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We turned onto the sidewalk of the avenue we had passed a few minutes earlier. The immediate area seemed curiously low-key, quiet and subdued. The buildings which lined the block were full of stores which, while definitely open, seemed to stock goods which were either impossible to identify or merely of a kind which I could not imagine anybody wanting to actually buy. None of the pedestrians seemed interested in the shop windows but hurried on past, intent on whatever business had brought them out at this hour. It was as if the displays were intended to repel rather than attract potential customers. A few minutes stroll brought us to the mouth of the alley that Rosie had tentatively identified from the car. Even Nether managed a credible attempt at walking like a human. I was impressed. "Is this the one?" Nether asked, looking up at Rosie. She looked around, once again uncertain. I took a few steps into the narrow entrance to take a closer look. I spend far too much time lurking in alleyways in this city. "Bingo," I said softly in the Goblin tongue. "What's that?" Rosie asked from the end of the alley. I repeated myself in English for her benefit. I've never been too sure of Gumshoe's level of fluency; he rarely utters anything other than a few syllables in the language, although I suspect he understands more than he lets on. The narrow alley had all the usual furnishings: squalid-looking dumpsters and bins on wheels, tightly bolted metal doors and not nearly enough lighting to make most humans comfortable. Even so, I had spotted the unmistakable sign of Goblin runes hidden among the palimpsest of graffiti that seem to grow like mushrooms on every available surface in the surface world. There are rather more paths and passages between the surface world and the Lower Realms than the authorities would like. Nobody, I'm sure, knows them all and, even after all these years, the Goblin border police are still uncovering new ones or, more precisely, ones which had remained undiscovered for the thousands of years since the Goblin caverns were created. I knew of a dozen or more in various parts of the island of Manhattan alone and there are tens of thousands spread all over the surface of the planet. But I didn't know of one here, in this nondescript part of town. I was just about to take a closer look when I caught a faint sound, only just audible over the roar of traffic, together with the slight movement of air which suggested that a hidden entrance was about to open. I backed away hurriedly, scurrying back to the alley entrance. "Hide!" I hissed, "Get out of sight, quickly!" Gumshoe grabbed Rosie by the arm and dragged her to one side. Nether slid behind a rubbish bin with the flair for concealment which comes naturally to a Goblin. I ducked behind a dumpster on the other side of the alley, then pressed my eye to the gap between wall and metal. A Goblin, lithe and quick-moving, stepped through the wall at the point marked by the runes, and looked about cautiously. I recognised the black-garbed figure at once, of course. It was my sister Trinity emerging from the exit.
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Part 30