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

Skeeter Jackson couldn't.
In that moment, Marcus felt a loathing of Goldie Morran he couldn't begin
to put into words. He turned away, busying himself behind the bar, as Brian
Hendrickson finished laying down the rules. He didn't notice when Goldie left.
But when he glanced around the room and failed to find her, the relief that
flooded through him left him weak-kneed. Conversation roared to a crescendo
and he was so busy serving drinks, he didn't see Skeeter leaving either. He
swallowed hard, sorry for the lost opportunity to speak with his friend, but
he still had work to do.
So, very quietly, Marcus served drinks, collected bar tabs, and stuffed
tips into his jeans, all the while worrying about the fate of his one good
friend in all the world-or time.

CHAPTER FOUR
Lupus Mortiferus had not survived a hundred combats in the Roman arena by
giving up easily. He waited from the Kalends of the month until a single day
remained before the Ides, either he or his slave following the strangers who
had emerged from that wine shop on the Via Appia in the middle of the night.
Lupus watched men, women, quarrelsome children, and puckish teens gawk at
marble temples, enter brothels with erect-phallus signs poking out of the
sides of dingy brick buildings, or file excitedly into the circus to watch the
racing and the combats.
For all that time, nearly half the lunar month, Lupus bided his time and
whetted the edge on his gladius as sharp as he whetted his desire for revenge.
He endured stoically the jokes and jibes that still continued. A few of the
jokesters took their jests to the grave, blood and entrails spilling on the
sands of the arena while the crowd roared like a thousand summer thunderstorms
in his ears.
And then, the waiting was done.
They left in the middle of the night, as before, slaves showing the way
with lanterns. Following them was ridiculously easy. Lupus ordered his slave
home and slipped from one shadowed shopfront to another, booted feet soundless
on the stone paving of the sidewalk. Several of the young men had clearly
drunk too much; they reeled, clutching at slaves or at one another, and tried
to keep up. As the group approached the wine shop on the Via Appia, Lupus
quietly insinuated himself into the group, hanging near the back.
A slave near the front called out something in a barbarous tongue. The
group entered the wineshop by twos and threes. Lupus noted uneasily that the
slaves assigned to guard the group were carefully taking count of those who
passed into the shop's warehouse. Just when he feared discovery, one of the
young men near him began to void the contents of his alcohol-saturated
stomach. Lupus hid a grin. Perfect! Slaves converged on the boy, holding his
head and trying to urge him forward. The sight and smell of the boy's vomit
triggered a chain reaction amongst the drunken youths. Another boy spewed as
he stumbled into the warehouse. Lupus took his arm solicitously, earning a
smile of gratitude from a harried woman wearing a slave's collar.
Elated, Lupus dragged the sick youngster into a corner and let him throw up
the wine and sweetmeats he'd obviously gorged on during the day. Yet another
boy in the group began to throw up. Women in stylish gowns moved away, holding
their breath. Frowns of disgust wrinkled painted lips and manicured brows. A