Len didn’t need to see the shadow to know it was there.
Thirty feet above the oil vats, suspended among the massive king-post roof beams of the timber roof, hung the raised upkeep walkways used by grease-men to lubricate the overhead hoist pulleys. The air up there was thick with sulfur smoke and boiling animal fat vapor, hot enough to scorch the throat, but to a creature that didn’t breathe, the rafters were an open highway.
Through the cracks in the floorboards, Len watched the shadow move across an eight-inch cedar tie.
It didn’t swing from strut to strut. It ran with its torso low, its feet gliding over the unplaned wood with the eerie, zero-drag grace of Burdenless Step. It carried an iron crowbar in its right hand—the one-inch eight-sided pry-bar it had stolen from the tram upkeep shed—the chisel tip catching the green glow of a gas lantern with a dull, blue glint.
It was moving into position directly above the flatcar’s delivery track.
“It’s perched on the hoist beam above Vat Two,” Len whispered down through the floorboards to Ivara and Melli. “It knows we need the flatcar. It’s waiting for us to show our hands at the rail switch.”
