The Trial of Morrigan Crow Book 2; The Return of Morrigan Crow

Chapter 1 - The Angel Israfel

Morrigan Crow leapt from the Brolly Rail, teeth chattering, hands frozen around the end of her oilskin umbrella. The wind had whipped her hair into a state of extreme disarray. She tried her best to smooth it down as she and her patron pelted along the noisy, swarming high street of the Bohemian district.

They rushed through the street, running headlong through the mess of pedestrians and rickshaws and horse-drawn carriages and motorised coaches.

Jupiter was way ahead of Morrigan, as she hurried after him, trying to catch up. Morrigan walked into a sickly-sweet-smelling cloud of sapphire-blue smoke, puffed right at her face by a woman holding a thin, gold cigarillo in her blue-stained fingertips.

"Ugh, foul." Morrigan coughed and waved the smoke away. For a moment, she lost sight of Jupiter through the haze, but then she spotted the top of his bright copper head, bobbing up and down in the crowd, and sprinted to catch up with him.

'A child!' she heard the blue-fingered woman exclaim in her wake. 'Darling, look – a child, here in Bohemia. How frightful!'

'It's a performance piece, darling.'

'Oh, indeed. How novel!'

The broad streets lined with theatres and playhouses and music halls, the colourful jumble of bright lights and neon signs. People, dressed in their finest, piled out of carriages on every corner and were ushered inside grand theatre doors. Street hawkers shouted and sang, beckoning customers into rowdy pubs. There were restaurants so overflowing with diners that their tables spilled out on to the pavements, every seat occupied, even on this frosty Spring's Eve, the last day of winter.

Morrigan managed to made it to where Jupiter stood waiting for her outside the most crowded – and most beautiful – building on the street. A shimmering establishment of white marble and gold. A brightly lit marquee across the top read:

NEW DELPHIAN MUSIC HALL PRESENTS

GIGI GRAND
and the

GUTTERBORN FIVE

"Sorry Mog, you know there isn't enough time so I can't slow down," Jupiter send an apologizing look to her.

With a furtive glance over his shoulder, he ushered her down an alleyway behind the New Delphian, leaving the crowd behind. It was so narrow they had to walk in single file, stepping over piles of unidentifiable rubbish and bricks that had crumbled loose from the walls. There were no lights down here. It had a strong smell of something dreadful that got stronger the farther down they went. Like bad eggs or dead unnimals, or maybe both.

Morrigan covered her mouth and nose. The smell was so noxious she had to fight the urge to vomit. Although she wanted to go back so bad, she couldn't. Jupiter and her marched quicker, both desperately wanted to get rid of the smell"

"Stop," he said, when they were near the end of the alley. "Is this ...? No. Wait, is it ...?"

He inspected a section of the wall that looked exactly like every other section. He gently pressed the grouting between the bricks with his fingertips, leaned in to sniff it, and then gave the wall a tentative lick.

Morrigan scrunched up her face, "You know you don't have to lick the wall to check, just press your hand to the wall and feel it."

Jupiter rubbed his neck awkwardly, "Had to be sure"

Morrigan closed her eyes as she pressed her right ear and hands to the wall. As expected, there was a very subtle, fuzzy tingle in her fingertips. A faint humming in her ears.

Jupiter took hold of her wrist and pulled it back, ever so slightly, from the wall. Morrigan felt resistance, as if the bricks were magnetised and didn't want to let her go, she knew it was his knack, a little tricksy.