"Aisling Grey, Guardian- 01 - You Slay Me" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacAlister Katie)

"Yes, it was." Oh, brilliant, Aisling, just brilliant. Here you are trapped in a room with a murderer in a foreign country, and all you can do is make jokes when what you need to be doing is running away as fast as you can. I took a deep breath and edged toward the chair that held my case. He moved backwards a step, effectively blocking me off from the exit. Panic, held rather tenuously at bay, rose within me. It quickly became clear that I needed to distract the handsome green-eyed murderer so I could escape.
His eyes glittered darkly at me in a way that simultaneously scared the crap out of me and made me want to throw myself on him. "Ah. Yes. A joke. I thought that is what it was."
Distraction, girl. Don't get caught up in a pair of pretty eyes, not when they likely belonged to a cold-blooded killer. "Um. I was just going to check and make sure Mme. Deauxville was really dead." I closed my eyes for a moment, aware of just how damning that sounded. "That is, I wanted to make sure she wasn't still alive. Not that I want her to be dead, you understand. I just want to make sure that she's not. Oh, crap, it's all coming out wrong."
"You want to make sure there is nothing you can do for her," the dark man said neutrally, his voice-a sexy blend of an English accent and something that sounded vaguely Germanic to my ears-oddly flat. It sounded just the way you'd expect someone to speak if he suspected you of being a deranged killer.
"Although that really is an oxymoron. I mean, what killer isn't deranged?"
The brilliant green eyes considered me for a moment. "Is that a rhetorical question, or do you wish for an analysis of the mind of killers?"
I groaned. "Sorry, that just kind of slipped out. Don't you think one of us should ... you know, check her? To make sure she's not just gravely wounded?"
He looked back at the body. I looked, as well. "You don't believe she's really dead?"
I had to admit he had a point. The body was too still, the heavy silent atmosphere of the apartment (house, street, possibly the whole world) almost smothering. I knew without even thinking about it that there were only two living beings in the apartment, and the body that hung by her hands wasn't one of them.
The man cocked his head again, then whirled around and closed the door that was still standing open. Fear flared to life with the movement. He was going to kill me! I looked around frantically for a weapon, shrieking when his hand clamped down on my arm.
"What is the matter with you? You look like you're going to pass out."
"Me? Nothing's the matter with me. I'm fine. Although, now I come to think of it, I have a horrible memory problem. I can't remember what people look like. Or sound like. Or the things they said to me, or... or... anything. So anyone who was worried about what I might have seen or heard would really have nothing to worry about at all. Because of my memory problem. It's permanent, too."
He gave me a long, curious look, then made an annoyed noise and let go of my arm as he squatted down to study the ash circle. "I told you I didn't kill her. I'm not going to harm you. Your fear of me is senseless."
What is it about scorn of any sort that makes your bravado fire up? My chin lifted at the arrogant tone in his back-to-being-sexy voice. "Yeah? Who said I was afraid of you?"
"I can smell your fear. What do you make of this?"
He gestured toward the ash circle. I glanced toward it and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to sniff the air around my armpit region without it being obvious I was doing a BO check. "It's an ash circle, inscribed with the twelve symbols of Ashtaroth. What does fear smell like, exactly?"
He frowned at the circle but didn't touch it. "Sexy."
I blinked a couple of times. (Like that was going to make me think better?) "What?"
He straightened up and turned toward me, and once again I was very much aware that I was alone in an apartment with a dead woman and a mysterious man who was much too handsome for my peace of mind. "It brings out the predator in me."
My eyes widened as he leaned toward me, his eyes a mesmerizing green that seemed to suck me into their cool depths. There was something about him that made every atom within me aware that he was a man, and I was a woman, and there were certain fundamental differences between us that my body very much wanted to explore, regardless of the fact that he might be a murderer. "Oy."
He nodded, the thick black of his lashes emphasizing the purity of the green irises. "And because of the masculine nature of my reaction, you feel threatened on a feminine level. Thus you make jokes as a defense when others might feel it inappropriate to do so."
"Are you saying there's a guy/girl thing going on between us?" Various parts of my body were pleading for just such an eventuality, but I firmly told those parts to behave themselves, and remember that the man they were lusting after was probably a murderer. "Are you saying that I'm afraid because you're a man and I'm a woman, and not at all because we're standing in front of a woman who was quite obviously murdered?"
His lips quirked. He looked back toward Mme. Deauxville. "No, I am not saying that. Is this circle closed or open?"
I looked down. It looked whole. "Looks closed to me. Um. Who are you?"
His gaze flickered around the room. "I might ask the same question of you."
