Len Vey was standing on the flatcar’s rear brake step.
He had boarded the moving car from the crawlspace hatch as its rear axle crossed the drain, his uninjured right arm hooking over the tailboard support post, his boots finding the twelve-inch oak footboard with the instant balance recovery of Surefoot. His left arm was pressed tight against his ribs inside his coat, the splints groaning under the dynamic shock of boarding. But he kept his knees bent. He took in the violent shaking of the iron wheels on the rail joints.
The flatcar burst through the open delivery portal into the dense, freezing sulfur fog of Sump Road.
The slope steepened outside the depot gates, the narrow-gauge tram track following an old heavy-duty coal spur that dropped down a five-percent incline toward the lower Tram basin. The iron wheels began to scream against the cold rail heads, throwing sprays of rust and sparks into the dark mist as the car sped up to fifteen, eighteen, twenty miles an hour.
Above him, standing astride the six lashed barrels on the timber deck, the hunter was step by step destroying the cargo.
The double had driven the eight-sided crowbar four inches into the bung of the first cask, splitting the white oak staves until a steaming, golden fountain of fever-animal fat was spewing across the flatcar deck, slicking the timber with boiling animal grease. The creature didn’t smile. Its amber eyes were fixed on the second cask. The heavy, iron-bound barrel…
