There was silence for a moment as the delicate footsteps grew closer to reveal the flamboyant attire of Josiah Kahn.

'That was for Matthew Straight and Margery Jatista, old friend.'

Xindii and Jia moved closer to the Mapper and he observed them keenly. 'Has he hurt you?'

They both shook their heads and Josiah looked over the boy for the first time in six months and smiled. A prang of falling metal from the carriage urged Josiah to send the kids to safety. Hadigan hadn't quite finished yet.

'Xindii, take the stairs. A friend of mine named Rickard will take you to the Watch, and safety.' He held the boys arm. 'No more running, Heironymous. Even Loquin stopped running eventually.'

Xindii smiled and took Jia by the hand and made haste up the grimy steps. They didn't see the projectile chains launch from the dusty murk of the carriage, nasty crimped hooks that dug into the ceiling above the stairs. They became taut, and with it the ceiling gave way to gravity and a cloud of dust.

The old man walked from the carriage, the chains rewinding all the way back into his wrists. 'Her blood is a delectable vintage Josiah. You should try some.'

'Oh, Hadigan.'

He held up his hand. 'No apologies. What did I tell you, Josiah? You would face me. You never listen.'

Josiah looked back and saw the still form of Jia submerged in rock. He couldn't see Xindii, perhaps the boy was on the other side.

Hadigan started to walk forward with his stick, looking beyond Josiah into the rubble. 'Easy pickings, old friend. Perhaps when I've drained her I'll force you to lick her quim. Your boy has . . . tasted of her dreams. He's more red-blooded than you. I liked him. A little protégé for myself.' He took another step closer.

'Take one more step, Eustace, and you will die where you stand.'

'WE could take of her, Josiah. It's changing me even now. Eating the Ravnor.'

'Your number ends here, old friend.'

Hadigan shook his head in dismay. 'Stubborn to the last . . . so be it.' The man of pockets raised his stick which shimmered in the faint light, turning a shade of steel.

Josiah reached out with the Beat in his heart, holding his cane outward like a rapier. A silver glimmer streaked throughout the wood to encompass it all. The two old friends, bitter rivals, adversaries to the last placed the cold metal of their swords together.

Hadigan smiled, his serpentine tongue, yearning for the scent of death in the air. He was the first to strike, bringing his rapier down on Josiah's where he held it there to gloat and spit into the Mapper's face. Using the glove of the hilt, Hadigan shoved the swords upwards and lunged. Josiah side stepped the attack and took a swipe at Hadigan's unprotected left side where Josiah greeted the old man's knife with a ting of steel. Hadigan swiped again and the two made a merry dance with attacks and counter thrusts, side stepping and blocking each other's lunges. The man of pockets suddenly enveloped Josiah's swing and the circumference brought them to heed, both resting their faces mere inches from each other. Josiah felt the warm breath and decay and Hadigan knew this, blowing the Mapper a kiss as the old man's blade shimmered and coiled around Josiah's rapier. It hissed and bit into the Mapper's cheek. Josiah turned the blade with his wrist and split the snake in two. It squirmed and writhed on the floor, smoking, growing.

'Time to up the ante,' remarked the man of pockets.

The two ends of the bubbling and frothing snake started to form and connect. Something grew from the bubbling matter. Two distinct forms of serpentine physique, cowled by black hoods. Their tongues tasted the air and the six foot snake men reached into their robes and pulled forth their rapiers. Hadigan stood between them, laughing into the ether, his black teeth shining with a cold malevolence. His snake men lunged at Josiah, taking no mercy. He darted between them sharply and turned about with his rapier's blade facing downward. The first of the snake men brought the blade crashing down on the rapier which Josiah then held. The two struggled for superiority as the other attacked and lunged for Josiah's belly but the Mapper was too quick, kicking the snake man in the face. He then brought the rapier down into the gut of the other, plunging deep until the blade glimmered from its back. Josiah pulled the blade back out and side stepped the blade of Hadigan, furious as to his creation's demise. The other charged at Josiah knocking the wind from his chest. It hissed and cursed and swiped with sword and tongue knocking the Mapper onto his back. The snake man grabbed him by the throat but was unaware of Josiah's fortune which he had found on the floor only seconds before. He swiped the shard of glass across the snake man's neck severing Hadigan's Reverie.

'We can lead this merry dance all day, Hadigan. You will answer for your crimes. The monorail will not protect you now.'

'I'm not done yet.'

Josiah started to notice the flumes of metal spilling from his back, countless threads of chains pouring from the flesh of his neck, tendrils of malice. And attached to each, hooks of varying shapes and sizes. The first flew through the air attaching itself to Josiah's chest, piercing his jacket and shirt, the hook burrowing into his chest. He screamed in pain as another ploughed deep into his gut, ripping flesh and tugging him across the floor to the waiting and gloating man of pockets.

