'You should have seen her, mate, legs up to her bloody ears, proper grade A meat, if you know what I mean. And that rack!'

Reggie whistled as he stood in front of the mirror, smoothing Brylcreem through his dirty-blonde hair, desperately trying to smooth out the curls that invariably tried to take over his head. It was always a losing battle, him and his hair. And he spent bloody ages doing it too, combing it through over and over until there was probably more Brylcreem than there was hair.

He'd been chatting ten to the dozen ever since I'd arrived at his place, first moaning that I was late – you're always fucking late, you'll be late for your bloody funeral, you will – and then going on and on about this girl he'd met the night before, while spending forever sorting out his hair in front of the mirror.

With Reggie, every girl he met had legs up to their ears and great tits. In fact, I'd not heard him once talk about a girl who didn't have them and if you believed him, then you'd start to think that London was overrun with a race of really, tall women with breasts bigger than footballs. Oh, and they all fancied the pants off Reggie, of course. To be fair, he was a bit of a hit with the ladies, but they weren't all Amazonian princesses and his nasty streak meant that none of them ever hung around for very long. I'd had to tell him to lay off a fair few times, something that never went down well, but Reggie was old school and his views on women were inbred in him when he'd been growing up, watching his dad knock his mum around and thinking that was just the norm. The strange thing was he told me one night, after he'd had his fill of beer, that he'd hated his dad for what he used to do to his mum, and yet, when push came to shove, Reggie could be a right chip off the old block when he wanted to be.

'Are you even listening to me?' His reflection scowled at me from the glass as he stopped, mid-comb.

'What? Yeah, course I am.' I closed the newspaper on my lap which I hadn't even been reading anyway and looked impatiently at my watch again, my foot tapping against the floor.

'What's the matter with you? You got somewhere better to be?' He turned and brandished the comb at my watch, probably having noticed that I'd been checking it practically every five minutes.

The truth was, I did.

I wanted to be out there, looking for the mysterious Doctor. I was almost ashamed to even admit it to myself and couldn't explain why I hadn't been able to get him out of my head since that first meeting, but he was there nevertheless, infesting every thought, every feeling. I couldn't tell Reggie, of course. For a start, I'd have to explain just where I'd met this man, and that would mean revealing my secret missions to the library and secondly, losing my head over a guy wouldn't exactly go down too well. Not that it was even like that, mind you, but there had just been something about Benjamin Garrick that had captivated me, stirred something within me that had made me feel alive for the first time in bloody ages and I knew I had to try and find a way to see him again.

The only problem was London. How the Hell did you find someone in a city this big?

I'd asked around, mentioned the name to a few people that I thought would know of a well-spoken Doctor hanging around the East End – because, let's face it, a man like that should have stuck out like a sore thumb around here – but the tentative search had come up with nothing. Not one sighting. Not one whisper. Nothing at all. It was as if he didn't exist. Like he was a ghost.

'I'm just fed up of waiting here for you to comb your hair for the hundredth time,' I grumbled. 'Hurry up, for fucks sake. The night will be over before we've even left the house at this rate.'

Reggie grinned broadly, his lips receding from his gums. Turning back, he swept the comb through his hair once more and gave me a cocky wink as he glanced at me in the mirror.

'Same old Bartholomew, always ready to chase some skirt, eh?'

I shot him a wry grin and rolled my eyes.

'You know me, eh? Oh, and don't call me bloody Bartholomew. Makes me sound like a right wanker.'

He cackled, chucking the comb onto the mantelpiece before adjusting his cufflinks and grabbing his suit jacket off the back of the chair.

'That's because you are a wanker,' he said, dodging the newspaper I hurled across the room, narrowly missing him as he ran out the door, still laughing.

*

The George Tavern was a melting pot of noise, booze and cigarette smoke.

Raucous laughter pushed out at the walls, stretched up to the ceiling, filled every space and consuming every inch of empty air. Frankie Laine was playing on the old juke box in the corner and Billy the Snake and Mickey Finch, who already had a mountain of empty glasses on the table in front of them, were singing loudly, forgetting half the words and slurring the rest.

