Chapter Eleven

The Doctor could end wars, repel invasions, track the villain to his lair, expose master plans and wipe out evil across the universe of time and space, he could do all that before breakfast.

A tendril of cloud slapped against the window pane with surprising strength, but not enough to crack the glass.

The cat looked up, its eyes wide, its ears swept back. "Get out," it was warning him, "Save yourself".

But if the Doctor couldn't use his unique abilities and special powers to save the life of one little cat, then what was the point of having them?

The cat looked at him, cocking his head to one side, acknowledging the Doctor's help for the first time.

'I won't leave you,' the Doctor assured him.

Because when it comes down to it, doctors save lives and any life is worth saving.

Death came drifting through the cracks in the doorframe.

The Doctor eased the shelf up, opening an escape route. Almost before he had finished, the cat had scurried away, over the counter. For an instant it paused, granting his saviour one of the rarest things in the universe: feline gratitude. And then he had gone, out through the catflap in the back door.

The Doctor grinned.

There was a crackling, popping sound like bacon under a grill.

The Doctor stood, brushing a cat hair from his frock coat.

It was forming and reforming the whole time, but there was a central mass there, a writhing, sulphurous thing with a hundred eyes, all watching him.

Tendrils of crimson vapour wafted towards him, sensing a trap.

It smelt of cigarettes, of exhaust fumes, of week-old dustbins. It smelt of decay. It smelt of Death.