Read Online Baltic Gambit: A Novel of the Vampire Earth by E.E. Knight - Free Book Online
Authors: E.E. Knight
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said, exiting.
Colonel Lambert looked her usual razor-cut self, polished and not a hair out of place.
“Stop by my office later, if you aren’t exhausted. I’ll be up for a couple hours yet. Not official. Not an order, therefore. More social than anything.”
Social? There were rumors about Lambert, but they mostly circulated around the more feminine, pinup-candidate camp females. Duvalier discounted them; she couldn’t believe Lambert had any needs that couldn’t be met by a well-arranged, color-coded three-ring binder. Once she’d even thought the colonel and Valentine had been a couple, at some time over their long history, which dated back to the officer training school he’d attended on his way to his lieutenant’s commission, but now that she’d seen more of Lambert since her brief tenure running Southern Command’s Special Operations, she doubted it.
Funny, though, that two promising officers of Southern Command both ended up serving in the same Kentucky backwater. Together they’d turned it into a whole new front of the war.
In the old rough-and-ready days when she was informally serving with Valentine’s Razorbacks in Texas, Duvalier plopped down in his bed when he wasn’t using it. Even in those days, when she was a good deal younger and of fresher skin, the men didn’t call her “Valentine’s woman” or anything like that. She was more like a mascot to the regiment, and like a brigade hound—or cat—she was expected to sleep in the CO’s quarters.
Colonel Lambert was a little more strict about such matters, so she carved a little niche for herself among the rafters of the stables. The Quisling aristocrat had built quite an outbuilding, with a limestone foundation capped by heavy beams. Along with a few horse stalls, there were little apartments sharing kitchen and bath facilities, presumably for servants, guests, security staff, grounds- or gamekeepers, and such who might need to be active over twenty-four hours, and therefore were kept outside the main house so their routines wouldn’t bother the family.
In the stables she joined quite a collection of Fort Seng’s “odd men out”—including the basset-faced former New Universal churchman, Brother Mark, a former Wolf and Kurian agent named Frat, and now Blake, Valentine’s adopted Reaper “son,” who slept in a storage basement. Despite not having even seen his tenth year yet, Blake was already Valentine’s height and stringy as angel hair pasta.
She didn’t like the little apartments. She’d shared too many kitchens and washrooms in her years. So, using a little plywood and salvaged foam, she rigged herself a space in the rafters above the horses. There was no obvious way up, which she liked—she climbed atop a stall divider, then used an old stirrup she’d nailed into an inconspicuous corner to swing herself up into the rafters. There were alot of flies, and spiders after the flies, but she preferred insects and a bat or two to the rodents of a hayloft or feed stack. The fort’s horses just below were even better than dogs at raising an alarm against prowling Reapers. Fortunately they’d grown used to Blake, and perhaps something about his mixing with humans and using their soap for his skin and clothes gave him a more familiar smell.
She was right under a skylight, too, so on impossibly hot summer nights she could escape to the roof and sleep in the open air. Gamecock, the Bear commander who’d made a couple of good-natured passes at her, joked that she was going to roll off one night and suggested that she tie a safety line around her waist. He’d even help with the knot… .
She liked to take a little food and a big glass of milk up on the roof and watch the goings-on in the main house. She wasn’t exactly prying—she just had spent so much time as an observer, watching the action through a window and trying to piece together what was happening.
She cleaned herself up, then popped her head through the
Colonel Lambert looked her usual razor-cut self, polished and not a hair out of place.
“Stop by my office later, if you aren’t exhausted. I’ll be up for a couple hours yet. Not official. Not an order, therefore. More social than anything.”
Social? There were rumors about Lambert, but they mostly circulated around the more feminine, pinup-candidate camp females. Duvalier discounted them; she couldn’t believe Lambert had any needs that couldn’t be met by a well-arranged, color-coded three-ring binder. Once she’d even thought the colonel and Valentine had been a couple, at some time over their long history, which dated back to the officer training school he’d attended on his way to his lieutenant’s commission, but now that she’d seen more of Lambert since her brief tenure running Southern Command’s Special Operations, she doubted it.
Funny, though, that two promising officers of Southern Command both ended up serving in the same Kentucky backwater. Together they’d turned it into a whole new front of the war.
In the old rough-and-ready days when she was informally serving with Valentine’s Razorbacks in Texas, Duvalier plopped down in his bed when he wasn’t using it. Even in those days, when she was a good deal younger and of fresher skin, the men didn’t call her “Valentine’s woman” or anything like that. She was more like a mascot to the regiment, and like a brigade hound—or cat—she was expected to sleep in the CO’s quarters.
Colonel Lambert was a little more strict about such matters, so she carved a little niche for herself among the rafters of the stables. The Quisling aristocrat had built quite an outbuilding, with a limestone foundation capped by heavy beams. Along with a few horse stalls, there were little apartments sharing kitchen and bath facilities, presumably for servants, guests, security staff, grounds- or gamekeepers, and such who might need to be active over twenty-four hours, and therefore were kept outside the main house so their routines wouldn’t bother the family.
In the stables she joined quite a collection of Fort Seng’s “odd men out”—including the basset-faced former New Universal churchman, Brother Mark, a former Wolf and Kurian agent named Frat, and now Blake, Valentine’s adopted Reaper “son,” who slept in a storage basement. Despite not having even seen his tenth year yet, Blake was already Valentine’s height and stringy as angel hair pasta.
She didn’t like the little apartments. She’d shared too many kitchens and washrooms in her years. So, using a little plywood and salvaged foam, she rigged herself a space in the rafters above the horses. There was no obvious way up, which she liked—she climbed atop a stall divider, then used an old stirrup she’d nailed into an inconspicuous corner to swing herself up into the rafters. There were alot of flies, and spiders after the flies, but she preferred insects and a bat or two to the rodents of a hayloft or feed stack. The fort’s horses just below were even better than dogs at raising an alarm against prowling Reapers. Fortunately they’d grown used to Blake, and perhaps something about his mixing with humans and using their soap for his skin and clothes gave him a more familiar smell.
She was right under a skylight, too, so on impossibly hot summer nights she could escape to the roof and sleep in the open air. Gamecock, the Bear commander who’d made a couple of good-natured passes at her, joked that she was going to roll off one night and suggested that she tie a safety line around her waist. He’d even help with the knot… .
She liked to take a little food and a big glass of milk up on the roof and watch the goings-on in the main house. She wasn’t exactly prying—she just had spent so much time as an observer, watching the action through a window and trying to piece together what was happening.
She cleaned herself up, then popped her head through the
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