"Laurell K. Hamilton - Anita Blake 8.5 - The Girl Who Was Infatuated With Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Laurell K)

Her eyes went wide. "Jail?"
"He didn't mention in his talk that he was jailed for conspiracy to commit
murderтАФover a dozen counts, maybe hundreds. He was head of Humans First when
they tried to wipe out all the vampires and some of the shape-shifters in St. Louis."
"He talked about that," she said. "He said he would never have condoned such
violence and that it was done without his knowledge."
I smiled and knew from the feel of it that it was unpleasant. "Jeremy Ruebens
once sat in the chair you're in now and told me that Humans First's goal was to
destroy every vampire in the United States."
She just looked at me, and I let it go. She would believe what she wanted to
believe, most people did.
"Ms. Mackenzie, whether you, or I, or Jeremy Ruebens, approve, or not,
vampires are legal citizens with legal rights in this country. That's just the way it is."
"Amy is seventeen, if that thing brings her over underage it's murder and I will
prosecute him for murder. If he kills my Amy, I will see him dead."
"You know for certain that it is a he?"
"The bites were very, very high up on her thigh." She looked down at her lap.
"Her inner thigh."
I would have liked to have let the female vamp angle go, but I couldn't because I
was finally beginning to see what Ms. Mackenzie wanted me to do, and why Jeremy
Ruebens had sent her to me. "You want me to find your daughter before she's got
that third bite, right?"
She nodded. "Mr. Ruebens seemed to think if anyone could find her in time, it
would be you."
Since Humans First had also tried to kill me during their great cleansing of the
city, Rueben's faith in me was a little odd. Accurate probably, but odd. "How long
has she been missing?"
"Since nine, a little after. She was taking a shower to get ready to go out with
friends tonight. We had an awful fight and she stormed up to her room. I grounded
her until she got over this crazy idea about becoming a vampire."
"Then you went up to check on her and she was gone?" I made it a question.
"Yes." She sat back in her chair, smoothing her skirt. It looked like a nervous
habit. "I called the friends she was supposed to be going out with and they wouldn't
talk to me on the phone, so I went to her best friend's house in person and she
talked to me." She smoothed the skirt down again, hands touching her knees as if the
hose needed attention; everything looked in place to me. "They've got fake ID that
says they're both over twenty-one. They've been going to the vampire clubs for
weeks."
Ms. Mackenzie looked down at her lap, hands clasped tight. "My daughter has
bone cancer. To save her life they're going to take her left leg from the knee down,
next week. But this week she started having pains in her other leg just like the pains
that started all this." She looked up then, and I expected tears, but her eyes were
empty, not just of tears, but of everything. It was as if the horror of it all, the
enormity of it, had drained her.
"I am sorry, Ms. Mackenzie, for both of you."
She shook her head. "Don't be sorry for me. She's seventeen, beautiful,
intelligent, honor society, and, at the very least, she's going to lose a leg next week.
She has to use a cane now. Her friends chipped in and got her this amazing Goth
cane, black wood and a silver skull on top. She loves it, but you can't use a cane if
you don't have any legs at all."