Steven Montano: Blood Skies

“ No, no,” Cross said, fairly certain he wasn’t lying. “No, I don’t…I don’t think so,” he laughed. “No, I’m not looking for anything. I don’t think.” He laughed. “Sorry, I…really just thought you looked like you could use someone to talk to.”

She smiled. People passed by, the light shifted, a roar erupted from a nearby dice table, and the strange music played on.

“ Yeah, I guess I could,” she smiled. “I’m Cristena.”

“ Eric,” he smiled. “But everyone just calls me Cross. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“ Why does everyone call you ‘Cross’?” she asked. “Are you a priest?”

“ No. It just happens to be my last name.”

“ Good of people to call you that, then,” she smiled.

“ I think so.”

Most of the rest of the evening passed in an even stronger blur than what had come before. He uncovered only the barest details about Cristena. She was from an Alliance city called Fane, located near where the recent massacre had taken place at Crucifix Point, and she was in Thornn to see if it would be a place she’d like to permanently relocate to. She was having relationship issues and was contemplating forging a path alone, but no decisions had been formally made. She liked wine, scarce as it was.

He was captivated by her. Maybe it was just because Cristena was a stranger to him or maybe it was because he’d consumed more alcohol that night than any other given night in his entire life, but Cross couldn’t look away when she spoke, even when he couldn’t clearly hear what she was saying thanks to the noise.

“ Is employment here steady?”

“ It is,” he said with a nod. “Best anywhere, actually.”

“ Right,” she smiled.

“ What do you do?” he asked.

“ I’m a tracker,” she said.

“ A witch?”

“ Yes. And you’re a warlock.”

“ Right.” If he hadn’t have been so drunk, he would have detected her spirit through his own. As it was, he was lucky to detect his own feet. Out of a mix of fear and confusion, Cross felt out and tried to find his spirit, and there she was, lingering just out his reach, the vapors of her ghostly self disheveled and twisted, curled into a form as unstable as Cross’ alcohol-induced mind.

“ There you are.” Graves came up and took Cross by the shoulder. He looked entirely too sober considering how much Cross had seen him drink. Graves was short and stocky, with messy blonde hair and a number of facial scars that were mostly hidden by his trim beard. His black shirt hung loose enough that the prominent number of tattoos on his neck and arm were visible, the largest of which were a barbed snake that ran the length of his well-muscled left arm and the fanged snake skull that was the symbol of Viper Squad on his right shoulder. “There’s some trouble.” He smiled at Cristena. “Well…hello there.”

“ Hello,” Cristena said with apparent disinterest. “Thanks for interrupting.”

“ What ‘trouble’?” Cross said in a panic.

“ An attack. Sorry, Romeo, time to go. Miss,” he said with a curt nod to Cristena. She looked ready to say something, maybe even to invite herself along, but Graves hauled Cross away. The room spun.

“ Graves, I am seriously messed up…”

“ Sober up, then,” Graves said. He didn’t sound like someone who’d consumed half a dozen black guavas. He grabbed both their flak jackets and hauled Cross into the street. They both wore their Southern Claw fatigues and steel-toed boots. No one ever really dressed down from armor in Thornn — it was a simple fact of life that if you did, you weren’t going to live very long.

The two of them launched up the stairs that led from the gambling pits to the elevated drinking floor, and from there they took more steps to reach the main doors. The air was a cloud of smoke and darkness, all generously flavored with enough whiskey that it stung Cross’ eyes until they finally made their way out to the street.

They emerged with their pistols in hand. Cross struggled with his standard issue warlock’s gauntlet, which was hooked by electric wiring in his belt to a portable battery pack secured with iron clamps. He nearly tripped on the top step. Cross felt his spirit surge and curl against him, tasted the hot hex of her power in his blood as she desperately tried to purge the alcohol out of his system. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his stomach lurched.

“ Wait.”

Thornn’s streets were tall and drenched with shadow. A dank yellow moon hung like a sulfur stain in the blue-black sky. Cross felt his guts explode as he vomited toxic yellow sludge against the side of the building. He threw up so hard it ached down to his groin.

“ That’s beautiful, man,” Graves laughed. Graves never had any trouble holding his alcohol. Chances were he was already sober, and he hadn’t needed his spirit to force the liquor from his system to reach that state.

“ Shut up,” Cross stammered. The shivering night was fish blue, tremulous and thin. Thornn’s buildings were so dark they might have been splashed there in ink. “Where are we going?”

“ I got a message from Morg,” Graves said. Cross saw the sending stone in Graves’ fist. “There was an attack in the Hightower district. Nasty stuff.”

“ And we’re supposed to help?” Cross asked hesitantly. “Unarmored and half-inebriated?”

“ Maybe,” Graves laughed. “Let’s go, man.”

Klaxon alarms sounded through the night. There weren’t many people on the streets — Thornn’s citizens were intelligent enough to observe the loosely enforced nighttime curfew — and those few who were about appeared only long enough to peer up the hill towards Hightower, a richer part of town marked by its tower-like buildings and elevated position, before they scurried back indoors. Cross sent his spirit ahead. He felt her race through the thin air, and she twisted and danced across the city in search of danger. Normally he only allowed her to roam a few hundred feet away, as his connection to her grew tenuous and the information he received from her was less reliable the further from him she was. Only witches had the talent to send their spirits out for long range reconnaissance. Cross’ spirit flowed in and out of buildings and deep shadows like a racing raven. She found the source of the danger, but by the time Cross and Graves caught up with her, sweat-laced and out of breath from a mostly uphill run over the course of fifteen blocks, it was all over.

The area near the tower where the disturbance had taken place was spare, just a few brick and mortar buildings, a small stables and a well. The air was quiet and still, and nothing moved in the buildings at the tower’s base. Cross looked up. The tower was ebon, and every window had long since been boarded up. The entry door stood ajar at the top of a short set of stairs. A dozen or so city guards, led by the enigmatic Moone, were in the process of securing the area. Arcane currents had been laid out in a fence-like pattern, weaved together tightly enough that no undead spirit could possibly escape. Green flames in iron sconces had been wedged into the ground, and they painted the air an eerie jade. Thornn citizens stood at the outskirts of the iron poles, huddled together and staring in at the scene of what had been a grisly slaughter.

“ There,” Graves pointed, and he led them into the throng of city guards. They were almost stopped, but Morg spotted them and motioned for them to be let through.

“ You missed the fun,” he said in his baritone voice. Morg was a tower of a man, standing a full head taller than Cross, and he was intimidating even in his loose tunic and sweat pants. He’d either been home relaxing or out for a jog, based on the sweat that still beaded down his dark-skinned forehead. “This one looked nasty.”