She slapped Sarah so hard she went flying. Then Miriam was on her again, shaking her, screaming and smashing her head again and again into the floor. Sarah saw stars; the world reeled; she screamed, screamed again.

Miriam went to her feet, lithe and quick, glaring down at her. Then she was back again, her eyes glowing, her narrow lips twisted in some expression so alien that Sarah couldn’t even begin to interpret it.

She kissed Sarah. Then she lifted her and helped her to a chair. She knelt before her and kissed her hands. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m just—” She made a small sound, the snarl of a hurt tiger. “I’m feeling things I’ve never felt before.” She laid her head in Sarah’s lap. Now she was weeping. “When I last had a baby in me, I was so protected. We owned Egypt! We lived in walled compounds. The wealth, the power—you can’t even begin to imagine! But now—I’ve got my last baby and I need to feel safe and I don’t!”

Sarah stroked her hair. She looked down at the lithe, powerful body in the magnificent butterfly robe, a garment made in China six hundred years ago, of thousands of individual bits of silk sewed together with tiny stitches. It was like a cloud of butterflies, this robe. Miri wore it casually, but that did not change the fact that it could easily be the most beautiful garment presently on earth.

Sarah had always been a lonely sort of a soul, but Miriam was really alone. Her baby had been her hope—Sarah realized that now—her one hope to relieve the despair that lay concealed behind the elegance and the headlong decadence that filled her time.

When she found out that this baby was a fata morgana, a mirage, she was going to be absolutely devastated.

Paul knew he was alive because of the pain. From his waist to his neck, he was a mass of sheer agony. His breath was coming in light little gulps, but he felt no air hunger, so he knew there was oxygen running.

He inventoried his body, working from training and long experience. He could wiggle his toes and hands, and lift his arms. That was good. He was too weak to lift his legs. That was not good. The left side of his neck ached. That must be a healing wound where that bitch had tried to suck his blood. His chest was gunshot real bad. There was bubbling when he inhaled, which meant that his lung capacity was dangerously low.

He was looking up, at least, into the ceiling of a hospital room. He could hear monitors beeping, and he could see an IV.