Billy the Snake, so named because he was as lean as he was long and a slippery sod, it had to be said, was an old school mate, orphaned in the war when his parents had died in the Bethnal Green Tube disaster and brought up by his gran who lived next door but one to me. Handy in a fight and loyal, he was a good bloke to have around, even if he couldn't sing a note in tune.

Billy's cousin Mickey was a wild card who idolised Reggie, laughed at all his jokes, even the shit ones, egged him on during scraps and never went anywhere without a knife in his back pocket. He could be unpredictable at times and had that look about him which set people on edge, but all that aside, he was invaluable to the gang and was like a dog with a bone once he got started.

Spotting me watching them from where I was leaning on the edge of the bar, they held their arms aloft and sang even louder, collapsing into giggles and slapping each other on the back.

'Silly bastards,' I muttered under my breath, before laughing with them and giving them the thumbs up. I probably shouldn't even have been buying them both another drink, considering the state they were in, but it was my round and rules were rules.

Reggie was across the other side of the pub, chancing his luck with some red-headed girl – notably rather short and small breasted – after her fella had disappeared to the gents. I shook my head in bemusement but he just raised his glass in mock-salute and leaned in close to the girl, clearly saying something about me because she looked over and giggled behind a perfectly manicured hand.

Ignoring them, I paid Linda the landlord's wife, and balancing the glasses precariously in my hands, I weaved through the packed pub, not really finding a problem getting to the table as people saw me coming and moved out of the way, greeting me as I went past.

The whole fear and intimidation thing still gave me a little kick. Whether people were moving out of your way, or giving you an extra cut of meat at the butchers, I can't say I didn't enjoy the benefits of having a name around here, even if I was growing tired of constantly having to watch my back. In my book, it was better than being a nobody. Better than being just another slum-kid, working the same dead-end job, looking at the world with dead eyes and a crushed soul.

I put the drinks down on the table in front of Billy and Mickey, who by now had stopped serenading each other and instead had their heads together, every now and then shooting glances across the pub.

'What?' I asked as I sat down, taking a cigarette from the packet in my inside pocket, and offering one to them. Lighting my own, I took a long smooth drag and leant back in my chair, blowing smoke to one side and loosening my tie a little at the neck.

Billy nodded, gesturing to near the entrance, where a young skinny lad with pock-marked skin and a shock of unruly black hair stood by the door, his shoulders hunched, as he sipped from his pint glass, his eyes darting around the pub.

I hissed an intake of breath. Jimmy Smith. Snidey little fucker.

If Jimmy was here, it meant Georgie Barnes wasn't far away. I stiffened as I watched Jimmy glance over to where Reggie stood, his arm now draped around the red-head's shoulders, his mouth close to her ear.

'What the fuck is he doing here?' I growled. 'Can't we have just one decent night out without Barnesy and his fuckwits turning up?'

Reggie and Georgie had a long-standing feud, sparked from when we were all at school together and when Reggie insisted on stealing Georgie's girl. I mean, the whole thing was just ridiculous. It had started out with the odd scrap here and there, a few bruises, nothing major, but over the past few months it had started to escalate, mostly because Reggie couldn't resist winding Georgie up. He just couldn't leave it be and no matter how many times I'd told him to lay off, he just kept at it, kept taking little bites at him until now there was probably only going to be one outcome. Word had it that Barnesy was cosying up to the Baker Brothers over in Walthamstow, ingratiating himself with them and trying to make out he was something special around here and the last thing we needed was the Baker Brothers trying to muscle in on our patch.

Reggie, however, in typical Reggie style, wasn't taking any of it seriously.

He's a nobody, mate. A chancer, that's all. It'll all blow over, you'll see.

But while Reggie treated it like a joke, I could feel the change in the air. A tension pushing constantly on my bones every time I stepped foot outside, like walking through smog and breathing it all in, feeling it strangling your lungs and tearing at your throat. Everything felt noxious and toxic and my muscles had been coiled up tight for so long, I was sure one day soon I would just implode from the pressure. The only problem was that the pressure wasn't because I was scared of Barnsey, or even the Baker Brothers for that matter. I could handle all of them bastards.