The pain was atrocious, each hook as if it had spawned another inside him, probing the depths and limitations of his body. Another burrowed into his chest like a ravenous scarab, leading a trail of burning faeces throughout the tunnels of his chest.

He had to concentrate. Find his Beat again. But the pain was too much. The Beat diminished by the power of Hadigan's Reverie. He had to find it, switch the pain off, concentrate on the now and not the after. Hadigan was enjoying the torture, watching him cower as each tendril worked its way through his body.

Find the Beat, find the Beat . . . Da dum. DA DUM . . . Turn off the pain. It wasn't really pain. It was just a dream after all. Just a mad man's dream. DA DUM. THERE. There it was cowering in his subconscious. Fleeing from the fight. Da Dum. DA DUM DA DUM DA DUM. Josiah grabbed it and the rust rain fell from the ceiling.

It just wasn't rain though, as the rust ate through Hadigan's chains, the man of pockets leaned forward and lent his ear to the tunnel. The backwash of rust water hit him head on, picking him up in its fist-like wake and smashing the frail deluded mad man against the wall.

Moments later the water cleared, seeping back into the mind of Josiah Kahn, who brandished the Beat in his hand like a burning star, hovering over the broken bones of Eustace Phillip Hadigan.

'You will answer for your crimes, Eustace, and suffer in Reverie deemed fit.'

Josiah walked away from the broken man and heard the fool mutter under his breath. He reached for the pulse of the girl. She was alive.

'You could never devise one for me. You think a prison of dream could contain me?'

The old man stood up, bones cracking and breaking, the blood of the Kraken Brood rejuvenating him. A dream come flesh. 'I didn't say you could leave.'

Josiah sighed and clutched the Beat in his hands and turned to face his old friend one more time.

They stood in silence for a moment, watching each other, almost reflecting on times past. Happier memories of school and frivolity. Before the trials of Dreamurlurgy. Before rivalry and adulation.

Hadigan's own Beat, a phosphorus smoke which billowed out from his clothes, swirled through his fingers, eager; wraithlike.

'Goodbye, Eustace.' the Mapper said.

Hadigan didn't say anything, he just smiled, those black teeth gleaming with thoughts of victory.

They both reached out with their Beats, thunder echoed as they met in the ether, battling each other head on. Hadigan's pure malice battering Josiah's burning light. Both men fought the gravity and momentum of their Reveries. The backlash knocking them back, their heels digging into the dirty floor. Josiah slid back under Hadigan's ferocity, the man was too strong. The blood from the girl had indeed changed him. Perhaps he was right. Maybe the Ravnor was being eaten by this alien blood.

Josiah took a breath and then let Hadigan's Beat in, gaining a foothold in the onslaught, the Mapper breathed out and expelled the smoke filled Reverie with a scream bathing the station in a bold light, pulling the tiles from the wall sending shards of slate hurtling through the ether at Hadigan. The sharp shards bounced off him, incurring a childlike giggle. He immediately lobbed a ball of smoke at the Mapper, catching him off guard and Josiah fought hard to keep it at bay. Hadigan applied more pressure, shouting venomous curses into the air, his tongue lapping at the fury.

'You cannot compete with the dreams of gods, Josiah. You are nothing. Nothing you hear. Bathe in my FIRE.'

Hadigan was winning, Josiah falling back into the rubble which covered Jia. His Beat was waning and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold against the fury. He took his mind elsewhere and thought of life. His Booktique, his home in the Crackets. His friendship with Herrick and Philippa. His ward - his trusty ward, Rickard. He felt warm in the knowledge that he had met them and in his last few moments as Hadigan's smoke filled Reverie enveloped him he smiled and looked down as Jia's hand grasped his bare ankle and through him released her gods' stare back at Hadigan. Josiah felt it, ancient and overwhelming, thoughts and sights and feelings he had no place in foraging. In his mind's eye he saw them in the Calderkahn abyss, old, alien eyes, staring back into the heart of the man of pockets.

They didn't like him.

Jia conveyed their fury for harming their daughter and Josiah was the point of focus, the catalyst for their venom. He felt the dream flow through him, at first over-spilling from his mind and moments later coursing through blood. It fed his Beat anew, gave it succour, nourished its need to burn and spark and with one mighty breath Josiah Kahn clapped his hands together and bathed the man of pockets in the Krakens' vengeance.

All that was left of Hadigan was a pile of ash, his screaming face steadily blowing away into nothingness by the faint wisps of air flowing from the tunnel. It fell apart like sand, crumbling into a distant memory. Josiah shakenly crawled over to the mound and swiped his hand through it holding the man of pockets in his palm, the ash falling and dispersing into powder.

