Time passed.
     He was fifteen again, discount uggs for women and his mother was dying, and she was trying to tell him something very important, and he couldn't understand her. He moved in his sleep and a shaft of pain moved him from half-sleep to half-waking, and he winced.
     Shadow shivered under the thin blanket. His right arm covered his eyes, blocking out the light of the bulb. He wondered whether Wednesday and the others were still at liberty, if they were even still alive. He hoped that they were.
     The silver dollar remained cold discount uggs for women in his left hand. He could feel it there, as it had been during the beating. He wondered idly why it did not warm to his body temperature. Half asleep, now, and half delirious, the coin, and the idea of Liberty, and the moon, and Zorya Polunochnaya somehow became intertwined in one woven beam of silver light that shone from the depths to the heavens, and he rode the silver beam up and away from the pain and uggs discount the heartache and the fear, away from the pain and, blessedly, back into dreams.
     From far away he could hear some kind of noise, but it was too late to think about it: he belonged to sleep now. A half-thought: he hoped it was not people coming to wake him up, to hit him or to shout at him. And then, he noticed with pleasure, he was really asleep, and no longer cold.
     Somebody somewhere was calling for help, loudly, discount uggs for women in his dream or out of it.
     Shadow rolled over on the foam rubber, in his sleep, finding new places that hurt as he rolled.
     Someone was shaking his shoulder.
     He wanted to ask them not to wake him, to let him sleep and leave him be, but it came out as a grunt.
     "Puppy?" said Laura. "You have to wake up. Please wake up, hon."
     And there was a moment's gentle relief. He had had such a strange dream, of prisons and ugg boots for 2012 con men and down-at-heel gods, and now Laura was waking him to tell him it was time for work, and perhaps there would be time enough before work to steal some coffee and a kiss, or more than a kiss; and he put out his hand to touch her.
     Her flesh was cold as ice, and sticky.
     Shadow opened his eyes.
     "Where did all the blood come from?" he asked.