"Anthony, Piers- Incarnations of Immortality 1- On a Pale Horse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

There was an exclamation of admiration from the Doe fans, and the Doe cheerleaders went crazy, for an enchantment of obscuration had concealed the foul from the officials. But there was a bleat of purest wrath from the Ewes. They turned, galloped down the field, and tackled Number 69 so hard she flipped endwise in the air and landed in a heap.

Now there was a hush-for 69 did not rise. The team doctor rushed over to examine her.

Abruptly Zane remembered his job. His watch had zeroed, and the arrow pointed at the fallen Doe.

He hurried out, knowing she was done for. He did not even pause: he squeezed between oblivious players, squatted beside the body, and hooked out the soul.

No one seemed to notice. Number 69, who had been quivering as if in terrible pain, relaxed. Now she was dead, and it was a relief, for her neck was broken.

Zane walked away, folding the soul as he went. He knew he should not have allowed himself to be distracted by the game; that was unprofessional. Because of his neglect, the woman had suffered as much as a minute longer than she should have.

Unprofessional? Who was he to fancy himself a professional in this grim business! Still, he did have a job to do, and he might as well do it properly. At the very least, he could do it in a manner that relieved distress, rather than promoted it.

His watch was counting down again. He had five minutes. He hurried to the Death mobile, climbed in, started it, oriented it, and hit the hyper drive button so hard he bruised his finger. Yes, he was angry with himself! He resolved never again to allow extraneous events to divert him from proper attention to his client.

He brought out the two analysis gems to review the new soul, but in his unsettlement he dropped one. By the time he picked it up from the floor, he knew the reading had been invalidated, and he didn't want to start over; there would not be time for a proper job now. He folded the soul away for future handling.

Then, idly, he passed the brown gem down his own body. It glimmered. It was reading his living soul!

Well, why not? The stone was concerned only with the evil in a given soul, not with its state of life or afterlife.

Actually, the soul was eternal; it was only the body that died. With these stones, he could assess the balance of good and evil in any person, living or dead.

How did his own tally stand? Zane knocked his forehead with his hand. He was an idiot to cheek his own soul, since he knew it was fifty-fifty and would remain so until his trial period in this office was done. Like the illegitimate baby, circumstance had locked him in.

Yes, he had reason to do his job well, however unqualified he might be for the office. His soul remained in peril of damnation. He hadn't really worried about that during his normal life, but now that he was sure that Hell was really literal, he cared. He didn't want to go there when he died! All he had to do was a good enough job so that his soul would be slated for Heaven. Then he would not have to fear Eternity, at such time as he got careless and was sent there forcefully.

The car stopped in another parking lot. This appeared to be a school. Zane got out and followed his arrow through the comblike serrations of the building complex. It was class-changing time, and children in the range of ten to twelve were scurrying every which way, generally ignoring both Zane and the posted WALK signs. One boy, however, plunged directly into him, naturally paying no attention to the obstacles in the way of his headlong rush.

The contact was emphatic. Zane suffered a mild lapse of breath. The boy righted himself and looked up. "Gee- Halloween!" he exclaimed. "A skull-face!" Then he zoomed away.

Halloween? Close enough. The lad had seen more accurately than he knew. Perhaps this was a talent of the young.

He passed near a classroom where computers were being described to bored students. The virtues of competing brands were highlighted on posters posted alphabetically around the room. It was good to be part of the computer age; Zane wouldn't mind owning any one of those fine data processors. He understood they could also be used to summon quite powerful demons safely, for a computer never erred in setting up the tricky protective spells required to prevent the supernatural from getting out of hand. But alas, he was now beyond that.

The next classroom dealt with modem technical applications of magic. Its students were equally inattentive; they had little interest in required basics of any type. Here the posters described competitively marketed brands of amulets, love potions, curses, magic mirrors, communication conches, cornucopias, voodoo dolls, mail-order ghosts, sophisticated spell books, and sundry gems of enchantment. Zane knew about those last from personal experience!

He arrived at the cubby that served as the school infirmary. There was another boy the size of the one who had bumped Zane. This boy was deathly ill. Beside him, the school's part-time nurse was on the phone, exasperated. "...can't wait for parental permission," she was saying. "I can never reach them during the day anyway. We need an ambulance-carpet immediately! He's got to get to the hospital before he-"

She paused as her eyes fell on Zane. "Oh, no!" she breathed, setting down the phone. "It's too late, isn't it?"

Zane glanced at the Deathwatch. It was time. "Yes," he said. He reached into the boy and drew out his soul.

The nurse covered her eyes with one hand. "I must be hallucinating," she said brokenly. "It's terrible when they are taken so young."

Zane stood there, the small soul dangling from his hand. He felt guilty. Why should such an innocent child have to die? "I must do my job," he said to the nurse. "But if you would be so kind-please tell me the nature of this boy."

"I must be crazy," she said, looking directly at Zane. "Talking to a delusion. But I will answer. He was the youngest drug addict I've dealt with-well, not the youngest, if you count the potheads, but the worst for this age bracket. He was hooked on anything he could get-coke, heroin, acid, magic dust-anything at all that zonked him out of dull existence. He lied, he stole, he-you know, lured clients to illicit activities-anything to get money for a fix. This time he got something too strong-must have been uncut helldust, and he didn't believe it-and Satan took him in."