"Mckinley,.Robin.-.Sunshine" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)

УWeТve crossed their line,Ф said the vampire. УThe guard ring is behind us.Ф
УTheyТll know we have, wonТt they?Ф
УTheyТll know tonight. WeЧdo not pay attention to the daylit world.Ф
УWill they know where?Ф
УPerhaps. But I am following the traces from when they brought me hereЧand, so far, it is the same way they brought youЧand without fresh blood they will have trouble deciding what is old and what is new.У
УUhЕФ This wasnТt a topic I was looking forward to bringing up. УYou know you and I are both, uh, wearing quite a lot of my, uh, blood already. Uh. Crusted. From last night.Ф
УThat matters very little,Ф said the vampire. УIt is only blood hot from a live body when it touches the earth that leaves a clear sign.Ф
I reminded myself this was good news.
He was silent for a while, and then he said, dispassionately as ever, УI had feared that even if you could, as you claimed, protect my body from the fire as we crossed the open space, that the sun would blind me. This did not happen. I am relieved.Ф
УOh, gods,Ф I said.
УAs you say. But as you said earlier, I did not see myself receiving any better offers either. It seemed to me worth even that price against the almost certain likelihood of annihilation at BoТs hands.Ф
I said, fascinated against my better judgment, УYou thought I could navigate you through the trees somehow?Ф
УYes. I would not have been totally helpless. I canЧdetect the presence of solid objects. But it would not have been easy.Ф
I laughed. It was the first time I had laughed since I had driven out to the lake alone. УNo. IТm sure it wouldnТt have been.Ф
We went on some time then in silence. We had to stop once for me to have another pee. Gods. Vampires didnТt seem to have bodily functions. I squatted behind him, holding one of his legs. While I was on the spot, so to speak, I had a look at his sore ankle. It still looked disgusting but I didnТt think it looked any worse.
It occurred to me several times that we were making much better speed than we would have with me walking barefoot. And while the iron-railing effect was pretty painful I have ridden in cars with worse suspension than being carried by a striding vampire. That liquid motion thing they do is no joke, and one-hundred-twenty (give or take) pound burdens donТt dent it either. If the ankle was troubling him it didnТt show.
The cut on my breast hurt quite a lot but I had more important things to worry about. He carried me so smoothly that it didnТt crack open anyway. Thankful for small favors. I felt that even our present momentous alliance might have been put under strain if I started bleeding on him again.
I was keeping a vague watch on the sun through the trees over the lake, and also, with the power alive and working, I seemed able to sense it in some way other than seeing or feeling the touch of its light, and I knew when noon had come and gone. I had had a drink out of the water bottle a couple of times, and had offered it to my chauffeur, but he said, УNo, thank you, it is not necessary.Ф He sure was polite after heТd decided not to have you for dinner.
It was much farther back to my car than IТd guessed. Thirty miles, probably more. Maybe I still could have made it by myself before sunset, even barefoot. Maybe.
But I wouldnТt have made it much farther, and the car wasnТt there.
IТd explained where we were going when we had started out. The vampire had said nothing, but then he often said nothing, and he hadnТt disagreed. I had the knife-key in my bra; weТd either find him a nice deep patch of shadow while I did my trick again, or he could keep his hands on my shoulders to maintain the Sun Screen Factor: Absolute Plus. I hadnТt thought a lot beyond that. I guess what I was thinking was that a car equaled normal life. Once I got in my car and stuck the key in the little hole and the ignition caught, everything that had happened would be over like it had never happened, and I could just go back to my life again. I wasnТt thinking clearly, of course, but who would be? I was still alive, and that was pretty amazing under the circumstances.
I hadnТt thought about what I would do with the vampire after we got to the car either. As much as had occurred to me was that he could keep one hand on my knee while I drove, or something. Nobody put his hand on my knee except Mel, but just how УsomebodyФ was a vampire? I didnТt think I could shut even a vampire in the trunk, although the shade in there ought to be pretty total, and I wasnТt sure what the parameters were anyway. I knew that a heavy coat and a broad-brimmed hat werenТt fireproof enough and historians had long ago declared that the famous stories of knights in heavy armor turning out to be vampires werenТt true either, so probably one layer of plastic car wasnТt enough. But then what? Where do you drop off a vampire whom youТve given a lift? The nearest mausoleum? Ha ha. The whole business of vampires hanging out in graveyards is bogusЧvampires donТt want anything to do with dead people, and the people they turn donТt get buried in the first place. But old nursery tales die hard. (So much for Bram Stoker et al., Miss YablonskyТs point exactly.)
So I hadnТt made any contingency plans. When we got to the old cottage I said, УOkay, here we are,Ф and the vampire set me down, and I was standing on my own feet, and trying not to step on anything that would make me bleed. He was hovering, however, and it wasnТt only because of the sun; IТm sure he would have picked me up again faster than blood could drip if it had come to that. He had one hand tactfully on my elbow. The light was no more than dappled where we stood. Funny how the claustrophobic regrowth of wilderness scrub can suddenly seem treacherously open and sporadic when youТre thinking in terms of your companionТs fatal allergy to sunlight.
I knew where IТd left the car. It was a small cabin and the place you parked was right behind it. УItТs not here,Ф I said stupidly. For the first time I felt the ripples of power lurch, as if they might knock me over, as if they mightЕspill over the lip of me somehow, and be lost. I couldnТt risk, no, I wouldnТt riskЕI turned round and seized him, wrapped my arms around him, as if he were a seawall and could turn back any vagrant tide, contain any unexpected breaker. His arms, hesitantly, slid behind me, and it occurred to me that our prolonged physical contact was probably no more pleasant for him than it was for me, if perhaps for different reasons.
