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

had been.

The fine strands of Ysidro's hair snagged at his velvet collar as he tipped his head a little to one side.
There was no mockery in his topaz eyes. "I could have had you both in the time it takes to prove to you
that I choose otherwise," he said in his soft voice. "IтАФweтАФneed your help, and it is best that I explain it
to you on the way to London and away from this girl for whom you would undertake another fit of
point-less chivalry. Believe me, James, I am the least dangerous thing with which youтАФor sheтАФmay
have to contend. The train departs at eight, and it is many years since public transportation has awaited
the conve-nience of persons of breeding. Will you come?"



тАв Two

It was perhaps ten minutes' walk along Holywell Street to the train station. Alone in the clinging veils of
the September fog, Asher was conscious of a wish that the distance were three or four times as great. He
felt in need of time to think.

On his very doorstep, Ysidro had vanished, fading effortlessly away into the mists. Asher had fought to
keep his concentration on the vam-pire during what he was virtually certain was a momentary blanking of
his consciousness, but hadn't succeeded. Little wonder legend attrib-uted to vampires the ability to
dissolve into fog and moonbeams, to slither through keyholes or under doors. In a way, that would have
been easier to understand.

It was the ultimate tool of the hunterтАФor the spy.

The night was cold, the fog wet and heavy in his lungsтАФnot the black, killer fog of London, but the
peculiarly moist, dripping, Oxford variety, which made the whole town seem slightly shaggy with moss
and greenness and age. To his left as he emerged into Broad Street, the sculpted busts around the
Sheldonian Theater seemed to watch him pass, a dim assemblage of ghosts; the dome of the theater itself
was lost in the fog beyond. Was Ysidro moving among those ghosts somewhere, he wondered, leaving
no footprint on the wet granite of the pavernent?

Or was he somewhere behind Asher in the fog, trailing silently, watching to see whether his unwilling
agent would double back and return home?

Asher knew it would do him no good if he did. His conscious mind might still revolt at the notion that he
had spent the last half hour conversing with a live vampireтАФan oxymoron if ever I heard one,he
reflected wrylyтАФbut the difference, if one existed, was at this point academic.

He had been in deadly danger tonight. That he did not doubt.

As for Lydia . . .

He had absolutely no reason to believe Don Simon's claim to be alone. Asher had considered
demanding to search the house before he left, but realized it would be a useless gesture. Even a mortal
accomplice could have stood hidden in the fog in the garden, let alone one capable of willing mortal eyes
to pass him by. He had contented himself with lighting the fires laid in the study fireplace and the kitchen
stove, so that the servants would not wake in coldтАФas wake they would, Ysidro had assured him, within
an hour of their departure.