Saul backed slowly up the stairs without a sound as the footstepsapproached. Then again there was a jump, and the landing made himshudder with the vibration as the Piper leapt onto Saul’s bus andstrode across its roof.

The bus was in darkness. Saul moved backwards continually, hishands reaching out to touch the rows of seats on either side. Hegrasped the steel poles as if the bus was moving, steadying himself.His mouth hung open stupidly. He gazed at the ceiling, his eyesfollowing the steps above. They crossed in a long diagonal, towardswhere he and Loplop had landed. Then they reached the edge and Saul’sheart lurched into his mouth as the Piper’s body flew past a windowon his left. He froze, but nothing happened. The Piper had not seenhim. Saul crouched silently, crept forward, came up from underneaththe window frame, pushed just enough of his head into the open tosee, his hands framing his face, his eyes big, like a Chad graffitiedon a wall.

Below him, the Piper was leaning over Loplop. He was touching himwith one hand, his stance like a concerned bystander who findssomeone sitting in the street and crying. The Piper’s clothes wereshredded from all the tiny bird claws, and they ran red.

Saul waited. But the Piper did not attack Loplop, just left him inhis misery and bloody silence. He stood and slowly turned. Saulducked down and held himself quite still. His mind suddenly began toreplay the grotesque two-step he had seen the Piper perform withDeborah and he felt weak and enraged, and disgusted with himself, andscared. He breathed fast and urgent, with his face down on his knees,hunched on the top floor of the bus, in the dark.

And then he heard a whistling, and it came from the passengerentrance below. He felt the enormous welling of energy in his armsand legs that fear gave him.

The Piper’s voice called up to him, as amiable and relaxed asever.

‘Don’t forget I can smell you, little ratling.’ Feet began tomount the stairs and Saul scuttled backwards towards the front of thebus. ‘What, do you think you can live and sleep and eat in a sewerand I wouldn’t smell you? Honestly, Saul…’

A dark figure appeared at the top of the stairs.

Saul rose to his feet.

‘I’m the Lord of the Dance, Saul. You still don’t get it, do you?You really think you’re going to get away from me? You’re dead, Saul,because you just will not dance to my tune.’

There was fury in his voice as he said that. The Piper steppedforward, and the weak light of the garage hit him. It was enough forSaul’s rat eyes.

The Piper’s face was a ghastly white, ruthlessly stripped ofcolour. His hair had been tugged from its neat ponytail by a thousandfrantic little claws, and it swept around his face and under his chinand around his throat as if it would strangle him. His clothes werepulled and stripped and tugged and unravelled and stretched in alldirections, a collectivity of tiny injuries, and everywhere bloodspattered him, streaked his milky face. His expression belied hisruined skin. He stared at Saul with the same relaxed, amiable gaze hehad first levelled, the same banal I cheerfulness with which he hadgreeted Saul, dispatched Deborah, the calm which had only disappearedfor one moment when he could not make Saul dance.

‘Saul,’ he said, in greeting, and held out his hands.

He walked forward.

‘I’m not a sadist, Saul,’ he said, smiling. He held out his handas he walked, and when it touched one of the steel poles that rosebetween seat and ceiling, he gripped it, then grasped it with hisother hand. He began to twist it, his body straining and shakingviolently with the effort, and the steel slowly bent and tried tostretch, snapped loudly. He did not take his eyes from Saul, nor didhis expression change, even as he strained. He yanked at the brokenend and the pole broke again, came away in his hand, a twisted cudgelof shining metal.

‘I’m not eager to hurt you,’ he continued, resuming his pace. ‘Butyou are going to die, because you won’t dance when I tell you to. Soyou’re going to die now.’ The slender club swung down with a flashlike an electric arc, and Saul hissed as he saw it move, jerked underthe shining thing with a rodent’s nervous grace. The club tore greatgouts of stuffing into the air as it eviscerated a seat with itsragged tip.

The Piper’s strength was awesome and unstoppable, dwarfing thetight rat muscles that reclaimed food had awoken in Saul, his newpower that he was so proud of. He rolled away from the club andscuttled backwards to the front end of the bus. He thought of Deborahand rage choked him. His rat side and his humanity oscillatedviolently, buffeted by the great storm of his anger. He wanted tobite out the Piper’s throat and then he wanted to beat him, to smashhis head, pummel him methodically with his fists and then he wantedto claw at his stomach, he wanted to gut him with his sharp claws.And he could do none of these things, because he was not strongenough, and the Piper would kill him.

The Piper straightened a little, paused and grinned at Saul.‘Enough,’ he said and lunged straight forward, his weapon held like aspear. Saul screeched in fear and rage and frustration as his bestialreflexes carried him to the side of the brutal thrust.

There was no way past the Piper, that was clear as he jumped, andhe pulled his legs up tight under him and brought them down on theseat beside him, and he drove them up again like pistons, kickinghard away from the seat, out to the side, punching at the glass nextto him, stretching his body out like a diver, feeling the window fallaround him in a million pieces, taking bits of his skin with it as itfell.

He flew through the air between the bus and its neighbour, anotherof the same route, that had preceded it into the maze. Saul’s bodypassed fifteen feet above the ground, and then another wall of glassdisintegrated under his ferocious rat fists and his arms andshoulders disappeared into the next bus before his feet had even leftthe last one, and the explosive collapse of the first window, stillloud in his ears, segued into the next, and he was through, rollingoff the seat, glass shards showering him like confetti.

He could still hear a spattering sound from outside, as littlenuggets of glass hit the ground. He stood, shaking, ignored hisripped skin and deep bruises. He ran for the stairs at the back ofthe bus. From behind him he heard a strange sound, a roar ofirritation, exasperation raised to the point of rage. There was afurther loud crashing, and in the curved mirror at the top of thestairs he saw another window shatter, saw the Piper burst the glassfeet-first and land sitting on a seat, his head craned to watch Saul.He swung up immediately, no more talk, and raced after Saul.

Saul careened down the stairs and out of the rear of the bus,running through the dark alleys between the sides of the great redvehicles, losing himself in the maze. He stopped, crouching, and heldhis breath.

From a way away he heard feet running, and a voice shouting, ‘Whatthe fuck is going on?’ Oh Christ, thought Saul. The fucking guard.Saul’s heart was beating like a Jungle bassline.

He could hear the guard’s leaden steps somewhere close by, and hecould clearly hear the man’s wheezing and panting. Saul stood quitestill, tried to listen beyond the sounds of the guard, to hear anymovement the Piper might make.

There was nothing.

An overweight, middle-aged man in a grey uniform emerged suddenlyinto the gap between buses in which Saul stood. The two men stoodstill for a moment, gazing stupidly at each other. They movedsimultaneously. The guard approached with a truncheon raised, openedhis mouth to shout, but Saul was on him, underneath the sluggishtruncheon, pushing it out of his opponent’s hand. He pinned the man’sarm behind him, held his mouth closed and hissed in his ear.