"James Maxey - The Final Flight of the Blue Bee" - читать интересную книгу автора (Maxey James)

"Okay," she said. "Stinger."

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Honey," she said, instantly regretting it. She'd spent the better part of the week practicing the name
Xanadu and now she'd blown it.

"That's not your real name," Stinger said.

In a way, it wasn't. It was her childhood nickname, the name her father called her, and the fact that she
would now be "performing" under the name bothered her. It also bothered her that the one honest thing
about her that had slipped out of her mouth tonight was being treated as a lie.

"I suppose Stinger's on your birth certificate?" she said.

"You don't understand." The old man lowered his head, staring at his shimmering gold booties. "Our
secret identities, they were important to our mission. Vital. Without them, our enemies could have ...
could have attacked our loved ones. Those of us who had loved ones."

The seriousness of his voice, the sad sincerity--Honey suddenly understood that this wasn't a joke. She
raised her hand to cover her mouth, but it was too late. The laughter exploded from her.
****
The family farm looked as if it hadn't been visited since 1964. Thickets of brush covered the fields where
the cows once grazed. The old barn leaned at a fifteen degree tilt, and most of the roof had fallen in. Out
back, the once white hive boxes were black with mildew, half rotted. Only the tiny, three-room
farmhouse stood unchanged.

Mick used the axe to break the door open. Inside, the kitchen was exactly as he'd left it when his
grandmother died. But one thing was new--the hellish ceaseless vibration that trembled the walls.

He pulled down the door to the attic to discover that the entire space had been filled with a maze of
honeycomb. The attic was now a single, giant hive.

"How perfect," Mick said. "Buzz. Buzzzz. Buzzzzzzzzzz."

In response, a swarm of bees coalesced, forming a living carpet on the stairs. Slowly, gracefully, the
locked suitcase appeared at the top of the stairs, gliding down the carpet of bees to come to rest at
Mick's feet.

He unlocked the latches with trembling hands, then took a deep breath before opening it.

The trunk was half full of twenty dollar bills. He could buy all the T-bones he wanted now. Sitting neatly
atop the money was his spare costume, folded smoothly, the gold and silver gleaming like treasure. And
atop this, his back-up Sting-gun, and a dozen vials of pheromone and venom.

He picked up the vials and studied the cloudy fluid, swirling in the dying light.

All the tools he'd need to enforce payment of the old debt.
****
Stinger sat on the edge of the bed. He shook his head. "Laughed at by a whore," he said, his shoulders