"Simon R. Green - Nightside 2 - Angels of Light and Darkness" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

because he doesn't have to. He doesn't approve of lone operatives like me, but he throws me
the odd job occasionally, because no-one else can do the things I can. And because as far as
he's concerned, I am entirely expendable.
Which is why I make him pay through the nose for those jobs.
I can find anything. It's a gift. From my dear departed mother, who turned out not to be
human. She's really not dead; that's just wishful thinking on my part.
Anyway, I found what Jessica Sorrow was looking for, and now it lay in the shoe box I was
crushing t my chest. She knew it was here, and she was coming to get it. My job was to
present it to her in exactly the right way, so that it would defuse her anger and send her back
to wherever she went when she wasn't scaring the crap out of the rest of us. Assuming, of
course, that I had found the right thing. And that she didn't just storm right in and unbelieve
me out of existence. She was outside the church now. The solid flagstones under my feet
vibrated strongly, echoing to the tread of her approaching feet, crashing down heavily on the
world she refused to believe in. All the candle flames were dancing wildly, and the shadows
leapt around me, as though they were frightened too. My mouth was very dry, and my hands
were crushing the shoe box out of shape. I made myself put it down on the pew, then
straightened up and thrust my hands deep into my coat pockets. Looking casual was out of the
question, but I couldn't afford to seem weak or indecisive in the presence of Jessica Sorrow
the Unbeliever. I had hoped that St. Jude's accumulated centuries of faith and sanctity would
offer me some protection against the force of Jessica's unbelief, but I wasn't so sure about that
any more. She was coming, like a storm, like a tidal wave, like some implacable force of
nature that would sweep me effortlessly aside in a moment. She was coining, like cancer or
depression, and all the other things that cannot be denied or negotiated with. She was the
Unbeliever, and compared to that St. Jude's was nothing and I wa nothing ... I took a deep
breath, and held my head up. To hell with that. I was John Taylor, dammit, and I'd talked my
way out of worse scrapes than this. I'd make her believe in me.
The heavy oaken door was reinforced with heavy bands of black iron. It must have weighed
five hundred pounds, easy. It didn't even slow Jessica down. Her thunderous feet marched
right up to the door, then her fingers plunged through the thick wood and tore it like cloth.
The whole door came apart in her hands, and she walked through it like a hanging curtain.
She came striding down the aisle towards me, naked and emaciated and corpse pale, the
heavy flagstones exploding under the tread of her bare feet. Her eyes were wide and staring,
as focussed as a feral cat's, and as impersonal. Her thin lips were stretched wide in something
that was as much a snarl as a smile. She had no hair, her face was as drawn and gaunt as the
rest of her, and her eyes were yellow as urine. But there was a force to her, a terrible energy
that drove her on even as it ate her up. I held my ground, giving her back glare for glare, until
finally she crashed to a halt right in front of me. She smelled... bad, like something that had
spoiled. Her eyes didn't blink, and her breathing was unsteady, as though it was something
she had to keep reminding herself to do. She was hardly five feet tall, but she seemed to tower
over me. I could feel my thoughts and plans disintegrating in my head, blown away b the
sheer force of her presence. I made myself smile at her.
"Hello, Jessica. You're looking... very yourself. I have what you need."
"How can you know what I need?" she said, in a voice that was frightening because it was so
nearly normal. "How can you, when I don't know myself?"
"Because I'm John Taylor, and I find things. I found what you need. But you have to believe
in me, or you'll never get what I have for you. If I just disappear, you'll never know ..."
"Show me," she said, and I knew I'd pushed it as far as I could. I reached carefully down into
the pew, picked up the shoe box, and presented it to her. She snatched it from me, and the
cardboard box disintegrated under her gaze, revealing the contents. A battered old teddy bear
with one glass eye missing. Jessica Sorrow held the bear in her dead white hands, looking and