The problem was I couldn't handle Reggie.

It was half the reason why I'd been spending so much time at the library lately. I wasn't just escaping from everything my life was outside on the streets, I wasn't just escaping from what London insisted I was. I was escaping from him. I mean, I loved the stupid, mad bastard like he was my brother, but even I could see there was an edge of danger with everything he was doing lately. If it wasn't Barnsey, it was messing with other people's girls. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and fuck the consequences. Fuck the consequences for us all.

And the more each day went by, the more insane things he did just to piss people off, the more the smog seemed to tighten its grip on my throat until I was struggling to breathe, to just live.

Raised voices carried above the noise of the jukebox and my gaze slipped from Jimmy's face, to the same spot his eyes were already fixed upon over the other side of the bar.

Reggie.

The guy whose girlfriend Reggie had been chatting up, had now returned from the gents and on seeing Reggie moving in on his girl, was busy squaring up to him, his eyes bulging with anger. I almost felt sorry for the poor bastard. He probably wasn't from round here because anyone who was would have just waved the white flag and walked away by now, but this guy was jabbing his finger right at Reggie's chest, while Reggie just stood there, that mad grin on his face that told me I'd better get over their sharpish before he decided to jab his glass right in the bloke's eye.

I took one last drag on my cigarette, before wearily exhaling out the smoke and crushing the stub into the ashtray.

'Look lively, fellas,' I said, standing up and brushing dots of ash off my sleeves. 'Looks like things are about to kick off. Again.'

*

The bell rang over the bar, the clang of metal upon metal making me wrinkle up my nose and wince. My head might as well have been stuck inside that bell considering the way my skull seemed to fracture with the noise.

Fortunately, the mess from earlier on had been nothing but a storm in an East End tea cup once the bloke had heard Reggie's name and realised just who he was trying to start a fight with. In fact, he'd been so keen to get away, that the girl he'd been ready to argue over had been duly discarded as he rushed to escape a right good pasting, and she was still here, even more enamoured with Reggie now she knew who he was. Unfortunately, she had a laugh that could have shattered all the windows in St. Paul's and done more damage than the V1's and doodlebugs together and my already-aching head was starting to feel like I'd gone twelve rounds in the boxing ring.

She was sitting practically on Reggie's lap in front of the piano in the corner, while he plonked out some half-arsed version of Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner, another noise which was grating inside my head. Mickey was singing along with him, barely able to stand up as he propped himself against the wall, more beer sloshing from his glass onto the floor than had gone into his mouth.

'Come on now, lads,' Linda called out. 'It's gone last orders. You lot will have my licence taken away at this rate.'

'They try and take your licence away, Linda, and we'll cut off their bloody hands,' Billy said, making a chopping motion with his own, before stumbling away towards where Reggie was providing the night's impromptu entertainment. The four of them – Reggie, Mickey and Billy and the girl, whose name was Valerie or Hilary, fucked if I could remember – proceeded to sing even louder.

A hand touched mine gently and I glanced up to find Linda there, looking at me with pleading eyes. She was good-looking for a woman her age, with lots of brassy blonde hair piled high on her head and always immaculately dressed. Tougher than her feckless excuse of a husband, Linda was the life and soul of the Tavern, one of those East End stalwarts that made you proud to be a Londoner.

'Sort 'em out for me, will you, love?'

I smiled even though I'd known it was coming. Good old Bartholomew.

I pushed away from the bar and headed over to the others, squeezing Reggie's shoulder. 'Come on, mate, time's up.'

Their song just got louder, Reggie pounding at the keys and everyone joining in and stamping their feet. The girl was laughing again, piercing cackles that spiked pain right into my temples.

'Sorry, boys, we're closing.'

Linda's voice was fighting to be heard over the noise, but I heard it. I heard it just as the cool breeze tickled at the nape of my neck. Just as I heard the door to the pub slamming shut.

The others were still laughing, still singing, but I turned to see who had come in.

