"George R. R. Martin - WC 5 - Down and Dirty" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

the time. "Who's this?" the ace asked, nodding in Brennan's direction. "New guy
named Cowboy. He's all right."
"He'd better be." Fadeout stepped away from the cart, settled himself in a
comfortable chair nearby. "Help youself," he said, gesturing at the liquor.
Whiskers stepped forward eagerly. Brennan and Lazy Dragon turned to dump the
near-comatose Deadhead, who was now mumbling about excessive overhead and the
price of cocaine, in a convenient chair, when a sudden, terrifyingly loud
explosion boomed through the building, shaking it to its foundations. It seemed
to come from the roof.
Fadeout's drink sloshed over his suit, Whiskers fell into the liquor cart, and
Lazy Dragon and Brennan dropped Deadhead.
"Jesus Christ!" Fadeout swore, lurched to his feet, and staggered to the door as
the ratcheting roar of automatic gunfire came from below.
Brennan followed Fadeout and found himself staring at three men armed with Uzis
who'd come through a hole they'd blasted in the ceiling. Fadeout stood rooted in
place by fear-induced paralysis. Brennan, acting instinctively, knocked the ace
to the floor as a stream of slugs from their assailants' compact machine guns
ripped into the wall above their heads. Brennan carried his Browning Hipower in
a shoulder rig, and he knew that he couldn't draw it in time to return fire, he
knew that he was going to be nailed to the floor by the next burst of slugs.
Cursing the fate that had brought him to die among his enemies, he grabbed for
his gun.
Something tossed from the room behind them fluttered in the hallway, a small
sheet of paper that had been intricately folded. Before Brennan could draw his


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automatic, before their assailants could trigger another burst, there was a
twisting shimmering in the air as the paper changed, transformed, grew, into a
breathing, living, roaring tiger charging down the corridor, its eyes red and
glaring, its mouth full of long, sharp teeth.
It caught a burst of slugs but didn't stop. It hurled itself at the three men at
the end of the corridor, and Brennan heard bones splinter as it landed among
them.
Brennan got to his knees, drew and aimed his Browning.
Lazy Dragon was holding one man down with his front paws, and with a single,
quick motion bit cleanly through his throat. Blood sprayed over the hallway as a
panicked gunman put a long burst through Dragon from point-blank range. The red
dot from the sighting mechanism of Brennan's pistol shone on the gunman's
forehead, and Brennan shot him as the tiger collapsed, falling with all its
weight on the third assailant.
Fadeout had faded. Brennan half-stood and ran in crouching, crablike fashion
down the corridor. He put a bullet through the head of the man who was trying
frantically to pull himself out from under Lazy Dragon, then dropped to his
knees before the gigantic cat. It was covered in blood, whether its own or from
the slain men around it Brennan couldn't tell, but it was perforated by scores
of wounds and was panting heavily. Brennan had seen enough mortally wounded
creatures to know that Dragon was dying. He had no idea what he should do, or