"Where are we going?" asked Rhys as the white door of the lift slid open.

"Gonna end it," Sharon replied. "The way it always had to end."

Chapter 109.

You Cannot Outrun Fate He runs.

He has never run before, but now the city is moving, the streets dancing around him, and he runs.

He is a wendigo of the urban forest, he is the shadow that turns as you pass beneath the lamp post, he is the claw waiting on the other side of the locked ancient door, he is the laughing beyond the gate; he purses his mouth and puffs, and the lights go out; he is ancient and old as nightmare and he is...

... running and afraid.

Is this fear?

It must be.

He has never been afraid before. But now he rounds a corner and the streets seem to turn back, trapping him. Left, here, should have been the path to the gate, the traffic gate lowered across Canada Water, but it is not! How can it not be?

He runs again, runs and runs for the bridge across the water, and he can see it. He can see it, but there is the passage to the shopping subways up ahead, the grille drawn across, and as he looks it seemed to grow and grow and swallow him whole, and when he raises his eyes again the bridge is gone!

It is gone because he is not where he should be, and he looks up and thinks he can see a banshee circling overhead, and he sniffs the air and can smell the decaying flesh of a necromancer, and he looks at his hands and they are no longer human, not even close, not even the shadow of a pretence. Not even the red wash of human blood can disguise the truth that he is wendigo! And wendigos cannot be afraid!

"The city doesn't want you here."

A voice from the shadow. And she's there, of course she's there, stepping out of the night. But even as he screams with fury and lashes out at her, the shaman is gone, vanished back into the gloom.

"You've pissed off the very stones."

He snarls with fury and lashes out at the air, tearing at cold nothingness.

"You've angered the streets themselves."

"Fight me!" he roars. "Fight me!"

"All this time I never stopped to ask... Why did you do it?"

A glimpse, the girl, there, beneath the lamp post, but she is gone again, a flimsy vision sinking back into the spirit walk.

"I don't think it was for wealth, or power, or prestigeso why? What could be so important to a monster that it would tear the fabric of the city itself?"

"Little girl, little girl!" he screams. "If you're so concerned for these streets, then fight me for them!"

"Don't have to. I'm a shaman. I'm part of these streets, and they're a part of me, and when you attack them, you attack me. I'm sure there's a name for it. Something old, and deep, and full of time. I forget the details."

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you and all of yours."

"No, Mr Ruislip. You won't."

And there she is, standing wherebut of course!where she'd always been, outside the shattered glass and burning lights of Burns and Stoke, watching him, waiting.

Mr Ruislip spreads his claws, opens his jaws that can sever a head with a single snap and, with an animal scream that sets the bulbs singing in the street lamps, launches himself at her, flying through the air, trailing shredded flesh and spatters of bile.

He came to within an inch of her. Something cold and hard and unforgiving manifested in his path, knocking him off his feet and sending him crashing back. Groggy, Mr Ruislip stared at the thing that had come between him and the smell of blood.

There was nothing there.

Sharon smiled, seeing his confusion, and exhaled into the empty air.

Her breath struck something cold and unseen, and condensed at once into a shimmering cloud. The cloud spilt out and around, winding itself around the invisible nothing that had barred Mr Ruislip's way, and for a moment, that nothingness had a shape written in steam: it had arms, and legs, and a head, curved and twisting in the air, and it was...

"Greydawn," whispered Mr Ruislip. He crawled towards the shape even as Sharon's breath faded. "Greydawn, I have a wish. I'll pay you in blood, so much blood. I'll pay-"

There was the soft sound of crunching glass. Mr Ruislip looked past Sharon to where Dog, blood in his coat and hatred in his eyes, was walking towards him across the pavement.

"I'll pay you. I'll pay blood, anyone you want, as much as you need. I'll give you anything, everything..." he babbled. "Greydawn!"

"Sorry, Mr Ruislip," replied Sharon. "The city doesn't want you any more. Time to go."

Muscles bunched in Dog's back. The ground beneath his feet smoked and charred.

"Anything you want, anything you desire," whined the wendigo. "Just grant me my wish!"

Dog leapt.

It seemed to Sharon that Mr Ruislip went on screaming for a very, very long time.

Chapter 110.

Mr Ruislip Is this... confession?

Confession is the deed, is it not? But it brings with it feelings such as... cleanliness? Is cleanliness not a state of hygiene? Relief, is that the notion we are struggling towards here? I confess to you, and through the act of expressing my inner secrets I acquire a... relief? From a burden? Are emotions a burden; do they have a physical weight? Frankly there is so much nonsense surrounding this ridiculous humanity business I find thoroughly distressing. Why can you creatures not find a reasonable means of expressing whatever it is you're feeling without resorting to all these unnecessary physical concepts such as weight and burden and cleanse. Or is it a language problem? Have you not yet developed suitable language to distinguish the physical concept of a burden from this emotional idea you carry, whatever that may be? I would have hoped for better from you, after all this time.

Well, then, my... confession.

I am wendigo.

My ancestors once roamed the forests, now I roam your streets. I am mighty, unbound, unlimited, unstoppable and... alone. It isn't merely that my species only mates once every sixty-three years and the rest of the time devours its own kind. It is that I move among you, a shadow in the crowd, and I am, for all my glory, unseen, unregarded, unremarked and alone.

There is no loneliness greater than being the stranger in a crowd, the one who cannot be accepted into the tribe. All I seekall I ever soughtwas to understand what it was that made your tribe, your city, what it seemed to be. What is it, this secret thing that you call humanity? Men have tried to explain it to me, but the words they use have too many meanings. Sorrow, grief, longing, happiness, loss, despair, fury, ragewhy can you not apply one simple term to one simple state of being? Why must there be layers beneath layers of all these things? Why must you hide the truth of it from me? Why will you not share your secrets?

