City of Lies - Lian Tanner [36]
And on the fourth floor of the house across the way she could sense five hearts beating.
Three adults.
Two children.
She looked up at the moonlit sky. “Morg,” she hissed, as loudly as she dared, and she let the Concealment fall away.
There was a flurry of wings, and the slaughterbird dropped like a stone onto her shoulder. Goldie laughed under her breath and caught her balance. “I’m so glad to see you!” she whispered.
Morg’s yellow eye peered at her. “Gla-a-a-a-ad,” croaked the bird, and she nibbled the edge of the half-mask.
Goldie pointed to the fourth-floor window of the house opposite. “I think Toadspit and Bonnie are up there. Can you take a look? Don’t let anyone see you.”
With a clap of wings, Morg launched herself back into the air. Higher than the houses she flew; then she turned and drifted downward in a long, silent glide that took her straight past the window.
“Fo-o-o-o-o-ound,” she croaked, when she was safely back on Goldie’s shoulder.
“Shhhh! Are you sure it’s them?”
Morg bobbed up and down. “The-e-e-e-em.”
There was a gate next to the house, and a narrow, stinking passage that led to the rear of the building. There Goldie found a wooden lean- to with boxes stacked against it. She studied the lean-to carefully. It would be easy enough to climb onto its roof. And the bars on the first-floor window looked as if they would take her weight.
From there on up, the wall was riddled with hand- and footholds. She should be able to climb right to the top floor, to the single small window that was unbarred. What she would do once she was inside the building—that was another matter.
“Can you find me an old bucket or something?” she whispered to Morg. “It has to be made of metal. But not too heavy. Something you can fly with.”
Once again, Morg rose into the night. While she was gone, Goldie shrugged the coiled rope off her shoulder and cut a piece from the end. She hid the rest of it among the boxes.
There was a rattle and a thump behind her, and Morg strutted down the passage, holding the handle of a small coal scuttle in her beak and looking pleased with herself.
“Perfect,” whispered Goldie.
She took the powdered sugar and the saltpeter from her pockets and mixed them together in the bottom of the coal scuttle, making sure that she used the right amount of each, as Olga Ciavolga had taught her. Then she carried the scuttle back along the passage and tucked it into the deep shadows beside the gate, where no one would see it.
She was nearly ready. All she needed now was people.
“You wait here,” she whispered to Morg. “If they move Bonnie and Toadspit before I get back, I want you to follow them. Whatever you do, don’t lose them. I’ll be as quick as I can!”
Goldie was about to slip back out into the street, when the front door of the house opened and the woman in the green cloak hurried away up the hill. As soon as she was out of sight, Goldie pulled the passage gate closed behind her and ran.
The brass band was closer than she had thought. The musicians were marching along the road at the bottom of the hill, their chains clanking. Behind them came a gang of sailors with shaved heads and tattooed arms, and flagons of wine that they passed from hand to hand. None of them were throwing food, and the band members scowled at them and played more and more slowly until the music was almost a dirge.
“Give us something a bit boring, for Bald Thoke’s sake!” shouted one of the sailors.
His friends booed him. Goldie supposed they were really cheering. They wanted some fun. They wanted something to happen. Well, she could help with that.…
The bandmaster was wearing a plague half-mask and his hands were painted with sores. When he saw Goldie, he waved his baton.
She hurried over to him and put her mouth to his ear. “Lovely food those sailors are throwing, Herro.”
The bandmaster gritted his teeth. “Generous young things, are they not? We’ll certainly go back to the Penitentiary with our bellies full tonight.”
“It’d be even worse up the hill,” said Goldie.