He was late, as always. I'd forgotten how irritating that could be. I lifted my glass and took a cautious sip; as I suspected, decidedly indifferent. I was in a candlelit booth at the back of a dingy wine bar just off London's Victoria Street. I'd insisted on a bottle, despite the raised eyebrows of the staff, in anticipation of company. Any longer and I would end up finishing it all myself. Then there'd be consequences for sure.
       I couldn't imagine why I agreed to meet him after all that time. Maybe I knew, deep down, that he had something to do with whatever the hell going on outside. Or maybe I was flattered that he still wanted to see me. I hoped he wasn't just after my money.
       A waiter scurried past the booth looking furtively in my direction. He was pinched, almost weasel-like, wearing clothes that said nineteenth century rather than twenty-first: high wing collar, rough jacket, white shirt with cuffs. He carried one of the new long drinks which steamed, leaving a trail of vapour to dissipate in the thick air. Both the waiter and the drink looked like they came from the Other Place, although lately it seemed harder to distinguish between the two worlds.
       "Clara," said Ryan, suddenly looming over the table. He wore a long black coat which with his muscular made him look imposing. He'd probably planned it that way.
       "You're late."
       He sat, ignored me and reached for the bottle.
       "What do you want?" I asked. The time when we were polite to each other ended long before.
       "To the point as always," he said, smiling just to annoy me. I noticed with satisfaction that he'd started to go grey. Still, despite that he looked good in candlelight. I hated myself for the thought as soon as it crept in. He poured a large glass and leaned back, twirling his finger round the rim. "I need your help."
       "I sighed. "Whatever the question is, the answer's. . ."
       "It's in your best interest," he said, interrupting me. Another thing that always irritated me.
       "I'll be the judge of that," I replied. But I was just sparring for old times' sake, and he knew it, so he carried on talking and I sat back to listen.
       When he'd finished there were two empty wine bottles on the table and I felt sick deep down to my stomach.
       I looked around at the bar. Smaller than before, dingier, as if diminished by what I'd just heard. The weaselly waiter looked at me and sneered when I stood and, dizzy, steadied myself against the table. Too much wine. Too much to take in. We headed for the door.
       We emerged into the almost deserted street, daylight red sky overhead. I couldn't remember a time when it wasn't red. Noise too, a constant background sigh. As if the sky wept bloody tears, and didn't do it quietly.
       And all Ryan's fault. Or so he said.
       "I can't believe you actually think you caused all this. You always believed the world revolves around you," said Clara.
       "Doesn't mean that it doesn't. Besides, you were there when it started. So, it's as much your fault as mine."
       The air was ice-chilled and I was glad of the long black coat I had, even though it shadow-matched Ryan's. It disturbed me to think that if we were still dressing alike, something fundamental hadn't changed.
       A fast-moving dark blur flew past my left ear and off-balanced me. I stumbled on the cobbles and steadied myself by holding on to his arm, then pulled away when I realised what I'd done. He smiled, then glanced down at my unsuitable heels and shook his head. Another thing I always hated. I'm five foot two and he's six foot three so getting a stiff neck looking up at him got very old very quickly. The flying thing brushed against my hair and I swatted it away instinctively. It hovered in front of me, fangs bared, hissing. I lunged and it flew off, joining a flock of other flying horrors idly circling for prey. Its laugh sounded almost human. I shivered and pulled my coat up tight.
       White flakes caressed my hair. July. It never used to snow in July.

       Ryan walked fast and I had to hurry to keep up. I tried to flag a taxi skidding in the snow, but the driver appeared more concerned with keeping his vehicle on the road than picking up fares, and there were no other vehicles in sight. No people either, which was odd, even in those interesting times. Maybe that was because something was happening in the distance, over Trafalgar Square way, a throbbing, pulsating light and a dull crackle, as if some ancient Prog band was sound-checking and testing out the pyrotechnics. I was too busy wondering what new indignity the Joining was inflicting on us there to notice the three Others who materialised from the walls in front of us.
       "We haven't got time for this," Ryan muttered.
       "Should've got a taxi," I said.
       These Others were taller than any I'd seen so far, all Ryan's height, even though their elongated stance made them stoop. They surrounded us breathing heavily. They wore filthy furs and coarse leather boots scuffed at the toes, with naked legs save for their thick pelt covering. The ugliest one sniffed Ryan and grunted.
       "Give," it said, its voice low and grating.
       "No."
       "Not a request."
       The Other wasn't after money. As far as we could tell that was a meaningless concept for them. No, what the Other was after was essence, that delicious, sweet smelling part of us that was tantalisingly irresistible to them, and completely invisible to us.
       Soul-force.
