"P. N. Elrod - Vampire Files 09 - Lady Crymsyn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elrod P N)

"You need to eat." It wasn't just his face that was lean. When he got busy on a case Escott sometimes
forgot about food unless someone bothered to remind him. He didn't have a lot of friends, so that job
usually fell to me. Besides, something was going wrong with the most important new thing in my life, and I
didn't want to sit around waiting for him to finish his feed bag.

And damned if he didn't seem to read my mind. "I'll have ingested sufficient nourishment by the time
you've finished changing, unless you plan to establish a truly informal atmosphere to the site by appearing
in such attire."

I gave him a brief sour smile, then vanished between one eyeblink and the next to go upstairs for clothes.
He must have expected the move, for I didn't get his usual comment of "damn" in reaction. Show-off
antics like that nearly always got some kind of rise from him. I only did it now to divert myself from the
gut-sinking idea that he was probably right.

This was post-Prohibition Chicago and still reeling from the aftermath of Big Al's near-uncontested reign.
The old building I'd picked to house what would become Lady Crymsyn had a violent history; it'd be
strange if there wasn't a nasty surprise in the cellar.



The creation of my own swank nightclub represented a lot more to me than just an interesting way to
provide steady earnings for decades to come. It meant that for once I'd deliberately chosen a path for
myself, not simply stumbled along on those created for me by the needs of others.

You see, unaware of committing my worst crime against myself, I'd wasted my first life.

I'd drifted, one year to the next, assuming I was in charge of my destiny until a murderous beating and a
gangster's bullet put an abrupt stop to such foolish thinking. There it should have ended, my
disappearance an open mystery to my distant family, but of no concern to anyone else, least of all to the
men who'd killed me.

But much to their appalled surprise my weighted carcass didn't stay where they'd dropped it in the cold
depths of Lake Michigan. The one good thing that had happened to me during that wasted life wouldn't
leave me in such grim peace. I returned to the world of the living, confused and fired by rage, a dark
rebirth attended by blood, madness, and, finally, no small amount of revenge. My killers were dead or
the next thing to it; I was aliveтАФor the next thing to itтАФand it was time for me to cease drifting and move
forward.

And for once it would be on my own terms.
Not that God or Fate or whatever you believe in is stingy with second chances. Those are all around us,
only we're too distracted to notice them. Most of the time they're a lot more mundane than the special
one I'd been handed.

Mine had to do with being a card-carrying, dusk-to-dawn, stake-in-the-heart,
you're-damn-right-I-drink-blood vampire.

It was a hell of a resurrection, but not so bad once I got used to things.

And since then I'd done rather well for myself.