He wanted to see Fabian more than anything.

So one evening he bade the rats leave him alone. They obeyed immediately, disappearing in a sudden flurry. Saul began to cross the city, alone again.

He wondered if King Rat was with him, was watching him. As long as the f.u.c.ker kept his distance, Saul decided, he did not care.

Saul crossed the river under Tower Bridge. He swung like an ape along the girders which festooned its underside, convoluted thickets of vast wires and pipes. In the middle, just at the point where the bridge could split and open for tall ships, he stopped and hung by his hands, swaying slightly.

The sky was taken from him; the great ma.s.s of the 1 bridge above him was all he could see at eye-level

and above. At the very edge of his sight, buildings appeared again over the river. But for the most part 1 the city was inverted and refracted in the Thames, ai

sinuous shattered mirror. Lights glinted on the water, dark shapes punctuated with hundreds of points of ,

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light, the towers of the city, the far-off lights of the South Bank Centre, far more real for him then than their counterparts in the air above.

He stared down at the city below his feet. It was an illusion. The shimmering motion of the lights he saw was not the real city. They were part of it, to be sure, a necessary part... but the beautiful lights, so much more lively than those above them, were a simulacrum. They merely painted the surface tension. Below that thin veneer the water was still filthy, still dangerous and cold.

Saul held on to that. He resisted the poetics of the city .

Saul walked fast, making the pa.s.sers-by ignore him, being nothing to them. He strode the streets like a cipher, invisible. Sometimes he stopped quite still and listened, to see if he was being followed. He could see no one, but he was not so naive as to think that was conclusive.

He approached Brixton from the backstreets, not wanting to run the gamut of its light and crowds. His pulse was up. He was nervous. He had not spoken to Fabian for so long, he was afraid they would no longer understand each other. How would he sound to Fabian now? Would he sound strange, would he sound ratty?

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He reached Fabian's street. An old woman walked past him, bent into herself, and he was alone.

Something was wrong. The air tasted charged. People moved behind the white curtains of Fabian's room. Saul stood quite still. He stared at the window, saw the vague movements of men and women within. They milled uncertainly, investigating. With a growing horror, Saul pictured those within opening drawers, I examining books, looking at Fabian's artwork. He knew who moved like that.

Saul's demeanour changed. One moment his shoulders were hunched, he was tightened into a drab stance, something to see but not notice, his disguise for the streets. Now he uncurled and sank towards the pavement. He bent in a sudden snap of motion, sidling simultaneously against the low wall. He crept through the thin strip of garden, the desultory tiny patios.

He was truly invisible now. He could sense it in himself.

He sidled along the wall, sudden bursts of motion

interspersed with unearthly stillness. His nose ,

twitched. He smelt the air.

Saul stood before Fabian's house. Soundlessly he 1 vaulted the low wall and landed in a crouch below the 1 window. He placed his ear to the wall.

Architecture betrayed those within. Bluff voices

seeped out through cracks and rivulets between I bricks.

'... don't like that b.l.o.o.d.y picture, though ...'

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'... know that the DFs totally losing it over this. I mean he's f.u.c.king well lost it...'

'... geezer Morris, why have a go at him? ... thought he was a mate The police talked in an endless stream of ba.n.a.lities, cliches and pointless verbiage. Their speech served no purpose, thought Saul in despair, no f.u.c.king purpose at all. He ached for conversation, for communication, and to hear words wasted like this ... he felt like crying.

He had lost Fabian. He put his head in his hands.

"Him gone, bwoy. Him with the Badman now.'

Anansi's voice was soft and very near. Saul rubbed his eyes without opening them. He breathed deeply. Finally he looked up.

Anansi's face hovered just in front of his, suspended before him upside-down. His strange eyes were very close, staring right into Saul's.

Saul looked at him calmly, held his gaze. Then he let his eyes slide casually up, investigating Anansi's position.

Anansi was hanging from one of his ropes, suspended from the roof. He grasped it with both hands, effortlessly suspended his weight, his naked feet intertwined with the thin white rope. As Saul watched, Anansi's legs uncoupled from the fibres and swivelled slowly and soundlessly through the air. His eyes held 313.

Saul's, even as his face turned one hundred and eighty degrees.

His feet touched the concrete with a tiny pat.

'You d.a.m.n good now, you know, pickney. Not easy keep track of you, these days.'

'Why did you bother? Daddy send you?' Saul's voice was withering.

Anansi laughed without sound. He smiled lazily, predatory - the big spider-man.

'Come now. Me want fe talk.' Anansi pointed with a long finger, straight up. Then hand over hand he seemed to fall up the rope, which was tugged peremptorily from view.

Saul slid silently to the corner of the building and gripped it on both sides. He hauled himself away from the earth.

Anansi was waiting. He sat cross-legged on the flat roof. His mouth worked as if he were preparing to say something unpleasant. He nodded a greeting to Saul and indicated with a nod that he should sit opposite him.

Instead, Saul interlaced his fingers behind his head and turned away. He looked out over Brixton.

There were noises all around them from the streets.

'Mr Rattymon going crazy waiting for you now.' Anansi spoke quietly. 'Motherf.u.c.ker shouldn't have used me as bait, then,' said Saul evenly. 'Rapist motherf.u.c.ker shouldn't* have killed my dad.'

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'Rattymon you dad.'

Saul did not answer. He waited.

