Conclusion. Valery has obtained what passes for Lenin's writ, but it's not worth much in Russia, 1918, but it will enable him to take Katerina Ivanovna with him to America ... or so he believes.
Emma's trip to Indonesia has been a bit on the weird side, with blood-smeared temple walls and a healer-woman muttering spells ... but it's about to get stranger still ...
"...Russia's stolid core, retreating to its greatest strength, the great nyet that withstood Napoleon, was burned and yet lived, was frozen and yet lived, saying nyet to everything, enduring the unendurable with that one fierce word ... nyet, nyet, nyet ..."
The inscriptions on the walls are too obvious to mistake the meaning of the darkened areas around the altar in the disused temple. This is not a good place for Emma -- but then, where is?
Surely there is some normalcy left in the world -- surely Valery can at least get Katerina Ivanovna a little meal at the inn to fill her empty stomach ...
In recounting their lost years together, Valery and Katerina Ivanovna lose track of time, remembering the struggle and the grief, the events that changed them forever...
"...he would dream extinction by water and waken to think about dreaming that and fall asleep and dream it again. He was in love with sailing and hated sailing..."
Malaria has been eradicated from the face of the earth! Not to mention tuberculosis and the plague! And gravity, too, so you never have to worry about falling down again! Why do they allow stupid people to have passports?
Christina has nothing left but memories of Ivan -- except for the child she carries. That will have to be enough for her, but it isn't enough for Valery, who can only keep his grief at bay by taking care of the woman who loved his dear friend.
At last the threat of true death has become real to the two trapped vampires, but even Jerry's dark heart will be affected by what he's about to hear ...
This is why he came back, a stranger in a land from the past -- so see the woman he loved so much, now changed by age and circumstance. What doesn't change ... is love.
The place is post-revolutionary Russia, and a man called Lenin is changing its face. Valery Asimov, a former Russian diplomat, finds time running out as he tries to save what he loves ... Author Robert Earle returns us to the world of Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov."
The amazing thing is that even though he's been drained of powers, manhandled, nearly drained of blood, tied up, silenced, paralyzed, and well and truly threatened, Ben Richland is still full of arrogance because he thinks he's dealing with some feeble upstart. Think he'll ever figure this one out?
