It was Loplop, with terror in his eyes, screaming at Saul to comeon, grabbing him and running for the window, until a short clearsound stopped him cold. Saul turned and saw the Piper’s puckered lipsas he rose, whistling. A liquid tune, repetitive and simple. Loplopwas stiff. Saul saw a look of wonder cross his face as he turned toface the Piper, his eyes alive and ecstatic.

Saul backed away, felt the wall behind him. He could see Deborah’scorpse behind Loplop, see the stain of blood oozing liberally ontothe floor. To his left was the Piper, moving forward now, stillwhistling. Before him was Loplop, stepping towards him, his eyes notseeing, his arms outstretched, his feet moving in rhythm to thePiper’s bird song.

Saul tried to get past Loplop, could not, felt his throatunderneath those fingers. The Bird Superior fell on him and began tosqueeze the air out of him, all the while holding his own entrancedface up to catch the music. He was not heavy but his body was asstiff as metal. Saul beat at him, twisted, tugged at his fingers.Loplop was impervious, unaware. As blackness began to creep in at theedges of his vision, Saul saw the Piper in the corner of the room,rubbing his throat, and the rage pushed blood back into Saul’s face,even past Loplop’s cruel talons, and he spread his arms wide, cuppedhis hands exactly as his father had warned him not to in the swimmingpool, even if you’re just playing, Saul, and he slammed his handsdown, clapping with all his strength, around Loplop’s ears.

Loplop shrieked and snapped up, arcing his back, his handsquivering. Saul’s rat-strength had driven air deep into those auralcavities, shattering the delicate membranes and sending bubblesrushing in like acid through the ruptured flesh. Loplop shook inagony.

Saul rolled out from under him. The Piper was upon him again, andhe wielded the flute like a club. Saul could only roll a little outof his way and feel it crush his shoulder rather than his face. Hedodged again and this time his chest was struck, and the pain tookhis breath away.

Behind him Loplop stumbled away from the wall, fumbled blindly, asif his other senses had gone with his hearing.

The Piper gripped the flute in both hands, straddled Saul andpinned his arms to the floor with his knees, raised the flute like aceremonial dagger, ready to drive the stubby object into Saul’schest. Saul screamed in terror.

Loplop still shrieked, and his voice mixed with Saul’s. Thedissonance made the air shake and something in the vibrations madeLoplop turn and kick the flute from the Piper’s clenched hands. ThePiper bellowed in rage and reached for it. Loplop pulled Saul fromunder the tall man’s legs, and hauled him to the window. Still Loplopshrieked, and the sound did not stop as he leapt onto the sill of theruined window. He was still shrieking as he grabbed Saul with hisright hand and stepped out into darkness.

Saul could not hear his own despairing yell through Loplop’sincessant keening. He closed his eyes and felt air swirl around him,waited for the ground, which did not come. He opened his eyes alittle and saw a confusion of lights, moving very fast. He wasfalling still… the only sound was Loplop’s wail.

He opened his eyes fully and he saw that the constriction aroundhis chest was not terror but Loplop’s legs, and that the ground wasshooting not towards him but parallel to him, and that he was notfalling but flying.

His head faced backwards, so he could not see Loplop as they flew.The Bird Superior’s legs, elegant in Savile Row tailory, wrappedaround him below his armpits. Terragon Mansions receded behind them.Saul saw a thin figure standing in the punctured plastic shadow ofhis father’s flat, somehow heard a faint whistling over Loplop’scries.

In Willesden’s dirty darkness the trees were obscure, a tangle offractal silhouettes from which there now burst pigeons and sparrowsand starlings, startled out of their sleep by the compulsion of thePiper’s spell. They swirled like rubbish for a moment, and then theirmovements became as precise and sudden as a mathematicalsimulation.

They converged on the Piper, imploding from all sectors of the skytowards his hunched shoulders, and then en masse they rose again,suddenly clumsy, trying to fly in concert, dragging the Piper’s bodythrough the air with them.

‘The fucker’s following us!’ Saul screeched in fright. He realizedas he spoke that Loplop could not hear him, that all that stoppedLoplop from joining his subjects in transporting the Piper was thefact that Saul had deafened him.

Saul rocked alarmingly in Loplop’s tight embrace. The streetslurched below them. They oscillated uncertainly between the skies andthe freezing earth. Loplop’s wails were now turning to moans; hecrooned to comfort himself. Behind them a writhing clot of birdsdragged the Piper through the air after them. As birds fell away,exhausted or crushed, others rushed to their place, dug their clawsinto the Piper’s clothes and flesh, pulling against each other,bearing him on in a butterfly’s drunken rush.

The Piper was gaining on them.

The moon glinted briefly on water and railway tracks far below.Loplop began to spiral out of the sky.

Saul shook the legs that held him, shouted at him to continue, butLoplop was close to fainting, and the screaming in his head was allhe could hear. Saul caught glimpses of a vast roadway and anundulating red plain below them, but they were snatched from hisfield of vision as Loplop’s body spun. The Piper was closing in,shedding his entourage like a ragged man shedding clothes.

They fell. Saul caught glimpses of a network of railtracksspreading out like a fan, and then that red field again, thetight-packed roofs of a hundred red buses. They were spirallingtowards Westbourne Park station, where bus routes and railwaysconverged on a hill, under the yawning gloom of the Westway.

They swept into that shade and crashed to the ground. Saul wasthrown from Loplop’s grasp. He rolled over and over, came to a stop,covered in dust and dirt. Loplop lay some feet away, hunched up in astrange position, his arms wrapped around his head, his arse thrustinto the air, his knees on the ground.

They were beside the dark entrance to the bus terminus. A littleway off was the yard, full of the buses Saul had seen from the air.In the cavernous building before him were hundreds more. They werepacked tight, an intricate puzzle set up and solved day after day;there was a strict order in which they could leave the garage. Eachwas surrounded by its fellows, no more than two feet away on anyside, a maze of the ridiculous-looking vehicles.

Loplop’s suit was muddy and ruined.

Moving unsteadily through the sky came the Piper. Saul stumbledacross the threshold into the vaulted chamber, dragging Loplop behindhim. He ducked out of sight behind the nearest bus, which constitutedone of the red labyrinth’s external walls. He shook Loplop’s leg,pulled him towards him. Loplop flopped a little and lay still. Hebreathed heavily. Saul looked around frantically. He could hear thestorm of wings which heralded the Piper’s arrival, and above it thethin whistle of the Lord of the Dance himself. There was a gust ofair as the Piper was swept down into the cold hall, spewing feathersin his wake.

The whistling stopped. Instantly the birds dispersed in panic, andSaul heard a thud as the Piper landed on the roof of a nearbyvehicle. For a minute, there was no sound apart from the escapingbirds, then footsteps approached across the buses’ roofs.

Saul let go of Loplop’s legs and flattened himself against the busbeside him. He crawled sidewise, striving for quietness. He feltferal instincts awaken in him. He was dead silent.

The bus was an old Routemaster, with an open platform at the back.Saul made his way silently into this opening, as the footsteps abovehim grew nearer. They moved slowly, up and down over the roofs,punctuated by little leaps as the Piper crossed the ravine betweentwo vehicles.