I wish I could have said I was surprised, but the truth was I wasn't surprised in the slightest. It seemed inevitable, like fate maybe, I don't know. It was like flipping to the end of a book and reading the last page and still reading the story anyway, even though you knew what was going to happen. I think I'd known the ending of this particular story for ages, maybe I'd always known it would end this way. And the library? That had been my diversion, my brief escape from something I always knew was out here, waiting for me. Waiting for us all.

Georgie Barnes stood close to the other side of the bar, flanked one side by Craig Baker and on the other by Craig's older brother, Lester. I'd seen them both once, down at bar in Soho, flash bastards, got their threads down on Savile Row apparently. All custom made. They were working-class-boys-done-good, but whatever clothes they wore, however much money they spent on them, you could see it in their eyes. The brutal hardness. A savagery you only got from being dragged through whatever was left of London after the war. I'd always known what they were, because Reggie and me were the same and you could spot it in people a mile off. It was like a stench we carried that only those like us could detect. The Baker Brothers had that same stench.

They had others with them, a couple faces I knew, a couple I didn't and then there was little Jimmy Smith, hanging around at the back looking excited, too excited, like he was about to shoot his load everywhere or piss his pants. Maybe even both. And maybe he had a right to be, because each one of them was tooled up, like they'd come to a party that had said bring a weapon on the invitation.

'Reggie.' I slapped him on the shoulder hard, hearing the plink-plink of the piano as his hands must have slipped on the keys.

'For fucks sake ...'

After all that noise, the piano, the laughter, the singing, all the noises that had been bombarding my head all night long and that I had wished would all just go away, those first brief seconds of silence after Reggie turned around made me wish for it all back again. It was the kind of silence that punched you right in the gut, the kind of silence that knocked all the breath out of you because you knew whatever followed wasn't going to be very pleasant.

'You stupid bastard, Barnsey.'

Reggie, who was now standing by my side, fists clenched, was bristling with anger and the thing was, Reggie didn't bristle. Reggie was calm, because nobody scared Reggie. Nobody. And I knew this wasn't even fear now. It was shock. He was shocked that Georgie had the balls to take it to the next level after all.

'You come here, on our patch, trying to start something? And you bring them? You gutless piece of shit.'

Craig rolled his shoulders back one after the other as if limbering up, and smiled. It was one of those smiles that made you feel cold, like you were constantly standing in shadow.

'Now, now, Reggie, that's not very nice, is it? Not when we've come all this way to see you.'

Behind him, Jimmy reached up and slid the bolt on the door into place.

'No!' Linda screeched. 'Not in my pub! Get out!'

'Oh, shut her up, Dave, for fucks sake,' Lester barked and the stocky, bald bloke by his side, headed straight to the hatch, advancing on Linda who was screaming now and throwing glasses, bottles, anything she could get her hands on. I didn't see her after that, once it all began, but the screaming never stopped, as if we'd just switched the tune on the jukebox to something else.

Everything erupted then. The noise. The chaos. It was like someone had picked us all up and thrown us into the middle of a tornado, whirling everything and everyone round and round, the storm smashing against the walls and ceiling.

Before I had the chance to grab anything to defend myself, Craig ran at me, swinging a hefty-looking hammer and I dived out of the way as he drew near, feeling the shift of air as the hammer missed my head by mere inches and hearing the shattering of glass as he hit the picture frame on the wall behind me instead. I stumbled against the bar, hearing shouts and screams all around me, the smashing of bottles, furniture being thrown around.

Reggie had picked up the broken leg of a bar stool and was brandishing the splintered end at Lester, blood already streaming from a gash on his forehead. On the other side of the pub, Mickey and Billy were in the thick of it, Mickey thankfully with his blade, Billy brandishing the jagged end of a broken wine bottle. Hilary or Valerie or whatever the Hell she was called, was curled up by the side of the piano, her dress and face splattered with blood, clutching at her hair as if she might pull it clean from the roots. I barely had time to catch my breath when Craig ran at me again, almost hurling himself at me and I caught him mid-flight, the both of us tumbling back onto the floor. The stench of stale beer and ash trodden deep into the dirty carpet hit my senses as I looked to see Craig struggling to clamber on top of me, arm raised again, the pub lights glinting off the hammer head.

