Killer

Chapter Fourteen

From the street where Lycon waited with the others, the preparations on the rooftops around them were invisible. An occasional wedge of broken tile pattered between outthrust balconies to smash on the pavement, and the fitful glow of lanterns overhead provided uncertain evidence of the men who moved into position above the streets.

There were laws regulating set-back from the street against building height-intended to guarantee sunlight for every stretch of pavement in order to burn away the noxious effluvia that would otherwise, according to the best medical opinion, propagate themselves in shadows. Save for a handful of major boulevards, however, the laws were an excuse for Watch commanders to extort bribes instead of being genuine subjects for enforcement. There had been nothing about this portion of the north slope of the Aventine Hill that precluded the builders from developing it as they pleased-and at a price.

So the close-shouldering apartment blocks hid the direct sun from the streets except at noon on certain days. It also meant that a fire in one building involved potential disaster for the region or the city as a whole-as had already happened twice since a blaze had given Nero room enough for a sprawling palace and grounds in Rome's center. So far as Lycon was concerned at the moment, the interlocking balconies and eaves might prevent him from directing his men by sight, but this amounted to no more of a handicap than the scrub or high grass in which he normally worked. The narrow interstices made it possible to reach the roof of their objective without going through the top floor that Mephibaal leased.

Had leased until recently, at any rate. Lycon wiped his palms on his tunic, not for the first time.

A three-note call drifted down from above. It was from no certain direction by the time it bounced through the maze of walls and projections.

"That's Hippias," said Vonones, gripping the stock of his whip with his hands and firmly enough to flex it into a bow. "They're all in position."

N'Sumu waited with the placid arrogance of one of the huge stone dolphins at the horseraces, ready to tip and signal completion of a lap but utterly disdainful of all other matters of human endeavor. Lycon noticed that when the Egyptian turned his gaze upward toward darkness, his eyeballs frosted into dull opacity. The beastcatcher thought that it might be a trick of the light, until the same thing happened when N'Sumu looked directly down the street past him, and his eyeballs gleamed, dulled, and gleamed normally again without any change in external circumstances. N'Sumu gri

Lady Fortune, Lycon thought, we need you now and always. But especially now. "Right," he said aloud. "Time we made our move." His fingertips checked the net slung over his left shoulder, then the dense ivory baton he had slipped through the sash of his tunic in preference to a weapon with an edge. "Let's go."

There were seven in the party that Lycon led up the only staircase of the apartment block. Two of the men were Vonones' slaves, recent arrivals from Ethiopia who did not even speak Greek. They would be a deadly liability on the roof, where coordination was crucial and only shouted orders were possible in the darkness. They could, however, accompany Lycon on the direct assault, carrying large lanterns. One of the slaves was directly behind Lycon on the stairs, holding his light aloft and so close that the back of the hunter's neck quivered with the heat of the triple lampwicks flaming within their cage of lead and horn. The other Ethiopian brought up the rear.

Most of the Watch unit, with their Centurion, were on the roofs with the bulk of Vonones' crew and the additional specialists Lycon had hired from the Amphitheater for such need as this. Two patrolmen accompanied the beastcatcher up the stairs. Except for spears, they wore the full military equipment that was normally a matter for parades and riots only. Lycon was not certain how much use the men's laminated-linen body armor and shields of spruce plywood would be, since protection had to be offset against weight and the lizard-ape's awesome quickness. Still, it was worth trying tonight, since only N'Sumu professed to have any knowledge of the beast they stalked.

N'Sumu himself followed the first lantern-bearer. The Egyptian carried no weapon at all, and he walked with both hands outthrust before him as if in benediction. His palms were of the same richly ta

Vonones was directly behind N'Sumu. The Armenian merchant was so nervous that Lycon could hear his sandals catch and skip as he repeatedly missed his footing. Vonones need not have come at all, and certainly there was no reason for him to be one of the group that entered the loft. He had insisted, however. With so much at stake, Vonones was determined to see it through personally, whatever the risks. Lycon hoped he wouldn't get in the way.

They had not attempted to evacuate the lower floors of the building. The noise and confusion would have been colossal-and in the event their supposition about the creature's lair was incorrect, the probable riot caused by the affair might have led Domitian to indulge one of his whims. There were ragged men and women sleeping at each landing. Lycon and the boots of the patrolmen prodded them into the hallways where others of the very poorest already huddled. The presence of those folk was mildly troublesome-they would almost certainly drift back to block the stairs down which the assault party might need to retreat abruptly. Still, they proved that the creature had not made its escape in this direction when it heard the boots and murmured orders of the men taking up positions on the surrounding roofs. If the lizard-ape indeed had made its lair here, Lycon assumed it would normally reach its lair from the adjacent rooftops. By night it could easily leap across from roof to roof-silently, unseen…

The top flight of stairs was closer to being a ladder of rough poles than a proper staircase. There was no railing, but the wall was worn and slimed by the hands of a decade of beggars. The lantern-bearer following Lycon cursed and stumbled and cursed again: some of his obscenities, at any rate, were Greek. The remainder of the group, especially Vonones and the heavily-armed patrolmen, were also having difficulties. N'Sumu, though graceless, mounted the stairs without actually touching the wall over which his open hand glided in readiness to brace him.

Lycon moved up the steps on his tip-toes, only the faint creak of the wood beneath his hobnails betraying his ascent. The beastcatcher held his net in both hands, swinging it waist-high and ready for an underarm cast in an emergency. It wouldn't stop the lizard-ape for long, but anything that would slow the beast down was worth trying.

The door beyond the topmost landing was a solid one, out of keeping with the upper levels of this or any other apartment block. If the sauropithecus had chosen this particular place for its lair, the choice was either a very lucky one for it-or else luck had nothing to do with it.

It's nearly as human as you are, N'Sumu had said.

"We may have to cut this down," Lycon whispered toward the men behind him. "Didn't expect anything this sturdy, or I'd have brought axes."