Twenty yards; ten. Dog was still crouched, soft steam rising beneath his paws where the rainwater burned. He examined Mrs Rafaat.

Five yards; three. If Dog had stood up like a man, he would have been taller than the fiercest basketball player, wider than a sumo wrestler who'd let himself go. But as the old woman approached, Dog seemed to curl into himself, limbs folding in, head turning this way and that, nostrils sampling great whiffs of air. Rhys could see the ribs moving in Dog's chest, each longer than his own arm, thicker than his wrist; an opening of Dog's jaws could have encompassed Mrs Rafaat's head right down to her neck.

The old lady didn't care.

She was squatting down in front of the creature, reaching out a hand and laying it on Dog's snout. Her fingers became smeared with oil and blood as she ran them over his fur. Dog leaned in and sniffed, first with one gaping nostril, then the other, as if to confirm the data imparted to his brain.

"There, there," murmured Mrs Rafaat, as Dog shifted uneasily from side to side before her. "Who's a good boy?"

From Dog's throat there came the strangest sound. It started high, and grew thinner and fainter as it stretched, and stretched, an impossible, agonised, pathetic, hopeful whine. Dog pushed his muzzle closer to Mrs Rafaat and buried it in the crook of her arm.

"There, there," she repeated. "There, there."

"That's not..." whispered Edna. "That's not what..."

"Bugger me," muttered Swift. "She actually bloody is."

Edna was a woman trying to understand a concept outside the remit of all comprehension. "But she's... She can't be. I mean, it's not possible."

Dog whined again, shuffled closer so that one great paw was against Mrs Rafaat's knee. Beneath his claw he'd caught a corner of her sari, which began to blacken and smoke, but Mrs Rafaat, unregarding, held Dog's head in her arms and murmured, "Who's a pretty boy, hmm? Who's a pretty boy?"

"Um." Rhys raised a hand requesting permission to speak. Seeing the expressions of everyone around him, he tried speaking instead. "Where's Ms Li?"

Sammy pointed at a patch of empty air behind Mrs Rafaat, and Rhys looked. As he did so, it occurred to him that Sharon had been stood there a long time.

The shaman knelt down beside Mrs Rafaat as she held Dog's head in her arms. Dog turned to stare at Sharon, but didn't roar, didn't pounce, just rolled a little in the old woman's arms to inspect this new, interesting phenomenon.

"Hello," said Sharon softly. Then, in concession to the blood on Dog's coat and the sharpness of his fangs, she added, "Good doggy."

"He's beautiful, isn't he?" sighed Mrs Rafaat.

"He's uh... he's definitely special," replied Sharon. "Do you mind if I just...?" She reached down and eased the smouldering end of Mrs Rafaat's sari out from under Dog's great black paw, hastily smothering some embers. "Oh," she added, seeing the claw-sized scorch mark. "I don't think that's coming out."

"Oh well," said Mrs Rafaat, "it only came from a shop in Euston."

Something deep rumbled with contentment inside the great pumping void of Dog's lungs. In other creatures it might have been a croon. Mrs Rafaat scratched Dog under the chin and murmured, "I didn't think the colour suited me anyway."

"It did! It does."

"I was thinking green?"

"Green is tricky," said Sharon. She shifted into a sitting position and patted Dog on his great, sticky side, hardly aware of what she did. "So, I guess I gotta ask you... about the dog."

"Isn't he a cutie?" exclaimed Mrs Rafaat, rubbing her nose up against Dog's great black snout. "Yes, you are; yes, you are!"

"I'm sure he's lovely," confirmed Sharon, "but the thing is, he is also an eight-foot-long mystical killing machine. Which is totally cool, but, you know, it does raise some questions."

"Killing machine? My little puppy wouldn't hurt a fly."

"So he is your little puppy, is he? I mean, you don't just have a knack for animals?"

