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

Maybe the fact that the vampire slash on my breast hurt all the time and wouldnТt heal was a good sign. Maybe it meant I was still human.
Eventually Jesse got down from the stool and went away.
The nightmares that night were particularly bad, and apparently IТd been clawing myself in my sleep, because when the alarm went off at three-forty-five and I groaned and rolled over and turned the light on, not only had the scab split open again but my pillow had big ugly streaks and blotches of blood all over it.
The alarm was still going off a quarter hour earlier than it used to because it took me a quarter hour longer to get moving in the morning than it used to. I was still tired all the time. Okay, it was just the nightmares stopping me sleeping properly. Plus worrying about stuff like my face in the globenet archive and what all my friends thought. I wasnТt losing enough blood from the vampire slash to make me tired that way. And it didnТt hurt all that much. It was just a nagging nuisance.
I drove to the coffeehouse and made cinnamon rolls and rye breadЧit was rye bread dayЧand then I made banana honey nut bread and fig bars and HellТs Angelfood and Killer Zebras and a lot of muffins, and by late morning I was done. I had the rest of the day off till six.
There was one thing that helped the tiredness a little, and stopped my breast prickling and itching as well. Sunlight. It was a glorious, blue, sunny day and I went home and lay in it. For nearly seven hours. I should have burned to a crisp, but I never sunburn. It goes in somewhere. IТve always been like this. But since those two nights on the lake IТd been spending more time than usual when the sun was out, lying in it. And I seemed to be doing more and more of it. IТd missed an old-books fair with Aimil and Zora, and the last time MelТd suggested we go hiking IТd opted to lie in the sun in his back yard while he took another motorcycle apart. This was fine with him but it wasnТt at all like me. I wasnТt even reading as much as usual; it was as if I had to concentrate on soaking in as much sunshine as I could, and didnТt dare distract myself from that crucial activity.
Okay, I had a lot of catching up to do. The part of me that was my grandmotherТs granddaughter had been having a free ride the last fifteen years, and out of nowhere IТd tapped her flat. Whether for good cause or bad. Recharging was in order.
But it wasnТt just that. It was like I was under attack. And it didnТt feel like it was only from my own negative thinking.
There were more people than usual at the coffeehouse that evening too, but not as many as the night before, and there were no TV vans and nothing to make me jumpy, except maybe that six of our little SOF gang were there. Six? DidnТt these people have livesС?
No, they didnТt have lives. SOFs werenТt expected to have lives. You were a SOF, you stayed very fit and you didnТt have a life. A bit like running a family coffeehouse really. Maybe that was why they felt we should be kindred spirits. And our SOFs had dinner at the coffeehouse more nights than they didnТt, and a lot of the staff from our county SOF headquarters, which was only about a half a mile away north of Old Town, came by some time in the mornings for coffee and a cinnamon roll. Relax, Sunshine.
I tried to relax. They released the name of the poor bod that had got sucked: nobody any of us knew. He lived in our city, but not around here. Nothing else happened. No more dry guys, at least none left for us to find. By three days later when things appeared to be back to normal I managed to say, УHey, howТs it going,Ф in an ordinary voice when I found Jesse and Theo sitting at the table next to the door when I walked in for the evening dessert shift. Paulie had been in the bakery all afternoon, and he was eager to leave. I was still letting him have most any evening he wanted off, letting him put his hours in during the days; I was chiefly interested in that second morning a week I didnТt have to get up at three-forty-five. I was used to not having a life, and I wanted to hold on to Paulie. He was the first apprentice IТd hired who both had a brain and liked playing with food. Also he was the first guy who didnТt seem to think his manhood was under threat by having to learn stuff and take orders from someone of my age and gender. He still had to live through his first August in the bakery with the ovens on, but I was hopeful.
We emptied out a little earlier than sometimes, especially surprising on a three-day-weekend Sunday. WeТd be open tomorrow while most of the rest of the working world was celebrating the birth of Jasmin Aziz, the famous code-breaker of the Voodoo Wars and why we still have Michigan, Chippewa, and most of Ontario instead of the biggest smoking hole on the planet. But she had been nicknamed Mother Durga, УShe Who Is Difficult to Approach,Ф long before she was a hero, and the name stuck. Ha. Even if CharlieТs didnТt stay open automatically for three-day weekend Mondays, weТdСve had to stay open for that one.
IТd pulled the last trays out of the ovens a while back, racked or frozen what wasnТt going to get eaten that night, started roll and bread dough for tomorrow morning, and had come out front to sit at the counter and gossip for the last few minutes with Liz and Kyoko, who were on late that night, and Emmy, who had recently been promoted to assistant cook and wasnТt sure she could take the pace. (I was slightly insulted by this, since IТd been using her in the bakery between apprentices, and felt that I must be at least as merciless and temperamental a taskmaster as anything the main kitchen crew could do.) Theo showed occasional signs of wanting to get fond of Kyoko, but she knew about SOFs, and she wasnТt having any. Charlie was there, prowling; he didnТt know how to sit down. Mel was closing down in the kitchen, which included preventing Kenny from sloping off early. A quiet night gave you time to catch up.
It was warm, and the front doors were open. There were still a few people sitting at one of the outside tables; another couple had drifted off with their cups of coffee to sit on the flower bed wall and smooch. One of the last closing-up rituals was to have a sweep through the square for coffee cups, champagne glasses, and dessert plates. If you paid your bill beforehand, we didnТt stop you taking your sweetheart and your sweet thing on a plate to a quieter spot. (Your bad luck if you chose a spot already occupied by a wino or a hype head, but hey.) This was probably illegal too, by civil regulation 6703.4, subheading Behavior of Clientele at Eating Establishments and Potential Broadcasting of Crumbs to Deleterious Effect, viz., the Vermin Population, but no one had stopped us yet.