       Two of the Others grabbed Ryan be each arm and the one who had spoken stepped back, no doubt to work out the best way to take what he wanted. They ignored me, which was entirely predictable given their reputation for misogyny. I'd never seen an Other woman even speak in the presence of a male, let alone resist them, so it was hardly surprising that the Others made the mistake of thinking I would just stand quietly by while they stripped Ryan's soul-force. Not that I was entirely sure he had a soul.
       "You'll be sorry," said Ryan as the ugly Other grabbed him by the throat.
       "What you do?"
       "Not me, her."
       They all turned to look at me. One of them laughed. I sighed, half contemplating just leaving Ryan to it. He didn't need my help, not really. But he was lazy--another strike against him.
       I said the words and watched the wisps of eldritch force blink into existence and dance above my head. And then, before I had time to appreciate their savage beauty, they struck, forcing shafts of crimson fire into the brains of the unsuspecting Others. Then, as the light clambered up to a bright red flash, they disappeared, leaving the Others twitching on the floor.
       We left them, not caring if they were alive or dead.
       "That's why all this is happening, of course," said Ryan, giving me a hard time for the way I'd saved him even though he knew full well it was the only way.
       "Your theory is stupid."
       "Then why are you coming with me?" He stopped and turned, cold air streaming in chilled fog from his mouth. "Can't be a coincidence. We discovered how to do that, and all the other things, and then the Joining started."
       "I passed my driving test the day the Joining started. You think that might have caused it too?"
       "Don't be facetious."
       "Don't be fatuous then." I was arguing for arguing's sake again, because that was our pattern, but deep down I knew that however solipsistically, narcissistically improbable things seemed, it was what happened. If I'd thought about it I'd have known before Ryan so starkly pointed it out to me, but like most uncomfortable truths I really didn't want to consider it. By invoking magic, it was as if we'd given the Joining permission. And now the weirdness was increasing. Rift friction, Ryan called it. The Joining was the bringing together of our dimension and the place of the Others. Sweet spots at first, now more a blurring, and all accompanied by red skies and strange light shows over London.
       "We've got to stop it."
       I laughed. "Why? You've got to admit, it makes life more interesting."
       "Don't you even follow the news? There are pitched battles in Moscow, for God's sake. Furry brutes on what passes for horses over there streaming through with spears and attitude."
       "And being mown down by the not inconsiderable might of the Russian military. Most of which is now in the Other Place causing mayhem."
       "Which is why all this must end."
       "Killjoy. Aren't you even a little bit curious about life over there?"
       "From what I can gather it's particularly short and brutal, so no thanks."
       "With our powers, we'd be gods over there."
       "I don't want to be a god."
       Oh, but I do, I thought. And I always had.

       We moved on to a club in Soho, the place where it all began. A basement hangout called Undertow. It was easy to see why it was called that. Even in the old days before the Joining this would have been the sort of place the unsuspecting and unwary would find themselves lost, pulled asunder by fierce, degenerate tides. I followed Ryan down without hesitation.
       The doorman had hooves and thick, matted hair covering, I guessed, his whole body judging by the away it was barely concealed by his elaborate white shirt cuffs. He wore a white formal wig which wouldn't have looked out of place in a courtroom. "Welcome," he said in a language I presumed was English, with an exaggerated bow and a deferential shuffle. I sensed what he said rather than hearing it. I'm not entirely sure he spoke out loud.
       Inside the music was loud and the air smoky with the deep incense of hookahs. I coughed and turned up my nose. Ryan, beside me, drank it all in. He offered his coat to a human girl in a revealing black dress whose eyes kept darting around her as if wondering what other bizarreness was about to come wandering down the stairs.
       Onstage a semi-naked human girl attempted to pole dance with a large snake wrapped around her lower abdomen. She clung halfway up the pole with her legs wrapped round tightly, but the snake was distracted by the crowd and she had trouble controlling it. A couple of Others in the front started to heckle which made the snake even more agitated. As they watched the snake finally gave up and sank its fangs into the girl's leg. She fell off her pole with a sharp cry and the snake slithered off to the sound of the Other's laughter.
       The bar staff dragged the girl off and someone cranked up the music, which left lip-reading the only option. Ryan headed for the bar which left me free to take in the room. Its core was an old-style Soho dive, all blue lights and chrome, leather seats and polished wooden floor, pockmarked with the thin stab of stiletto indentations in the varnish. But now there were drapes everywhere, dark shades of lemon, brown, russets and green, hung haphazardly from every wall and strewn casually on the chairs. Normally I would have welcomed the change because it softened up what would otherwise have been severe and emotionless, but I had no time for softness. And the Other-inspired changes were too great a reminder of the work we had to do.
