The railway switching depot sprawled across the northern marshaling yards like the carcass of an iron giant beast. Abandoned decades before the current trench lines were dug, the compound consisted of three cavernous locomotive barns, a web of rusted rail spurs choked with wild nettles, and dozens of hollow freight wagons resting on rotting wooden ties.
Cold rain lashed through the shattered skylights fifty feet overhead, drumming against rusted narrow high walkways and dripping steadily into oily puddles below. The air smelled of wet creosote, rusted steel, and stale drainage water.
Arthur Vance moved down the center line of Rail Track 3. His boots stepped silently from tie to tie. He kept his stance low, weapon held across his chest in a two-handed low-ready carry. The Vance Cryo-Pneumatic Transfixer (Mk. II) felt solid and familiar against his palms, its break-action receiver loaded with high-pressure aether-cool rounds.
At his left flank, Grimm padded through the shadows. The hound’s snout was dropped to the ballast, his black nostrils flaring as he filtered the scent signed names rising from the gravel. Grimm’s hackles remained stiff, his notched left ear angled sharply toward the inside of the central roundhouse.
High above the tracks, Pip darted along the underside of an overhead frame crane. The bird moved with total stealth, his ash-gold plumage tucked tight against his body as he hopped from one steel crossbeam to the next, maintaining a bird’s-eye vantage over the cluttered floor.
