Thief: A Fantasy Hardboiled (Ratcatchers Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

defending humanoid mice, grasped a small rodent skull that hung on a chain around his neck, held out one furry hand, his tiny pink finger-pads splayed apart, claws protruding from each, and spoke a prayer.
    The ghoul suddenly sprang up in pain. Black eyeballs exploded in their sockets, a burst of light caused everyone on the room to shield their eyes.
    The ghoul cried out, a long, ragged howl. Then it snarled and whipped its rotting, eyeless head around, back and forth, drawing in long breaths through the twin holes in its face where a nose once was. Then it would bark out the air and start sniffing again, homing in on the furry defenders. Robbed of its eyes, it could still sense them.
    “Sket!” the mousepriest swore, and pushed his brothers ahead of him. He spoke another prayer and Vanora saw something ripple through them, disturbing their fur. Something empowering them. Giving them hope, giving them a chance.
    The mouse defenders ran forward as one, and swarmed over the ghoul. Vanora couldn’t watch.
    She turned to run upstairs to her room and stopped. The staircase seemed tall and narrow. She looked to her right and saw the black rectangle of darkness that led down to Heden’s cellar, and made up her mind.
    She darted to her left, scooped up the Harlequin and his stand from where they’d fallen on the floor, and then turned and ran as fast as she could for the cellar, and what, she could not know.

Chapter Seven
    Cole looked around the room. It was the first room he’d found upstairs. The ceiling here slanted down. There was a window built into it revealing the night sky above. A chance.
    He pushed the window up and open, jumped to grab the edge where the window hinged, pulled and flipped himself up and out of the room, onto the roof, out of the maelstrom of battle below, and to freedom.
    He landed in a crouch and surveyed the slanting rooftop. There couldn’t be anyone up here, but his training never left him. Covered in blood, panting with exertion, he stood up, trembling. His breath came in loud and ragged rasps.
    The night air was cool and moist. The sky was clear and filled with stars. Standing there on the roof, he looked down into the room below, listening to the sound of battle. He was shaken, completely rattled. No idea yet what had happened. He’d have to replay the whole scene several times before he understood it. He sighed, and then turned to leave.
    There was a polder behind him. While he jumped back, to his credit he did not shout.
    “Hey Cole,” the little man said. He was dragging a nail and letting the smoke escape idly into the night air.
    “Pinwhistle!” the assassin exclaimed. His heart was hammering in his chest.
    “What’s going on?” the small thief asked. He wasn’t wearing any armor. He didn’t need to. He wore a nicely tailored outfit, gold bracelet on one wrist, no shoes. He brushed his mop of curly blonde hair out of his face with the hand that wasn’t holding the nail. His small face was open and friendly and like everything else about him, a lie.
    He did not look like someone who, a turn before, had been shat out the ass of an extradimensional demon into a sewer.
    “Shit,” Cole said, shaking with shock. He looked back down the hole of the open window. “You about scared the piss out of me you little…,” he caught himself. The small manlike creature betrayed no reaction, but Cole knew better. “Shit, you’re not here to…you’re not going to kill me are you?”
    The polder shrugged and screwed his face up as though the idea surprised him. “Not at the moment. What are you, ah…,” he looked up at the night sky and sniffed, then took another drag on his nail. “What are you doing here, Cole?”
    Cole glanced down at the open window behind him.
    “Nothing to do with the Hearth,” Cole said, trying to maintain his footing in the conversation. He was trying not to listen to the battle below, and trying not to think about the polder’s reputation.
    “Uh-huh,”