DAY EIGHTY-SIX
The third and final Great Fire of London burned unchallenged for a week before the rains came. Unlike the first great fire, the seventeenth-century blaze everyone knew from history lessons at school, and the second that came as the result of a spectacularly brutal and lengthy bombing of the city during World War II, this was unequivocally the final great fire because, this time, there was no one left to rebuild the capital, and nothing left to rebuild it with.
The downpour started in the early hours the day before yesterday and showed no signs of abating. The roiling clouds were heavy and black with oily smoke, as was everything else, making it hard to find the point where the sky ended and the scorched remains of this once unyielding city and its undead population began.