He's actually going to do it, I thought. He's actually going to smash my skull in and I'm going to die here on this dirty carpet and that'll be it, I'll never get away from this place, I'll never find my way out. I'll be a part of this Hell forever.

In what seemed like a rush of last-minute luck, my eyes darted to the side to see what might have been the rest of the stool from which Reggie had grabbed the broken leg and I reached out, my hand grasping at it. I swung it as hard as I could, catching Craig on the side of the head and sending him wide-eyed and stunned crashing to the floor beside me. My heart racing, I scrambled up, trying to untangle my legs from his, kicking at him so I could get up. Blood was pulsing from his ear, the skin around it already an alarming shade of purple and he tried to get up, fell, and tried to get up again.

The hammer lay not far from his reach, but he seemed to be focused on just trying to prise himself off the floor. I went for it, reaching out, only to find it whipped away from me right in front of my eyes. I braced myself for the impact of it hitting my skull, for the claws to fracture bone, only for nothing to happen. Looking up in surprise, I saw that it wasn't one of them who had stolen my chance to wield a half-decent weapon.

It was Reggie.

He used it to cut a path through the melee, smashing it through the air and as I watched him bringing it down hard on anyone that got in his way, I suddenly realised what he was doing. He was heading for the door.

No. Not Reggie, he wouldn't. He wouldn't leave. He's going to get that door open, that's all and then he's going to come back and smash in the skulls of anyone still standing in our way.

A fist connected with my eye and I was sent reeling, the pain exploding in my eye socket and reverberating through my cheek bone. I was sure I heard a crack, felt something shift under my skin and I stumbled to one side, falling over Craig's inert body and landing in a heap once again.

'Not the fucking hard man now, are you, Parker?'

Barnsey loomed over me, his face slick with blood and sweat. He didn't look like he'd had such a good time of it at the hands of one of us, Reggie maybe, but the look in his eyes now was triumphant, full of exaggerated zeal like I saw on the faces of the people who used to stand outside the Church, giving out flyers about how God would save us, Jesus would save us. Which is all fucking good and all that, but who was going to save me now?

My face was throbbing furiously where he'd hit me and my eye was watering, the impact of the punch already blurring my vision but not enough for me not to see Barnsey coming back for seconds. Before he could hit me again, I kicked out as hard as I could and caught him square in the balls. His eyes bulged, the cry of pain coming out in a hoarse gasp and he grasped between his legs, doubling over. Using the bar for support, I pulled myself to my feet and staggered away, somehow managing to dodge the others, who were all too preoccupied with each other to catch me on my way past.

I saw the doors, one pulled wide open, street lights beyond glinting in a sea of inky black.

Reggie was gone.

No, he'd be back. He'd hadn't gone. Couldn't have.

But then there was the door, and it was open and he was gone.

I reached it, wondering how the Hell I was going to take another step without my head exploding. The pain was ricocheting behind my eye, like someone was kicking a football against the inside of my socket, again and again and again, but, as it turned out, it wasn't my head I needed to worry about.

Hot white pain stabbed me hard in the gut as I stepped through the doorway.

I frowned, my mouth dropping open in a silent 'O' – those first couple of seconds when you know something is wrong, something is seriously, fucking wrong, because that pain is there, like your insides are burning and you just can't work out why. And you can't work out why, because you don't look down. Not straight away. You look at the face right in front of you. And that's what I did. I looked right in that face and my first instinct was to laugh, because of all the people I would never have expected it from him.

Snidey. Little. Fucker.

Jimmy Smith, who by now stunk not only of sweat and blood, but also of piss – I guess I'd been right about my first assumption of just how excited he'd been – was trembling, his whole body shaking, which didn't help my situation considering he was juddering the knife which was by now inches deep into my stomach. I looked down then. It was inevitable I suppose, although I knew looking would hurt even more, as if the images shot to my brain would trigger some extreme physical response.