       Most of the seats were taken but I found a small spot near the stage and extracted a stool next to an Other with a leering gaze at the next table. The crowd was maybe seventy-thirty human-Other, with the locals no doubt there to gawp. The Others here were a strange bunch, even by Other standards. Two arms, two legs just like the rest of us, but the nose-to-hoof hair made them look vulpine. Out in the street they were usually heavily fur-clad against the cold, and at a distance you couldn't distinguish them from humans. Down here, though, without their outer garments their glistening pelts held an otherworldly exoticism, their silver-grey shimmering in the moody club lights, chameleon morphing into vibrant new patterns. It wasn't just the lights though. These Others wore a mix of exaggerated hairstyles in cockatoo colours and gel-spiked frenzy, with an arrogant confidence about the way they carried themselves that made me wary. From time to time one of them glanced over in my direction as if wondering what the hell I was doing there. Or maybe they wanted me to join them. Either way, I bared my teeth in a passable imitation of their 'fuck off' expression and they turned back to humiliating the pole dancers.
       Ryan came back with the drinks and I was relieved to see they were neither bright yellow nor steaming.
       "Nice to know you can still get beer," I said, even though Ryan couldn't hear me over the noise. We waited for one of the Others to kick off. It was inevitable, really. They were all drunk and most of them seemed to be high on something too. Essence? What few agreements there were between humans and Others strictly forbade the taking of soul-force, but this was a lawless place, and these were lawless times.
       In the end they started fighting each other, and with the staff distracted I grabbed my bottle and followed Ryan to the side room behind the bar.
       The crystal was still suspended in mid-air, just as we'd left it. It wasn't really there, and I was pretty sure only Ryan and I could see it at all. When I said we'd discovered magic I really meant magic discovered us.

       The first time we'd sneaked into the storeroom, back before the Joining, we had an entirely different agenda. That was in the early days, before I discovered he was an arse. We had been half-drunk and alive with the intensity that only a new relationship brings. Ryan had killed the lights and I'd started to unbutton his shirt while he ran his hands through my hair. And then things had got intense. But it wasn't pitch-black like it should have been: a purple light came from somewhere. We ignored it at first, but as we becamemore passionate the light grew brighter, as if feeding off us.
       Eventually the distraction became too great and I rolled away from Ryan to see what it was. The crystal, growing and throbbing. It had hummed too, at a point in the register that made it difficult to hear. I put my hand out to touch it. And found myself somewhere else.
       Not the Other Place. That came later. That first time Ryan followed me and we just looked around. It was dark, but we had the bright purple crystal suspended in the air to guide our way. We were outside, in a garden. Another light shone in the distance, so we walked towards it. A red crystal hung suspended, beginning to glow as we approached.
       Ryan had touched the crystal first. But I'd held his hand and that was all it took to pull me through with him. Through to the Other Place.
       It had been there too, and cold. Not completely dark, though, because a big moon hung in the sky. Big and red. And behind us the crystal was suspended, here in this place as well as the garden.
       There'd been a chill in the air though. In the distance I'd heard something howl, and that made me take a step back, brushing against the crystal.
       And we were back in the garden.
       W looked at each other. "What the hell was that?" I asked.
       Ryan had grinned. "We should go back in."
       I'd wanted to, but something held me back. "I heard something. Wolves. We should take weapons."
        "I'm not scared."
       I'd not been afraid either, but something stronger than the need to explore consumed me. Ryan's shirt was still half undone. I gently pulled him down to the soft, warm grass.
       With what I know now I'm sure the crystals were amplifying whatever we felt, that they wanted – no, needed – us to make love right there, in the garden nexus between worlds. Because when we lay back, hand in hand, exhausted and spent, a faint glow appeared between the crystals, a rainbow light bridge that gathered in intensity when I leaned over to kiss him. Our connection somehow had led to the crystal's linking.
       We slept, and when we woke the connection between the crystals was stronger. I'd wanted to pass through to the other place then, but Ryan held us back, reminding me about the wolves. The crystals had what they needed – maybe they'd wanted us to go back home then. Certainly, the amplified passion I'd felt for Ryan was gone – and I never felt it again.
       So, we went back to the purple crystal. When we touched it, we were back in the side room at the Undertow. We soon found we could do things. And the very next day the first of the Others appeared, grubbing for food in a skip behind a supermarket.

       So much had happened since then. Now we were back, and the crystal glowed in anticipation.
       "This bit of the plan I'm not so clear about," I said, recalling how Ryan had somehow managed to skip over the vital details of what we needed to do and still sound utterly convincing. Not for the first time, I thought he should have been in politics.
       "Ah," he said, looking uncomfortable. "You see, we fuelled the crystal with our passion, back when we had some."
       "Doesn't explain the Joining."
