He remembers himsefl more and more as he watches the security logs of the woman that used to be Marta Shearing – she calls herself Rebecca Gordon, owns her new identity with ease. She has shed skin after skin in the two years they've been apart, like a snake (like a taught her to). Remembers that he's been watching over her a long time. That had been the deal: a life for a life.

They say that the first soul mosters drag to hell is the one that haunts them longest, deathless and peaceless, forever. They say that loving shadows, life after life, drives even gods to madness; that death warms in front of lovers ,and that the kiss is immortal, traveling history from lip to lip. Vladimir thinks all this is true, and that time is mistress of all punishmets