Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth 2)

She smeared something in a skillet and reached for her jacket. "Your file said you were well read. Wish I could help. My puzzle is missing a few pieces, too. Maybe together we can fill in the blanks."

He met her gaze, but she didn't elaborate.

Depressed, half-sick, headachy, Valentine wished he could just spend half the day in bed, as he had during the long Minnesota winters when there wasn't much else to do but read away the short days and long nights.

She cracked a pair of eggs in a pan, and they immediately began sputtering in the hot grease. Her elfin features were the picture of concentration as she poked at the eggs with a handleless spatula. "Don't get used to this. I don't know if it's because I feel sorry for you, or because I know what it's like to have a hangover. The bread might have a little mold on it, but the eggs were freshly swiped this morning from one of the good citizens of Montgomery. The only trade good I have right now is the coffee, and I don't want to part with it. Besides, I'm keeping my presence here quiet. I've got only one plate, so I'm just going to eat out of the pan if you don't mind."

She passed him the cooked over-easy egg and a hunk of green-dusted bread. Valentine mopped up the egg with the bread and ate the sticky combination. "This is great, thanks."

"You like it that way, too, huh?" she said with a smile, eating her own egg-yolk-smeared bread. "Okay, how do you want the story, from now working backwards, or from the beginning?"

"I don't think I can think backwards, so you'd better do it from the beginning."

"Easy enough. I came across some interesting stuff reading your reports. Four years ago you had a run-in right after you were invoked as a Wolf. You stumbled onto some Reapers hunting a Cat in the Yazoo Delta."

"Yes. That's the first time I saw that Twisted Cross insignia."

"At first we just brushed it off as another faction of the Kur. Sometimes they use little symbols to note their houses, or clans, or whatever you want to call the groups of Kuri-ans." She consulted a thin notebook in a leather case, like a waiter's order pad he'd once seen in Chicago. "The summer you ended up hiding in Wisconsin, one of the Freeholds we communicate with went silent. It was a small one, really just a valley or two in the Smoky Mountains. Scouts from the New England Freehold found buried Quislings. And some mass graves. But back to the Quislings, they had Twisted Cross insignia on their uniforms. A swastika is another name for it, I'm told. So the Cats kept their eyes open, and now and then these Quislings were seen in other parts of the country. So the insignia did not mean just one geographical group of Kurians.

"The people at Miskatonic have an idea that the Kurians have taken some of their Quislings and created Reaper-human half-breeds, kind of a specialized striking force." She looked at him expectantly.

"Is it under someone called the General?"

She looked puzzled. "Where did you hear that?"

"From an old railroad man we brought out of Oklahoma. A little addled. Not much of what he said made sense, so I abbreviated it in my report. He stumbled across some Quislings under this Twisted Cross banner in a yard. They took him before this General, who men decided to kill him as a precaution."

Duvalier digested this information along with her moldy bread and egg. "This General is someone we've heard of now and then. I mink he's a very highly placed Quisling. So they have a special train?"

"Yes, he said it was a sizable one."

"That doesn't fit with the rest. As far as Miskatonic knows, they go in small groups, wimout heavy weapons or a big escort. Do they just want to look like another supply train?"

"Guessing is interesting, but facts are better." Valentine returned to a subject much on his mind lately. "What happened at Little Timber Hill after you went back?"

"I was getting to that, because I think it's important. I built up the campfires and shot down at the Grogs from various points in the line. They didn't come at night. Some Harpies flew overhead, but they didn't risk dropping down for a close look, so they never saw that the breastworks in the trees weren't manned.

"Well before dawn, could have been three a.m., eight Reapers came up the hill. I just hid and watched. They were loaded for bear, assault rifles and everything. Mean-looking Kalashnikovs with banana clips.

"But here's the kicker. They make the top of the hill, and they get... confused. I've never seen a Reaper that looked like it didn't know what to do. So they group together and talk. Who ever heard of Hoods talking to each other? Usually when you see a group of them, they're all puppeted by the same Kurian, so they don't have to talk. Same hissy voices. If these were some kind of Reaper-human cross, they sure left the human parts in their other pants. They looked and sounded like Reapers to me. Just didn't act that way."

Valentine put down his plate. "How did you get away?"

"They picked up your trail, sent out the Grogs. I just slipped away back to the south in the dark. I wanted to have another talk with the Miskatonic people about this, so I caught a barge from Fort Smith to Pine Bluff. That's where I heard about all this. I was told to come up here and talk to you."

"Told? Told by whom?"

"Don't worry about that right now. An old friend of mine, who knows some old friends of yours. I was hoping you'd do some work with me in the KZ for a while."

Valentine narrowed his eyes, wondering what she was getting at. "I thought you Cats worked alone."

"We do. Unless we're training another Cat."

Dear Sir,

It has been my privilege to serve in the Wolves for four years. I wish to spare myself, my company, and my regiment the pain and disruption of a court-martial that would be the inevitable result of my fighting the charges brought against me. Please accept my resignation from duty in the Second Regiment of Wolves, Southern Command, immediately.

I have the honor to remain, etc.,