There was a faint scratching. The rats were becoming impatient.Saul barked a brief order to be quiet and the sound ceased. It feelsso easy, he thought, so simple to take control like this. It didn’teven excite him.

‘Do you want to go to sleep, Deborah?’

‘What do you mean? Her voice was suddenly suspicious, even afraid.She almost whined in her trepidation, and bundled herself up into hersleeping bag. Saul reached out to reassure her and she shrank awayfrom him in horror and he realized with a sinking feeling that shehad heard such a line before, but spoken with different intent.’

Saul knew that the streets were brutal.

He wondered how often she had been raped.

He moved his hands away, held them up in surrender.

‘I’m sorry, Deborah, I didn’t mean anything. I’m just not tired.I’m lonely, and I thought we could go for a wander.’ She still lookedat him with terrified eyes. ‘The won’t… I’ll go, if you want.’ Hedid not want to leave. ‘I want to show you around. I’ll take youanywhere you want to go.’

‘I don’t know I don’t know what you want to do…’ shemoaned.

‘Don’t you want to do something?’ he said desperately. ‘Aren’t youbored? I swear I won’t touch you, won’t do anything, I just want somecompany…’

He looked at her and saw her wavering. He put on a sillyexpression, a clownish sad face, sniffed theatrically, nauseatinghimself.

Deborah laughed nervously.

‘Please,’ he said, ‘let’s go.’

‘Oh… OK…’ She looked pleased, even though nervous.

He grinned at her reassuringly.

He felt ill at ease, shockingly clumsy. Even the simplestmannerism cost him huge effort. He was relieved that he had notfrightened her away.

‘I’ll take you up to the roofs, if you want, Deborah, and I’llshow you the quick way of getting around London on foot. Can I…’ Hepaused. ‘Can I bring the rats?’

Bring them, bring the rats, she said, after a little persuasion.It was obvious that, despite her fear, she was fascinated. Saul gavea long whistle and the rats appeared again, eager to showwilling.

He did not know how it was he commanded them. It seemed to make nodifference what words he used, or if he whistled, or gave a briefshout. He could not think an order for it to be obeyed, he had tomake a sound, but the rats seemed to understand him through anempathy, not through language. He invested the sound he made with thespirit of an order for it to be obeyed.

He made the rats line up in rows, to Deborah’s delight. He madethem move forward and backwards. When he had shown off and made therats ridiculous, taking away Deborah’s fear, she would even touchone. She stroked it nervously as Saul murmured deep in his throat,held the rat in thrall so it would not panic, bite or run.

‘No offence or anything, Saul, but you smell, you know,’ shesaid.

‘It’s where I live. Smell it again; it’s not as bad as you thinkat first.’

She leaned over and sniffed him, wrinkled up her nose and shookher head apologetically.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said.

When she had lost her fear he suggested that they move. She lookednervous again, but nodded.

‘Which way?’ she said.

‘Do you trust me?’ Saul said.

‘I think so…’

‘Then hold on to me. We’re going up, straight up the walls.’

She did not understand at first, and when she did she wasterrified, refused to believe that Saul could carry her. He reachedout to her gently, slowly so as not to intimidate her, and when hewas sure she did not mind being touched, he lifted her easily, heldher with his arms outstretched, feeling his muscles snap hard withrat-strength. She laughed delightedly.

He felt like a superhero.

Ratman, he thought as he held her. Doing good with his bizarrerat-powers. Helping the mentally ill. Carrying them around Londonfaster than shit through a sewer. He sneered at himself.

‘See. I told you I could carry you. Let me put you on myback.’

‘Mnnnn…’ Deborah swung her face from side to side like aflattered child, smiling a little. ‘MnnnnOK.’

‘Great. Let’s go.’ The rats scampered a little closer, hearing thedynamism in Saul’s voice.

Deborah still looked at them nervously every time they moved, butshe had forgotten most of her fear.

Saul bent down and offered her his back. She stepped out of thesleeping-bag.

‘Shall I take this?’ she said, and Saul shook his head.

‘Just hide it. I’ll bring you back here.’

Deborah gingerly clambered onto Saul’s back, and he was struckonce again by the fact that it was only her tenuous grip on realitythat meant she would do as he suggested. Approach most people withthe offer to piggyback them across the roofs and he would not havemet with such a willing response.

The irony, of course, being that she was right to trust him.

He rose to his feet and she shrieked as if she was on a fairgroundride.

‘Gentle, gentle!’ she yelled, and he hissed at her to keep hervoice down.

He strode into the passage, and all around him he heard thepattering of hundreds of rat feet. This is bow I changed worlds, hethought, carried to my new city on the back of a rat. What goesaround comes around.

He stopped below a window, its sill nine feet above thepavement.

‘See you up top,’ he hissed at the rats, who disappeared in aflurry, as before. He heard the scrape of claws on brick.

Saul jumped up and grasped the window, and Deborah shouted, a yellwhich did not die away but ballooned in terror as her fingers foughtfor purchase on his back. His feet swung above the ground, the toesof his prison-issue shoes scraping the wall.

He called for her to shut up, but she would not, and words beganto form in her protest.

‘Stopstopstop,’ she wailed and Saul, mindful of discovery, hauledhimself at speed up into the space by the window, flattened himselfagainst the glass, reached up again, determined to pull Deborah outof earshot before she could order him down.

He scrambled up the building. Not yet as fast as King Rat, but sosmooth, he thought to himself as he climbed. Terror had stoppedDeborah’s voice. I know that feeling, thought Saul, and smiled. Hewould bring this to a close as fast as he could.

Her weight on his back was only a minor irritation. This was not ahard wall to climb. It was festooned with windows and cracks andprotuberances and drainpipes. But Saul knew that to Deborah it wasjust so much unbreachable brick. This building had a flat roofcontained by rails, one of which he grasped now and tugged at,raising himself and his cargo up onto the skyline.

He deposited Deborah on the concrete. She clawed at it, her breathragged.

‘Oh now, Deborah, I’m sorry to scare you,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Iknew you wouldn’t let me if I told you what I was going to do, but Iswear to you, you were safe, always. I wouldn’t put you indanger.’

She mumbled incoherently. He dropped to her side and gently put ahand on her shoulder. She flinched and turned to him. He wassurprised at her face. She was quivering, but she did not lookhorrified.

‘How can you do that?’ she breathed. All around them on the roofthe concrete began to swarm with rats, struggling to prove theireager devotion. Saul picked Deborah off her side and put her on herfeet. He tugged at her sleeve. She did not take her eyes from him butallowed herself to be pulled over to the railing around the roof. Thelight was entirely leached from the sky by now.

They were not so very high; all around them hotels and apartmentblocks looked down on them, and they looked down on as many again.They stood at the midpoint of the undulations in the skyline. Blacktangles of branches poked into their field of vision, over inRegent’s Park. The graffiti were thinner up here, but not dissipated.Here and there extravagant tags marked the sides of buildings, badgespinned in the most inaccessible places. I’m not the first to be here,thought Saul, and the others weren’t rats. He admired them hugely,their idiot territorial bravery. To scale that wall and sprayboomboy!!! just there, where the bricks ran out, that was acourageous act.