If you don't see it, it isn't real.

But I could see it and it was real and it was fucking agony.

Jimmy pulled away, taking the knife with him, which, to my horror, met with some resistance, almost as if the flesh wasn't ready to give it up. A small strange sound slipped from my open mouth, a half-moan, half-sigh, as it burned even more furiously now the knife was gone. My hands hovered uselessly over the deep wound, as if placing them there would somehow plug the hole and stop the blood from pumping vigorously out of my body.

Jimmy made a sound then, a strangled sob, like some pitiful animal. Then again, he'd always been the runt of the little so maybe that was no surprise. But that was the funny thing about runts. They always dreamt of grander things, of being somebody, only when they got the chance, they suddenly realised being a runt was easier in some ways because you didn't have to worry about times like this. You didn't have to worry about making decisions and realising it just wasn't fucking worth it. Jimmy knew this hadn't been worth it. The dark patches of piss drenching his trousers and the blood on his hands told him that.

'I'm s-sorry, Parker,' he mumbled, snot and tears gathering along his upper lip. 'F-fuck... I'm sorry...'

He turned and ran, his footsteps echoing loudly on the pavement.

My shoulder hit the wall, my leg giving way underneath me and I stayed there for a moment trying to stay upright, my breath coming out in short, shallow gasps. I had to stay calm. I was trying to stay calm, but the panic was fast taking over, and the more I tried to steady my breathing, the more frantic it became. I slid along the wall, easing myself slowly against the brick. Every step hurt. Every slight movement. Every breath. But I carried on, not even knowing how I was managing to put one foot in front of the other, just that I knew I had to.

I'd reached the edge of the building, where the alley ran alongside the pub round to the back where the cellar was, when I heard the laughter and I glanced back to see Lester standing by the doorway.

'Now just where do you think you're going, Parker?' Lester grinned. 'This party ain't over. Not by a long shot.'

With a grunt of pain, I staggered away, clutching at my stomach and knowing with every second more blood was pumping from the wound as if it might never stop. Without the wall to support me, I stumbled, falling into the entrance of the alley, landing hard on the ground. I struggled to my knees, feeling the shadow fall over me from behind and hearing his footsteps and low sniggers taunting me as I tried to crawl away. It was insane and even as I crawled on hands and knees through the dirty puddles, breathing in all the shit and piss and stench of beer, I knew it was insane. I mean, where the fuck was I going to go?

A vicious kick to my side sent pain exploding through me, a pain so hot and so fierce that I was utterly consumed by it and could do nothing but fall onto my back and scream. It seemed pathetic and weak and everything I had always sworn to myself I wouldn't be, but you couldn't fight this kind of pain, you just couldn't.

Lester slapped a hand down on my mouth to muffle my screams and leaned in close. He smelt of cigars and Old Spice and for a moment, I saw my dad there, scowling down at me from under a thunderous brow, his belt gripped tight in his raised hand.

You little shit, I'll teach you some fucking manners now, you see if I don't.

A flicker of moonlight glinted off the blade as Lester brought it close to my face. 'You two thought you were the big men, didn't you, eh?' he said, with a snarl. 'Thought you were something special. Swanning around, with your big threats, acting like you were somebodies. Well, let me tell you something, Parker. You and that Reggie, you're nothing. Nothing, do you hear?' He pressed the blade against my cheek, the tip piercing the skin right below my eye. 'You never had anything going for you, apart from a pretty face and once I've finished with this face, not even your own mother is going to be able to identify your body.'

The darkness swept into my vision from all sides and I prayed then, prayed like I'd never prayed in my whole life that I'd pass out before he started carving me up. I even hoped the wound in my stomach would kill me before he stuck that knife into my eyeball. And every silent prayer felt like cowardice, but I knew I wouldn't be able to bear it, I knew finally, at the end, that I'd been right all along and that I wasn't the man I'd been pretending to be. I was the boy in the library. That's who I really was. I was just a boy looking for my own Neverland, my own Middle Earth, my own Airstrip One. I didn't belong out here. I never had.