"You might," I said, watching as he gave the circle a generous berth. He stopped on the other side of the body, in front of a gold-and-scarlet couch that matched the two other chairs in the room, frowning down at it. "But I asked first. So, who are you? Not that you have lo tell me, but I expect the police are going to want to know, so I thought you might just want to practice your alibi on me."
He gave me another one of his impatient looks, then reached into the breast pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a wallet, flipping it open to flash an official-looking identity card at me. "Drake Vireo. Interpol."
My mouth hung open in fly-catching position for a couple of seconds before I realized it. "Interpol? The one that's like the international Scotland Yard? You're a detective?"
"Of a sort." He started to close his wallet.
"Wait a minute," I said, carefully skirting around the circle and Mme. Deauxville. "I didn't just fall off the stupid wagon. I want to see that up close."
He waved it toward the couch as I moved over next to him. "If the circle is still closed, how did the demon escape?"
There are times when a girl just has to have a good goggle. This was one of them. I stared, goggle-eyed. "What is it with everyone in this country, you're all demon-obsessed or something? What demon? What are you talking about?"
He made a tck noise in the back of his throat. It expressed all sorts of annoyance and impatience, with just a smidgen of an implied eye roll. "I am asking you what happened to the demon that was summoned by whoever drew the circle. If the circle is closed, as you say it is, then it would be impossible for the demon to leave, and yet the proof is before our eyes."
I looked at where he was pointing his wallet. Between the couch and the wall there was a black smudge on the floor, as if someone had rubbed charcoal on it. I looked at it for a moment, then back at Drake, unsure of whether he was totally and completely mad, or if I was. I decided that since I'd known him the least amount of time, he got to be //. "You're serious, aren't you? You really think a demon has something to do with this? I'll admit that whoever killed Mme. Deauxville did so in a manner that makes it look like the ritual destruction of a demon, but that doesn't mean that there was an actual demon involved."
One glossy black eyebrow cocked. "Ritual destruction? How so?"
I gestured toward the body, pleased that all those years spent on my little hobby finally had a payoff. "The Circle of Ashtaroth beneath her feet with the twelve symbols of summoning, the way the body is hung from her hands bound behind her, and I'm willing to bet if you bend down and look at her chest, you'll find something made of silver piercing her heart. In other words, she was murdered in the style of the first of the Three Demon Deaths, only this woman was not a demon, which really is no surprise, since demons are nothing more than fiction."
Drake looked amused. "You don't believe in demons?"
"I'll take no for five hundred, Alex. Demons don't exist outside the minds of some pretty twisted and confused people."
His nostrils flared again. If I weren't so convinced he was stark, staring mad, I'd have admitted to myself that he even did a nostril flare well. "Are you trying to tell me that despite the evidence before us, you do not believe that a demon was recently called to this apartment?"
I pursed my lips, slowly moving away from him. No quick movements; everyone knew that was the key to keeping dangerously mad people calm. Slow and easy was the plan. "OK, you know what? I'm going to just scoot over to the desk where the phone is and call the police. You can do your detective stuff while I'm calling."
"I've already called the police. They should be here in four minutes. Why do you hesitate to tell me what happened to the demon? Did you have something to do with Aurora Deauxville's death?"
I stopped before the desk, trying to figure out whether I could make it to the door before he grabbed me. My gaze dropped to the case sitting on the chair. Rats. I wouldn't be able to make it without the aquamanile. "No, I just got here. I'm a courier. I was supposed to deliver a package to her. I don't know anything about demons or who would want Mme. Deauxville dead. But as we're on the subject, just what are you doing here? I assume you aren't here in a professional capacity, because if you were, the homicide squad would be here, too. So, if you didn't kill her, you must have seen who did. She doesn't look like she's been dead too long."
"She doesn't look like she's been dead long?"
I pointed to where Mme. Deauxville's arms were bound behind her back. "Rigor hasn't set in yet. If you look at the angle between her arms and her back, you'll notice it's closing as rigor starts to take hold. That means she's either been dead for more than twelve hours, and rigor is wearing off, or it's just setting in, which means she's been dead... oh, maybe fifteen minutes. But I don't have to tell you that-you're a cop."
"I specialize in finding lost items, not examining murder scenes," Drake said abruptly. "How do you know so much about the stages of decomposition?"
"The Detection Channel. I'm addicted to a reality forensic medicine show on it. It's really interesting. They do autopsies and stuff. Do you know what happens to bones left exposed to the elements?"
"Yes, they turn brown."
"That's right. I thought you said you didn't work homicides?"
He scanned the room again, like he was looking for something he missed. He also totally ignored my last question, which .was fine with me, because I'd rather he answered the important one. "I arrived shortly before you did, five minutes at the most. My business with her is none of your concern. She was dead when I entered the apartment."
"Then you must have heard me ringing the bell."