The Countess and the Salon

Varrio passed the night after Brenner’s death without sleep, hounded by the man’s confused face and the angle of his broken neck. When he finally drifted off near four, he dreamed of a room beneath the earth where brass pipes breathed with human lungs. The murder left its mark: from then on, a sudden sound or an unexpected touch could lock him rigid, staring at nothing, lost to the world for long seconds at a stretch.