"Nicola Griffith - Slow River & A Troll Story" - читать интересную книгу автора (Griffith Nicola)

She remembered the smell of rain on the farm implements rusting by a wall, and the panic. The panic as
she thought,This is it. They're going to kill me. And the absolute determination to fight one last time, the
way the metallic blanket had felt as it slid off her shoulders, how she pushed the man by her side,
dropped the cold, thin spike of metal into her palm and turned. Remembered the look on his face as his
eyes met hers, as heknew she was going to kill him, as sheknew she was going to shove the sharp metal
into his throat, and she did. She remembered the tight gurgle as he fell, pulling her with him, crashing into
a pile of metal. The ancient plough blade opening her own back from shoulder to lumbar vertebrae. The
shouting of the other man as he jumped from the van, stumbling on the cobbles, pulling her up, checking
the man on the ground, shouting, "You killed him you stupid bitch, you killed him!" The way her body
would not work, would not obey her urge to run; how he pushed her roughly into the van and slammed
the doors. And her blood, dripping on the plasthene sheet; thinking,Oh, so that's what it's for.
Remembered him telling the van where to go, the blood on his hands. The way he cursed her for a fool:
hadn't she known they were letting her go? But she hadn't. She thought they were going to kill her. And
then the sad look, the way he shook his head and said: Sorry, but you've forced me to do this and at
least you won't feel any pain... And the panic again; scrabbling blindly at the handle behind her; the door
falling open. She remembered beginning the slow tumble backward, the simultaneous flooding sting of the
nasal drug that should have been fatal...

But she was alive. Alive enough to sit in the rain, skin stained with pictures of herself, and remember
everything.

A taxi hummed past.

She did not call out, but she was not sure if that was because she was too weak, or because she was
afraid. The taxi driver might recognize her. He would know what they had done to her. He would have
seen it. Everyone would have seen it. They would look at her and know. She could not call her family.
They had all seen her suffer, too. Every time they looked at her they would see the pictures, and she
would see them seeing it, and she would wonder why they had not paid her ransom.

Her hair was plastered to her head. The rain sheeted down. She crawled into a doorway, realized she
was whimpering. She had to be quiet, she had to hide. She had to lose herself. Think. What would give
her away? She pulled herself up to her knees and tried to look at her reflection in the shop window, but
the rain made it impossible. She scrabbled around in the corners of the doorway until the dirt there turned
to mud on her wet hands. She smeared the mud onto her hair. After thirty days, the nanomechs coloring
her head and body hair would be dying off and the natural gray would be showing. Only the very few, the
very rich wore naturally gray hair. What else? Her Personal Identity, DNA and Account insert. But when
she held out her left hand to the fiickers of light flashing in the doorway she saw the angry red scar on the
webbing between her thumb and index finger. Of course - the kidnappers would have removed the
PIDA on the first day to prevent a trace.

She was alone, hurt, and moneyless. She needed help but was afraid to find it.

It was almost dawn before she heard footsteps. She peered around the doorway. A woman, with dark
blond hair tucked into the collar of a big coat, walking with a night step: easy, but wary. One hand in her
pocket.
"Help me."

Her voice was just a whisper and Lore thought the woman had not heard, but she slowed, then stopped.
"Come out where I can see you." The kind of voice Lore had never heard before: light and quick and
probably dangerous.