Both guards’ heads twisted this time, searching for signs of rats. I rubbed my palms together in delight. Excellent.
Lizzy smiled benignly. ‘Can I get either of you two a drink? We have several pubs. There’s a nice home-made wine which goes down a treat on a hot day like this.’
‘We are fine.’ Boyce paused before adding as if it were an after-thought, ‘Thank you.’
She grinned and waved. ‘You’re welcome.’ Then she wandered past them, looking for all the world like she was out for a casual stroll.
Julie leaned into me. ‘Do you think it worked?’ she whispered.
‘I think it planted the seed,’ I said. ‘Onto phase two.’ We began to slide back down the roof as quietly as possible.
The second guard heaved a sigh. ‘We should have said yes to the wine. We could have drunk it later on. I could do with a damned drink.’
‘I bet you could.’ There was a sour note to Boyce’s words. He lowered his voice. ‘Was it you?’ I heard him ask in a low voice. ‘Was it you who let that little black creature out of its cage?’
I jerked in shock. Unfortunately it was too late to halt my descent and listen to the reply. Bastards. That wasn’t an admission of guilt, it was a simple question. But it had been asked, all the same.
Julie looked at me. ‘Why would one of those bastards set Lucy free?’ she asked.
I bit my lip. This wasn’t the time to get into it. ‘I’ll explain later.’ I pointed to the side. ‘Come on. Let’s skedaddle out of here.’
We walked towards the barricade. I gave Theo a friendly wave. ‘We’re going to check the other buildings around here,’ I called out. ‘In case any more decide to collapse on us.’
He offered me a confused smile. I didn’t often explain what I was up to when I wandered out of the enclave. Julie waggled her fingers at him in greeting, however, and he kept quiet. She often had that effect on people.
We walked past the tent, pointedly ignoring both guards – or at least I did. Julie added an extra strut and shook her head in an attention-drawing exercise. Given her portable head parasol and head-to-toe covering, I reckoned she was already getting more than enough attention. Still, I supposed I should be glad that she didn’t start blowing them kisses.
Avoiding the street where the chimney stack had collapsed, we turned right. Down here we’d be out of the guards’ view. I heaved in a breath and hoped I was doing the right thing.
Lizzy appeared from the other side of the building, fumbling with her bag before producing a confused-looking Lucy.
‘She whimpered the whole time,’ Lizzy told me. ‘It’s lucky the guards didn’t twig.’
‘She’s hungry.’
Lizzy laid her down carefully on the road. As soon as her paws hit the ground, Lucy went still. The only part of her that moved was her nose, twitching this way and that as she scented the air.
‘I know those giant rat bastards hunt in packs,’ Lizzy said. ‘And their danger lies in their numbers. But I’m starting to get a very bad feeling about this.’
‘We’ll be fine.’ Even I was impressed by my over-confident tone. ‘It’ll all be fine.’ Maybe. Assuming everything went to plan. I watched Lucy. ‘Come on, baby.’ I knelt down and scratched at the surface of the road, hoping I could lead by example. ‘Come on, Luce,’ I said. ‘You can do it.’
The tiny shadow beast stared at me as if I were crazy. I kept on scratching. A moment later, Julie joined me, then Lizzy. Lucy continued to gaze at us. I thought it wasn’t going to work and she’d stay where she was, but eventually she seemed to decide that if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. She too started to scratch at the road, except Lucy’s scratches were louder and deeper than ours.
‘I still don’t see that this will work,’ Julie muttered. She gave up her own bid at scratching and straightened up, reaching into her pocket for her little silver hip flask. She started to unscrew the lid before suddenly freezing. ‘Forget I said that,’ she muttered.
From an abandoned house with an open window on the ground floor and half a tree growing out of its roof, several rats emerged, drawn by Lucy’s siren call. I counted a baker’s dozen. It wasn’t a large number – but that was probably a good thing. What was important was that they were big bastards. The larger they were, the more I’d have to work with.
The first one flung itself forward, immediately registering the chunks of dog food in the trap we’d left in the middle of the road. It swooped in, scuttling over the pressure pad, and the trapdoor slammed shut behind it. That was easier than I’d anticipated.
I scooped up Lucy and thrust her into Julie’s arms. ‘There’s another cage set up in that house,’ I said. ‘Cath is waiting there. Just hand over Lucy and we’ll pick her up again later. And make sure you don’t lose that damned rat.’ I grabbed Lizzy’s arm. ‘Ready?’
‘You so owe me a year’s supply of Vegemite for this,’ she said. I winked. A moment later we were off, pelting our way back down the road in the direction of the enclave.
It was fortunate that Lizzy was a screamer. She threw back her head as she ran, her high-pitched screeches drawing the remainder of the rats away from Julie and Lucy and towards us. We sprinted with all our might; I even injected some flapping arms for effect.
‘Rats!’ I shrieked. I veered towards the enclave. ‘Help!’
The loud skittering from behind told me that the
