"Shadow - 341201 - Back Pages - Grace Culver - Double Chocolate" - читать интересную книгу автора (Brown Roswell)

table, the door, or the bedside stand.
For a silent moment they eyed each other, the disfigured monster shifting his
weight easily from one foot to the other. Grace's breath was uneven. The
unexpectedness and violence of the attack had shaken her badly.
Mockery glittered in his little eyes. Mockery and hatred and something more
vicious, something lethal.
Springing forward quickly, she tried to leap around him to the door. Every
nerve in her body strained forward, toward escape. But his huge hand flashed
up.
Its open palm caught her alongside the head with a slap which echoed wickedly
through the low-ceilinged room. Zigzags of orange light skyrocketed through
the air, and suddenly the place began to whirl about her.
Back against the wall she crashed, the force of the impact sending a sickening
shudder through her body. She felt herself fallingЧfallingЧfallingЧ
She mustn't faint! She must get back on her feet somehow! She must get
through that door, before Jorgen returnedЧwhile there was only one of them to
hold her!
Slowly the room settled. She was on the floor, her knees buckled under her,
her head still ringing. Above her, legs spread, Jorgen's henchman stood ready.
With a sick quiver, Grace lifted one hand to her face. It was wet when she
moved. Wet and red. A little trickle of blood was cutting down her chin, from one
corner of her torn mouth.
"You best not move," Rocco rumbled warningly. "You stay there, safer for
Boss."
She knew it was hopeless. His massive frame loomed like a wall between
her and the door, or any possible weapon.
Minutes throbbed past, desperate, useless. There wasn't anything to do. No
chance of escape.
Suddenly her heart leapedЧonly to fall again.
There were footsteps stamping in the hall outside. The chance of a rescue by
Tim and Jerry had flashed through her mind. ButЧthey wouldn't be approaching
an unknown hideout with so little caution. This wouldn't be help coming.
In that moment of realization, a new and heartbreaking truth occurred to her.
Tim and Jerry couldn't come! They wouldn't know where she was. The outside
of the building, even if they stumbled upon the cul-de-sac, was as hopelessly
pocked with entrances as a rabbit warren. They couldn't find her, even ifЧ
The door slammed open.
"What theЧ"
Rocco, turning, stood aside. In the doorway, Ivan Jorgen paused staring at
her. And, behind him in the passageway, two other figures crowded.
Four of them! Four against her, and no chance of help from the outside!
Grace's heart sank heavily as Jorgen stalked toward her across the wide room,
a sardonic smile flicking the ends of his thin mouth, his eyes gleaming rock hard
beneath their matted black brows.
"SoЧit is Madame with the fondness for vases, is it not?"
His voice was as cold as a knife blade. At his shoulder, the two others moved
into the room. One of them was prematurely gray-haired, and scowling. The
other's bald skull looked like the narrow end of an egg.
The egg-head closed the door behind him.
"And Madame has also a liking for copper plates, perhaps?" Jorgen