'I'm very sorry Eustace.'

Josiah looked back to the girl and for the first time in a long time felt an overwhelming sense of fear.

Herrick leaned over the desk and handed the Mapper a very modest measure of rum. Josiah took it willingly and polished off the glass, handing it back to the Inspector where he refilled the glass.

There was a knock to the door and Rickard entered, sheepish, his demeanour that of a nervous school boy.

Herrick and Rickard had never seen the man so exhausted. They passed each other a glance as if to say 'And?' and both replied with monosyllabic eyebrows.

Rickard tentatively placed his hand on Josiah's shoulder rousing the exhausted fellow from his thoughts.

'Rickard? How are our guests?'

He swallowed before speaking. 'Comfortable as can be . . . the girl-'

'No one is to touch her, Rickard, you understand . . . She's . . .'

Herrick leaned forward in his chair, intrigued as to the Mapper's insight. 'She's what? Old friend.'

Josiah stared at the Inspector blankly as if he had just walked into the conversation. 'What?' he asked, oblivious.

The Inspector prodded again, dubiously. 'The girl, old friend. Who is she?'

Josiah's face turned a faint hue of grey. 'Kraken Brood . . . I saw them, deep down. Gods in the abyss . . . Through me they conversed their majesty, swiped Hadigan aside like a fly . . .'

Another knock to the door pulled them all back into the room, talk of undersea monsters shunted aside.

Sergeant Brevick peered in. 'Inspector? You better come down to the morgue.'

The old man's inquisitive eyebrows arched and he pulled himself up from his desk with a little exasperation of discomfort. 'What is it Sergeant?'

'Well, I think we may have one of the Retinue on ice!'

Josiah looked up from his rum and finished it with one swig. He pulled himself up from the leather chair and made for the morgue, Rickard and Herrick following his eager trail.

The corpse of Doolally was blue. The blood relinquished from a single adroit stab to the genitals, according to the coroner.

'It wasn't until the train stopped in Ragalio that the Da'Ka Moth noticed the blood. Litres of it on the floor.'

'What has this got to do with us, Sergeant?'

'Everything.'

All eyes turned to Josiah.

'The Retinue are the best thieves around, trained by Hadigan himself . . .' the Mapper started to lose himself in a train of thought, thinking aloud. 'My god. Could he really . . . yes he could. The man was a genius in a way . . .'

'Josiah?' asked Herrick.

'Where's the boy? Where's Xindii?'

'Cell three,' Brevick added.

Josiah nodded casually and pointed to the body of Doolally. 'Get the coroner to open his stomach and check for traces of Xelofremanine immediately.'

Josiah turned on his heels, almost revitalized by his deductions, and made his way to cell three.

Herrick shrugged his shoulders and reached for the phone, calling the coroner back down, much to his annoyance.

Josiah entered the cell and sat opposite the boy. His black matted hair attaching itself to his face in strands. He could have done with a wash.

'How are you, Xindii, it's been a while?'

The boy just looked at him, oblivious to his good manners.

'The man you knew as Hadigan is no more, Xindii. I'm sorry for your loss.'

The boy leaned forward a little. 'That day in your Booktique, you never said you were a Mapper.'

Josiah smiled. 'I don't discuss my life with all and sundry who enter my shop, master Xindii. Least of all lost little boys.'

'I'm not a little boy.'

Josiah was taken back by his rebuttal. 'Indeed . . . what happened that night, Xindii?'

The boy crossed his arms, defiantly. 'You know. You investigated the scene of course.'

The Mapper nodded. 'I'm very sorry, Xindii. I sensed your power that day in the Booktique. I should have said something, not fueled your fascination.'

Xindii looked at him with cold eyes. Hateful eyes that bore a resemblance to the man of pockets, as if he had been practicing the man's cold stare. 'My Ma died that night. A man, others followed. You knew what may have happened yet you sent me on my way with a book and a pat on the back . . . no boy should have to watch their Ma die like that . . . I couldn't control it . . .'

'What of your lineage, Xindii? Do you have a father?'

He shook his head. 'I never knew him . . . A traveller apparently. From a long way away . . . Is it important?'

Josiah wiped his mouth and ruffled his hair. 'As you know, Mappers are born into privilege. It's a blood line stemming back centuries . . . I just wondered if your father was -'

'He was a time traveller . . . So she said. Yanir. She would get drunk and reminisce, muttering to herself, shouting into the dark and asking them for his return. Whatever they did to her destroyed her spirit. I'm an orphan, Josiah. I have been for years.'

'Your mother, maybe? Was she of nobility?'

He laughed. 'She was a whore, from Jeppa. Yeah she was noble alright.'

