"P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 07 - A Chill In The Blood" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

"Still aboard the yacht, I think."
He merely nodded. "Who knows, perhaps I can recover it some day."

Escort's got a dark streak in him and it's icy like the lake. Once in a while I run into it. The encounters
don't always leave me in a cheerful mood, and I was feeling rotten enough already.

"Are you really all right?" he asked, looking at me as closely as his good eye allowed.

What was making me sick was remembering thefeel of Chaven's death, not the sound, though that must
have been loud enough when the Webley I'd turned on him went off and shot out the artery in his throat. I
remembered his hot blood bursting forth, striking me, coating me, the weightless, screaming instant as we
both fell into the water and the sudden hellish silence that followed when freezing death closed over my
head.

"Jack?"

I huffed out something that was meant to be a laugh but failed. "I guess so," I said, lying. I looked down
at my clothes, but the lake must have washed them clean. Too bad it couldn't have done as much with my
memory. Turning someone alive into someone dead, even scum like Chaven, made for a black ache
inside that no doctor could ever fix. This nightmare would be living with me for a while yet.

"Then what?' asked Coldfield, wanting me back on the subject.

"Then I jumped ship and swam for my life."

"You outta your mind, kid."

"I didn't have a lot of choice. There was another guy there, Deiter, he was all ready to ace me. Between
him and the lake I figured I had a better chance in the water." That was total falsehood. Deiter had been
too shit scared to even think of shooting, and my ending up in the drink had been a mix of accident and
bad luck. Never mind the cold, that's the least of it; because of my supernatural condition free-flowing
water and I just don't mix. It's bigger than me and infinitely stronger. If I'd not been able to vanish and
float up over the surface soon after going under, it would have been fatal. And that's vanish, not turn into
a mist. Another handy talent of mine, but exhausting.

"Deiter, you said?"

"That's what they called him. One of Kyler's boys. His job was to bump off Gordy so Kyler could take
over his part of the town, then cut a deal with the New York bosses. With Gordy's rackets in hand he
could up their take by five percent and keep the rest. Of course, that was before he got dead. Chaven's
not here to pick up the reins, and now I don't know what they're going to do."

"Holy shit." He glanced at Escott, who was shaking his head. "This town's gonna blow wide open once
word gets out. Without Kyler to take over Paco's territoryтАФ"

"Hey, don't forget Angela," I added.

"What can she do? There ain't a wiseguy in the town who'd let himself be bossed by a woman."

"She's more of a girl, but don't underestimate her. She's using her father as a front man, that's why she