I closed my eyes. Now, now, I thought, please now.

There was a scuffle of feet, a strangled gasp and the knife clattered to the ground beside my head. I dragged myself back, bursting up to the surface, morbid curiosity winning over a desperation for death.

The face. That face. The one I'd not been able to get out of my head ever since I'd met him. The one that had haunted my every thought. Only it looked different now, darker, more menacing as he clutched Lester by the throat, pinning him against the wall. Lester was trying to kick out, panic screeching from every pore as he stared wildly at the man who was holding him but no matter how much he struggled, Benjamin Garrick, my mysterious Doctor from the library, held him in place.

'Dearest Bartholomew,' he said, in that strange archaic tone, talking to me even though his gaze was still fixed upon Lester. 'When we met, little did I realise just how far you would be willing to go to prove that death is the better option. This isn't quite the way I would have chosen this to happen, but I suppose that sometimes plans must change. Life is, after all, often full of surprises.'

He glanced down at me and smiled and it was a monster's smile. A smile full of darkness and wicked glee, a smile straight from the pages of Bram Stoker, only this one was real. Truly fucking real. I gasped as he turned back to Lester who was whimpering pitifully now and wrenched his head back in one deft move. Delicately touching his nose to the man's exposed throat, he inhaled deeply, hesitating not because he was unsure, I realised instinctively, but because he liked to savour the movement, because this was like art to him, like the joy of reading a book for the first time and being excited to discover everything the pages had to hold.

Opening his mouth, he plunged his incisors into Lester's flesh, biting down on his neck and I watched, unable to move now, feeling the life ebb way from me, just as it was ebbing from Lester in one thick, dark tide pulsing from his throat. I should have been scared. I should have been petrified right down to the bone, because this was a nightmare, and not one from any book or film either. This one was real. And yet, still I watched, captivated by him in those last moments, just as I had been captivated by him at the library and I didn't care that he was a monster. I didn't care that he was tearing the throat from Lester. I just didn't care.

My eyes started to close even though I didn't want them to and I drifted again, drifted down until a felt a soft touch to my face and a voice calling my name as if from a great distance.

'Not yet, Bartholomew, not yet,' the monster said.

I strained to look at him, and saw him again, Benjamin. I smiled weakly. 'I never read the book. A Tale of Two Cities... I'm sorry.'

He chuckled and the look he gave me was so full of warmth I wondered then how I could ever have thought him to be a monster.

'Not to worry. You still have time.'

'No,' I whispered back with a frown. 'No, I don't. It's over now.'

'Life is nothing but a story, my friend, and we are each the writers of our own tale. Your story is drawing to a close, but I can give your story a different ending. In fact, I can give you a sequel, but I will not do it without your permission. I cannot save you without your consent. I will not do it. I need it to come from you. Do you wish me to save you, Bartholomew? Because all you have to do is say the words and I will save you.'

I stared up into his eyes and I saw the promise there, even though a part of me knew that Doctor or no Doctor, I was beyond saving now. I'd lost too much blood. The wound was too deep to mend. But I said the words anyway, because even though I knew it was all over, I still wished that he could save me and the thought of that, even in the face of death, was something that made me feel alive.

'Yes,' I said. 'Save me.'

Benjamin smiled, his face already descending towards my throat.

'We shall have such adventures, you and I,' he said. 'Such glorious adventures.'

*

When I awoke from the nightmare, dazed and sweating profusely, a man was crouched beside me, his head tilted to one side and a look of bemused interest on his face. He grinned, playing with the point of an elongated incisor with his tongue.

Not a man. A vampire. A bloody vampire.

'Well, it's about fucking time, Sleeping Beauty,' the vampire drawled, his American accent confusing my already screwed-up head and making me wonder what fresh Hell I was in now. 'I think it's only fair that I warn you, the next few days are really gonna hurt.'

He smiled again, but I saw only those teeth and a gleam of cruelty in his hard, green eyes.

'In fact, it's going to hurt so much, you'll wish Benjamin had never saved you. Welcome to the family, brother.'