Free The Last Hiccup by Christopher Meades Page A

She was surrounded by a thicket of Moscow’s elite, nearly two hundred of them now, all in formal attire, all out for an evening when Sergei had been expected to remain home in his bed, stewing about those who’d done him wrong. In his heart, he questioned whether he truly had the gumption to thrust the fruit punch on them. He’d lived his whole life strictly abiding by society’s rules. That hadn’t changed yet. Were he to set the bowl down, he still might be able to use his considerable charm to make light of the situation, to elicit a laugh from the swarming mass and perhaps even ingratiate himself with his hosts. It wasn’t too late to turn back. Sergei could exit of his own accord. He could leave Alexander and Asenka to canoodle together in front of these bastards and he would be none the worse off. Yes, Sergei could have left with his dignity intact.
    But what good is dignity when it is coated in regret?
    In one fluid motion, Sergei raised the bowl to the rafters and dumped its entire contents over Asenka’s pure white gown. He conked her over the head with the bowl for good measure. She screamed a bloody scream and then collapsed. Her dress turned red, pink and orange in splotches. Ice cubes tumbled into her bosom. Sergei stood above her triumphantly, his hands raised in a V, a jubilant smile stretched from ear to ear.
    One second passed and then two. Then Sergei was tackled, his face planted into the ground. A mêlée ensued in which Sergei — kicking, screaming and even biting — was dragged out of the Isirk Ballroom.

    Alexander stood over an ailing Asenka. He thought not about her welfare, nor the ultimate disgrace of his rival. Beside him, tracked across the marble floor, were the birdlike paw prints of the world’s smallest dog. Alexander knew he would be charged with retrieving the animal from whatever fat lady’s gown it had sought sanctuary under. Only he couldn’t manage to organize his thoughts well enough to begin the search. Inevitably, he kept returning to the same thought over and over again. It loitered in his mind, slowly pressing against the forefront of his skull.
    Vladimir. The boy with the tragic case of the hiccups. Sergei had said the child wasn’t insane. It was something much worse. What could it be? What was it, Alexander wondered, that made Sergei storm in here like a madman? What was this evil that lurked beneath the surface of the young boy?

seven
    Alexander Afiniganov had long been a man of action. Alternately stern and callous, he had a reputation for lapses into ill-temperament. Quick was his rise to ire when he had the occasion to contend with fools and slow was his patience when confronted by those not matching his superior intellect. Unlike Sergei, Alexander wasn’t tortured by personal demons. From the moment he lay his head on his pillow at night until the moment he woke in the morning, he slept the peaceful sleep of a man content with his role in this world. To those who hardly knew him, Alexander was an acerbic character, obsessed with his own brilliance and incapable of regard for the feelings of others. To those who knew him well, he was not only short-tempered and inconsiderate but also conceited and utterly humorless.
    Above all things, Alexander was self-aware. He knew others were afraid to socialize with him in the hospital cafeteria and reluctant to seek his professional advice for fear of being disparaged were they even slightly mistaken in their diagnosis. Rather than dissuade his peers of this notion, Alexander did everything in his power to encourage his reputation as a difficult, gifted intellectual. In his heart he knew that when stripped of all the social baggage and cleansed of his brusque demeanor, Alexander Afiniganov was a compassionate man who did what needed to be done.
    No more obvious was his empathy than when his rival was dragged by his heels out of the Isirk Ballroom. Alexander felt for Sergei