alley and lost peninsula on the globe, but then there was Bulgaria.
However, Bulgaria didn’t bother him. Al-Miri bothered him. Something about the bizarre CEO gnawed at Grey, something unrelated to cultural differences or Al-Miri’s odd mannerisms. Something to do with his speech, the neutral inflection of his voice that somehow managed to convey extreme urgency concerning that test tube. Urgency that, to Grey, seemed to go beyond simple greed. Grey was not a greedy man, however, and understood that money affected some people far more than others. To some it could become a religion.
He bought a phrasebook and a map of Sofia, and picked up some research on gerontology. He returned to his hotel, grabbed a beer and settled into a chair. Before opening the phrasebook his eyes swept the personal contents of the room: a stack of books stood in one corner, philosophy and martial arts theory and a few crinkled novels. On a bedside table was a picture of his mother, and next to that a present Nya had given him, a tiny soapstone carving of two intertwined lovers.
He finished his beer with distracted slowness, his mind already hovering above the Atlantic.
– 10 –
P rofessor Viktor Radek cradled the reservoir glass with one massive hand. He laid a cube of sugar on the slotted absinthe spoon and placed the spoon across the top of the glass. He drizzled absinthe over the sugar, then lit the cube with a match. He watched the sugar caramelize and drip through the spoon into the glass, then he dunked the flaming spoon. She ignited briefly, and he smiled. A true and wanton lover she was, fiery and pure.
He added ice water to quench the flames, just enough to release the wormwood and anise oils, just enough to reach that sensual milky color that signified the ritual transformation of La Louche.
He swirled, caressed, divined her depths. He tipped her into his throat and she slid downward and carried his mind, troubled and willing, to her familiar home.
He moved to the window of his hotel room and saw Berlin, his mind perked by the strangely lucid effect of thujone. A strong city, Berlin. A marvel of evolution. Stripped of pride, it had survived, adapted and become a new creature, a modern thing, a melting pot of unity and progress. War humbles cities in that way, he mused: they rebuild wiser and kinder, arms spread wide to those they once would shun.
Wars, or any transient affairs of state, had never interested Viktor. He saw the universe as a gigantic puzzle, the earth one planet among billions, the petty struggles of its inhabitants a diversion from greater truths. Those greater truths drove him—what did it all mean, where do we go, from whence do we come? He did not have an ethos, a theology, but he had devoted his life to research and personal experience, the glimpses into what he viewed as pieces of that puzzle: the strange, the inexplicable, the uncanny, the divine. This sense of faith or religion or simply ontological
being
—it affected billions of people on a daily basis.
The Berlin case bored him. It was another band of disaffected youth who believed they were Satanists. They hadn’t even bothered to do their research; they knew nothing of the true Satanic cults. They knew enough, however, to cause senseless harm and misery. They had murdered a classmate, crucified him in a forest. The ritual was sloppy, amateurish. Viktor was happy to help, but the Berlin police didn’t need him. They needed a psychiatrist.
His thoughts turned to the case Grey was working. He had never met someone quite so… isolated… as Dominic Grey. He didn’t know much about Grey’s past, except to know that Grey didn’t like to discuss it.
What he knew about Grey’s present was that he had the mind, heart and ability to be an excellent investigator. Viktor had long needed someone like Grey to complement his own skill set. The few investigators Viktor had hired in the past either didn’t have the stomach for the kind of cases
However, Bulgaria didn’t bother him. Al-Miri bothered him. Something about the bizarre CEO gnawed at Grey, something unrelated to cultural differences or Al-Miri’s odd mannerisms. Something to do with his speech, the neutral inflection of his voice that somehow managed to convey extreme urgency concerning that test tube. Urgency that, to Grey, seemed to go beyond simple greed. Grey was not a greedy man, however, and understood that money affected some people far more than others. To some it could become a religion.
He bought a phrasebook and a map of Sofia, and picked up some research on gerontology. He returned to his hotel, grabbed a beer and settled into a chair. Before opening the phrasebook his eyes swept the personal contents of the room: a stack of books stood in one corner, philosophy and martial arts theory and a few crinkled novels. On a bedside table was a picture of his mother, and next to that a present Nya had given him, a tiny soapstone carving of two intertwined lovers.
He finished his beer with distracted slowness, his mind already hovering above the Atlantic.
– 10 –
P rofessor Viktor Radek cradled the reservoir glass with one massive hand. He laid a cube of sugar on the slotted absinthe spoon and placed the spoon across the top of the glass. He drizzled absinthe over the sugar, then lit the cube with a match. He watched the sugar caramelize and drip through the spoon into the glass, then he dunked the flaming spoon. She ignited briefly, and he smiled. A true and wanton lover she was, fiery and pure.
He added ice water to quench the flames, just enough to release the wormwood and anise oils, just enough to reach that sensual milky color that signified the ritual transformation of La Louche.
He swirled, caressed, divined her depths. He tipped her into his throat and she slid downward and carried his mind, troubled and willing, to her familiar home.
He moved to the window of his hotel room and saw Berlin, his mind perked by the strangely lucid effect of thujone. A strong city, Berlin. A marvel of evolution. Stripped of pride, it had survived, adapted and become a new creature, a modern thing, a melting pot of unity and progress. War humbles cities in that way, he mused: they rebuild wiser and kinder, arms spread wide to those they once would shun.
Wars, or any transient affairs of state, had never interested Viktor. He saw the universe as a gigantic puzzle, the earth one planet among billions, the petty struggles of its inhabitants a diversion from greater truths. Those greater truths drove him—what did it all mean, where do we go, from whence do we come? He did not have an ethos, a theology, but he had devoted his life to research and personal experience, the glimpses into what he viewed as pieces of that puzzle: the strange, the inexplicable, the uncanny, the divine. This sense of faith or religion or simply ontological
being
—it affected billions of people on a daily basis.
The Berlin case bored him. It was another band of disaffected youth who believed they were Satanists. They hadn’t even bothered to do their research; they knew nothing of the true Satanic cults. They knew enough, however, to cause senseless harm and misery. They had murdered a classmate, crucified him in a forest. The ritual was sloppy, amateurish. Viktor was happy to help, but the Berlin police didn’t need him. They needed a psychiatrist.
His thoughts turned to the case Grey was working. He had never met someone quite so… isolated… as Dominic Grey. He didn’t know much about Grey’s past, except to know that Grey didn’t like to discuss it.
What he knew about Grey’s present was that he had the mind, heart and ability to be an excellent investigator. Viktor had long needed someone like Grey to complement his own skill set. The few investigators Viktor had hired in the past either didn’t have the stomach for the kind of cases
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