As she settled into the bath, the water turned pink and then red. She felt more relaxed and peaceful than she had in years; even the pain in her stomach subsided.
She began to have the most dazzling, warm dreams, though she couldn’t describe them, beyond the sense that there was music all around. Exalted, perhaps for the first time in her life, her whole body glowed in satisfaction that was better than any sex.
Something intruded on the wonderful dreams. Pain. The singing faded, and she heard a slapping sound. It took her forever to connect the noise with the pain she felt in her cheeks.
She came back to half consciousness. A bronze-skinned man with a scarred face looked down at her. He had the devil’s eyes and they blazed with unholy fire. She tried to shut it out, but the devil kept calling her name.
No! The devil wouldn’t get her. She would run, back toward the singing.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Return: While the repercussions of mankind’s defiantly violent answer to the Kurian offer rippled across the globe, in Finland itself, and across the Baltic League, the average freeholder nodded in quiet satisfaction at the news that the Kurian diplomat had been torn to shreds by his own bodyguard. “Serves ’em right” in various Nordic idioms probably sums up the most popular reaction.
Sensationalists got hold of the story first, and turned it into a tale of Kurian treachery unmasked by the unconquerable human spirit.
Only later were more serious researchers able to piece together the Kurian plot to force a vote in their favor, a vote that would be broadcast worldwide by the Baltic radio network. There is the philosophical idea that once a matter is introduced into words, it becomes something that can be imagined and eventually accepted. If the news went around the world that the conference had voted to accept the Kurian “peace” offer, the word “peace” would have been on everyone’s lips. As it was, the Kurians proved too clever for their own good. Had they just made their offer and left it to the delegates to decide, with the Lifeweavers advocating that they accept this last, best chance, who is to say whether the Butter faction would not have gathered enough Guns to carry the vote?
She woke to the familiar rocking of the sea and the steady growl of an engine. She sensed that they were on a larger ship than any they’d used to this point. She was in some kind of dormitory with two bunks and just enough space for a little table that held a washbasin and tap.
She sensed a presence nearby. Valentine sat in a canvas chair, a book on his lap and another open on the arm of the chair. He looked tired.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“Ferry to Sweden. Or I should say, up the Swedish coast. We’ll take a train across, then back to Halifax and home. Your only worry at this point is eating.”
“Christ, I can’t even die right,” she muttered.
Valentine tut-tutted. The man had ears like a bat. Arrogant ass.
“When did you get back?” she asked.
“The night you had your bath. You’ve been unconscious or sedated. One of the Canadians with us is sort of a nurse-midwife-doctor, so you’ve had medical attention since we took you out of the Kokkola hospital. They gave you blood and plasma there, but they wouldn’t release you without running a few tests. They don’t know how stingy you’ve been with your nine lives.”
“That’s debatable.”
“You’re going to live, Ali. The war’s over for you for a while.”
“Is that an order, Major?”
“I think we had this discussion before we left. You outrank me. I can’t give you orders.”
She felt too tired to talk, so she didn’t respond.
“You went a little mad and did a dumb thing,” Valentine said. “I don’t know exactly what it was, but I hope—”
“Nothing to do with you and your glorious cock, Val.”
“I’m sorry I missed the mess at the conference.”
“Hope you at least had fun in Helsinki,” she managed.
“I learned a lot about art. Or rather, the value of art, or how our skipper friend decides what art she wants to buy. It’s not that different from a used-car lot, as it turns out. She acquires what she thinks will be worth something if the world ever sorts itself out again. Quite a vision.”
“She was a vision,” Duvalier murmured.
“It wasn’t an affair, Smoke. I just wanted a little glimpse of that world. It was that or fishing, and I’ve fished plenty of northern lakes in my time. Still, glad that you were there to take care of things. Why were you cutting yourself, when every Finn sergeant should have been buying you a Koskenkorva?”
She’d been running risks all her life. If, deep down, she wanted to die, wouldn’t she have been less cautious, at least a few times? It is so easy to screw up in the Kurian Zone. Of course, being driven in a collection van to the Last Dance wasn’t her idea of an easy death.