"Oh no, I don't think so. I leave out biscuits for the neighbourhood cats, but they never eat them, and sometimes I open the curtain at the back of my flat and there's foxes there, just staring at me, but they never eat the biscuits either, and I have always wanted a little doggy, yes I have, yes I have!" The sentence dissolved back into a croon. "And he's such a good little boy, isn't he?"

"He's lovely," Sharon hastened to agree. "But like I said, he is a kinda killing machine, and he is sorta here to kill that Eddie guy. And, you know, some people might question all that. If you don't mind me saying."

"I'm sure my little puppy doesn't mean anything naughty, do you?" To Sharon's surprise, as Mrs Rafaat nuzzled up against Dog's great snout, Dog nuzzled right back.

"Even if you were in danger?" Sharon ventured. "What if he was lost and afraid and with nowhere left to go?"

Mrs Rafaat hesitated, pursing her lips.

"Also, yeah, I don't want to say nothing, but isn't it a little kinda... you know... weird to have a pet who's quite so, uh... grrargh?"

"People keep snakes!" retorted Mrs Rafaat.

"Yes..."

"I don't see why people should have any problems with my little puppy," she declared. "He's got a heart of gold."

"It's not really a problem with your dog," Sharon ventured. "That's not what I'm trying to say here."

"Then what?"

Sharon looked into the open, innocent face of Mrs Rafaat as she cradled her pet monster's head with the affection of a child for a fondly kept teddy bear.

"I think, basically, what I'm getting at here is that... uh... it's not common for people to keep, like, mystical guardian monsters as pets, yeah. And actually Dog here is probably not so big on tasty treats as he is on like, grinding the bones of his enemies, or Greydawn's enemies or... your enemies. If you see what I'm saying."

Innocence, hopeful of enlightenment, stared back.

"You know how you have weird dreams?" Sharon tried one last time. "And you think that something's wrong, but you don't know what it is?"

"Yes!" agreed Mrs Rafaat. "It's very frustrating, but I don't want to make a fuss..."

"Thing is," murmured Sharon, "I think I might know what the problem is. I think... you may... sorta be... Greydawn."

Mrs Rafaat recoiled as if stung, blinking hard. Then she puffed out her cheeks, drew back her shoulders and barked, "That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"

Chapter 74.

To Prosper and Grow Is Only Human A moment to pause and consider.

Consider an office.

It is big, white, glass down one wall, abstract images of...

... well, art...

... down another. Fluorescent lamps burn above the long table, where during working hours important meetings for important men are held, complete with bottled mineral water to encourage important thoughts to flow. But now, here, in the dead of night, the lights are off, and the room is silent.

A man stands by the window.

Only...

... not quite a man.

Look at him, and you will see a stick-thin figure with wrists of bone made to snap at the lightest touch, pale hair and skin barely thick enough for the blood to pass, standing with his hands clasped behind his back, surveying all beneath him. The lights of Canada Water, steel and glass, concrete and iron, planned, perfect, cold.

But turn your head to one side and for a second, just a second, you might perceive what is truly there, your mind bursting apart as his skin floats from his back; and there he will stand, wendigo in all his glory, claws for fingers, bones of iron, flesh flying loose around him like banners in a breeze and even as you perceive...

... you will forget, your mind unable to accept what it has just beheld.

A knock on the door.

His head doesn't turn as the door is opened. A woman, dressed in a grey trouser suit, makes her way in.

"Yes?" His voice barely an exhalation. The glass in front of him shows no sign of steam as his breath plays over its surface.

"M-M-Mr Ruislip sir?" Her knuckles are white, her skin pale as the silk that covers her body.

"Have they found her yet?" he murmurs, his eyes fixed on the lights of the city below. "Have they found Greydawn?"

"There's been a problem, Mr Ruislip sir. The builders you sent to Magicals Anonymous, they're... gone."

"Gone?" A flicker of an eyebrow above a watery eye, a bare twitch in the corner of his mouth. "How 'gone'?"

"Vanished, sir. Uh... dissolved, sir, the scryers say."

