Free The Curse of Salamander Street by G.P. Taylor Page B

from the bed as he pretended to sleep. Slowly and purposefully, the door opened. Beadle remained silent. He could feel a rising sense of panic begin to grip his throat. Inch by inch the door opened. A hand gripped the wood and gently eased the door wider and wider.
    From his vantage point, Beadle could see the bright glow of three candles. Covering his head, he peered below through his crooked elbow. The door opened wider – and it was then that he saw the Glory Hand. The fingers gripped the candles that burnt brightly. Beadle knew it well. It was like the one that his master Demurral had used several times before. It was the hand of a hanged man, severed at the wrist, dipped in saltpetre and wax, dried and charmed by a magical incantation. In its grip it held three candles. Once it was lit, all who slept could not wake and to put out the flame would take blood or the milk of a mothering cat.
    A cloaked figure held the Glory Hand before it. With a chank of bagged coins, the hand was wedged between two plates of cold meat and a moneybag emptied on the table. A living hand came from the shroud and began to count the money coin by coin. It stacked them in neat piles, gold to the left andsilver to the right. But it was as if the robber searched the bag for something more and that the money was of no concern.
    Beadle could not see the figure’s face nor recognise by its dress who it was. He was certain it was neither Barghast nor Demurral. The figure was far too small and its hand far too delicate. All he could fearfully see was the thin white hand counting the money.
    ‘Money and nothing more,’ the soft voice said.
    On the table, the mouse hid beneath the rim of a pewter plate, its long tail trailing from its hiding place. The hand suddenly stopped its reckoning, darted to its left, snatched the mouse and in one loud gulp the tiny creature had vanished into the hooded fiend’s mouth. There was the crunching of bones and the satisfied chuckle of contentment.
    The coins were placed back in the bag and the hand taken from the table, and without any backward glance the figure left the room.
    Beadle counted the footsteps back up the stairs and along the corridor. Again, at every room they stopped until their sound faded into the still night. In the kitchen, Beadle sniffed the air that hung heavy with the fragrance of wild jasmine.

Salamander Street
    C HARRED plaster walls rose up from the muddied lane that was Salamander Street. Thomas looked to the narrow gap between the buildings and the slither of sky that cut through the rooftops. He could see that the street ran out of sight towards the city. There was little light from the sun; even on this bright morning the oil lamps beckoned them as they walked slowly on through the shadows. With every yard, they picked their way in and out of the open sewer that ran its length.
    ‘Good place to stay,’ Crane joked as he pulled the scarf around his face like a mask. ‘I know a man here called Pallium … He’s a banker. We’ll take a room and see what is to be done.’
    ‘What about the Magenta ?’ Thomas asked as his feet slipped from him, as if the slime beneath him was alive.
    ‘Never give in to those who think they are your betters,’ Crane snarled suddenly. ‘Priests, kings and excise men, every one of them a rogue by another name. Give me a week and I’ll have it back and we’ll be away to France. I have a house in Calais away from the customs men. You can stay there and I will return. I have unfinished business with Parson Demurral.’
    His words put an end to the conversation. In the mean light they walked on silently. Thomas caught Kate’s glance and tried to smile. He could see she looked more and more concerned with every step as they walked forth into the looming cavern.
    Crane stopped by a flaking wooden door. The house that surrounded it was stacked against the sky like a rocky outcrop. It had once been painted white and had now dulled to a mouldy yellow. The