So I "confess", if that is the word you wish me to use, to my deeds. It was I who summoned Greydawn. I who ordered the rite. I who have spilt blood and I who have sought this knowledge that your entire species seems determined to deny. I would have asked her to show me the way; I would have asked her to make me human. And for this you would condemn me?

All I ever wanted was to understand.

Chapter 111.

All Good Things Come to Those Who Wait Time passed.

It passed, reflected Rhys, with a certain lethargy, as if, having kept itself busy with adventure for the last few weeks, the universe as a whole was now sitting back and reminiscing like an old man by the fireplace as the night drew in. Through the clouds the sun made a harmless golden stain on the surface of the river as Rhys crossed Southwark Bridge on his way to the evening's meeting of Magicals Anonymous, his hand swathed in a clean bandage, a new pair of shoes on his feet and in his pocket a fresh pack of tissues. He paused in the middle of the bridge to indulge in the traditional pastime of waving at the tourists on a passing boat and wondered exactly why Southwark Bridge had been built in the first place, connecting as it did nowhere especially exciting with nothing much in particular. On either side far more glamorous constructions across the busy waterway linked hubs of transport and glorious monuments.

He kept on walking as the sun slipped below the horizon.

The doctor had said: "Broken fingers? Do I look like I deal in broken fingers? I'm an expert in magical conditions, dammit!"

Dr Seah could be precious about her work when she needed to be.

"But Dr Seah," he'd pleaded, "they were broken by a wendigo."

"And you think that affects the quality of the bone?" she barked. "If you were a wendigo, maybe we could talk, because you'd have that extra little joint in your hand which is surprisingly hard to set and I wouldn't trust orthopaedics with it for shit, but as it is, you're not a wendigo, you're a druid, and when I last checked, druids' hands were boring hands."

Then Sharon, who, to Rhys's surprise, had insisted on accompanying him to the clinic, stepped up to Dr Seah and used her not particularly impressive height to tower over the tiny doctor. Dr Seah glowered up for a second, standing her ground, then saw something in Sharon's eye that reduced the glower to a half-hearted smile of NHS-funded warmth and compassion, only slightly tainted with professional pride.

"Dr Seah," said Sharon, "Rhys here just stood up to a wendigo and all his evil minion hordes. He was stupid when I was in danger and noble when I wasn't, and now his hand hurts and he's only had some paracetamol and the anti-histamines you gave him. And I think that even if his fingers are really, really dull, you should still consider the taxpayer and that, and bloody well fix it, okay?"

Dr Seah bit her lower lip for a second, then shrugged. "Okay," she sighed. "Fuck it."

A few hours later Rhys woke from an anti-histamine-induced drowsiness to find that his fat, plastered hand already bore the message, in felt-tip, Sharon woz 'ere.

"You know," whispered Dr Seah when the druid was sleeping again, "I never really prescribed him anti-histamines."

"Seriously?" said Sharon.

"Totally! Placebo, yeah?"

"But he took the pills down there in the tunnels and went all like, mega-druid."

"Gotta think about the NHS cutbacks," muttered the medic. " 'Sides, I can recognise psychosomatic shit when I see it: seven years medical training, yeah?"

When Rhys woke again, several hours later, he had expected to be alone.

Yet, oddly, he was not.

Rhys had not been the only visitor to Dr Seah.

"Oh my God, I love what you've done with your trolley! And the colour coding on your files is so to die for."

"Sweetheart, I'm glad you noticed! I'm a little obsessive about my files, in fact, but people don't seem to care. Now, what can I do you for?"

"Well, Dr Seah, I like, totally went and drank the wrong blood type."

"Oh no, poor lamb!"

"I know, but it was like, this mega-mega-emergency, and everyone was like 'Oh Kevin, save us!' and I was like, a vamp's gotta do what a vamp's gotta do, so I stepped up there. And I know it was stupid, but I need to know... have I got haemophilia?"

"Sweetheart, haemophilia is a genetically transmitted disorder, and you're a vampire, so like, deal with it. We'll do a few transfusions to flush out the wrong blood type from your system..."

"Okay, babes."

"... and I'd like to keep you in overday for monitoring."

"Whatever you want, Dr Seah. You're like, such a professional, it's so good to be in capable hands. Tell mewhere do you get your sterile wipes?"

Time passed.

A small bell in the doorway of a little French restaurant on the overly-restauranted highway of Upper Street announced the arrival of new customers a few hours before closing time. The waiter scurried to greet them, all white sleeves, only to pause by the door, struggling to make sense of what he saw.

There was a girlthat much was easy. She had black hair streaked with electric blue at the front, and carried a large bag sagging with badges. There was a man with ginger hair and a bandaged hand, and then there was...

... it was hard to say what it was.

An impression of largeness, a sense of overwhelming mass, and yet when the waiter looked away, he realised that there was nothing to worry about really, of course not, because he couldn't have just seen a seven-foot troll come through his door. And frankly, what a ridiculous notion, what an absurd idea; it was just a person... a person whose face he couldn't quite remember, that was all.

The three sat at a small table lit by a candle stuck in a bottle, and one of the wicker chairs sagged, beneath the... the large individual. The waiter handed out menus and didn't fully understand why his hand shook.

"Tonight's specials," he gabbled, "are on the board for you. May I especially recommend the rabbit on a bed of black cabbage, or the swordfish in white-wine sauce?"

The man and the woman looked at their companion.

Gretel gently laid the menu down on the tabletop, careful not to break anything, and brushed the ends of her knife and fork with the rounded mass of a fingertip.

"Can I have... all of it?" she asked.

Time passed.