Stories: All-New Tales - By Neil Gaiman & Al Sarrantonio Page 0,13

the fire must have burnt out in the night and the brothers died in their sleep in a protracted January cold spell: the brother to be identified as Edgar Waldman, eighty-seven, embracing his brother Edward Waldman, also eighty-seven, from behind, protectively fitting his body to his brother’s crippled body, forehead tenderly pressed to the back of the other’s head, the two figures coiled together like a gnarled organic material that has petrified to stone.

WILDFIRE IN MANHATTAN

Joanne Harris

IT’S NOT MY NAME—WELL, NOT QUITE—but you can call me Lucky. I live right here in Manhattan, in the penthouse suite of a hotel just off Central Park. I’m a model citizen in every way, punctual, polite and orderly. I wear sharp suits. I wax my chest hair. You’d never think I was a god.

It’s a truth often overlooked that old gods—like old dogs—have to die sometime. It just takes longer, that’s all; and in the meantime citadels may fall, empires collapse, worlds end and folk like us end up on the pile, redundant and largely forgotten.

In many ways, I’ve been fortunate. My element is fire, which never quite goes out of style. There are Aspects of me that still wield power—there’s too much of the primitive left in you Folk for it to be otherwise, and although I don’t get as many sacrifices as I used to, I can still get obeisance if I want it (who doesn’t?)—after dark, when the campfires are lit. And the dry lightning strikes across the plains—yes, they’re mine—and the forest fires; and the funeral pyres and the random sparks and the human torches—all mine.

But here, in New York, I’m Lukas Wilde, lead singer in the rock band Wild—re. Well, I say band. Our only album, Burn It Up, went platinum when the drummer was tragically killed on stage by a freakish blast of lightning.

Well, maybe not so freakish. Our only U.S. tour was stalked by lightning from beginning to end; of fifty venues, thirty-one suffered a direct hit; in just nine weeks we lost three more drummers, six roadies and a truckload of gear. Even I was beginning to feel I’d taken it just a little too far.

Still, it was a great show.

Nowadays, I’m semiretired. I can afford to be; as one of only two surviving band members I have a nice little income, and when I’m feeling bored I play piano in a fetish bar called the Red Room. I’m not into rubber myself (too sweaty), but you can’t deny it makes a terrific insulator.

By now you may have gathered—I’m a night person. Daylight rather cramps my style; and besides, fire needs a night sky to show to best advantage. An evening in the Red Room, playing piano and eyeing the girls, then downtown for rest and recreation. Not a scene that my brother frequents; and so it was with some surprise that I ran smack into him that night, as I was checking out the nicely flammable back streets of the Upper East Side, humming “Light My Fire” and contemplating a spot of arson.

I didn’t say? Yes, in this present Aspect, I have a brother. Brendan. A twin. We’re not close; Wildfire and Hearth Fire have little in common, and he rather disapproves of my flamboyant lifestyle, preferring the more domestic joys of baking and grilling. Imagine that. A firegod running a restaurant—it makes me burn with shame. Still, it’s his funeral. Each of us goes to hell in his own way, and besides, his flame-grilled steaks are the best in the business.

It was past midnight, I was a little light-headed from the booze—but not so drunk that you’d have noticed—and the streets were as still as they get in a city that only ever shuts one eye. A huddle of washouts sleeping in cardboard boxes under a fire escape; a cat raiding a Dumpster. It was November; steam plumed from the sewer grates and the sidewalks were shiny with cold sweat.

I was just crossing the intersection of Eighty-First and Fifth, in front of the Hungarian meat market when I saw him, a familiar figure with hair the colour of embers tucked into the collar of a long grey coat. Tall, slim and ballet quick; you might almost have been forgiven for thinking it was me. Close scrutiny, however, reveals the truth. My eyes are red and green; his, on the other hand, are green and red. Anyway, I wouldn’t be seen dead wearing those shoes.

I greeted him cheerily. “Do I smell burning?”

He turned to