"But I was assured that they were indestructible," breathes Mr Ruislip. "I was assured that no lock could hold them, nor no magic bar their path."

"Y-y-yes, sir."

"I am disappointed by this turn of events. It seems to me that I have, at every step, made great efforts to guarantee the survival of this company. I have given it prosperity, which is a source of happiness to men, I have given it success, which causes pride; and yet the one favour I ask in return, the one... desire I express, has not been achieved. Why is this?"

"Ed-Eddie Parks fled."

"Redundant. The summoning circle failed to bind and compel Greydawn, and I removed their Christmas bonuses. If Eddie wishes to seek employment elsewhere, then that is an acceptable reallocation of human resources."

"The summoners are dead. They're all dead. Dog is in the streets. The Midnight Mayor-"

He moves so fast she can hardly see, but he's there by her side in a second, and, God, it's fingers he runs over her cheek, fingers not claws, fingers...

"Tell me about your fear," he breathes, so soft now, curious and quiet. "It is a feeling but it causes a physical change, yes? Your heartit beats faster. Your face is red. Your breath comes quickly. This is a hormonal response to feeling? Your mind tells you that you are in danger and so your blood moves faster in preparation for a fight? Tell me, if you experience joy, how does your body alter?"

The woman half-closed her eyes, ran a leather tongue over sandy lips. "We can still find her," she pleaded. "We'll find Greydawn. The Friendlies... the shamans..."

"The Friendlies and the shamans are united!" roars Mr Ruislip, his anger a too-hot wave of breath in her face. "The Midnight Mayor has joined them, the builders are slain, and now they will come, and when they are all dead I will be no closer to my objective! All I ask is a very simple thing and yet you fail again!"

His fingers move.

It is a tiny gesture, a flick that might swat away a fly.

The woman sways.

She feels the blood from her neck run down and seep into her shirt. Feels the hot pulse of it draining away from her veins, the lightness in her skull as gravity takes over where the heart can no longer reach. She tries to speak, but air cannot pass through what is left of her throat. She falls, her blood a scarlet spray up the nearest wall.

Claws, not fingers, then.

Mr Ruislip turns away.

There is a phrase he has heard, uttered by humans in seeming jest, but meant to disguise some other feeling. How he despises it when mortals do thatlayer one sentiment beneath the hollowness of another.

What was it?

"If you want something done, do it yourself," he murmurs. It's said so often in jest, but what it really means, what it so often disguises, is rage.

Chapter 75.

A Dog Is a Man's Best Friend They had persuaded Mrs Rafaat back inside the hall.

Dog had padded quietly after her, and now sat, a shaggy, panting monster at his small mistress's feet, examining the members of Magicals Anonymous with a beady, bloody stare. Whenever his gaze turned to the barely conscious form of Eddie Parks, his lips curled back in rage, and only a gentle pat on the head and a cajoling "Who's a naughty doggy?" from Mrs Rafaat appeared to quell Dog's otherwise unrestrained loathing. Eddie Parks quaked at Dog's stare, and turned away only to find a clipboard and a biro hovering in front of his nose.

"Hi," exclaimed Kevin. "So, I just lost like, disgusting amounts of blood tonight, and I was wondering... what's your rhesus type?"

Rhys passed Mrs Rafaat another cup of tea, his hand shaking as Dog's great head turned to examine the brew. The druid had always worried that animals never liked him, and now his anxiety made him feel quite faint.

"Thank you, dear," murmured Mrs Rafaat. "It's been a very stressful night."

Sharon was examining the wreckage of the hall, aghast. Whatever heightened state of non-drumming-based spiritual enlightenment she'd reached a few minutes before, it was fading fast against the onslaught of practical considerations. "Oh shit," she muttered. "Am I gonna have to pay for all this?"

"I'm sure they've got insurance," offered Ms Somchit. The black-clad Alderman was cradling her mug of herbal tea like someone whose happiness is proportional to their share of tannin.

"Yeah, but I haven't!" wailed the shaman. "And where are we gonna have meetings now?"