"Karen Koehler - Slayer--Black Miracles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Koehler Karen)

Stop it, he told Debra.Behave yourself.

Or?

Or IтАЩll leave. Simple.

You donтАЩt want to leave. You came to seeher.

That was true enough, though he was loathed to admit it. Frowning, he moved to the opposite end of
gallery rather than continue the argument with his symbiotic sister--as if that were an escape!--and
innocently took in the art. There were sixteen pieces on double-facing boards. Each work was set under
shatterproof glass. Each had a plaque in gold with some caption on it. Each was accompanied by a short
history. Daydreams, this one read. It was a farm girl in a meadow, tilling the ground. So simple. Yet when
Alek looked at it from the corner of his eye he saw an imposed image: a ballet dancer in the vast clouds
of the sky behind the girl.

тАЬMs. Keith redefines brilliance,тАЭ a small pot-bellied man said beside him.

Alek looked over. The pink ribbon on his suit coat said he was with the American Cancer Association.
Presumably, he was the man who would accept the donations from the sponsors dedicating this wing of
the Metropolitan Museum of Art to Katherine KeithтАЩs work. The question was why he had chosen to
approach Alek and why he was staring at him so intently now. True, in some circles Alek was a bit of a
celebrity. A number of years ago he had had an exhibit like this.

Well not exactly like this, not this grand, but he had sold all of his work for enough money to keep him
until...well, a very long time. That made him famous, sort of. But people did not usually recognize his
face. And if they did, it was in response to the work heтАЩd done away from the easel and because they
intended to stick some long, sharp implement into one of his vital organs.

тАЬI have yet to see her match,тАЭ Alek warily agreed.

He had been here a while now, maybe a whole ten minutes. Surely that was enough?

The man continued to watch his face.

тАЬDo we know each other?тАЭ Alek asked.

The little man shook his head no. тАЬNot at all. I just recognized you as are her inspiration.тАЭ

тАЬExcuse me?тАЭ

The little man pointed back over his shoulder at one of the pieces Alek had passed without noticing.

Alek slipped on his glasses. No, he was dreaming this. He approached the opposing painting. It was
fairly new according to the caption. And quite dark for Kat. A tall, lean man stood wearily amid the rush
of aNew York crowd, and yet oddly apart from it, his shoulder resting against a lamppost, his face
turned down and half shrouded by webs of blue-black hair. Behind him lay his shadow, thrown like
blood across the ground, but it was a deformed thing, the shadow, implying much, the hair almost
sentient. The name of the piece was Serpent Boy.