Daughter of Cloak and Mask: Book 2 by Lauren M.D

Author:Lauren M.D. [M.D., Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-01-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

Trice was beginning to find it harder to keep her triple life distinct. After her morning with Tabitha, she was due to meet with Lieutenant Vito, the man who had survived his own murder. From the affluence and comfort of Carluccio the Glovers, she had made her way back to Tabitha’s apartment, changed back into her everyday clothes, and set out for the abandoned warehouse where she was due to meet the ‘Bills Lieutenant.

At least I’m getting plenty of experience with the streets and canals…

The area she was heading into belonged to one of the other gangs, the Feccia, but Trice knew she would be fairly safe as long as she kept to well-travelled roads and didn’t indulge in any ‘work’ for the Gancio. Suspicious eyes glared at her out of lined faces as she walked quickly through the dirty streets.

While not as run-down as the Pescadora, the area she found herself in, known as ‘Bruciare’ to the locals, was not wealthy either. Peopled by day-labourers, porters, dockers, and washerwomen and bullied by the Feccia, the Bruciare was in a constant state of rebuilding. Buildings were wooden structures frequently burned down, particularly those who failed to keep up with their payments to the Feccia. Strangers didn’t come here often, so Trice was an oddity, but the ‘Bills were more common here than in the Pescadora.

Her destination was an old grain warehouse, widely held to be haunted by the locals and spoken of as ‘Inizi’ in hushed whispers, as rumour had it that the last fire to seriously damage the Bruciare as a whole had been started here by angry ghosts. Inizi stood alone, surrounded by empty lots, ravaged by fire all down one side.

While the burnt side of Inizi had collapsed, the unburnt side had been left miraculously untouched, creating a space with two storeys and two partial rooms. Trice clambered into the ground floor room through a broken window shutter and surveyed the space.

Broken boxes and empty grain sacks, ripped to tatters by rodents that feared no ghosts, littered the floor. The staircase had been in the burnt section, but a ladder to the upper floor remained in place, even if most of the floor itself did not. Through the window, she saw the hated ‘Bills who had cut off her fingers slowly amble past, ostensibly patrolling, but more likely standing watch for the Lieutenant. She loathed the pair of them, fat Sergeant Gont of the piggish eyes and ready hooked blade and moustachioed Corporal Sobo, the lanky, mournful-faced slouch but her revenge on them would have to wait.

Clambering up the ladder, the Lieutenant was waiting for her upstairs, sat in his unnervingly silent way, his pale face looking out of the darkness of his cloak. Trice flushed at the memory of the warm, cedar scent of the cloak, the warmest she had ever felt, before vigorously stamping down the feeling and addressing him.

“Lieutenant.”

“Miss ‘Trizia,” he replied, voice rippling out of the shadows. “A pleasure to see you again.

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