"Effinger, George Alec - Maureen Birnbaum 03 - Maureen Birnbaum at the Looming Awfulness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Effinger George Alec)

"What is it? What's it mean? You got a counter-spell?"

I couldn't see Rod, but his voice was sad. "No," he goes. "Unfortunately, it's
in the one Aramaic dialect I neglected in my studies. Wouldn't you just know
it?"

"Great," I muttered through my clenched teeth.

Onward Sandy came. Further back the floating paisleys pressed us. I could feel
the low wall of the gruesome well against my legs. Rod and I retreated further.
"Help me, Rod!" I go.

At about this very moment, Rod decided he'd had enough, and he de-invited
himself from the remainder of this confrontation. I did not hold it against the
dear young man. This may have been his first meeting with such an onslaught of
demonic activity, and he did not have either the experience or the fierce
determination that I had.

Further into the gloom we stumbled. I felt a single moment of despair, and then
suddenly I knew just what to do, as usual. I understood that I had to capture
Courane's attention, and I had to appeal to the small crumb of human
intelligence that still remained to him, unsullied by the dire alien influences.

"Sandy," I go, "paisley! Think paisley! I know what you're trying to tell us. If
you concentrate, I know I can pull you out of this horrible mind-control."

"Yeah?" goes Rod.

I ignored him for the moment. "Sandy, think about your paisley ties! Think Ivy
League, think crocodiles, think Lacoste shirts! Think Branford! Above all, think
Yale!"

Courane roared and staggered back. He brought his twisted, knotted hands to his
face, and he fell to one knee.

"I think you're on the right track, Maureen," goes Rod.

"You bet." I swung Old Betsy low, and she whanged off the fetid stone of the
glowing green well. Sandy's eyes opened a little wider, and he crawled back
another short distance.

"Remember the Clock at the Biltmore!" It still existed in this time, I knew.
"Think L.L. Bean, Sandy! And will Great Cthulhu supply you with gin and tonics?
I think not!" He was on both knees now, clawing at me either in supplication or
in a fevered, fiendish attempt to rip open my throat. I wish you'd seen me,
Bitsy. I was like stupendous.

"You think you'll get into a super-secret senior society like Skull and Bones
like this, Sandy?" I go. Well, maybe he could.