“ How do you like Thornn?” he asked after they’d finished. There was a palpable tension in the air. Cross pushed his plate aside. He had eaten the egg and the thick toast, but there were enough hash browns left on his plate to choke a warhorse. As it was, he was so full he felt he’d sink like a stone if thrown naked in a river.
“ I like it a lot,” she said after she hesitated for a moment. “But I’m not sure if it’s for me.” She lit another cigarillo. “Cross…I need to ask you something. And I want you to know it’s…perfectly all right if you don’t want to answer.”
“ Ok,” he said. Cross knew that in a perfect world, she would have been coming on to him. He also knew that it was far from a perfect world. “What is it?”
“ I need to know what’s happening with the hunt for Red.”
Cross took in a deep breath. His pistol suddenly felt heavy in the holster inside his coat. His spirit tensed and collected near him, and he could sense Cristena’s spirit do the same. He felt them feel and test one another, pushing and prodding, not quite angry but tense and brimming with potential violence.
“ And why would I tell you anything about that?” he asked. “What makes you think I even know?”
“ Your eyes just confirmed that you do,” Cristena said with a nod. “And I don’t expect you to tell me anything, Cross, except that…I’m asking. I’m asking because I need to know…” Something in her manner, in her sudden change of demeanor, took Cross off guard. He hadn’t seen her look at all vulnerable up to this point, and it was disarming.
Careful, he told himself. She could be setting you up.
His hands shook, but he did his best to keep them steady as he pressed them flat against the table. Slowly, he pushed his left hand inside of his coat and felt the gun handle. Both of their spirits were poised, coiled like snakes.
Please don’t be an agent for the Ebon Cities. That would be just my luck.
“ Renaad,” she said. “My husband. His name is…was…Renaad. He was member of Talon Squad.”
Cross swallowed, nodded, and pulled his hand away from his jacket.
“ I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I doubt I’ve heard anything you haven’t.”
“ Please,” Cristena said quietly. Her transformation was startling. She seemed just a shadow of the strong and charismatic woman he’d met the night before. “Anything…anything you can tell me.” The air felt suddenly colder than before. “I hear him,” she said quietly. “I hear him whispering to me.” Her voice was broken. Cross thought he saw tears in her eyes. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work. If he’s dead, I shouldn’t be able to hear him. He should just be…gone.”
Cross didn’t know what to say. There was very little that he could say. When the criminal witch Red — Cross would think of her in no other way, regardless of who she’d once been or what she’d once meant to the Southern Claw — had taken flight with vital information in her possession, the White Mother ordered her hunted down, stopped and eliminated. Ebon Squad, an elite team out of Glaive, had been the first sent after her.
After it set off after Red, Ebon Squad was never seen alive again. Their remains were found east of Thornn, in the white wastes of the Reach. It hadn’t been Red who’d killed them — powerful though she was, she couldn’t take on an entire Hunter squad on her own — but the team had instead been ambushed by a powerful Ebon Cities kick murder squad out of Rath. The Ebon Cities, it seemed, were also tracking Red. Prior to the destruction of Ebon Squad, it had been assumed Red was bound for one of the Ebon Cities to give the vampires her stolen information. Intelligence gathered since her disappearance, however, hinted that while her actions would ultimately help the vampires, it was not the Ebon Cities who she planned to sell the Southern Claw’s secrets to.
Unaware and afraid, the Southern Claw’s leaders dispatched more teams to find Red and stop her, among them Talon Squad. On those rare occasions when members of the squads were actually found, there was usually not much left. The Southern Claw was suddenly running short on elite squads. There were plenty of soldiers, but the Hunter squads were the Southern Claw’s elite forces against the Ebon Cities. Losing even one Squad was a serious blow to the Alliance. Losing five had been devastating.
“ I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t imagine…”
“ No. You can’t.” Cristena finished her cigarette, looked at Cross for a moment, and then stood up. “I’m sorry. I think you maybe had a different idea of why I wanted to meet with you.”
“ Maybe,” Cross said. “But that’s not important. Cristena…” He stood up, and made sure to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry. I wish I had good news for you, or any news for you. I don’t know anything about the missing Squads.” There was no need to explain that most of them were presumed dead. She was visibly agitated. The cool demeanor and self-control she’d displayed the night before were all but gone.
“ Are you going after her?” she asked him. Something went cold in Cross’ gut. He’d been trying not to think about it.
“ Yes,” he said. “Yes I am.”
“ Then do me a favor,” she said. “Kill her.” There were nearly invisible tears on her face. “Kill that bitch for me. Maybe then I’ll stop hearing Renaad’s voice every time I touch my spirit. Maybe then I’ll actually believe that he’s not out there somewhere, suffering. Maybe then I’ll be able to sleep again.”
She turned to leave, but Cross stepped out to stop her.
“ We need a tracker,” he said. “My squad…I mean, the squad that I’m in, Viper Squad, needs a tracker. I’m sure, given the circumstances…”
“ No,” Cristena said. She kept her face down. She wouldn’t say yes. He knew she wouldn’t, and she was right not to. She left without another word.
Cross sat back down and drank more coffee, wondering all the while if he shouldn’t drink something stronger. He checked the clock on the far wall, a pale and monstrous thing that looked like a ghostly whale. The briefing was at 0900. Cross had just enough time to finish his coffee, and to think about the whispers of the dead.
He watched a spider cross the floor. It was out of place there in Krugen’s, which was normally so immaculate. The spider was ashen pale, like it was made of ice, and it scurried towards the door.
Cross had lied when he’d told Snow he’d never heard their mother after she’d died.
He heard her all the time. He wasn’t sure why Snow didn’t…maybe she would in time. Hopefully Snow would get used to ignoring her, just as Cross had.
FIVE
The briefing rooms for all Southern Claw military personnel, whether Hunters or the city watch, were located in a massive old hospital that had been converted into the Thornn government headquarters. In addition to its status as a command post, the building was still a hospital, as well as a prison, a church, an arcane workshop, and as an asylum for those whose minds had succumbed to the horrors and madness of living in a world filled with the constancy of undead, magic, and post-apocalyptic abominations. The gothic structure was all tall arches and pedestals, smooth columns and bladed promenades, arched halls that were far too tall and ancient oak doors that could only be locked with sliding bolts made from log halves. The dark stone used in the construction lent the hospital an exceedingly ominous atmosphere, and the improper lighting throughout the structure made it seem like some ancient European castle.
Not exactly the feel I’d have gone for, Cross thought. He’d always hated the place, but he’d be the first to agree that it was extremely defensible. The hospital sat at the edge of the northernmost tip of the Bloodnight, a sharp and cold river than ran southwest into the freshwater Rimefang Loch. The hospital hung directly over the churning waters of the Bloodnight, and the only way to get in aside from using the heavily guarded gate was to scale one of the sheer forty-foot steel walls. Those walls were perfectly positioned to deliver generous doses of gunfire, arcane missiles and vats filled with any number of caustic substances onto intruders.