“See how long we’ve waited?” Vasiliev said.
The lost faces were all looking at Whitehead, their mouths open. No
sound emerged.
“I can’t help you.”
“We want to cease,” the lieutenant said.
“Go, then.”
“Not without you. He won’t die without you.”
Finally the thief understood. This place, which he’d glimpsed in the sauna at the Sanctuary, existed within the European. These ghosts were creatures he’d devoured. Evangeline! Even she. They waited, the tattered remains of them, in this no-man’s-land between flesh and death, until Mamoulian sickened of existence and lay down and perished. Then they too, presumably, would have their liberty. Until then their faces would make that soundless O at him, a melancholy appeal.
The thief shook his head.
“No,” he said.
He would not give up his breath. Not for an orchard of trees, not for a nation of despairing faces. He turned his back on Muranowski Square and its plaintive ghosts. The soldiers were shouting nearby: soon they would arrive. He looked back toward the hotel. The penthouse corridor was still there, across the doorstep of a bombed house: a surreal juxtaposition of ruin and luxury. He crossed the rubble toward it, ignoring the soldiers’ orders for him to halt. Vasiliev’s cries were loudest, however. “Bastard!” he screeched. The thief blocked his curses and stepped out of the square and back into the heat of the hallway, raising his gun as he did so.
“Old news,” he said, “you don’t scare me with it.” Mamoulian was still standing at the other end of the corridor; the minutes the thief had spent in the square had not elapsed here. “I’m not afraid!” Whitehead shouted. “You hear me, you soulless bastard? I’m not afraid!” He fired again, this time at the European’s head. The shot hit his cheek. Blood came. Before Whitehead could fire again, Mamoulian retaliated.
“There are no limits,” he said, his voice trembling, “to what I shall do!”
His thought caught the thief by the throat, and twisted. The old man’s limbs convulsed; the gun flew out of his hand; his bladder and bowels failed him. Behind him, in the square, the ghosts began to applaud. The tree shook itself with such vehemence that the few blossoms it still carried were swept into the air. Some of them flew toward the door, melting on the threshold of past and present, like snowflakes. Whitehead fell against the wall. Out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Evangeline, spitting blood at him. He began to slide down the wall, his body jangled as if in the throes of a grand mal. He let out one word through his rattling jaws. He said:
“No!”
On the bathroom floor Marty heard the denial howled out. He tried to stir himself, but his consciousness was sluggish, and his beaten body ached from scalp to skin. Taking hold of the bath, he hoisted himself to his knees. He’d clearly been forgotten: his part in the proceedings was purely comic relief. He tried to stand, but his lower limbs were traitorous; they buckled beneath him, and he fell again, feeling every bruise on impact.
In the hallway Whitehead had sunk down onto his haunches, mouth gaga. The European moved in for the coup de grâce, but Carys interrupted.
“Leave him,” she said.
Distracted, Mamoulian turned toward her. The blood on his cheek had traced a single line to his jaw. “You too,” he murmured. “No limits.” Carys backed off into the gaming room. The candle on the table had begun to flare. Energy was loose in the suite, and the spitting flame was fat and white on it. The European looked at Carys with hunger in his eyes. There was an appetite on him-an instinctive response to his blood loss-and all he could see in her was nourishment. Like the thief: hungry for another strawberry though his belly was full enough.
“I know what you are,” Carys said, deflecting his gaze.
From the bathroom, Marty heard her ploy. Stupid, he thought, to tell him that.
“I know what you did.”
The European’s eyes widened, smoky.
“You’re nobody,” the girl started to say. “You’re just a soldier who met a monk, and strangled him in his sleep. What have you got to be so proud of?” Her fury beat against his face. “You’re nobody! Nobody and nothing!”