"Allston, Aaron - Doc Sidhe 01 - Doc Sidhe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allston Aaron)

УYou know. Whoever you call when people break into your house, try to kill you, and get killed. They come, they arrest people, there are trials . . . Police.Ф
Doc nodded and stood. УI have a commission with the Novimagos Guard by special order of the King. By extension, so do my associates. So in a sense, we are the . . . police. Proper forms are being observed.Ф
УThat makes me feel so much better.Ф
УEveryone, change for the street. Alastair, get Harris some appropriate clothes. We need to find the place where Harris arrived.Ф

Alastair took Harris up two floors by back stairways to a small, bare bedroom. The room was dusty and had a fan mounted on a swivel bracket on the wall. The anonymity of the furnishings gave the place the feel of a hotel room. However, its closet was stuffed full of menТs and womenТs garments in various sizes, and in a few minutes Alastair had found him an outfit to replace his torn, smoke-stained clothes.
Harris looked dubiously at the black leather shoes, long-sleeved white shirt, silk boxer shorts, and gray two-piece suit with a lace-edged handkerchief in the breast pocket. The clothing was dated, with the jacketТs wide lapels and trousersТ high waistline, but not too garish, if you overlooked the two-tone red-and-green suspenders and matching tie.
In the attached bathroom, Harris shucked the baggy brown pants theyТd given him minutes ago, then stooped to pull on the new pair. He moved carefully; it wouldnТt do to make his injury any worse.
Wait a second. HeТd kicked the guts out of the man with the submachine gun and hadnТt even felt the wound pull. Adrenaline and painkillers could only mask so much; heТd have felt additional injury after he started to wind down. Curious, he unwrapped AlastairТs bandage from his thigh.
His wound was gone.
Where AdonisТ claws had torn open his flesh, angry red marks remained, like scars left from an injury that had been healing for days. They hurt when he pressed hard on them, but gave him no trouble otherwise.
He sighed. It really was no use getting upset over strange things anymore, so he pulled on his new underwear and trousers. УAlastair?Ф
The doctor called through the door, УYes?Ф
УWhat exactly did you do to me?Ф
AlastairТs chuckle was faint but unmistakable. УThatched you, of course. A good mending. You took to it well. Which reminds me, youТll be ravenous in a bell or two. How does it look?Ф
УGreat. Like itТs been weeks since I scrapped with something with teeth and claws.Ф
УGood. DonТt strain that leg for a few days unless you absolutely have to. Though if you decide you have to СscrapТ again with Jean-Pierre, IТll allow it . . . provided you let me watch. Oh, and something else.Ф
УYes?Ф
УDonТt bring any silver against that wound. YouТd hate to see it spring open again.Ф

They returned to the lab just as brown-clothed workmen carried out the last of the dead assassins on a stretcher. The living attackers were already gone, and more men were at work with mops on the bloody patches of floor.
Doc stood in the center of the room, the lead assassinТs volt-meter in his hand, and looked up as Harris and Alastair entered. He indicated the volt-meter. УHarris, itТs you they wanted. This little device let me follow your movements to within a few paces.Ф
УOh, great. Does that mean I have a radio on me?Ф Seeing DocТs blank look, he explained, УAm I carrying some gizmo that this thing can trace?Ф
УNo. It follows you. Probably the charge of energy Alastair sees as an aura around you.Ф He closed his right eye and widened his left to look at Harris. УI can see it a little, too. WeТll have to subject you to some tests when we return.Ф
УHow do you know Gaby?Ф
Doc hesitated. УIТve actually never met her in the flesh. A few years ago, she started calling me on the talk-box. Always with hints and clues. News about what the crime gangs were doing. Sometimes things they were planning to do to me. She never told me how she learned them. SheТs never told me about herself.Ф He shrugged. УAnd now you come with her cameo in your pack . . . and she seems not to recognize you.Ф
УI canТt explain that part.Ф
УWeТll think on it later. For now, we need to begin our search.Ф
Noriko, a yellow topcoat thrown over her clothes, straightened up from the television set. УNot so. Harris appeared at Six Heinzlin Corners, Brambleton South.Ф
Doc gave her a curious look. УHow do you know?Ф
УI called to Civic Hall on the talk-box and asked if anyone had reported a damaged walkway in a good neighborhood.Ф
Doc looked pained. УAngus PowrieТs attack. If I had been thinking . . . Ф
УThey said there was. And that there was blood on the walk not far away. Workmen will fix it all tomorrow.Ф
УAfter we look at it.Ф
Harris gave Noriko a disbelieving look. УYour city hall is open at this hour?Ф
УOf course. Why not?Ф
УBecause it would be too convenient?Ф

DocТs private elevator took them down to floor level and below, to a spacious basement garage filled with cars. All of them were the antiques Harris had come to expect, but they were otherwise of every imaginable type and color: a long, low two-seat roadster in an abusive glowing orange, a slab-sided panel truck in a shade of drab green Harris was already thinking of as comparatively inconspicuous, a pair of matching black-and-silver motorcycles, a long red monstrosity of a car with a decadently comfortable-looking interior, perhaps a dozen more cars in all. They settled on Jean-PierreТs black-and-gold sedan, and the pale-faced, dark-haired mechanic on dutyЧJean-Pierre introduced him as Fergus BootblackЧtold them that it was fueled and ready.
Jean-Pierre drove them up the ramp out of the garage and onto the still-busy street with a disregard for traffic and the laws of physics that Harris found unsettling.
Ten minutes later, they were parked outside the walled estate Harris had fled earlier that night. There was the hole in the sidewalk made by Angus Powrie; there were the gates . . . hanging open.
And half an hour after that, as the sun began to send tentative shafts of light slanting between the tall buildings, Harris and the others prowled around the estateТs mansion. They looked at furniture long stored under dusty sheets and moved through echoingly empty rooms.
УHasnТt been lived in for months,Ф Alastair said. He and Harris, in the kitchen, peered into the empty walk-in pantry and saw nothing but memories of crumbs. УI wager your friends hired it from the homelord, or moved in when he wasnТt looking. When you got away, they fled.Ф
УSo whatТs that ex-in-a-circle thing out on the front lawn?Ф
УA conjurerТs circle.Ф
УThatТs what you called the circle in your lab. The thing with the paint.Ф
Alastair nodded. УSame principle. Same use. There are always two: one here, one there. What starts in oneЧФ
УЧ ends up in the other. I get it. I did it.Ф Harris paused, worrying briefly about how easy it was for him to speak the language of the impossible when he was confronted with it. УAlastair, the other one of the circle out there is where IТm from, and thatТs an awful long way away.Ф
УYou want to return.Ф
УRight now. No offense. I have to find Gaby.Ф