Most police work boils down to minimizing the impact on society of stupidity; of the remainder, the overwhelming majority is about malice and deliber… - Charles Stross

Ultimately, it was easier to change the subject than think the unthinkable.

Finally, as if all of that isn’t bad enough, the dead are rising.
This latter item, Alexei thinks, is deeply unfair. He’s a sergeant in Spetsgruppa “V”—a professional, in other words—and when he kills someone professionally he expects them to stay dead. These walking abominations are an insult to his competence.

It’s all he can do to refrain from prayer. God probably doesn’t want to know what he’s doing here this morning, a borderline accomplice to evil in service to a greater cause.