CURSED PRINT RUN - страница 2

As if through a thickness of water, Vera heard the phrase: “You must learn about the order and the curse…” Suddenly her right wrist felt as if scorched by heat; it ached with sharp, unbearable pain. Vera lowered her gaze and cried out at the unreality of what she saw: through the layer of skin, violet letters had come through like scars.

CHAPTER 2. BUSINESS ON BLOOD

Six days left until the publication of the novel “Ink of Dead Words”. The ink is starting to thicken.

Morning sun broke through the grey Petersburg haze, but this light seemed unnaturally white, almost hospital-like. Vera sat in the back seat of a taxi, pressing her forehead to the cold side window, and watched the granite embankments floating past. Thoughts appeared and vanished, lazy and sticky; they created a whirlpool in her head, a chaos that caused physical pain. The rain had stopped, leaving behind only dampness, the smell of wet asphalt and a sticky, suffocating feeling of unreality. Christian had left at night as suddenly as he had appeared. He dissolved into the fog by the Fontanka, leaving her alone with the broken window of her old car, the jammed handbrake and the burning wrist. The letters under the skin no longer glowed with violet neon, but they ached with a dull, exhausting pain, like an old burn scar.

The city around lived its ordinary, noisy, and deeply indifferent life to other people’s troubles. People hurried to the metro stations, wrapping themselves in scarves; by the roadside kiosks it smelled of over-fried coffee and fresh pastry, at the crossroads cars lazily argued with their horns. No magic. No curses. An ordinary Petersburg morning. For a few minutes Vera even believed that the night nightmare had appeared to her because of the wild fatigue accumulated over the weeks. But the violet outline of her own name on the right hand, reliably hidden under the wide leather strap of the watch, sobered her better than any ice-cold shower. It was real.

The publishing house “Slovo” was located in the historical center, in a restored three-story mansion on Vasilevskiy Island. Inside, everything breathed that very European polish which their general director valued so much: expensive oak shelves with the company’s best releases, muted light, soft carpets that completely muffled footsteps, and the polite, barely audible hum of employees’ voices. This empire of success was built on letters.

Vera wasn't walking; she was almost running down the third-floor corridor, ignoring the greeting nods of colleagues and designers. She clenched her handbag so hard that her knuckles turned white. She needed to see Mark Aristarkhovich. Right now, before the fear completely paralyzed her will.

She pushed the heavy door of the general director’s office without knocking, breaking all possible rules of corporate etiquette.

Mark Aristarkhovich, as always impeccable, in a grey three-piece suit of individual cut and with perfectly styled grey hair, sat behind a huge table of solid dark walnut. He unhurriedly drank espresso from a tiny porcelain cup and looked through the pre-order graphs on a tablet. The office smelled pleasantly of expensive perfume, with subtle notes of fine tobacco and conditioned air.

— Verochka? — he raised a carefully plucked eyebrow in surprise, assessing her disheveled look, pale face, and bruises under the eyes. — Why aren’t you at home? Uncle Kolya already reported last night that you checked the advance copy and signed the papers. Well done, dear; the print run has already gone to the rotary presses. The book is breaking all sales records even before the official release. We will skim the cream of this season.

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CURSED PRINT RUN - страница 2

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