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 prestige–so 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 where–but 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.