"Linda Evans - Time Scout 2 - Wages of Sin" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

just left the warehouse disappeared around a street corner.
Lupus emerged slowly from behind the humble limestone countertop, glancing
from the closed warehouse door to the street corner and back. Then he tried
the door. It wasn't locked. Someone had left a lamp burning; the shop owner
must mean to return shortly, else he'd have blown out the lamp. Lupus searched
the room thoroughly, if somewhat hastily, but found absolutely no trace of the
forty-odd people who had entered this room moments earlier. Nor could he find
a doorway or hidden trap in the floor. The room was absolutely empty, save for
racks of dusty amphorae. The nearest of those, shaken gently, proved to be
full.
Standing in the center of the deserted room, Lupus Mortiferus felt an
unaccustomed trickle of fear run up his spine. His quarry had vanished,
apparently into thin air, taking Lupus' hard-won money with him. Lupus swore
softly, then returned the amphora to its place in the rack, turned on his
heel, and strode out again. He would discover the secret of that wine shop.
The people who came and went from it had to come through somehow, as they were
not spirits from the underworld, but flesh-and-blood men and women. And since
Lupus-superstitious though he might be-did not believe in outright magic, he
would find that way through. All he had to do was follow the next group more
closely.
And once through.. .
Lupus Mortiferus, the "Wolf of Death" of Rome's great Circus, smiled
cruelly in the starlight. "Soon," he promised the thief. "Soon, your belly
will meet my blade. I think you will find little enough stomach for my
revenge-but my steel will find more than enough of your stomach."
Laughing darkly at his own joke, Lupus Mortiferus strode away into the
night.
Gate days always packed in the customers at the Down Time Bar & Grill. With
the Porta Romae cycling, Marcus had all he could handle keeping up with drink
tabs and calling sandwich orders to Molly. The clink of glassware and the
smell of alcohol permeated the dim-lit interior as thickly as the roar of
voices, some of them bragging about what they'd done/seen/heard downtime and
others drowning whatever it was that had shaken them to the core and yet
others denying that anything at all was bothering them.
All in all, it was a pretty normal gate day. Marcus delivered a tray full
of drinks to a table where Kit Carson and Malcolm Moore were sharing tall
tales with Rachel Eisenstein. The time terminal's physician wasn't taken in by
either man, but she was clearly having a good time pretending to believe the
world's most famous time scout and La-La Land's most experienced freelance
time guide. Marcus smiled, warmed more by their welcoming smiles than their
more-than-generous tips, then moved on to the back room, shimmying skillfully
between pool players intent on their games, to a corner where Goldie Morran
was deeply involved in a high-stakes poker match with Brian Hendrickson.
Marcus knew that look in Goldie's eyes. He held in a shiver. She must be
losing-heavily. Brian Hendrickson's face gave away nothing, but the pile of
money on his side of the table was a good bit larger than the pile on
Goldie's. Several interested onlookers watched silently. Goldie (who somehow
reminded Marcus unpleasantly of a certain haughty patrician lady a former
master had visited on carefully arranged assignations), glanced from her hand
to meet Brian's steady regard. Her lip curled slightly, sure of him. "Call."