hook on the wall. He stretched his body, placed himself in plank position and held until his muscles were sore and sweat flowed onto the stone. The ground was cool and soothing to the touch, so he stayed there for a time, lying like a corpse.
He worked through a physical routine that he somehow remembered even when everything else had grown hazy and disconnected. He lunged and parried with a phantom blade, leapt and kicked away from the walls, positioned his legs to do sit-ups and lunges.
Snow. Dillon. Graves.
Lucan.
Slowly the details of the dream returned to him. His fingers shook as he moved them to his neck. There was, as expected, no wound there, but he had been wounded, and though he didn’t understand how he at last knew what was happening to him, why he continued to heal even when she shouldn’t have been able to.
His spirit bristled at the realization. The air around him turned cold and bitter, the taste of her anger. Cross ignored her. She’d have the opportunity to vent her rage soon enough. He felt her frustration build and fester like a boil. It would be ugly when it erupted, but that was what he needed this time. He kept imagining a way to beat the Regost, and containing his spirit’s anger was the key.
If Lucan was still alive, that meant the Sleeper could still be stopped, and that was all that mattered. He tried not to think about Dillon or his pain, dangling from that stone, watching Cross fail, praying to see a family he had no chance of ever seeing again. He thought about Danica Black, and Kane. He would have to fight them at some point, he knew it.
Win. That’s all that matters. Win, at any cost.
By the time the bolt on the door slid back, he was ready. They would give him his weapons later, but Cross’ mind was focused and alert. He knew what he had to do.
Tega Ramsey was there with the sentries. He often came into the cell with the salt-encrusted zombie whose sole purpose was to prepare Cross for battle. It helped him don his leather and chain armor, fastened the arcane gauntlet to his hand and gave him his bone blade. Its rotting eyes were perfect mirrors that showed Cross his weather-beaten face.
He tried not to look too long. He barely recognized himself.
“ So tell me,” he said to Ramsey as the zombie slid the black gauntlet onto his hand. The Gol stood leaning against the doorway with his arms folded. “Does Kane know that you’ve Turned Ekko into a vampire?”
Cross took some satisfaction in the surprise that showed in Ramsey’s milky eyes.
“ He knows that she is being Turned,” he said carefully. “He knows that she will not be fully of The Blood unless he falls.” Ramsey turned his head. “And there is no way you could know that, Cross,” he said. The crease in his face wrap betrayed his wry smile. He understood what was happening, maybe even better than Cross himself did. “You are so very full of surprises.”
“ Yeah,” Cross said. His rage was growing. “And you are so very full of shit. I’m getting out of here, Tega. You and I will settle accounts after I do.”
The zombie handed Cross his sword.
Ramsey stood there in his tattered crimson robes, his scarred and ugly face defiant, a full two feet shorter than Cross. Cross badly wanted to put his blade through the little man’s head, but he knew it would accomplish nothing. Ramsey smirked.
“ The chances of you ever leaving this city are slim, my friend,” Ramsey said. “And the chances of you being rescued are even less, not without someone on the inside to help you be found. But you already knew that.” He paused, and his eyes narrowed. “Tell me…did you ever wonder why you were the one fighting, and not Dillon?”
Had I? Cross felt sure he had. It was a logical question. Between the two of them, Dillon was unquestionably the better physical specimen: he was tall and muscular, athletic and graceful, strong.
“ Cross,” Ramsey smiled again. “Think. Both you and Dillon are only alive because of the deal that Danica Black arranged for you. The deal was that one of you would fight, and the other would suffer as a hostage.” Ramsey stepped close. It would have been so easy for Cross to kill him then and there.
No. Dillon. Dillon needs you. You have to find Lucan. Snow. Dillon. Graves. Lucan.
“ And?” he growled.
“ It was Danica Black that chose you to do the fighting, and not Dillon. Any idea why?”
Ramsey didn’t wait for a response, but turned and marched down the long hallway. The vampires shoved Cross into the corridor. He felt he could destroy them before the spirit dampeners sent lances of fire into his brain, like they had when he’d struck down the skeleton on the arena floor.
But that meant Dillon would die. That meant Lucan would die. He had no way of knowing what the Southern Claw knew. Cross had no choice but to assume that there was no one who would act against the Sleeper but himself.
Why did Danica choose me?
He lost time. He always fell into a sort of trance when he moved towards the arena, but he couldn’t tell if it was some effect of Krul or if it was the mind-altering drugs they fed through his water and food to make him less dangerous until it was time to fight. The world faded to a blur. His steps grew distant. Everything slowed.
He thought about Snow. The memories came unbidden, but he didn't fight them. He saw her at her apartment that first night after he'd learned she was to be a member of Viper Squad. He should have felt rage and pain at her betrayal, but all of that had been left behind. They sat in her cramped apartment, surrounded by thin shelves of books, and they ate warm bread and cheese and drank red wine. They tried to make up for years spent distant from one another in a single night. In the end it had just felt awkward, like they'd only brought to light how far apart they’d grown.
“ I'm sorry, Snow.”
He wasn't sure if he spoke aloud or not. He didn't really care.
The arena doors opened ahead of him. Cross immediately noted that something was different. The air wasn’t as still as it had been on past trips to the arena. Something had come alive. He could all but taste it in the air, a sense of predatory anticipation, an animal musk.
Pale lights floated in the air and cast the world in ghastly shadows. Hundreds of vampire eyes watched as he entered the arena. For once he was not the first gladiator there, but the last. The semi-circle of other combatants watched stoically as he approached. He saw several humans, a new Vuul, and a Sorn. He saw Tower, Kane and Black. Every fighter, Cross included, wore darker armor than they normally did, pitch black leather and chain and hard plates that made the fighters almost invisible in the false indoor night. Floating silver flames and flying serpents passed like fish through a shadow sea.
The platform started to descend. Heavy chains rattled in the darkness.
A new figure in the stands caught Cross’ eye. She had never been there before, but he knew who she was: Morganna, the true leader of Krul, Talos Drake’s lover, and an assassin and enforcer for the Grim Father. She was moon-pale and severe, with a jutting jaw and thick hair held in place with a silver-capped stick made from black bone. Her dark dress and talons matched Drake’s hussar, and she wore a katana identical to his in every way. Morganna’s eyes were on Cross as he walked across the floor. He held her gaze.
His spirit knew what was coming. He felt her lustful and bloody desire to release her pent-up rage.
The stone platform from above came to a halt just as Cross reached the circle and took his place. He didn’t want to look up, didn’t want to find his friend. If he didn’t see him, maybe he could imagine that he was stuck in some terrible dream, a nightmare he might still be able to wake up from. Maybe if he didn’t see Dillon, the soul- breaking pressure of how badly he needed to win wouldn’t weigh him down.
Kane stood directly across from him. His eyes were closed, and his arms were at his side. He had no one to look for on the stone.
Cross also saw Black out of the corner of his eye. Her face was a mask, hard and unafraid. The space behind her eyes was dead and cold.
In spite of himself, Cross looked up. He found Dillon after just a few seconds, and his heart cracked. The ranger was emaciated and thin to the point of being skeletal. One eye was gone, replaced by a dark and dripping hole. His legs were swollen, covered in cuts that had caused his flesh to go gray. Dried blood encrusted his arms and wrists where they’d worn beneath the chains that held him suspended. His one eye looked dead and void, but after a moment Cross realized that Dillon stared right at him. The ranger trembled as he dangled there beneath the
