‘Run! Get the fuck out!’ screamed Saul, but the Jungle wasremorseless, and no one heard him except Anansi.

Saul looked down, eight feet from the stage, relaxed his grip anddropped from Anansi like a bomb.

He was rigid, his quarry dead in his line of flight. Even over theDrum and Bass beats, Saul thought he heard a collective gasp. Hisface set as he fell, his legs straightened, but the Piper had beenwatching and he danced nimbly to one side, away from Saul’s punishingboots, leaving Saul to slam into the wooden stage.

He staggered but remained on his feet. The decks were so wellsupported that the record playing did not even skip at his arrival.Saul looked on in horror as Natasha’s hand tightened on the DATplayer’s volume control, her face furrowed over the headphones as sheprepared to mix from the record to the tape, waiting for the rightmoment in the beat.

Saul leapt towards her, prepared to throw her away from the decks,to hurt her if need be, rage and fear filling him, but as he nearedher something slammed into him from behind and he went sprawling,flying off to the side of the stage. Natasha did not even lookround.

Saul rolled on the floor, twisted, and pulled himself back up.

Fabian was bearing down on him.

His friend was not looking at him, was focusing over Saul’sshoulder, just as Loplop had done that night in the flat. He movedtowards Saul without pausing, his arms outstretched like a cinematiczombie.

Behind Fabian, Saul saw Anansi touch the stage, only for the Piperimmediately to smack him hard in the mouth, sending him sprawling.But Saul’s attention was taken by the tiniest of motions: Natasha’shand turning the volume slowly up.

Saul barrelled into Fabian, trying to run through him, overpowerhim, and his friend held him fast, twisted as Saul tried to run pasthim. The two came crashing down, Saul’s hand outstretched, an inchfrom Natasha’s shoe.

She nodded in satisfaction and turned up the DAT.

Everything froze.

There was a sublime moment. Everyone was utterly still: thedancers, the men who had jumped on stage to break up the rights theysaw there, Saul, rigid with despair.

The beats that slid insidiously from the speakers were all at thehigh end, cymbals, no bassline. A tiny snatch of piano cried outplaintively.

But it was the flute which held the attention.

A sudden burst had heralded the song, a trill that had eruptedinto the room’s collective consciousness and cleared the minds of thelisteners. As Saul watched, Natasha removed her headphones and herwalkman. No need for them now. This was the song she had beenlistening to. Behind him Fabian rose and followed suit.

The snatch of flute had shocked the dancers into submission, andnow it faded, leaving only echoes and the sounds of radio static, theghosts of dead stations rolling over the beat and the soulless piano.Still there was no bassline. Saul could not get up. He saw thedancers begin to shake their heads and extricate themselves from thesnares of the flute, and then another burst exploded into the roomand with comically precise timing, the assembled throng all snappedback upright, their eyes rapt.

And then again. Again.

The Piper stared at Saul, the amiable cast of his face belied byhis ghastly wide eyes, ferocious with pleasure.

‘You lose,’ he mouthed to Saul.

Saul glared balefully at the Piper. He raised his armtheatrically, and caught Anansi’s eye as he struggled to his feet.Shaking, Anansi imitated him.

Together, they brought their arms down.

‘Now!’ Saul shrieked.

Floorboards and pipes boiled over with rats. Saul’s crack troopsexploded into the room, racing voraciously through the frozen legs ofthe dancers towards the stage. The walls erupted as spiders burstfrom the pores of the building and spilled like liquid towards thePiper.

At that moment, the bassline of Wind City burst into the room,pared down and simple. And riding it, sailing over the troughs andpeaks of beat and bass, was the flute.

The dancers moved as one.

They moved in time, dancing again, an incredible piece ofchoreography, every right foot raised together, coming down, thenevery left, a strange languorous hardstep, arms swinging, legs rigid,up and down in time to the beat, obeying the Piper’s flute. And everystep aimed at a rat.

This was war.

The rats were righting now, leaping onto bodies and backs. Thedancers unearthly unity slowly dissolved as they fought their small,vicious enemies without that dislocated look ever leaving theireyes.

The spiders had reached the stage now, with the vanguard of therats, and both armies swarmed towards the Piper. Anansi rose behindhim and lurched forward, slamming his arms into the Piper’s back, buthis power was diminished by the men who leapt forward to hold him.They did not look at him. They held their heads to the side to hearthe music, and they did what the music told them. With a strengththat was not theirs they hurled Anansi backwards into the wall. Heshouted at his troops, gesticulated.

Saul slithered across the floor towards the decks, the DAT player,the source of the music. Instantly Natasha turned and stamped on hishand with her long heel. He screeched in pain, slithered away again,tried to get past her, but she stamped again and again, faster andfaster, until it seemed impossible that she remain standing.

Someone behind Saul grabbed him and pulled him up and with asudden surge of righteous anger he elbowed them in the face. The headsnapped back and lolled, the body staggering but somehow keptstanding by the music. Saul turned, his hands claws, and his ragedissipated in horror. His assailant was about seventeen, a chubbyAsian boy dressed in his Jungling best, now spattered with blood. Hisnose was a mess in the middle of his face and still he tried to keeptime to the beat.

Saul pushed him away hard, out of the fight.

He realized that the dancers were slowly approaching the stage,fighting and scratching, hurling rats and spiders against the walls,ripping at them with their teeth, all the while cocking their headsthoughtfully to hear the notes of Wind City. The fucking flute!

It was multilayered, alienating, frightening, a cacophonousbackdrop.

More and more dancers leapt onto the stage, their clothes cloggedwith blood, rat and human, with fragments of fur, their facesshredded by tiny claws. Saul could taste the rat blood on the air. Itflooded him with adrenaline.

Spiders and rats covered the stage, swarmed up the legs of Fabianand the dancers. Fabian tugged at the fat bodies of rats and slammedthem underfoot where their legs and spines and skulls cracked andthey crawled off to die. He slapped at himself and danced from leg toleg, smearing spiders into the wood.

Saul could hear Anansi bellowing.

Saul turned and made for the decks again. Fabian kicked him in thecrotch from behind and Natasha stamped at his shoulder. He moved,avoided being impaled, but hands grasped his legs and tugged himviolently across a floor slippery with rat blood and crushed spiders,slid him away from Natasha and the DAT player, slammed him into awall. Bodies fell across him, inhumanly strong knees crushed hisback, he was pinioned by a score of arms and legs.

Saul could hear Anansi shrieking.

He looked up, saw the Piper bent over Anansi, the spider-man helddown by several dancers. With his head low against the boards, allSaul could see of the dancefloor was the bobbing heads of thedancers.

It was a vision of hell, rats and spiders and blood swarming overthe damned.

Fabian stumbled into his view, and Saul looked up at him and backat Natasha. They were invisible beneath a second skin of spiders, athick skittering mass. The tide of spiders spilled towards the Piper.Anansi kept shrieking.