Josiah held his head in his hands. 'Ooooh, I'm so sorry, Xindii. If I'd done something I could have spared you Hadigan's gaze.'

Xindii just looked at him blankly. 'Hadigan gave me hope, a bed, sanctuary, food in my belly. What will you give me, Josiah? A cell? A Reverie of torment? Penance in the coal fields?'

'You are too young to face such punishments, Xindii. You will face trial, assuredly, in which I will council you. It's the least I can do. Offer representation; stem the need for your blood.'

Xindii pulled his knees to his chest and looked at Josiah keenly. A faint hue of pallid greyness fell across his face.

The Mapper closed his eyes for a moment, trying to delay the nausea. He blinked and in that instance saw the eyes of the Kraken haunting his soul. He shook violently and Xindii looked on, fascinated.

'You've seen them too, haven't you?' the boy laughed, 'but you can't handle it. Jia was right. I can.'

The boy moved off the seat and slowly walked to the anxious Mapper. 'They will haunt you now forever, Josiah. You should have stayed in your Booktique.' The boy applied his palm to the Mapper's forehead and shared his vision of the Krakens in the Calderkahn abyss. Josiah started to hyperventilate, his breathing broken and sporadic.

Josiah descended into the melee. The Krakens dragging him down with razor sharp suckers, darkness enveloping him like a warm blanket, the air from his lungs depleting . . .

. . . The next thing he saw was the distorted form of his ward, Rickard, flying into the cell and slamming the boy against the cell wall and throwing his fists into Xindii's back. The cries of pain roused Josiah from his slumber, the harsh smell of Kisseldaw salt beneath his nose and the sudden launch into lucidity once again.

Herrick leaned over him with a tiny bottle and he saw Rickard beating Xindii to a pulp. Josiah pulled himself up and pulled his ward from the boy.

'ENOUGH.' The Mapper held his hand up to his ward. 'Enough Rickard.'

'He was trying to kill you, Josiah,' he pleaded.

'I know . . . I know. But he didn't.'

Rickard was almost taken back by his calmly demeanour. Shocked; perplexed.

The bleeding boy sat back down and started laughing. 'You lot are pathetic. You . . . you think you can control me. Hadigan taught me to hone my mind. To be a god and take what I will . . . You are insects to me.'

Josiah suddenly grabbed the boy by his dangling strands of greasy black hair and pulled him from the cell violently.

Xindii felt the burning sensation of hair tearing itself from his scalp as the Mapper forced him through the corridors of the Watch, kicking and thrusting him down the stairs, the infuriated Mapper never letting go, pushing with his knee and palm.

Josiah kicked him through the doors of the morgue all the way to the slab hosting the cold blue body of Doolally and the coroner, knife in hand. The Mapper held his face close to the corpse.

'This is what legacy your benefactor has bequeathed you, Heironymous Xindii, death. Death and more of it. Will you follow in his wake? Because if that is the path you seek then I will no longer stand by your side.' Josiah pushed him against the slab once more and walked away. 'You were but a moth in Hadigan's flame, Xindii. A weapon of his choosing. This boy Doolally, killed by your master's hand. As you liberated the girl from Oda La Brin's stronghold then Hadigan decided to end your usefulness. I'm guessing Doolally and the Retinue had come to the end of their longevity. You to remember were about to meet your end, or had you forgotten? You were but a tool, Xindii, albeit a rather powerful one. All Eustace Phillip Hadigan cared about was his own survival. The Ravnor was eating him, the blood and dreams of a Kraken Brood would have proved a beneficial panacea, physically and economically. You have been coerced and manipulated from the very day you met the man of pockets, my friend. I'm sorry.'

Xindii slid down the side of the slab, holding his head in his hands, crying.

'Wh- what is left for me here? I'm so alone, Josiah. So lost. I can't think anymore. The dreams, it sometimes feels like they are tearing me apart . . .'

Josiah calmly walked toward the broken boy and held him in his arms. 'It's not the dreams, Xindii. Hadigan has secretly been feeding you Xelofremanine. The steady depletion of it from your body will be torment . . . It is my hypothesis that Hadigan laced you and the Retinue with the milk from the Kraken. With, which, he murdered them once you had absconded from Jango Fey with the girl . . . you are not alone, Xindii. I'm not going anywhere.'

Herrick and Rickard walked in moments later and saw the Mapper holding the sobbing boy, both bizarrely fascinated.

'I'm not going anywhere.'

Thank you again for all your support, dear readers. I hope you are enjoying it. The next instalment will be business as usual. Pleas, read, and don't forget to vote. I sincerely hope you have enjoyed the double whammy this weekend. The next chapter, well, we are back to present day - such as it is - and the Don has been invited to the most surreal dinner party . . . ever.