"Lee Killough - Deathglass" - читать интересную книгу автора (Killough Lee)

sent a chill up my spine. Madness, the eyes said. "I'll check the oven, Garrett. The bowl for the
Kimbrough wedding should be ready."
The voice was like crystal, clear and smooth, but somehow... transparent. When it stopped, I could
remember the words but never the sound of the voice.
Aletheia padded gracefully across the room to the annealing oven. The light there made a purple
nimbus of her hair, but her skin glowed on its own, a white heat shimmering hypnotically against the
darkness of the paneling behind her.
It took an effort to look away from her to Garrett. "I didn't know you were living with anyone," I lied.
"How long have you been together? Where did you meet her?"
"It isn't what you think. She walked into the Gallery Cafe a couple of weeks ago, looking for a job and
a place to stay. I have more room than I need and I had been wanting someone for housekeeping and
odd jobs in the studio, so..." He shrugged. But he avoided my eyes. "She has a real gift with glass. I've
begun to let her do all the annealing."
I glanced toward her. Aletheia swung back the lid of the annealing oven. Reaching in, she lifted out a
thick crystal bowl, which had been put in for reheating and a slow cooling that would relieve the stresses
the process of fabrication put in it. So Aletheia could not be responsible for the pieces in the exhibit, I
reflected, and maybe there was no new cult after all. Still...
I glanced sideways at my brother. Garrett watched her with an intensity, a fervor, that sent a chill
down my spine. I lowered my voice so Aletheia could not hear. "Come on, Garrett, no woman that
beautiful has to keep house and pick up around an artist's studio for a living. What's she really doing
here?"
He hesitated, then said, "Her name means 'the healer.'"
My gut wrenched. Oh, god. "Don't tell me you were fooling around with something and because she
showed up you think you summoned her?"
He looked away. "She says she can cure me."
I sighed. "With what, magical incantations?"
"She can cure me, Dane." Faith burned in his eyes. "When she touches me, the moods end. My hands
quit shaking."
I glanced toward Aletheia. She appeared to have heard nothing. Setting the bowl on a worktable and
kneeling down to turn it in slow examination totally engrossed her.
Watching her, it occurred to me that if Garrett's symptoms were merely the result of anxiety and she
reassured him out of them, what was the harm in her for now? I could stay on a while to make sure she
demanded nothing extravagant for her "services."
Staring into the lead crystal, Aletheia sighed.
The sound touched a reflex bred into both us. We ran for the bowl.
"Did it crack?" Apprehension edged Garrett's voice.
"No." The amethyst eyes looked up at him, past us both, focused on Otherness. "There will be no
wedding."
My relief over the bowl changed to amusement. "No wedding." I tried to smile, but something in that
mad, askance gaze and flat pronouncement paralyzed the muscles. "What makes you think so?"
"The glass." She caressed the rim of the bowl absently. "The images don't join."
I squatted down beside Garrett at the worktable. The bowl was laminate work, layer upon layer
etched with delicate floral designs and two portraits, presumably of the bride and groom. As usual with
Garrett, the detail was exquisite. The two beautiful young heads in their gossamer bower looked
three-dimensional, like holographs. Logically, then, at some point in seeing the portraits through the glass
they should have superimposed over each other. They did not. No matter how we turned the bowl, the
two images never crossed. They lay on one side of each other until they almost touched, then abruptly
jumped to the other side.
I tried again and again to superimpose the images, turning the bowl repeatedly. "It's some trick of
diffraction, isn't it, Garrett? How did you do it?"