Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
It was one of Yakov’s favorite stories of his great-grandparents’ enduring love affair. Smiling at the memory of the story, he rose off the floor, and seeing that the hand-knitted blanket on his bed was trailing over the side, he threw it back up. The blanket was terrible. Full of dropped stitches and wild lines. But their mother knit to “relax, damn it” and it always made Yakov grin when he woke and saw her efforts.
Mila Hien Kuznets was the least relaxed person Yakov knew, and he’d have her no other way.
But today, even the sight of his mother’s knitting had no impact on the tension knotting his veins. He flexed his hands, unable to forget the blood. No matter what he might want to believe, this wasn’t about a childhood crush of his great-grandfather’s. It was too grim, held too much portentous weight to it.
Jaw clenched, he walked into the bathroom, stripped off his briefs, then stepped into the shower. A wet room carved out of the stone of the den, it featured a lush fern that thrived in the natural light system that ran throughout the den except where it had been overridden on purpose.
Yakov was happy to shower in the soft glow of cool dawn light that echoed the world outside. Who was she? The question would no doubt—
A scream pierced his eardrums, so harsh and pained that it took him a split second to realize it was coming from inside his own fucking mind. Hand slamming against the stone of the wall, he tried to gasp in a breath, but it was too late. The waking dream accelerated, and suddenly, he was standing in front of a weathered gate of wrought iron through which coiled thick green vines, a sense of urgency pumping inside him.
He twisted toward her, but she was already turning away to double over, her arm pressed against her stomach as if wounded. Yakov’s bear threatened to take over, make him run to her, help her.
But he couldn’t.
Yakov struggled against the invisible ropes that held him in place, but no matter how much strength he put into it, he couldn’t move . . . because he had no right to touch her.
“Fuck!” He snapped out of the nightmare or whatever the hell it had been to find himself still standing under the water.
Claw marks scored the stone.
MOSKVA GAZETA
30 August 2083
BREAKING NEWS
Second Victim Fits Profile
Authorities in Enforcement continue to refuse to confirm speculation of a serial killer after yesterday’s discovery in the Izmaylovo District of a second victim who fits the same victim profile as the first: Varisha Morozov, age 29.
The name of the second victim has not yet been released; however, Enforcement did verify that this victim, too, was a Psy woman in her twenties with blue eyes and blond hair.
When asked if young Psy women, especially those with blond hair and blue eyes, should be concerned, Enforcement Commissioner Yaroslav Skryabin stated that there is no reason to panic. “We are in the very early stages of the investigation. To throw around wild theories at this juncture would be both precipitous and inappropriate.”
The commissioner also stated that at this point, there is no evidence of the killer being a fellow member of the Psy race. “Given the method of murder, they could as easily be human or changeling” was his only further comment on the subject.
That method of murder has not been released by the authorities. While the Gazeta does have sources close to the investigation, the Gazeta’s internal ethics board has agreed to Enforcement’s request not to publish that information so as not to prejudice any future judicial case.
To be updated as further information becomes available.
Chapter 2
The restricted rider to Coda 27 of the Silence Protocol applies here. Pax and Theo can be—and must be—separated the instant they hit seven years of age. I’d recommend doing it sooner but the risk of psychic collapse is high. To chance that with a Gradient 9 would be reckless in the extreme.
—Report by PsyMed specialist Dr. Kye Li to Councilor Marshall Hyde (1 January 2061)
THEODORA MARSHALL BUTTONED up the crisp white of her shirt, erasing the view of the strip of smooth and pale skin in between the two panels. That skin was so inoffensive, so normal. Look at that and you’d never know what crawled over her back—and twisted inside her mind.
She could live with the physical marks of what had been done to her, but the only way to live with the mental marks was to enforce a rigid aloneness.
Except that was impossible.
Pax needed her. Her twin, the golden child, the one who was supposed to survive, to make it, had ended up kicked by their genes. Scarab Syndrome they called it. A disease that was the greatest irony of their race. Psy who were born so powerful that their minds effectively ate them up; prior to the advent of Silence, such Psy had imploded and died as children.