فصل دهم

CHAPTER TEN

Higher Ground

There are steep roofs on the north side of London’s Euston Road, roofs pierced with clock towers and turrets and spires and chimneys. They are so high, and the sweep of the building is so fiercely decorated that no one looking up at its gothic exuberance really notices the watchers looking back at them. But above the sixty million bricks that make up St. Pancras station and the hotel attached to it, there is one of the largest rookeries of gargoyles in London.

On the north side of the building, its stone eyes staring out over the sweep of wet rails heading out of London beneath it, a cat-gargoyle arched over the gulf of air between it and the glass train shed below, as water spouted from the copper pipe jutting from between its snarling teeth. It was the same as all the other gargoyles on the roof, except for one thing. It was steaming, like a racehorse after a long hard race.

It didn’t know much, but what it did know was this: it had failed. The other gargoyles of St. Pancras knew this. Next time, perhaps more than one would have to take to the air, and hunt in a pack. And next time they would not fail.