Anansi spoke again.

'Loplop come back and him crazy mad at you. Him want you dead fe true.'

Saul turned, incredulous.

'What the f.u.c.k has he got to be angry with me for?'

'You make him deaf, you know, and you done also make him mad again, mad in him head.'

'Oh for f.u.c.k's sake,' spat Saul. 'We were both about to be killed. He was about to kill me and get f.u.c.king taken apart himself. I think the f.u.c.king Piper's done playing with us, you know? I think he just wants us all dead now, all the kings. Loplop would've f.u.c.king died, I saved his life ...'

'Yeah, man, but him save you. Could've watch while the Piperman done kill you, but him try to save you, and you f.u.c.k up him ear ...'

'That's a load of c.r.a.p, Anansi. Loplop tried to save me because you all... you all... know the Piper can't hold me, and you all know I'm the only thing that can stop him.'

There was a long silence.

'Well, Loplop him mad, anyway. Don't be getting too close to him now.'

'Fine,' said Saul.

Again, a long pause.

'What do you want, Anansi? And what do you know about Fabian?'

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Anansi sucked his teeth in disgust.

'You still green, bwoy, fe true. You sure got all the rats dem upon you side, but you don't know what fe do with them. Rats everywhere, bwoy. Spiders everywhere. Them you eyes, the rats. My lickle spiders tell me what the Badman do with you friends. You ain't never ask. You not care till now.'

'Friends?'

Anansi screwed up his face and looked at Saul disdainfully.

'Him have kill the fat bwoy.' Saul's hands fluttered about his face. His mouth stayed shut, but it quivered. 'Him have take the black bwoy and the lickle DJ woman.'

'Natasha,' breathed Saul. 'What does he want with her ...? How does he know who they are ...? How is he getting inside me?' Saul grabbed his head with both hands, began to thump himself in despair. Kay, he thought, Natasha, he hit himself more, what was happening?

Anansi was on him. Strong hands gripped his wrists.

'Stop now!' Anansi was horrified.

Animals do not hurt themselves, Saul realized. There was still human inside him, then. He shook himself and stopped.

'We have to get them back. We have to find them 'How, bwoy? Be real.'

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Saul's head spun. 'What did he do to Kay?' Anansi pursed his lips. 'Him took the bwoy apart.'

They ran for a while, then there was a short scurrying climb, and they stood on Brixton Rec, the sports centre. They could hear the faint thump of MTV from the weights room below. Saul stood at the very edge of the roof, a little way forward from Anansi. He pushed his hands in his pockets.

'You could have told me, you know ...' he said. He heard himself, and hated his plaintive tone. He half turned, glanced at Anansi, who stood quite still, his arms folded over his bare chest.

Anansi sucked his teeth in contempt.

'Cha, bwoy, you still full to the brim with rubbish. You talk about how the Rattymon him you father? What for me want tell you that?'

Saul looked at him. Anansi was insistent.

'What for me want tell you? Hmmm? Listen, bwoy, pickney, hear me now. Me one biga.s.s spider, understand? The Rattymon, him a rat. Loplop him the bird, the Bird Superior. Now you, you some strange half ting, fe true, but what for we gwan tell you ting like that? Me tell you just what me want you fe know. Always, there you have a promise. No more hypocrisy now, you see, bwoy? No need. Animal like me no 317.

need for such ting. You leave that behind. You can trust me to be just so trustworthy, never no more, but never no less. Y'understand?'

Saul said nothing. He watched a train arrive at Brixton station and trundle away again.

'Was Loplop going to tell the Piper where I was? Were you all going to come for him when he tried to take me?' he asked finally.

Anansi shrugged, almost imperceptibly.

They sidled along the side of the railway, the British Rail line which rose above the market and the streets. They slid along without speaking, heading for Cam berwell. Saul appreciated the company, he realized, though it was hardly what he had hoped for when setting out this evening.

'How could he find my friends?' said Saul. They sat on the climbing frame in a nondescript schoolyard.

'Him search all you books an tings. Him find some address tings fe sure.'

Of course, thought Saul. My fault.

He was numbed. If he was still human, he realized, he would be in shock. But he was not, not any more; he was half rat, and he felt inured.

Anansi was very silent. He made no attempt to persuade Saul to return to King Rat, or to do anything, for that matter.

Saul looked at him curiously.

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'Does King Rat know you're here?' he asked.

Anansi nodded.

'Has he asked you to say anything? Get me back?'

Anansi shrugged. 'Him want you back, sure. You useful, y'know? But him know you can't be told nothing you don't want. You know what him want. If you want come back, you will come.'

'Do you ... do you understand why I won't come back to him?'

Anansi looked at his eyes. Gently, he shook his head.

'No, bwoy, not at all. You can survive better with him, with us, fe true. And you are rat. You should go back. But I know you don't think like that. I don't know what you are, bwoy. You can't be rat, you can't be man. I don't understand you at all, but that's alright, because I know now that I will never understand you, nor will you me. We are not the same.'

In the small hours, after they had eaten, they stood together at an entrance to the sewers. Anansi looked behind him, planning his route up the side of the warehouse beside them. He looked back at Saul.

Saul stuck out his hand. Anansi grasped it.

'You are the only hope, bwoy. Come back to us.'

Saul shook his head, twisted, uncomfortable before the sudden intensity.

Anansi nodded and dropped his hand.

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'See you around.'