"Allston, Aaron - Doc Sidhe 02 - Sidhe-Devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allston Aaron)

Muzzle flares erupted from its passenger side. He returned fire into the driverТs-side windshield, emptying both pistols, hearing thumps and slams strike his own vehicle.
The oncoming car veered left and then right, as though the driver were indecisive about whether to pass Zeb on the right or the left. Then the car leveled off and steered straight at Zeb, and he realized the driver was probably already dead.
Zeb dove clear, hit the pavement with a bone-jarring thump, heard the shrieking collision as tons of metal met violently. . . .




BAEN BOOKS by AARON ALLSTON

Doc Sidhe
Sidhe-Devil


Chapter One
Pistol in hand, Doc ran through the deserted streets of the city of Neckerdam.
The skyscrapers around him looked like the misaligned, broken teeth of some long-dead giant, spikes of black or gray or checkered white-and-green pointing accusingly at the sky.
At the stars. These werenТt the stars Doc knew, not the ones that belonged above the true Neckerdam. That, and the fact that he had not seen one other living soul on the streets, told him he was dreaming.
But was he experiencing a true dream or a sending-dream? The second kind could be meaningful . . . and dangerous.
Ahead, on a street corner, he saw the wanted poster.
Above the text was a picture of Doc, but this was not the sort of picture normally posted on the walls of the city jails. In it, Doc stood in a heroic pose, gun in hand, wearing explorer garb better suited to exploration of the Dark Continent, his shirt ripped, his long snow-white hair flowing in a wind.
The words beneath the picture read, УSought by the Crown, Doctor Desmond MaqqRee of the Sidhe Foundation. Also hight Doc, also hight Doc Sidhe.Ф
There was something missing from the text. Doc shook his head; it was so hard to think in a dream. Then he knew: There should be some specification of charges, some indication of the reward being offered.
He looked up the street and now, where none had been before, his wanted poster was thickly plastered on every wall and light pole.
He heard and felt a grinding from beneath the pavement only a few steps away. Two large bronze plates set into the sidewalk clattered open and the elevator beneath them rose into view.
On it was a bed, a beautiful four-poster of ornately carved hardwood, draped in sheer bed-curtains, with a lavender canopy above. And lounging on the pillows lay Ixyail del Valle, DocТs lover.
She was a small woman, not just in comparison with DocТs generous height, but by any human standard; yet she was well and sleekly muscled like a panther in human form. Her features were delicate, the legacy of royal ancestry from the Old World, but her mouth was broad and generous. Her skin was a light brown, natural to her rather than the result of sunning. Her hair, flowing and glossily black, was far longer than Doc remembered it, as long as the silken nightdress that came barely to her thighs.
She gave him a smile that was all invitation and crooked a finger to summon him.
He took a last look around. There was no sign of an enemy. He felt nothing that indicated this was a sending-dream. He set his pistol down on the concrete and climbed in.
As he passed through the curtains his clothes disappeared. Ixyail seized him, pulling him atop her. This time, she had no need of love-play; she was ready for him, clutching, clawing, her skin hot to the touch. He tore her nightdress from her with a single yank and she drew him into her. She purred a true catТs purr and wrapped herself around him.
Too quickly, he spent. He held and kissed her, tried to form the words to soothe her, to appreciate her. But the words wouldnТt come. He could see from her smile and her eyes that sheТd understood his intent. Yet there was something odd to her eyes, an expression he had never seen in them before, an anxious expectation-she seemed to be asking a question he could not understand and could not answer.
She rolled over so that she was above and he beneath, and said, УIТll return when you are ready again.Ф She slid from atop him and vanished as she passed through the curtains.
Doc tried to follow but found that his wrists and ankles were bound by heavy bronze shackles that held him, splayed, to the bed. He struggled but they were unyielding.
He tried to wake up. But above him the canopy of the four-poster bed remained stubbornly in place.
He looked around, but still there was no one to be seen on the streets of this phantom Neckerdam. Even his wanted posters were missing.
And he wondered if he were dead, gone to some place of afterlife punishment like the one the members of the Carpenter Cult described.
ThatТs when the memory returned to him: the gunman emerging from behind the pillar, his rifle rising into line, aiming at him, firing-

Zeb Watson wondered for the twelfth time where heТd seen the minister before. He also waited for words heТd once been certain he would never hear.
УI now pronounce you husband and wife,Ф the minister said. He peered at the bride and groom over metal-rimmed glasses and waited. УOh. You may kiss the bride.Ф
Harris Greene, the groom, was a lean man, darkly handsome, with features best suited to a cheerful rogue on a TV show; he was dressed in a tuxedo the green of late-summer oak leaves. He took his new wife about the waist and drew her to him. The gesture was theatrical and dashing.
Gaby, the bride, Latina ancestry evident in her coloration and features, had a jaw that suggested stubbornness and alert eyes that spoke of keen intelligence. She wore a wedding dress in a matching green and a wreath of laurel leaves. She smiled at his display as she kissed him.
The crowd in the hotel ballroom applauded, the wedding party joining in.
The couple gave no sign that they were ready to break their clinch. The minister smiled as he stepped around them and past Zeb. He was a young man with a wispy brown beard and mustache and open features suggesting that stress, to him, was nothing but a word in the dictionary. He was dressed in the same style of green tuxedo as the groomТs party. УAttention, please. As soon as we can pry Harris and Gaby apart and get the members of the immediate families up here, weТll start taking wedding pictures. If you can sort of gather in the open spaces, the hotel staff will be able to drag the chairs up against those two walls and get the buffet set up.Ф
Zeb ignored him and kept his attention on Harris and Gaby. They were different from the last time heТd seen them. Six months ago, Harris had been an unsuccessful professional kickboxer, his career spiraling away to nothingness in New York. He and Gaby, a programming director for a UHF station, had been together for a while but signs had not looked good between them. Then something had happened-a neighbor had reported Gaby kidnapped, then sheТd turned up again, then she and Harris had dropped out of sight.
There had been little word from them after the reported kidnapping. Zeb had received a note from Harris saying that all was well and that heТd explain later. The explanation had never come, but a wedding invitation had, eventually. Now Harris and Gaby looked confident, healthy, as happy as Zeb had ever seen them . . . and he still didnТt know why.
Not that Zeb minded a happy ending. He just wished he knew how theyТd gotten there.

At the back of the columned hall, in the last row of the seating devoted to the groomТs guests, Rudi Bergmonk cupped his chin in his hand and decided that he needed a shave. On the other hand, he wasnТt here to impress the wedding attendees with close-shaven elegance. He might have to shoot one of them, in fact. He might have to shoot several of them.
He and his four brothers stood as the rest of the audience did. That cut off their view to the head of the hall; the tallest of them was a head shorter than most of the men present. Rudi knew that this wasnТt the only thing that set them apart, visually; the black suits they wore were badly fitted to their thick-chested, short-legged builds, and all five, unlike the genuine wedding guests, wore gloves.
Albin, the oldest and the only one whose beard was completely gray, said, УI still donТt see him.Ф