She waits on a frosty street corner in old Russia, armed with the gadgets her sponsor gave her. Ivanov draws near—to her, to his death.
But first, she needs to know: Vasiliy Ivanov, good man or bad?
Killing a good man risks her integrity—and her soul—so no matter what the bounty, she must make certain.
For everyone who ever wondered about doing bad things for good reasons—and anyone who ever doubted what they believe.
One Bad Man
It is cold. That is my first thought as I stand against the Bielgorod, the walls of the White Town, watching the Neglina River rush past in the dim, pre-morning light. Of course, October in Moscow is never what one might call tropical, but it has been many months since I was last up in the hours before dawn.
The frigid temperature numbs my nose, and the air, which in the heat would carry the scent of the river, smells of nothing but cold.
I draw my cloak closer around me and hunker down into the gloomy shadows, waiting for one Vasiliy Ivanov to appear.
He will, at no later than two minutes past six, and I pull out my pocket watch—the bronze one with the roving green eye set in the lid, a token from Alexsey, my sponsor, and a not-so-subtle reminder that he is ever watching—and determine that I have but three minutes left to wait at most.
My breath puffs out, a misty white miasma in front of me, and my mind wanders back to the Chernye Miazmy, the black miasma that presently infect the town.
Hovering clouds of foul, dank darkness, they are spreading, quicker than before, and for all that they are careful to maintain face in public, I know that the administration is concerned.
Three deaths in three days would leave any governor anxious, and although the century is old, it is not so old that Moscow has forgotten the Plague—fifteen years ago and more than half my own lifespan, and yet as real as the warmth of my breath on my hand when I remember the faces of my parents as they died.
Thankfully, Gospodin Vasiliy Ivanov appears around the corner before I can fall further into reminisces. Fifteen years ought to be time enough to put away the memory of my parents’ faces; alack, some days it is not.
But Ivanov draws closer, and I swallow down the bitterness that the memories dredge up, then detach the little gears-and-rods contraption that cuffs my right ear; I don’t plan to let him out of my sight, so I should not need the hearing enhancement that the earcuff provides, and I do not want to risk it getting broken.
Alexsey would not approve of that.