No-one knew about the Hamelin Sanctuary, or at least no-one talked about it. Gloria stumbled upon it quite by accident, her fur matted and dirty, paws aching, stomach growling. She’d never known there was anyone living in the forest.
Reiver
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.
Beyond the placid shore
The van’s suspension groaned under Detective Yilmaz’s weight as she ducked into the dimly lit interior. Reported as suspicious three days ago, parked in front of a house, not moving. Dark finish to the paint-job, though this close it was clearly old and flaky, peeling off to reveal rust underneath. Not a matter for the police, but perhaps for the council, towing away abandoned, decrepit or illegally parked vehicles.v
The art of the steal
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.
Pole position
Ihyll drove like he had nothing to lose. Corners were challenges that he went at roaring, tearing down the asphalt in a furious squeal of rubber and smoke. There was something of that even when he was standing still, or leaned up against the wall watching newcomers prep their engines, checking nitrous and ignitions, topping up tanks.
Hard to port
Four days out from Carakko, they passed the first floating outpost. Vemway, still paler than usual and with his perfume not quite hiding the faint aroma of bile, peered across the waves at the towering structure. Half-cut timber bulwarks rose high above the water, their lower sides crusted with salt and seaweed, a few barnacles hanging on for dear life.
A delicatessen touch
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.
Others
The sound of the slap echoed around the room. That was how it would be described in a novel, if this was a novel. If Laura had been able to do it. Instead she sank further into her chair and pretended she wasn’t in the room.
All that meant was that the world kept spinning, and the words kept coming.
Path to anywhere
There was only the road, stretching on towards the horizon, carving its way through the knee-high brush. Grass heavy with seed nodded dozy heads towards the sky, where the sun hid behind clouds and leant the world a queer blue-grey hue. There were footprints in the dust. Shallow indents that marked the slow passing of feet, heavy with dirt and the detritus of a life lived with blood and ended with the same.
The missing
Making a painting that followed a viewer with its eyes was a simple task, if you had a modicum of skill and some paint. Or charcoal, chalk, anything that could colour a paper or a canvas. It was just pigment and the human brain confusing itself with a trick of perspective, lies the eyes told the mind and the gullible neurons believed.