Waiting For Sunrise - The Books Of Beginning AU

55. Spies

October arrived in New York City easy as an exhale, bringing pristine blue skies and crisp wind to every neighborhood, even the Bowery, encased as it was between tenement buildings and shabby saloons, permanently wrapped in smoke from the trains rattling by. Emma relished in the pleasant weather as she crouched low on the fire escape of a dressmaker's shop. Abigail was above her, peering over the roof's edge. 

"There," she said eagerly, pointing to an intersection across the way.

Two Imps, clad in their uniform brown coats, turned and began walking down the cobbled path. The two girls exchanged meaningful looks, before sliding off the fire escape and beginning to slink through the shadows, following the two.

In the days after her and her siblings' return home, Emma had continued to push Miss B and Scruggs about the antagonistic new gang and if they could potentially be connected to what had happened in Cambridge Falls. Miss B had been reluctant to do more than remain cautious and ask her trusted confidants among New York's magical community to share any knowledge they had, but Emma had persisted nonetheless. She understood that the witch didn't want to risk drawing attention to their own gang, but she also thought that there was some information it would be so easy to get, it was worth taking the chance. Eventually, Miss B had agreed, provided safety was prioritized, and it was decided that some of the Savages would follow an Imp or two, just to see what they could learn. 

To Emma's chagrin, she hadn't been allowed on the first of these little fact-finding missions - it was Tom and Polly who Miss B sent out, with specific instructions to finally answer one and only one question; were the Imps truly the nasty European creatures Scruggs so feared, as the rumors flying around the marketplace indicated? Or were they, as Abigail had once speculated, simply humans styling themselves after such beasts to cultivate a frightening image among the city streets? 

It hadn't taken them long to find out. Tom and Polly returned with wild eyes and reports that the Imps were indeed monsters. They had thick gray skin like animal hides, tusks protruding from their lower jaws, boxy, disproportionate faces, and very little hair save a few stringy white strands, the pair explained. (Even from their vantagepoint, Emma and Abigail could see now that their descriptions were accurate.)

The second assignment Miss B had signed off on was finding out exactly where the Imps hideout was. Emma had insisted upon doing this (after all, it was her idea) and the witch had agreed, on the conditions that she take someone with her or not be seen. Of course, she and Abigail decided to venture out together. (Jake and Beetles had been annoyed that they weren't allowed along, instead being left to mop floors, but everyone else had remained unmoved. Jake and Beetles were many things, but stealthy was not one of them.) They'd gone and hidden themselves away until their prey walked by - now it was the moment to become predators. 

Emma's and Abigail crept along, hand in hand, as they pursued the Imps. They kept to the alleyways, mostly, so that they wouldn't be spotted. When they couldn't dart from alley to alley, they'd try to blend in with other pedestrians, walking close so that they seemed to be part of a group. And twice, they found themselves climbing ladders and crawling across rooftops to avoid either being seen or losing sight of the two creatures in a crowd. 

As they clambered down another fire escape, this one broken, Abigail whispered, "it looks like they're headed uptown."

Emma raised an eyebrow in surprise, but saw that yes, the monsters were turning onto a different street, one that would take them towards a whole new world, a world where socialites lived in elaborate mansions and Wall Street bankers were preyed upon by Bowery rats like the Savages. 

"Think they're going to rob somebody?" She asked. "I don-" 

She was cut off by her friend puling her to the side so that they narrowly avoided a collision with a man carrying a towering stack of parcels in his arms, his vision nearly obscured.