Giles froze. He knew it could strike at any moment, but he couldn't look away. Skit broke his trance by flying down in front of the demon-snake's face, easily dodging its strike. He landed on the floor and quickly took to the air again, dodging yet another strike.

Giles finally found the will to move as the snake turned back to him. He climbed around the back of the metal post where he hoped it couldn't reach, but his grip slipped on the slick metal and he fell.

He caught himself on the rough edge of the tile, dangling by a one back paw and one front. Looking up for something to grab, he noticed the hanging rectangular lights swinging, as pasty ghost rats ran along them, leaping from one to another until they were right above him.

Skit tried to keep the snake distracted, but it finally decided to ignore the little pest in favor of the larger, easier meal. It slithered between the bars, flicking its evil, forked tongue as it looked down at the dangling King of the Alley Rats.

Giles looked back and forth between the distant water and the very near snake. He had almost decided to let go when his dear, stupid, brave brother, Terry, descended a line hanging from the light box with the cat's fang clenched in his teeth.

The snake coiled around a metal post and leaned out between them. It looked down at Giles and opened its scary hood. Directly above it, Terry gripped the cat fang in both hands and dropped onto the snake's head. Giles lost sight of his brother behind the beast's hood until it lunged awkwardly over the water. Terry dangled from the back of its head by the embedded cat fang.

The snake crawled back up to the floor with Terry still clinging to its neck, holding on with his legs. He bit repeatedly into the reptile's scaled neck, yelling like a savage beast.

"Come on!" Terry called to his new albino friends. "This is what life is about! Follow my lead! Fight!"

One by one, a hoard of fat, pasty white rats dropped down and attacked the snake. It must not have liked the odds, and finally flung Terry loose, striking at any rats that came too close as it backed away.

Giles had never been as glad to see Terry as when he leaned over the edge and grabbed his hand. The hideous white rats gathered behind him, apparently waiting for their orders.

Maybe they could be useful. They just got a little less hideous.

The problem was that they were waiting for Terry, not for him.

That's an easy enough problem to solve.

As he slid up onto the floor, he feigned losing his balance and tugged hard on Terry's hand. Already precariously positioned on the wrong side of the bars, Terry slipped and tumbled to the dark water while the bizarre white mutants pulled Giles to safety.

Terry popped back up a moment after the splash, to the happy cheers of his pallid followers. Giles hadn't noticed before, but a thin mist blanketed the surface of the water.

Across the pond, two half-submerged logs slipped silently beneath the curling mist and drifted towards Terry. Crocodiles! He was suddenly very glad he hadn't fallen in. Had he really considered jumping in there for a swim?

He turned to take command of his new slaves, but the one that helped pull him to safety up pointed down at Terry and shouted, "Follow his lead!" He backed up a few steps and leapt over the edge with a running start, followed by a horde of pink skinned idiots.

After the last rat splashed into the pond, Skit raced up to Giles, again gesturing for him to follow. Below them, the mist swirled, and all that could be seen of the rats were their swishing tails in their wakes as they headed to the opposite shore. Every few seconds, a long, toothy snout grabbed a rat from below, and one more tail vanished from the mist with barely a ripple.

"Shame," Giles muttered. "I could have used a slave army."

He followed Skit to the shattered remnants of door that lay in pieces in the carpeted hall beyond. Beneath those chunks of wood, one of the humans from the glass rat prison lay in a pool of blood with a gaping hole in its chest. This just wasn't Giles' day. The heart was his favorite bit.

The other human slumped against the wall a few paces further down with her hand to her throat. She looked like she might still be alive, even though she wasn't moving. Giles climbed over her legs, getting her blood in his fur, but he didn't mind. He'd been covered in worse. It didn't taste half bad, either.

Another doorway led to a small kitchen, where they crawled beneath the stove and through a hole into the wall. It felt good to have walls around him again. He was feeling pretty good in general, now that he thought about it. That human blood was tasty, and rather refreshing. He even started to get a better sense of where he was within the building.

"This doesn't seem right, Skit. Why are we going up? All right, don't get pissy! No, no, I'm not doubting you. Can we just keep going, please?"

Up they climbed until the wall opened to an unfinished, attic-like storage area. There were mountains of food pellets, shredded fabric and paper, and glinting eyes of more rats than he could count peering at him from every corner, nook, and mound. Skit ran to a pile of soft shredded cloth and crouched beside Alice and her four kittens.

The rest of his pack was here, too, including Jimmy and the four or five other rats who had gone missing. They weren't just Alley Rats, though. He saw Road Rats from the troublingly empty warren he passed through on his way here, Bog Rats, Grave Rats, and several others he only vaguely recognized.

Jimmy wasn't exactly his old self, and neither were the other four Alley Rats at his side. He had seen at least one of them before, judging by their glowing red eyes, long claws, and bulging muscles. He started to feel a little sick, and more than a little angry.

"I'm glad you finally made it, Giles," Jimmy said, lounging near Alice's mound. "You could have just used Alice's tunnels, you know. They're a real time saver. But you're here now, and that's what matters. I'd like for you to meet Henry, King of the Bog Rats." Jimmy pointed to a pile of skulls, all completely stripped of flesh.

Giles didn't look at Jimmy or the skulls. His eyes were on Skit. He'd trusted that little cockroach! They had been friends since he was little. His father had warned him never to trust a cockroach, but he also said not to trust anyone, not even your family. That was why Giles had gone to all of the trouble to kill most of them, his father included. He never trusted another rat, but Skit was different. At least he had thought so.

Alice's gloating expression didn't help, either.

"Your time is up, old rat," she said. "At least you get a choice. I wanted them to just kill you. You can either submit to King Jimmy, like Mangle, there," an older rat bowed his head when Alice said his name, "or you can submit like Henry and all the others who left their skulls behind for the kits to play with. I recommend Henry's way."

Giles looked around the room, considering his options. Most, if not all of his pack was already here. He should have taken off with that little mouse when he had the chance. He couldn't bear handing his authority over to that upstart, Jimmy, and having to live with Alice for one more day. He'd add his own skull to the pile of kings, if those even were the other kings.

"Think carefully, King Giles of the Alley Rats. I have your mate, your kits, and what's left of your pack. I have tasted the flesh of the gods, and now I am one of them." His eyes glowed brighter to illustrate his new power. "Tonight is a new night for rats. All rats will come together under a single king, and we will begin our new kingdom here, in the home of our enemies."

Giles hated speeches. He hated giving them, and hated hearing them even more. His mind wandered as Jimmy spoke, and he thought of the sweet little round-eared mouse. He never even learned her name. Of course, he hadn't known Alice's name for weeks, at first. Things could have been different with this one, though. He could almost smell her delightful scent, and see her face among the crowd of rats watching him.

Hold on! He did see her face. She sat right in front of him, gazing up at Jimmy in rapt devotion.

Cruel world!