"Laymon, Richard - Bite" - читать интересную книгу автора (Laymon Richard)

"I was getting ready for bed."
_Getting ready for Elliot._
As she walked toward the room, the light from its doorway peeped through her robe and turned the silk, translucent. I could see her legs -- all the way up. And when she turned to enter the room, her right breast showed through the wispy material.
I followed her into the room.
A single lamp was on beside her king-sized bed.
The bed was turned down, ready for her.
The sheets were black and shiny.
Black, unlighted candles stood on the nightstands at both sides of the headboard.
"He likes black," Cat explained.
"So I see. Halloween in July. I'm surprised he lets you wear the blue robe."
"I don't wear it when he's here." She said it in a way that made me feel lousy.
I didn't ask.
We both picked the same moment to look at the digital clock on her headboard.
11:23
Then our eyes met.
I saw the worry in hers.
She probably saw worse in mine.
In thirty-seven minutes, a stranger was supposed to show up. A stranger to _me_, anyhow. And I was supposed to kill him.
I could hardly believe it.
Everything about tonight, starting at the moment of Cat's arrival at my door, seemed oddly unreal, out of whack.
_She needs me to kill a vampire for her?_
In thirty-seven minutes, he would be here. _Someone_ would be here. Unless Cat had lied to me. Or unless she was nuts. Or I was nuts.
11:24
"You sure he won't be early?" I asked.
"He's never early. But we'll go ahead and get you set up right now, okay?"
"Sure."
She crossed the room ahead of me, walking toward a large, oak dresser. It was topped by a mirror that must've been six feet long and about four feet high.
In the mirror, I saw that the front of her robe had loosened slightly. I glimpsed a long, narrow V of skin down to her waist.
A mirror?
"He allows mirrors?" I asked.
"He loves mirrors."
"Does he show up in them?"
"Sure." Cat crouched in front of the dresser and pulled open one of its bottom drawers. "The deal about mirrors," she said, "is that they used to have backing made of real silver."
"Yeah?" I stepped up close behind her and looked down. The drawer seemed to be full of neatly folded sweaters.
That's why vampires were supposed to shun them," she said, and dug down into a gap between two stacks of sweaters. "Just because of the silver. Something to do with Judas being paid in silver. A _Bible_ thing."
Her hand came out of the sweaters with a hammer.
Not exactly a hammer.
A _mallet_.
A short-handled mallet with a steel head about the size of a large coffee mug. It looked brand new. The pale wooden handle had a sticker on it. The barrel head of the thing was painted sky-blue except for the striking surfaces, which were gray and shiny like a polished nickel.
Cat reached it up to me, and I took it from her.
It must've weighed five pounds.
"Jesus," I muttered.
She stuffed her hand deep into the sweaters again. "Anyway" she said, "they stopped using silver for the backings. Ever since then, vampires have been able to enjoy mirrors."
"Did Elliot tell you all that?"
"Nope. It's like I said, he never tells me dip about vampires. But I've read a few things."
Her hand came out of the sweaters, this time clutching a shaft of wood.
She raised it overhead. "Here you go," she said.
I took it from her.
It looked like fourteen or fifteen inches of dowel, about two inches in diameter. It was flat at one end. The other end tapered to a sharp point. "You whittled this?" I asked.
"Yep." She straightened the sweaters, then slid the drawer shut, stood up and turned to face me. "Do you think it'll do the trick?"