'Hello,' said the Don, waving his hand.

'Hello,' replied Doctor Yau, a blob of mayonnaise dangling from his bottom lip. 'What's all this? I wasn't aware of any projects. In fact, I was told the investigation was over. What are you doing here?'

The Don seemed slightly tongue-tied from the offset. Wondering how to play the Doctor before he cried for help and started blubbing to the Commodore down the phone.

'Well, that's just it isn't it.'

'What?'

The Don towered over him. He could grab him around the neck. Knock him out. Stick him in the broom cupboard and leg it back to Varosium. But he had a job to do. The perfume was now filtering into the ventilation. He just had to wait. Something would happen soon.

'Well, loose ends and such. The Professor wanted me to run some tests on a substance located in Kiko and Mensch's flat.'

'Oh, something we missed?'

The Don nodded. 'Yes, quite possibly.'

'Oh right, but, hang on! Surely the university has a lab or two to run the experiment?'

'Oh quite right. It's just that myself and the Inspector were in the neighborhood so to speak.'

Doctor Yau smiled. He wasn't buying it. 'Oh right, well the Inspector hasn't signed you in so I better call up top to confirm –'

'There isn't really any need for that old man.'

'I'm afraid that protocol –'

Doctor Yau seemed to sway, placing his sandwich on the edge of the desk, the colour of his skin drained in an instant. Pallid and sickly.

'Bad sandwich?'

The Doctor hunched over, holding his head, his breath a deep drag of pain.

'I say, are you alright, Doctor?'

Doctor Yau pulled himself up, shaking, staring through the Don as if he was a shop window. The Tatterfox then heard it. A crack and a snap that emanated from his thorax, as keen and crisp as the sound of a hardboiled sweet devoured by a set of keen molars. Yau reached out, his eyes pleading for help.

'Yau? What's wrong?'

'Get it out!'

'What?'

'GET IT OUT OF ME!'

The Don saw Yau's neck move, a slight rising of the flesh just beneath his ear. It stretched the tissue making him reach for the table in pain. Whatever it was was agitated, moving beneath Yau's flesh with a frantic fervor, burrowing upward, using the canvas of his skin as a shroud, sensing the perfume in the air which it wanted to flee. It burrowed upward, into the dank and warm of Yau's brain which culminated in a bloodcurdling scream.

The Don pulled the revolver from his pocket and held out his other hand to persuade the Doctor to calm himself and breathe. As much good it will do.

Damn you Xindii! The Don knew what it was. What the substance was that he had unwittingly released into the air. Insecticide. The insect – whatever it may be had used Yau as a host –probably living off the sugars and properties of the hypothalamus. Placed there no doubt by Hadigan as an insurance policy to keep their informant subtle and pliant.

'Kill me,' Yau pleaded, 'kill me.'

Blood started to pour from his ears, and a yellow substance burst from his glands. Yau's eyes, blood red pits of agony that produced tears of pity.

The Don raised his revolver and Yau launched himself into the line of fire knocking the Tatterfox and his gun to the floor. Yau leaned over him, shaking and convulsing, spit and mucus dripping onto The Don's finely pruned hair. He had no choice, using his arms and the knees of his legs the Tatterfox lifted Yau over his head and launched him a meter through the air where the possessed Doctor Yau landed in a heap of blood and screams.

The Don reached for his gun and realised that it had fallen further than he thought. He scampered on his knees and reached for the revolver under the workbench. He couldn't reach it.

Brick skidded into the lab, looking down the aisle and saw the now deformed visage of Yau screaming and pulling itself up from the floor; pressure and pain intensifying as muscle and sinew ripped, the insect in its death throes as the perfume soaked into Yau's pores.

'KILL ME.'

Brick reached for Brenda but nothing came. His treasured gun laying on the Commodore's desk. 'SHIT.'

A deep rasp escaped Yau's throat, the veins in his forehead and neck bursting. The Don reached harder, the tip of his claw within reach. He pressed deeper, the muscle of his bicep tearing into the hardwood of the bench, nipping his muscle. The revolver came to him and he spun about on his back to relieve Yau of his torment and before he could press the trigger Doctor Yau's head disappeared in an explosive streak of fabulous red. His torso fell to the floor, the stump of his neck still burnt and quarterised, seared meat.

The Don picked himself up and realised the Inspector was standing behind him. They looked to the left and noticed the figure of the Commodore standing beneath the stairwell, the smoking barrel of Brenda in his grasp. The realisation that he had been a fool now rising in his eyes like a new dawn.

Brick stepped steadily up to the Commodore and took Brenda from his grasp. He had a good hold; vice-like, the old man's hands had seen plenty of action, on the beat and in the ring if the stories were to be believed.

'It's ok, chief. I got it.'

The Commodore suddenly broke himself out of his daze and breathed. 'Been a while since I fired a gun, least shot somebody.'

'It's alright,' the Krazzi assured him, 'take your time.'

'No one should die like that. Yau was a good lad. Never had any trouble with him. Always turned up, did his job.'

Brick nodded. 'I know.'

The Commodore suddenly saw The Don probing through Yau's eviscerated brain with a pen, picking through it like he was hunting for the best bits at a buffet.

'Hey, you. Have a little respect.'

'I'm afraid respect is few and far between, Commodore. Hadigan and the Baroness didn't respect him. They made this poor fellow ingest the larvae of a Mo'Kathian flea, where succoured by the fat of the body it hatched and then housed itself in his brain stem, doing the bidding of its master, contaminating the water supply with Xelofremanine, hindering the efforts of your investigation and ours. You have been played Commodore, and now they add another death to their tally.'

The old man swallowed hard. 'Flea?'

The Tatterfox shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, ish. Scarab more like, but both species are incredibly tenacious and long lasting. Flea, more for its propensity for dormancy. Their eggs can remain unhatched for decades and they multiply like wildfire.'

The Don held part of its severed head up into the light, its head the size of a mouse. Its dark eyes sparkling like diamonds in a mine, teeth hanging like tiny rusty razorblades. 'These particular little nasties are native to the Black Pole. Hadigan brought them a long way.'

'Hadigan?' the Commodore asked, 'why does that name sound familiar?'

The Don placed the severed head of the flea back on the bench. 'Phillip Eustace Hadigan, the man of pockets, or he used to be.'

'That's right. I remember reading the file when I was a young buck. Josiah Kahn killed him?'

The Don held his hands together. 'Well, yes but that doesn't seem to matter a jot nowadays.'

The Commodore shook his head and then looked at the Krazzi. 'Is this shit real? Because I'm lost.'

'Yeah, I know. Takes some getting used to, but chief,' the Inspector took another look at the Don sifting through Yau's remains, 'I think these guys can really bring this fucker down. I think we gotta sit back and let them do their stuff . . . I know how you feel, I wanna get back to petty theft and punk-ass hoodlums. But this time, I think we have to roll with the punches. Stand at the back and point the guns'

'Sit back, detective? I'm surprised at you. I'm not sitting back. They're gonna pay today. The Baroness and this Hadigan guy, their numbers are up. What's the plan?'