I took a few deep breaths, and the ripples steadied. I steadied. He was a good wall. Really very wall-like in some ways. Solid. Immobile. I realized I had my face pressed against what I knew from experience was an ambulatory bodyЕthat had no heart beating. Funny. And yet there was a buzz ofЕsomething going on in there. Life, you might call it, for want of a better term. I had never met a wall that buzzed.
I let go. He let go, except for one hand on my shoulder. УSorry,Ф I said. УI thought I was losing it.Ф
УYes,Ф he said.
УIf I had lost it, youТd have dieЧfried, you know,Ф I said, to see what he would say. УYes,Ф he said. I shook my head.
УMy kind does not surprise easily,Ф he said. УYou surprised me, this morning. I have thus used up my full quota of shock and consternation for some interval.Ф
I stared at him. УYou made a joke.Ф
УI have heard this kind of thing may happen, to vampires who linger in the company of humans,Ф he said, looking and sounding particularly vampirish. УIt is not a situation that has provoked much interest. AndЕI am not myself after a day spent in daylight.Ф
IТm not feeling a whole lot like myself either, I thought. I was carefully not thinking about the instinct that had thrown me at him just now. WouldnТt grabbing a tree have steadied me at least as well? So what if maybe he fried? УSo you are not surprised by the disappearance of my car. That makes one of us.Ф
УI had thought it unlikely that Bo would allow so obvious a loose end to remain dangling.Ф
УIТm sorry. Yes. That isЧsense. But I donТt know what to do now.Ф
УWe go on,Ф said the vampire. УWe must be well away from the lake before dark.Ф
I was trying to bring my brain back into balance. Settling the ripples down seemed to have cost me a lot, and my brain didnТt want to produce coherent thoughts. I was also, of course, so far beyond tired that I didnТt dare look in that direction at all. УThe lake?Ф I said.
He paused again, so I was pretty sure I wasnТt going to like what followed. УVampire senses are different from human in a number of ways. The one that is relevant in this case is that landscape which is all one sort of thing isЕmore penetrable to our awareness to the extent of its homogeneity. It is not the distance that is crucial, but the uniformity. Bo will be able to find us too easily within any of the woods of the lake because they are all the woods of the lake, even without blood spoor to follow. Once we are out of those woodsЕin some ways Bo will have more difficulty in tracing us than a human might.Ф
A tiny piece of good news, if we lived long enough. Okay. The nearest way out of the woods was still the way we had been goingЧ which must have been why the vampire agreed to it in the first place. The woods around the lake spilled into more woods and smaller lakes and some mostly deserted farmland before it came to any more towns. New Arcadia was the only city for some distance, and then there were a lot of smaller towns and villages spreading out from us, eventually themselves getting larger and closer together again till they became another city. But that was a hundred miles away.
УWhere are you going?Ф I said.
УI am going where you are going till sunset,Ф said the vampire. УThen you are going where you are going, and I am going where I am going.Ф
I sighed. УYes. No. I didnТt mean to pry. Look, it is all very well that we have to get away from the woods, but that means going into at least the outskirts of the town. And while I can keep the sun off you, I canТt make you look human. And let me tell you your skin color is strictly incredible, and youТre not even wearing a shirt. And we donТt have a car.Ф
The vampire took this without a tremor. УWhat do you suggest?Ф
УThe only thing I can think of is to plaster ourselves with mudЧ especially youЧstagger a little, and hit town at the tip of the north end, where the druggies hang out. You do look a little like a junkie, or you look a little more like a junkie than you look like anything else. Human. With any luck any junkies that have eyes left to see you with will be so creeped out by how much worse it can get than they realized that nobody will say anything to us.Ф I paused. УThen thereТs the poor but fairly respectable area, and they wonТt like us, but if we keep moving they probably wonТt call the suckЧthe cops. What worries me most is that some bright spark might guess youТre a demon. You manifestly canТt be a vampire because youТre out in daylight. But you arenТt, as I say, at all persuasive as human. You could be a rather dim demon who doesnТt realize how bad your passing for human isЧ and since we have to keep hold of each other someone might think you were kidnapping meЧhell. And thereТs at least one highway we have to cross too. Double Carthaginian hell. I donТt suppose you know that part of town at all?Ф
УNo.Ф
УNo. I donТt either, much. Well, if they donТt call SOF, we should be able to find the nature preserve my landladyТs house is on the other side ofЕI have no idea how far all of this is though. A ways. We could have gone directly through town in my car.Ф I looked apprehensively at the sun, which was nearing midafternoon, and there were still a lot of trees between us and pavement.
УIndeed you would not have been best advised to go directly through town in your car, not with me in it with you. Your family will have given theЧthe identification number to the police.Ф
УWhat? License plate. Oh. Oh. IТm sorry. I hadnТt thought of that either.Ф
УI had not supposed you had brought me all this way to betray me at the last,Ф he said.
No. УButЕitТs likely to be well past sunset before we get to my apartment,Ф I said, trying not to sound desolate. I am not too tired to go on, I was telling myself. Not finding the car is only a setback. ItТs not the end of the story.
УI will see you home,Ф said the vampire courteously, like a nice, well-brought-up boy seeing his date back to her house after dinner at the local pizza place.