One of them spoke; the blond boy whom once he might have lusted after. He, and she, and all.

"Is this all there is?" he demanded to know. "Is this all, you fucking liar? You promised us the Deluge."

The European pressed his hand over his mouth to stem the escaping smoke and pictured a wave curling over the hotel, over the city, descending to sweep Europe away.

"Don't tempt me," he said.

In the hallway Whitehead, his neck broken, became vaguely aware of a perfume in the air. He could see the landing outside the suite from where he was lying. Muranowski Square, with its fatal tree, had long since faded, leaving only the mirrors and the carpets. Now, as he sprawled beside the door, he heard somebody come up the stairs. He glimpsed a figure moving in the shadows; this was the perfumed one. The newcomer approached slowly, but doggedly; hesitating for only a moment at the threshold before stepping over Whitehead's crumpled form and making his way toward the room where the two men had played cards. There had been a while, as they'd chatted over the game, that the old man had fancied he might yet make a fresh covenant with the European; might escape for a few more years the inevitable catastrophe. But it had all gone wrong. They had rowed over some trivia, the way lovers do, and by some incomprehensible mathematic it had escalated to this: death.

He rolled himself over so that he could look the other way, down the corridor toward the gaming room. Carys was lying on the floor among the spilled cards. He could see her corpse through the open door. The European had devoured her.

Now the newcomer interrupted his view as he lurched to the door. From where he lay Whitehead hadn't been able to see the man's face. But he saw the shine on the machete at his side.

Tom caught sight of the Razor-Eater before Chad. His unruly stomach rebelled at the mingled stench of sandalwood and putrefaction, and he threw up on the old man's bed as Breer stepped into the room. He'd come a long way, and the miles had not been kind, but he was here.

Mamoulian stood upright from the wall and faced Breer.

He was not entirely surprised to see that rotted face, though he wasn't sure why. Was it that his mind had not quite relinquished its hold on the Razor-Eater, and that Breer was somehow here at his behest? Breer stared at Mamoulian through the bright air, as if awaiting a new instruction before he acted again. The muscles of his face were so deteriorated that each flicker of his eyeball threatened to tear the skin of its orbit. He looked, thought Chad-his mind high on cognac-like a man full to bursting with butterflies. Their wings beat against the confines of his anatomy; they powdered his bones in their fervor. Soon their relentless motion would split him open and the air would be full of them.

The European looked down at the machete Breer was carrying.

"Why did you come?" he wanted to know.

The Razor-Eater tried to reply, but his tongue rebelled against the duty. There was just a soft palate word that could have been "good," or "got" or "God," but was none of them.

"Have you come to be killed? Is that it?"

Breer shook his head. He had no such intention, and Mamoulian knew it. Death was the least of his problems. He raised the blade at his side to signal his intentions.

"I can wipe you out," Mamoulian said.

Again, Breer shook his head. "Egg," he said, which Mamoulian interpreted, and repeated as "Dead."

"Dead..." Chad mused. "God in Heaven. The man's dead."

The European murmured the affirmative.

Chad smiled. Maybe they were going to be cheated of the destroying wave. Perhaps the Reverend's calculations had been wrong, and the Deluge wouldn't be on them for a few more months. What did it matter? He had stories to tell-such stories. Even Bliss, with all his talk of the demons in the soul of the hemisphere, hadn't known about scenes like this. The Saint watched, licking his lips with anticipation.

In the hallway, Whitehead had managed to drag himself three or four yards away from the front door, and he could see Marty, who had managed to stand. Leaning on the lintel of the bathroom door, Marty felt the old man's eyes on him. Whitehead raised a beckoning hand. Groggily, Marty lurched into the hallway, his presence ignored by the actors in the gaming room. It was dark out here; the light in the gaming room, that livid candlelight, was all but sealed off by the partially closed door.

Marty knelt at Whitehead's side. The old man took hold of his shirt.

"You've got to fetch her," he said, the voice almost faded. His eyes bulged, there was blood in his beard, and more coming with each word, but his hold was strong. "Fetch her, Marty," he hissed.

"What are you talking about?"

"He has her," Whitehead said. "In him. Fetch her, for Christ's sake, or she'll be there forever, like the others." His eyes flicked in the direction of the landing, remembering the scourge of Muranowski Square. Was she there already? A prisoner under the tree, with Vasiliev's eager hands on her? The old man's lips began to tremble. "Can't... let him have her, boy," he said. "You hear me. Won't let him have her."

Marty had difficulty sewing the sense of this together. Was Whitehead suggesting that he should find his way into Mamoulian and retrieve Carys? It wasn't possible.

"I can't," he said.

The old man registered disgust, and let go of Marty as though he'd discovered he had hold of excrement. Painfully, he turned his head away.

Marty looked toward the gaming room. Through the gap in the door he could see Mamoulian moving toward the unmistakable figure of the Razor-Eater. There was frailty on the European's face. Marty studied it for a moment, and then looked down at the European's feet. Carys lay there, her face startled by cessation, her skin bright. He could do nothing; why didn't Papa leave him be to run away into the night and heal his bruises? He could do nothing.

And if he ran; if he found a place to hide, to heal, would he ever wash away the smell of his cowardice? Would this moment-the roads dividing, and dividing again-not be burned into his dreams forever? He looked back at Papa. But for the feeble movement of his lips he could have already been dead. "Fetch her," he was still saying, a catechism to be repeated until his breath failed. "Fetch her. Fetch her."

Marty had asked something similar of Carys-to go into the lunatic's lair and come back with a story to tell. How could he now not return the favor? Fetch her. Fetch her. Papa's words were fading with every beat of his failing heart. Maybe she was retrievable, Marty thought, somewhere in the flux of Mamoulian's body. And if not, if not, would it be so hard to die trying to fetch her, and have an end to roads dividing, and choices turning to ash?

But how? He tried to recall how she'd done it, but the procedures were too elaborate-the washing, the silence-and surely he had scant opportunity to make his voyage before circumstances changed. His only source of hope lay in the fact of his bloody shirt-the way he'd felt, on his way here, that Carys had snapped some barrier in his head, and that the damage, once done, was permanent. Perhaps his mind could go to her through the wound she'd opened, tracing her scent as relentlessly as she'd pursued his.

He closed his eyes, shutting off the hallway and Whitehead and the body lying at the European's feet. Sight was a trap; she'd said that once. Effort too. He must let go. Let instinct and imagination take him where sense and intellect could not.

He conjured her, effortlessly, putting the bleak fact of her corpse out of his head and evoking instead her living smile. In his mind he spoke her name and she came to him in a dozen moments: laughing, naked, puzzled, contrite. But he let the particulars go, leaving only her essential presence in his aching head.