horizontal beams filled the interior with a harsh, brass-coloured light. Except for this, the room was empty. Rust lowered the Doctor carefully to the floor, resting his back against the wall. The Doctor looked out of the window at his tree.

'Your family's house.'

'I had to hide you somewhere. I wasn't expecting anything quite so human: the energy cage I'd prepared for something less material would have killed you. I kept you trussed up under the stairs for a while, but that wasn't secure.' Rust's gaze swept the room/We're not only in the past, we're one beat out of time as it's experienced by everybody else. Almost like one step to the side.'

'That sounds about right,' said the Doctor. 'It's a common phenomenon.'

'Not where I come from. I could barely do time spells before. But it's all over you.'

'What is?'

'Time. You know how when a fish leaps out of the water it throws off droplets that sparkle in the sun, like chips of glass? It's like that.'

He crouched and held something out for the Doctor's inspection: a translucent ball of moulded amethyst-coloured glass,