"Barbara Hambly - James Asher 1 - Those Who Hunt The Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hambly Barbara)

American Navy Colt stowed in the drawer of his desk; if one were a lecturer in philology, of course, one
couldn't keep a revolver in one's greatcoat pocket. The other dons would certainly talk.

He made his way up the back stairs from the kitchen. From its unob-trusive door at the far end of the
hall he could see no one waiting for him at the top of the front stairs, but that meant nothing. The door of
the upstairs parlor gaped like a dark mouth. From the study, a bar of dimmed gold light lay across the
carpet like a dropped scarf.

Conscious of the weight of his body on the floor, he moved a few steps forward, close to the wall. By
angling his head, he could see a wedge of the room beyond. The divan had been deliberately dragged
around to a position in which it would be visible from the hall. Lydia lay on the worn green cushions, her
hair unraveled in a great pottery-red coil to the floor. On her breast her long, capable hand was curled
protectively around her spectacles, as if she'd taken them off to rest her eyes for a moment; without them,
her face looked thin and unprotected in sleep. Only the faint movement of her small breasts beneath the
smoky lace of a trailing tea gown showed him she lived at all.

The room was set up as a trap, he thought with the business portion of his mind. Someone waited inside
for him to go rushing in at first sight of her, as indeed his every instinct cried out to him to do . . .

"Come in, Dr. Asher," a quiet voice said from within that glowing amber chamber of books. "I am
aloneтАФthere is in fact no one else in the house. The young man who looks after your stables is asleep, as
you have found your women servants to be. I am seated at your desk, which is in its usual place, and I
have no intention of doing you harm to-night."

Spanish, the field agent in him notedтАФflawless and unaccented, but Spanish all the sameтАФeven as the
philologist pricked his ears at some odd, almost backcountry inflection to the English, a trace of isolativea
here and there, a barely aspiratede just flicking at the ends of some words . . .

He pushed open the door and stepped inside. The young man sitting at Asher's desk looked up from the
dismantled pieces of the revolver and inclined his head in greeting,

"Good evening," he said politely. "For reasons which shall shortly become obvious, let us pass the
formality of explanations and proceed to introductions."

It was only barely audibleтАФthe rounding of theou inobvious and the stress shift inexplanationsтАФ but it
sent alarm bells of sheer scholarly curiosity clanging in some half-closed lumber room of his mind.Can't
you stop thinking like a philologist even at a time like this . . . ?

The young man went on, "My name is Don Simon Xavier Christian Morado de la Cadena-Ysidro, and I
am what you call a vampire."

Asher said nothing. An unformed thought aborted itself, leaving white stillness behind. "Do you believe
me?"

Asher realized he was holding his intaken breath, and let it out. His glance sheered to Lydia's throat; his
folkloric studies of vampirism had included the cases of so-called "real" vampires, lunatics who had
sought to prolong their own twisted lives by drinking or bathing in the blood of young girls. Through the
tea gown's open collar he could see the white skin of her throat. No blood stained the fragile ecru of the
lace around it. Then his eyes went back to Ysidro, in whose soft tones he had heard the absolute
conviction of a madman. Yet, looking at that slender form behind his desk, he was conscious of a queer