won a game, when this is all done, I get to kill the young man, with a blow of a hammer.”
The two Zoryas nodded gravely. “Such a pity,” said Zorya Vechernyaya. “In my fortune for you, I should have said you would have a long life and a happy one, with many children.”
“That is why you are a good fortune-teller,” said Zorya Utrennyaya. She looked sleepy, as if it were an effort for her to be up so late. “You tell the best lies.”
It was a long meal, and at the end of it, Shadow was still hungry. Prison food had been pretty bad, and prison food was better than this.
“Good food,” said Wednesday, who had cleaned his plate with every evidence of enjoyment. “I thank you, ladies. And now, I am afraid that it is incumbent upon us to ask you to recommend to us a fine hotel in the neighborhood.”
Zorya Vechernyaya looked offended at this. “Why should you go to a hotel?” she said. “We are not your friends?”
“I couldn’t put you to any trouble…” said Wednesday.
“Is no trouble,” said Zorya Utrennyaya, one hand playing with her incongruously golden hair, and she yawned.
“You can sleep in Bielebog’s room,” said Zorya Vechernyaya, pointing to Wednesday. “Is empty. And for you, young man, I make up a bed on sofa. You will be more comfortable than in feather bed. I swear.”
“That would be really kind of you,” said Wednesday. “We accept.”
“And you pay me only no more than what you pay for hotel,” said Zorya Vechernyaya, with a triumphant toss of her head. “A hundred dollars.”
“Thirty,” said Wednesday.
“Fifty.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Forty-five.”
“Forty.”
“Is good. Forty-five dollar.” Zorya Vechernyaya reached across the table and shook Wednesday’s hand. Then she began to clean the pots off the table. Zorya Utrennyaya yawned so hugely Shadow worried that she might dislocate her jaw, and announced that she was going to bed before she fell asleep with her head in the pie, and she said good night to them all.
Shadow helped Zorya Vechernyaya to take the plates and dishes into the little kitchen. To his surprise there was an elderly dishwashing machine beneath the sink, and he filled it. Zorya Vechernyaya looked over his shoulder, tutted, and removed the wooden borscht bowls.
“Those, in the sink,” she told him.
“Sorry.”
“Is not to worry. Now, back in there, we have pie,” she said, and she took the pie from the oven.
The pie—it was an apple pie—had been bought in a store and oven-warmed, and was very, very good indeed. The four of them ate it with ice cream, and then Zorya Vechernyaya made everyone go out of the sitting room, and made up a very fine-looking bed on the sofa for Shadow.
Wednesday spoke to Shadow as they stood in the corridor.
“What you did in there, with the checkers game,” he said.
“Yes?”
“That was good. Very, very stupid of you. But good. Sleep safe.”
Shadow brushed his teeth and washed his face in the cold water of the little bathroom, and then walked back down the hall to the sitting room, turned out the light, and was asleep before his head touched the pillow.
There were explosions in Shadow’s dream: he was driving a truck through a minefield, and bombs were going off on each side of him. The windshield shattered and he felt warm blood running down his face.
Someone was shooting at him.
A bullet punctured his lung, a bullet shattered his spine, another hit his shoulder. He felt each bullet strike. He collapsed across the steering wheel.
The last explosion ended in darkness.
I must be dreaming, thought Shadow, alone in the darkness. I think I just died. He remembered hearing and believing, as a child, that if you died in your dreams, you would die in real life. He did not feel dead. He opened his eyes, experimentally.
There was a woman in the little sitting room, standing against the window, with her back to him. His heart missed a half-beat, and he said, “Laura?”
She turned, framed by the moonlight. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to wake you.” She had a soft, Eastern European accent. “I will go.”
“No, it’s okay,” said Shadow. “You didn’t wake me. I had a dream.”
“Yes,” she said. “You were crying out, and moaning. Part of me wanted to wake you, but I thought, no, I should leave him.”
Her hair was pale and colorless in the moon’s thin light. She wore a thin white cotton nightgown, with a high, lace neck, and a hem that swept the ground. Shadow sat up,