She stabbed down with the needle, forcing it deep into his flesh. The pain was so great that his eyes rolled back into his head, and he fainted for a few brief, blessed seconds.

He could hear them talking, Chain and Madeleine: could feel the meat that was his forearm go cold while they worked on it, she giving the policeman instructions and he complying. The rocking motion ceased with one last jolt; the driver had found the open road.

Petrovitch’s hand was swathed in a ball of white bandages, fingers tied together with only his thumb free. It was numb and heavy, like a lump of metal. Then Chain looked close into Petrovitch’s ice-blue eyes.

“Still in there?”

“Yeah. Chain?”

“You’d be better off not talking, but when have you ever taken any notice of what I said?”

“Get a message to the Jihad. Tell them we have Sonja. Ask them where they want her taken.”

“How do I do that? Open the hatch and shout loudly?”

“Use the rat. It’s an open channel to them. Inside pocket.”

Chain patted him down and retrieved the device. “What if she doesn’t want to go with them?”

“Ask her. But I’m guessing we can make her.”

“It might come to that.” Chain flipped the case open and looked at the list of earlier communications with the New Machine Jihad. He moved to sit next to Sonja, and Madeleine took his place. She held up a bottle of sterile water.

“I’m going to see what damage they’ve done to your head.” She dug a fingernail into his earlobe. “Feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“I’ll be as quick as I can.” She unscrewed the bottle, sluiced water over him, then scrubbed away. He felt the pressure, the movement, but none of the pain. He watched the shadow of her: the blur moved precisely and deliberately, knowing what to do, taking the least time to do it.

“Thank you,” he said. The injection was working its way down his face; he could no longer feel his cheek, and his eye was closing.

“Hush,” she said, and bent low to inspect the wound. The mane of her hair slipped over her shoulder and lay in a serpentine coil on his chest. “You’ve lost a notch from your ear. Two centimeters closer in and it would have killed you.”

He could smell her. Dust and smoke and sweat and fear, and whatever she’d washed in that morning: apples. She smelled of apples.

“Two centimeters farther out and it would have missed me completely.”

“Sorry about your finger.”

“I can always get another one.” He felt what? Buzzed, like he was mildly drunk on a bottle of something strong and expensive, even though he knew it was a combination of shock, blood loss, pain-killing drugs, anoxia, and the closeness of her and her scent.