Page 119 of Blood & Snow
Just thinking of seeing her has me on edge.
I need to know how she's doing, what she thinks of the gifts I left for her.
A pause.
"Where?"
"I'll send coordinates. Bring everything."
"How bad?"
Shubin's piss steaming in the winter air wafts my way.
"Bad enough."
"I'll be there in a half-hour."
The line goes dead, but I hold the phone against my ear for several heartbeats longer, savoring the sound of her voice.
She'll come to me and kneel in this carnage thatawaits her and she'll transform chaos into order with her careful hands.
Her dark eyes will assess the damage while her mind catalogs the work required to make it disappear.
Soran Shubin is dead, his blood already turning to ice.
Tomorrow there will be others, and the day after that even more.
The Sokolov Brotherhood bleeds out one soldier at a time while my deadline approaches without respect to the fragility of my position.
Fifteen days remain until New Year's Eve.
Fifteen days to finish what I started, or die in the attempt.
I check my watch and lean against the building's cold brick exterior.
Time to meet myPtichkaand watch her work her strange magic on the mess we've made of the world.
20
NADYA
Irina sits at the kitchen table when I return, her hands wrapped around a mug of tea that has long since gone cold.
Her hazel eyes track my movement as I hang my coat on the hook by the door, and I know from her posture that the confrontation I've been dreading has arrived.
"The children are asleep," she mutters as my eyes roam around the apartment.
It's early but I can tell she probably put them to bed just so she could confront me.
Xander's idea of a holiday surprise wasn't a good idea.
I'm in hot water with her.
I nod and move toward the refrigerator, needing something to do with my hands.
The interior light illuminates leftover soup and a carton of milk that expires tomorrow.
This should be full of fresh food and drinks but I was too busy cleaning up yet another of Xander's execution scenes to stop by the market.
