She paused, head tilted slightly to one side as if she was listening to something — and, as she continued, Wednesday realized, She is listening to something. Someone is reading her a speech and she’s simply echoing it! Startled, she almost missed the Ambassador’s next words: “We will now pause for a minute in silent contemplation. Those of us who believe in the intervention of higher agencies may wish to pray; those of us who don’t may take heart from the fact that we are not alone, and we will make sure that our friends and families did not die in vain.”
Wednesday was disinclined to meditate on much of anything. She looked around surreptitiously, examining fixtures and fittings. The ambassador’s girth — She’s not fat, but she’s carrying a lot of padding around the waist. And those boxes around the podium … and the guy at the back there, and that woman in the dark suit and business glasses … Something smelled wrong. In fact, something smelled killing zone, a game Herman had taught her years before. How to spot an ambush. This is just like a, a trap, she realized. But who—
Wednesday turned back and was watching the Ambassador’s eyes as it happened. They widened slightly as somebody a couple of rows behind Wednesday made a nervous noise. Then the Ambassador snapped into motion, sudden as a machine, arms coming up to protect her face as she ducked.
Then:
Why am I lying down? Wednesday wondered fuzzily. Why? She could see, but everything was blurry and her ears ached. I feel sick. She tried to moan and catch her breath and there was an acrid stink of burning. Abruptly she realized that her right hand was wet and sticky, and she was curled around something bony. Dampness. She tried to lever herself up with her left hand, and the air was full of dust, the lights were out, and thinly, in the distance through the ringing in her ears, she heard screams.
A flicker of light. A moment later, she was clearer. The podium — the woman wasn’t there. The boxes to either side had exploded like air bags, blasting heavy shields into the air in front of the Ambassador as she ducked. But behind her, behind them … Wednesday sat up and glanced down, realized someone was screaming. There was blood on the back of her hand, blood on her sleeve, blood on the chairs. A bomb, she thought fuzzily. Then: I ought to do something. People were screaming. A hand and an arm lay in the middle of the aisle next to her, the elbow a grisly red mess. Frank was lying on the floor next to her. The back of his head looked as if it had been sprayed with red paint. As she recognized him, he moved, one arm flailing at the ground in a stunned reflex. The woman who had been seated behind him was still seated, but her head ended in a glutinous stump somewhere between her neck and her nose. Bomb, Wednesday realized again, confused but trying to hold on to the thought. More thoughts: Herman warned me. Frank!
She leaned over him in panic. “Frank! Talk to me!” He opened his mouth and tried to say something. She winced, unable to hear him. Is he dying? she wondered, feeling lost and anxious. “Frank!” A dizzy laugh welled up as she tried to remember details from a first-aid course she’d taken years ago — Is he breathing? Yes. Is he bleeding? It was hard to tell; there was so much blood everywhere that she couldn’t see if it was his. Frank mumbled something at her. He wasn’t flailing around. In fact, he seemed to be trying to move. “Wait, you mustn’t—” Frank sat up. He felt around the back of his head and winced, then peered at Wednesday owlishly.
“Dizzy,” he said, and slowly toppled toward her.
Wednesday managed to brace herself with one arm as he fainted. He must weigh over a hundred kilos, she realized fuzzily. She looked round, searching for help, but the shout died in her throat. It hadn’t been a big bomb — not much more than a grenade — but it had burst in the middle of the audience, ripping half a dozen bodies into bloody pulp, and splashing meat and bone and blood around like evil paint. A man with half his clothes blasted off his body and his upper torso painted red stumbled into the epicenter blindly, arms outstretched as if looking for someone. A woman, sitting in her chair like an incisor seated in a jaw between the empty red holes of pulled teeth, screamed and clutched her shredded arm. Nightmares merged at the edges, bleeding over into daylight, rawhead and bloodybones come out to play. Wednesday licked her lips, tasted bright metal dampness, and whimpered as her stomach tried to eject wine and half-digested canapes.
The next thing she knew, a man in black was standing over her, a gun at the ceiling — looking past her, talking urgently to a floating drone. She tried to shake her head. Something was crushing her. “—an you walk?” he said, “—your friend?”
“Mmf. Try.” She pushed against Frank’s deadweight, and Frank tensed and groaned. “Frank—” The guard was away, bending over another body and suddenly dropping to his knees, frantically pumping at a still chest.
“I’m, I’m—” He blinked, sleepily. “Wednesday?”
Sit up, she thought fuzzily. “Are you okay?”
“I think—” He paused. “My head.” For a miracle, the weight on her shoulder slackened. “Are you hurt?” he asked her.
“I—” She leaned against him, now. “Not badly. I think.”
“Can’t stay here,” he said faintly. “The bomb. Before the bomb. Saw you, Sven.”
“Saw who?”
“Jim. Clown.” He looked as if he was fading. Wednesday leaned toward him. “Sven was here. Wearing a waiter’s—” His eyelids fluttered.
“Make sense! What are you saying?” she hissed, driven by a sense of urgency she didn’t understand. “What do you mean—”
“Svengali. Back. Performer.” His eyes opened. “Got to find Sven.”
“Are you telling me you saw him—” Shock brought Wednesday into focus.
“Yes. Yes. Find him. He’s…” Frank’s eyes closed.
Wednesday waved at a passing guard: “Here!” A head turned. “My friend, concussion. Help?”
“Oh shit, another—” The guard waved one of her colleagues over. “Medic!” Wednesday slid after Frank, torn between a pressing need to see that he was all right and a conviction that she should go look for the clown. Leaving Frank felt wrong, like letting go of her only lifeline to stability. Just an hour ago he’d seemed so solid he could anchor her to the universe, but now everything was in flux. She stumbled toward the side door, her head whirling, guts churning. Her right hand stung, a hot, aching pain. Svengali? She wondered: what could he be doing here? A short passage and another open door brought her weaving and stumbling onto the lawn at the back of the embassy building. Bright light glared down from overhead floods, starkly silhouetting a swarm of cops buzzing around the perimeter like disturbed hornets. Sven? she thought.
She stumbled around the side of the building. A woman blocked her way: “You can’t come—”
“My friend!” She gasped, and pushed past. For some reason, no arms restrained her. Bodies were laid out on the grass under the harsh spotlights, some of them unmoving, others with people in paramedic orange frantically working over them. Other people stood or shambled around in a daze, prodded by a couple of enhanced police dogs that seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than any of the humans. Only a couple of minutes had passed, and the noise of sirens was still getting closer, audible over the ringing in her ears.
She found him squatting on the grass, wearing face cake and a red nose spattered with blood, holding his head in his hands. His costume was a clown’s parody of a snobbish chef’s outfit. “Sven?” She gasped.
He looked up, eyes red, a trickle of blood running from one nostril. “Wed-Wed-”
“We’ve got to go,” she said, trying to think of anything else that wasn’t inane. “We’ll miss our, our…”