Babayaga

succumbed to some innate desire for satisfaction. But such justice was never useful, and it was completely unnecessary to the matters at hand. He should have stayed uninvolved, let his colleagues sort it out, for that was their business, not his. Those women were the past, causing predictably what they always caused when you unearthed them: bloodshed, chaos, and tragedy. He was glad to leave that behind, to let them fight among themselves, stirring up their small, provincial evils, they were not his responsibility.
    He had made it back to the lab to find the Americans waiting, General Strong having just paid the French police off with the money that was supposed to be for him. Then there had been all the questioning. Bendix had told Strong only what he thought he needed to know, keeping significant details aside. Strong had guessed there was more to the story and tones had grown heated. At one point, Strong even called Bendix an “evil little Nazi creep” (this accusation came often and always offended Bendix, who was technically Swiss and, though he had advised the Germans during the war, had never technically joined the National Socialist party). In the end, Strong wanted to shut the shop down and take all the packets of formula off with them, but Bendix refused, telling Strong he could have them once he came back with his cash. In exchange, Bendix agreed to cook up this last final batch.
    He had hoped to have time for more clinical tests, but there was no time left. Besides, he had run out of test subjects, and without Brandon’s assistance he had no idea where to find more. It was fine, though, the important work had been done. There might still be some imperfections, but the army could sort through that on their own. They had plenty of guinea pigs on hand.
    He reminded himself of the monumental significance of what he had completed here. What Fermi, Oppenheimer, and Teller had accomplished with the atom, he had done with the mind.
    Outside the rear entrance, the two men Strong had placed on duty to watch the building lay writhing and choking on the alley’s cold cobblestones, each one purple-faced, each tugging at his throat, desperately wheezing for a last breath.
    Along the bench, various tubes of borosilicate bubbled, hissed, and gassed, cloaking Zoya’s footsteps. Before Bendix sensed she was there, she had come up behind him and gently touched the potent point in his neck where the occipital and trapezius muscles meet.
    He would have reacted, but he could not. He was immobilized.
    She stepped in front of him and smiled. “Sorry. You do like to run away and I had to make sure you would stay with me. But don’t worry,” she said, moving out of his static line of sight, “this will not take long.”
    Straining every muscle, desperate to see what she was up to, Bendix found he was frozen in place, fastened firmly to the spot, with every muscle he wished to move now absolutely petrified. His eyes darted about with widening terror. He could hear her opening the glass cabinets, removing items and placing them on the metal counter, and then his pupils dilated wide as he heard the familiar clinking of the syringes being removed from their velvet case. “You are fortunate it is me,” she said, in a voice that was almost soothing. “If Elga were alive, you would be stone deaf by now, watching while she snacked on your bloody ears. Then she’d stick the tines of a fork through an eyeball and pluck that out too. You’d watch her chew with your good eye for as long as she let you.” Zoya returned to his line of sight. “She might even spare your life, so you could suffer in agony. Me, I am not that cruel, I promise I will let you die. But I do think it will hurt.” She held up the needle. “After all, your strange equipment is very new to me, so you’ll have to be a little patient”—she smiled—“I’m a virgin at this.”
    It did hurt, and after the first injection, the searing pain was so tremendous he desperately wanted to scream out, but his paralysis prevented even that last great spasm. He knew he only had a little time, perhaps less than a minute, before the drug hit. The shame of his defeat burned at his pride, he wanted some tool, some trick, to smash her, to maul her, to wipe that mocking smile from her lips. Perched on the metal stool before him, she was still talking, calmly, soothingly, looking into his eyes as he endured the piercing agony and strained to break the spell. “Is it