Past the gate was a cobblestone courtyard ringed with the steelback doors of clubs and bars. Rows of narrow fire escapes and dirty windows climbed the stories above. All the windows were empty. No one was watching.
Sterling called for Fernando as she passed a row of recycling bins. In the dark, someone’s footsteps scraped on gravel. She waited until her eyes adjusted, heart pounding. On the back wall was a crooked balcony shrouded in a lace net of winter-bare ivy. Beneath it, in the spiderweb of shadows, loomed a giant man with Fernando in his clutches, his body limp. The giant dropped Fernando onto the cobblestones.
The gate clinked shut behind her.
The hulk stepped over Fernando’s body. Sterling grabbed a glass bottle from the recycling bin and hurled it towards him. It pinged off him with a dull thud and rattled to the ground. She reached for another, only to be yanked back by her hair, then wrapped in a suffocating embrace.
She squealed, clawed, and kicked as a cloth covered her mouth. Her eyes and nose burned. A thud sounded behind her. Her attacker released her, and she dropped to the ground, blinded by stinging tears, her limbs heavy.
She slipped out of consciousness and away from Fernando. Everything burned. Except for the luxurious fur coat that brushed her cheek as a hand caressed it.
— 46 —Sechsundvierzig
The soft sound of pleasant harp music clawed at Sterling’s ears. She peeled open her crusty eyes. Angelic music aside, her head ached too much for this to be heaven. She moved, and an IV tube yanked on her arm.
Was she in a hospital? No. Too cozy. Someone had dressed her in a nightgown and tucked her under the sheets tight enough to tie her down. The silk pillowcase was cool against her neck. Her throat was too raw to scream. She wrestled her arms free. A coffee, still steaming, sat on the nightstand. Beside a framed photograph of…Serafina?
Fuck. She realized where she was.
It was her bedroom. Just… clean.
Sterling ripped out the IV, stanched the bleeding with a tissue, then slid out of bed. She followed the faint music through her bedroom door. A flood of light stung her eyes as she entered the living room. Her vision adjusted to the sun beaming through polished windows.
A woman sat on her couch, only her slender legs visible, crossedat the ankle, and her face hidden behind the weekend edition of the internationalNew York Times.
“Good afternoon, dear,” said Frau Thursday, folding down a corner of the newspaper.
“Oida,” said Sterling. Her voice raspy.
Mr. Right, or one iteration of the man with the title, appeared, presenting a silver tray bearing a water glass beside a pair of unmarked pills. She smelled something burning—no, toasting? Was she having a stroke? That might explain this hallucination, she thought. But it wasn’t that.
Across her living room, Mr. Left stood at an ironing board smoothing crumpled, wine-stained notes from her desk and filing them in a binder labeledInebriated Strokes of Genius.
Frau Thursday sipped tea, then said, “Take your medicine, dear. Chloroform makes for a nasty morning after, it will help with the pain.”
“What. Is. Happening?”
“There’s time for questions later, but first you’ll need a shower. Then food.Thenanswers.” Frau Thursday pointed towards the bathroom, then snapped her newspaper back up, pulling her teacup behind it.
“Not until you tell me what you did with—”
“Fernando is safe and sound. He’ll arrive shortly.”
Mr. Left escorted Sterling into her en suite bathroom and closed the door. She’d never have recognized it. The tiles sparkled. A sleek selection of high-end beauty products had replaced her chaotic shelf of half-used shampoo bottles.
Sterling undressed, tossing her nightgown to the floor. A small cough sounded behind the door. She spotted a new linen laundry basket, lifted the nightgown up, and dropped it in, peering around for a camera. Nothing. She turned on the shower.Oi-fucking-da. Thewater pressure had been fixed. Hot water kicked in immediately, wisps of steam curling into the air. She eyed the fan switch by the door warily. She flipped it, wincing expectantly. The fan hummed, not with an irritating buzz but an efficient whisper that swept the fog away.
She lingered under her new rainfall shower, watching mist spiral over the pale-pink tiles. Maybe she was actually dead, she thought, and heaven was real, and some angel intern had screwed up and let her in. But if she was dead, she realized she couldn’t tell Andreas about the…something.
“What was it?” she muttered to herself, lathering her skin.
Delicious fragrances overwhelmed her senses. New beauty products were arranged in logical order from shampoo to hair mask to face wash. When she got out, she donned the new robe awaiting her, even softer than those they provided guests.
She swiped fog from the mirror. What was in that face wash? She had the worst hangover of her life, her nose was raw, but her skin glowed. Even before drying her hair, she could tell it was in better condition than it had been in years, given her habit of dyeing it every few weeks. Her curls were smooth. Her bangs behaved for once. There was a soothing balm beside the sink with a note indicating it was for the chloroform burns around her nose and mouth.
Her makeup case had been cleaned and organized, its broken drawer repaired. Most products had been replaced. There was even a brand-new tube of her favorite lipstick, the discontinued shade she’d been savoring remnants of for years now.
She left the bathroom in a daze. Still unconvinced this was real.
