Damned helplessness. Zuzana sensed a T-shirt design coming on.
BE A SAMURAI.
BECAUSE YOU JUST NEVER KNOW WHATS BEHIND
THE FREAKING SKY.
No one would understand it, but who cares? Shed just glare at them until they went away. That worked in almost any situation.
No , she chided herself. It did not. Because if it did , there would be no need to be a samurai, would there?
She looked at Eliza, beside her, and sighed. Eliza didnt seem to need or register company, but the idea of leaving her alone in the corner like a piece of softly murmuring furniture just didnt sit right. Zuzana was no nurse, and had no instincts for it, but she was mindful that the young woman needed someone to take care of her basic human needs for herfood and drink just for startersand she was more docile now, at least, whatever Akiva had done. Less agitated, and that made it easier.
What they were going to do about her after today, Zuzana couldnt think about right now. Tomorrow was soon enough. When all the tension of today was a thing of the past, and theyd had a full nights sleep in an actual bed, and a meal that had never even been on the same continent as couscous.
Tomorrow.
But for now, it was good to be clean. It felt like rebirthVenus emerging from a layer of crudand the clothes Esthers shopper had chosen were elegant and understated, of fine materials and nearly a perfect fit. Zuzanas filthy stuff, zebra sneakers included, shed stacked neatly and wrapped in several layers of plastic bags; it felt like a betrayal, especially after her old shoes sat next to her new ones on the floor and she got the idea that they were being forced to train their replacements. She scuffs a bit , theyd tell the new leather numbers, fond tears seeping from their rheumy old-shoe eyes. And she stands on tiptoe a lot, so be ready for that.
Sentimental of you, Mik had commented when she came back into the sitting room and shoved the bundle into her backpack.
Not at all, shed airily declared. Im saving them for the Museum of Otherworldly Adventure that Im going to found. Exhibit title: What not to wear camping in freezing mountains while forging an alliance between enemy armies.
Uh-huh.
Mik, taking his turn in the bathroom, felt no such sentimentality for his dirty clothes. He was happy to drop them in the trash, though before he could do that, he fished furtively into the pocket of his old jeans and withdrew
the ring.
The maybe-silver, maybe-antique ring hed been in the act of purchasing when the world went crazy. He turned it over in his fingers, looking at it closely for the first time since. Zuzana was always in proximity (and thank god for that); he hadnt had a chance to take it out. It seemed to him a rough thing now, especially in the context of this ridiculous hotel. Back at Aït Benhaddou it had fit right in: primitive
and tarnished, maybe a little lopsided. Here it looked like something that had fallen off a Visigoths pinkie during the Sack of Rome. Barbarian jewelry.
Perfect.
For my sweet barbarian , he thought, and as he went to tuck it into the pocket of his posh new Italian trousers, he fumbled and it spun from his fingers. It rang against the marble floor and rolled like it was trying to escape. Mik followed, thinking maybe it was real silver after all, because supposedly real silver makes that chime sound, and then it escaped into a three-finger gap beneath the marble vanity.
Come back here, he whispered. I have plans for you.
He dropped to his knees to grope for it as, in the sitting room, his sweet barbarian held water to Eliza Joness ever-murmuring lips to coax her to drink, and, in the smaller bedroom in the back of the suite, with the door closed and music playing to mask her voice, Esther Van de Vloet made a phone call.
It wasnt an easy phone call for her to make, but the most that could be said in her defense was that she had hoped not to make it. She hesitated for a fraction of a second, and though a shadow of her true age may have haunted her face, no indecision did. She forced out a harsh breath and got on with it.
After all, power doesnt maintain itself.
Karou and her companions cut over the rooftops of Rome, their errand at the natural history museum behind them and only Jael ahead. The night air was thick with Italian summer, the cityscape below them a muted canvas of rooftops and monuments, lights and domes, cut by a snake of dark that was the Tiber River. Honking of horns filtered up as they flew, and traffic whistles, along with snatches of music, andgrowing louder the nearer they drew to the Vaticanchanting. It was unintelligible, but followed the rhythm of liturgy.
There was a stink, toothe unmistakable aroma of humans packed too close for too long. Judging by its acrid edge, Karou figured that once pilgrims achieved a spot near the barrier, they didnt want to give it up for something so temporal as bodily function.
Nice.
The news had reported a public health crisis, as people were bringing elderly and infirm loved ones to the perimeter in the hope that the mere proximity of angels might cure their diseasesor, scarcely to be hoped, that the angels might actually come out to bless them. Claims of miracles had been made, and though they were unproven, they nevertheless overshadowed the documented number of deaths resulting from this practice.