       "The sex. Maybe we mixed our soul-force, back then. And maybe that's what the crystal is. A mix of the soul-force between our world and the Other. It was weak when we first came here but strong when we left. Maybe when we, um, 'joined' the worlds Joined too."
       "We 'joined'?"
       "Yes, well how would you describe it?"
       "History."
       Ryan tried not to look pained but didn't quite pull it off. "The Joining depends on us. As long as we're both still alive, the crystal stays strong and the worlds stay connected."
       I could see where this was heading, not that I agreed in any way with his stupid logic. "We stopped 'joining' a long time ago."
       "And yet the worlds are still mingling,"
       "Maybe that means we have nothing to do with it."
       "Maybe that means one of us has to die. Here, where the crystal can witness it and stop whatever it's doing." I could see a familiar purple glow start to appear in Ryan's hands. It was clear he wasn't contemplating suicide.
       I muttered under my breath and called up crimson flame, twirling it around my hands. Ryan countered with shafts of purple. I settled into a crouch. Ryan lunged and I sent a stab of fire into his chest. He staggered back and fell. As he toppled over, though, he loosed a couple of bolts indiscriminately, sending plaster streaming down from the ceiling.
       The crystal glowed hot. "It's getting off on this, you idiot," I cried.
       "You know I'm right."
       I established a flame screen and sent pulsing bolts through to where Ryan lay. He had a screen up too, and my bolts fell harmlessly. "Looks like it's a stalemate," I said.
       Ryan smirked, then fired a bolt up at the ceiling, slicing through a supporting beam. I tried to turn my force screen towards the falling debris but it was too strong, too quick and too heavy. I spun, tripped and fell. And then I was pinned.
       "I'm sorry it has to be this way," said Ryan as he called up more purple fire for the final blow, not looking sorry at all. "But sometimes you just have to make sacrifices."
       That's Ryan. Comes across all wanting-to-save-the-planet noble but in the end, he gets to walk away from this. Some sacrifice. And I'm supposed to be the heartless one.
       I tried to call up crimson flame but I had nothing left. I was spent, exhausted, drained. nstead I did the only thing I could; I stretched for the crystal, tantalisingly out of reach. And then it wasn't. The crystal moved. Before Ryan could react, I touched it, and we were back in the garden.
       Freed from the debris, I had the advantage over the disorientated Ryan. Invigorated by the crystal's touch I felt a familiar tingle in my hands, I focused, drawing on all my powers. Crimson flame took out his knees and an old-fashioned punch finished him off. He hardly knew what hit him. Now I had him pinned down, and I had a decision to make.
       "Kill me, then. One of us has to die." He looked resigned now.
       "You have to win at everything, don't you? Even dying is a chance for noble self-sacrifice that makes you superior to the rest of us." I hesitated. I should have hated him, the smug bastard. I should have hated him for being weak. For wanting to kill me. It would have been easy to kill him, to end it.
       Easy, but wrong. And I'd have to live with the guilt. I hesitated, enough to realise that if Ryan wanted me to kill him, he had some sort of agenda. Ryan was self-obsessed, not self-sacrificing. We were in the nexus between worlds, wielding magic power bolts fuelled by floating crystals. Did dead even mean dead here? Time to take a chance.
       I brought up my hand, now glowing with magical energy. And plunged it in my own chest. "Well I've got news for you, Ryan. I win."
       Redemption, exhaustion, or sheer bloody mindedness? Who knows what my motives were. Maybe all three. I had no time to reflect because everything went black.

       I had no idea how long I was unconscious; I didn't really know why I woke at all. My theory that the crystal garden wasn't a real place at all so I wasn't really dead had seemed tenuous, but I was in the moment, and I'd been lucky
       I was back in the storeroom. Eyes adjusting to the reduced light, I looked around for the crystal, but it wasn't there anymore. Neither was Ryan. I eased myself up and peered out into the bar, half expecting to see the Others gone, but they were still there. Something had changed, though. Where before they'd been loud and confident, almost arrogant, they were subdued now, looking furtively around and edging for the door.
       They could feel it, and so could I. They were trapped here, the link to their world broken. 'Killing' myself achieved the separation Ryan wanted, and without our collective energy to drive it, the Joining was over.
       Ryan was gone. Where? I never knew for sure, but perhaps to make the split complete, one of us needed to end up in the Other Place. I think it had been Ryan's plan to send me there, but instead I found myself back in my old haunts, much in demand from the Government because of what I knew, and where I'd been. I never admitted to my full role in events, even though I knew people suspected., so in their eyes I remained the hero rather than the villain. Occasionally I get a tingle in my hands, reminding me of powers long gone. And Ryan? I sometimes dream I'm him, surrounded by silver-pelted people who don't know what to make of me, baring their teeth as they slowly advance.