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Only Watson didn't react, composed and quiet at the end of their line.

'Help me, Fitz!' called the Doctor.

She saw Fitz holding his mum while the Doctor administered an injection.

The three figures were so overridden with Beast that it made her vision swim. Then she blinked, hard, as something that wasn't quite a pain hit the back of her head; she could only describe it as the elastic going in her mind.

The Doctor had moved round to Russell, who was yelling and cursing God as the sedative kicked in. She felt a rush of blood from her nose, and feared for a moment that her brain was pouring out.

'I'm sure I'm not meant to feel like this,' she said, but the Doctor was busy injecting Lucy, who was bawling like a grounded schoolgirl. At least, she thought that was happening, but it was hard to be sure.

First Sam went blind, then she collapsed.

***

'Sam!' yelled the Doctor, dashing over to her fallen body.

That left Fitz hanging on to Watson alone, before he'd been given the paraldehyde. 'Doctor, what about...?' He braced himself for a struggle, gripped the man as strongly as he could, but, even though Sam seemed out for the count, Watson showed no sign of fighting back. In fact, he seemed to have fallen asleep already, his eyes tightly closed, fists clenched.

***

Taylor moaned and stirred on Azoth's operation couch. His head was hurting like hell, as if there were a big bluebottle in it trying to get out.

He couldn't open his eyes. They felt swollen, squeezed into their sockets, boiling under his eyelids. Something stank in the air, something rank and sulphurous, hurting him to breathe, but he felt in some way it was good - as though he were taking badness inside himself, then spitting it back out. He felt stronger, somehow, even though he hurt so badly.

All he could hear was an insistent buzzing.That'11 be the bluebottle, he thought, but the buzzing was intermittent, loud and soft, on and off, like Morse code, or a military tattoo. No, it was talking. Like something was calling to him...

Heat flooded into his head, and his brain felt like butter melting in a pan.

The words were getting louder. He shouldn't be hearing them: something else was taking place - the bad smell and the breathing told him that - and he knew he shouldn't be distracted.

6.5

'Catch.'

Fitz caught the syringe from the Doctor. 'What do you expect me to do with this?' He asked in disbelief.

'Use it.'

'Sorry, I only ingest stuff orally.'

'On him.'

Fitz looked down at Watson, lying in his lap, and grimaced. 'Where do I need to -'

'Anywhere!' yelled Bulwell from across the room. 'Just stick it in him.'

Fitz took a deep breath and injected it into Watson's arm. Only when the plunger had forced out the colourless liquid did he breathe again. By that time the Doctor was walking past him, carrying Sam up the stairs.

'Where are you taking her?' Fitz asked.

'My lab,' said the Doctor, not turning round. 'I've got to find out what's wrong.'

'Was it the strain of fighting this lot off?'

'I don't know,' said the Doctor, sounding more like a helpless boy than the superman who had confronted these maniacs.

'What about Charles?' Maria shouted, miserably. 'Are you not going to help him?'

'Fitz, bring him along,' the Doctor called over his shoulder without looking back.

'And what about Cynthia, eh?'

Fitz rounded on her. 'Didn't you hear them? She's dead. There's nothing we can do for her.'

'And what about me ? Maria bawled, smacking her dead legs.

***

By the time Fitz had found his way to the ramshackle laboratory, the Doctor was already flicking switches and powering up equipment. Sam was lying on the table, looking deathly pale in the flickering light of a Bunsen burner.

The mark on her neck was like a cigar burn, and the gunshot wound in her shoulder was looking pretty unpleasant too. Poor cow. So much for living life.

'Where do you want him?' he asked, nodding at Roley