"Charles L. Grant - Oxrun Station 05 - Bloodwind" - читать интересную книгу автора (Grant Charles L)

The Wind
It grumbled and shrieked behind her, magnified by the quarry's throat. She turned, not wanting to turn, seeing the
pillar of snow rise above the quarry, seeing within it a creature of deep red still masked by the white.
A flare, then. An eye. The vague outline of a head turning like a beacon; turning, stopping, and she knew it had
seen her.
It bellowed.
She screamed.
 1


The end of January, the middle of winter, and the silence they brought to Oxrun Station. There were greys
and there were blacks, and there were crusted harsh whites; colors sharp and accentuated that would have
been lost in the explosion of spring. Stormclouds gath-ered less arrogantly here than they did in late
summer, wisping instead of marching, creeping to an overcast like a slow congealing web. A wretched wan
sun sub-dued and fading, and dawn little more than a kitchen clock's whirring.
And the cold. There was always the cold. A whipcrack against the forehead, a razor along the cheek.
Exposed to it too long and there was a pressure at the temples that made your cheeks ache, a ratlike
insinuation wher-ever clothes were not clinging. It hardened the pave-ment to jolt the ankles, made brittle
the trees to slice at the sky; it intensified sounds to the point of distant screaming; it invigorated and
wearied, brought clarity and black ice, and settled in the eaves to make a house groan with age.
It burgeoned and surged, and it seeped through the windows without benefit of a wind to swirl over the
floor in serpentine draughts.
Pat felt them and shivered, scowling at the intrusion and pleased at the assistance in driving back sleep.
She sat slumped on the edge of her high-canopy bed and gripped the back of her neck as if it were
necessary to keep her head in place. Her lips were pursed, her breath a soft whistle. For a moment she
listened to the faint thud of rock music billowing up from below, could feel through the shag carpeting the
rippling vibrations against her bare soles. But only for a moment. When she felt she could move without
shattering like glass she grim-aced and shuddered, finally willed herself to stand. Swayed until she balanced,
and dropped her nightgown to the bed.
"God," she muttered, and pressed a knuckle to her eyes.
A gasping at the firestars, a deep breath for courage, and she walked gingerly into the bathroom, her
tongue trying to wipe the fuzz from her teeth. Again her hand snaked to the back of her neck, and she
smiled weakly at her reflection in the ceiling-high mirror, her bare hip pressed lightly against the
swirled-marble counter. A shake of her head. A tsking, and a finger aimed in mock admonition for the
excesses of the previous eve-ning, and the physical damage sullenly on view. It could have been worse, she
thought then, leaning closer and sighing. At least her hair was kept shortтАФa quick brush with fingers or
bristles through the almost irides-cent black and she looked virtually normal.
Still closer, and she winced. Normal, that is, except for the eyes. They were of a dark and deep blue
when the light was clear and she was smiling, hard and obsidian shortly after sunset. The corners were
slightly pinched, the lids heavily lashed, and they gave her a pronounced Eurasian cast when she narrowed
them in anger.
Now they were bloodshot, light-sensitive and accusing.
All right, she thought with a conciliatory palm up-raised; all right, all right.
She retreated a few paces from the counter and set her hands on her hips. Not too shabby for thirty-nine
and terminally lazy, she decided, tucking her chin to her shoulder and winking at the reflection. A slight
bulging around the waist, a small protrusion at the belly, but nothing drastic like the sagging of her breasts or
extra lumpy padding around her slender thighs. She suspected she might be able to stand some exercise
now and again, and she definitely had to curtail her drinking. Before she knew it there'd be horrid red veins
lacing her pug nose, pouches would begin nesting at the crest of her high cheeks, and the once-cherubic
jawline would descend slowly to jowls. It was, in fact, precisely the way her mother looked now, and she