"Richard Kadrey - Blind Shrike" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kadrey Richard)

were bullshit tats. Kid stuff. But they marked a period of his life, so he never bothered to have them
lasered off. From his neck to the tops of his feet, Spyder Lee was an explosion of images and pigments.
He'd never felt normal until he'd been tattooed for the first time. The ink felt like some kind of magic
armor. His tattoos, even the stupid ones, made him feel bullet-proof.

He was one of those lanky Texas boys you see working on cars in oil-stained driveways, a cooler full of
Coors, his only concession to the summer heat. A perpetually messy mop of black hair and long arms
covered in grease working on the transmission of a vintage Mustang of questionable ownership.

"Split open, your organs torn out with hooks and replaced with red hot coals," he said.
Lulu leaned in close. "Strapped to the front of a burning boat and driven through a mile and a half of
electrified razor wire in a Tabasco sauce hurricane."

They both broke up in drunken laughter, spitting and slamming their hands on the bar.

"You're both wrong," said a woman sitting to Spyder's right. He and Lulu turned to look at the woman.
She was small, with fine features and the smooth grace of a dancer. The woman was drinking red wine
and was wearing sunglasses. In her right hand she held a white cane, the sort used by the blind.

Lulu called over Spyder's shoulder, "Okay Stevie Wonder, what's the worst way to die?"

The woman finished her wine and stood up. "To be betrayed by the one you love."

She turned on her heels and swinging her cane in small arcs in front of her, pushed her way through the
crowd and out of the bar.

Spyder watched the door as it closed behind the woman. Lulu took a drag off her Marlboro. "Stupid
bitch," she said and dropped the butt into the woman's empty wine glass.

Two

The Great Divide

The Earth was born in a furnace. When the world grew strong enough, it crawled into the dark void to
cool and heal itself. Soon, however, it grew too cold and shivered with ice.

The Earth looked around and found a small star to warm it up. Deciding it liked the neighborhood and
the climate, there the Earth stayed.

Life appeared across the Earth, splashed in the water and glided on thermals through the sky. It
didn't take life long to grow so abundant that it began preying on itself.

Crows, bats and eagles, the lords of the air, scooped up fish from the seas and dumped them in
the desert until the dry lands were piled high with their bones. These carcasses became the Earth's
first mountains.

Other animals learned to climb the trees and attack the birds as they hunted for food. The land
dwellers decorated the bare trees with the birds' feathers and painted the ground with their blood.
The gray earth suddenly had color.