All in Crime Caper
The thick smell of horse, hay and creeping damp reminded Dervorgilla of home, but in a larger way. At home, they had one stall and a few boxes with doors half-missing and packed with everything from the plough and harnesses to farming tools to... she’d never looked in the sacks, to be honest. She half-suspected they’d be full of rats. Okay eating, if the winter was bad.
The Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze appeared utterly unremarkable from the outside, except for the thick iron bars across the windows and, tonight, two old stone gargoyles perched along the guttering. One was laying on the roof above the main door, forelegs crossed and spaded tail curled around its rough-hewn body, and the other was on the southern edge of the building, patrolling. Ti’Dani could track its movements by the faint orange glow of its cigar.
They’d tried all the obvious things, of course. Squint-Nose McGee had learned the hard way that the doors closed whip-fast and were made to withstand substantial impacts at speed. He’d been Stan, before.
Big Al, tough, with scars all over his face and one ear mostly missing, had suggested a full-frontal assault. No-one heard, though, him standing only hip high to most of the other bruisers and biters, and they’d spotted a different opportunity.
The mist drew back momentarily, revealing the looming mass of the Museum of Old and New Art, clinging limpet-like to the mist-slicked cliffside.