It was so quiet. Peaceful. Even the SOFs looked pretty relaxed, for SOFs.
And I heard a familiar goblin giggle.
Did I hear it? I donТt know. IТll never know. But I knew it, one way or another, however it got to me. And I had picked up a table knife and bolted out the door long before any poor following-on function like rational thought had a chance to kick into gear.
No human has ever destroyed a vampire by thundering down on it brandishing a table knife. In the first place, vampires are fantastically faster than humans. You canТt race up to a vampire to do anything, because itТs done it several times already, waiting for you. And you can bet itТs not going to stand there waiting to be staked.
In the second place, a table knife is a real bad choice. You can do it with wrought iron, although no one in their right mind is going to haul a wrought iron stake around with them when wood works better and weighs a lot less. But stainless steel, forget it: it slithers off, like a swizzle stick on an ice cube. You have as much chance of punching a hole in a vampire with stainless steel as you have racing up to it and getting it to hold still while you try.
Wood will break through that little layer of whatever-it-is, the electricity of the undead, and let your stake penetrate. You still have to ram it in hard, and you have to know where itТs going, and it has to reach and enter the heart, or youТve just died as the vampire rips your head off. A sucker repelling a staking doesnТt bother to be cool about it. (Note that while a vampire may have to ask permission to suck your blood, it can kill you any time it likes. It just wonТt get a square meal out of the experience.) Macho SOFs will go straight in through the breastbone, but the more sophisticated approachЧas well as the more likely to be successfulЧis up underneath it. The notch at the bottom of the breastbone is a useful road markerЧso IТm told. ItТs still not at all easy to do. There are lots of dead people who have tried. There have been a lot of studies done about the best wood for stakes too. Turns out itТs apple woodЧand not any old apple, but a tree that is home to mistletoe. Retired or invalided-out SOFs (this latter category a small number: SOFs tend to live or die with nothing in between) often end up tending SOF orchards, and making sure the mistletoe is happy. Mistletoe is cranky stuff, and nobody knows why it sometimes grows and sometimes doesnТt. Makes you wonder what the druids knewЧor Johnny Appleseed. Of course the druids are a fairy tale and Johnny Appleseed never existed. They say. But then, they also say that no human has ever destroyed a vampire by charging at one flashing a table knife.
Maybe no human ever had.
I did have one advantage. He wasnТt expecting me.
I had time to see the look on his face. I probably didnТt figure out what IТd seen till later, but this was what it was: he was looking for meЧfor meЧbut he wasnТt expecting to find me. He was working under his masterТs orders, all right, but privately he thought his master had a wild hair up his ass, and he wasnТt going to find me, because I was dead. He didnТt know how I was dead, or where I had disappeared to, but I had to be dead. Therefore I was. I understood this point of view completely.
Maybe it was just the surprise of seeing someone thinking they could do anything with a table knife.
He paused. The girl heТd been pulling under stood swaying and stupid while he turned to me. We stared into each otherТs eyes for the last time fragment, my last few running steps, before I thudded into himЕ
Еand slammed the table knife up under his breastbone, and into his heart. I remember the hot evil smell of his last breath on my faceЕ
IТd never heard or read anywhere that vampires explode when staked. Maybe itТs only when you use a table knife. Vampires arenТt made of flesh and blood quite the way we areЕbut near kali goddam enough. It wasЕhorrible. The contact, when I drove against him, not just armТs length with the knifeЧ The sense of the knife going inЧmaybe I didnТt think I was going to be able to do it either; maybe that was the planЧ The texture of the knife sliding intoЧ The way it seemed to know where to go, with my hand on itЧ
The smellЧ
The surprise on his face, just before my knife reached his heart and it stoppedЧbeing a faceЧ
The soundЧ
The pressure of theЧblastЧwhich made me stagger, which smeared and stained me withЧ
From the taste in my mouth a few minutes later, I assume I threw up. Maybe I passed out as well, although I was still on my feet when I began to hear someone shouting, УRae! Rae! ItТs over! YouТre okay!Ф and also began to realize there were arms around me and they were trying to stop me thrashing around. There was a lot of other noise; someone screaming; other people shouting; and, coming closer, a siren. The siren should have been reassuring: the sound of approaching authority. Authority would take over and I could relax. Relax, Sunshine.
It wasnТt reassuring. But it did have the effect of sobering me up. I stopped flailing. The arms loosenedЧnot very muchЧand let me stand on my own feet. It was Jesse, holding on to me.
There was already a crowd. I suppose the screaming brought them. WeТre the kind of neighborhood that responds to screams. Jesse and I were in a little alleywayЧone alley over from where the corpse husk, the dry guy, had been found a week agoЧand from somewhere someone had found a couple of halogen floodlights. This meant you could seeЕ
I started retching, and Jesse turned me round and started hauling me towardЧwhat turned out to be a car, driven by Theo. ItТs a good trick, getting anything with four wheels, including a kidТs little red wagon, this far into Old Town. Maybe thatТs part of SOF training too. The crowd was still gathering. Maybe they didnТt understand what they were seeingЧthe dark, dribbling blotches on the ground, stickily trailing down the enclosing wallsЧthe charnel house smell might have been a dead rat or a backed-up drain; Old Town can be like thatЧbut the scene the floodlights illuminatedЕI managed to look away before I heaved again, not, I think, that there was anything left to come up.
Jesse bundled me into the back seat and was nowЕwiping me down with a towel. I hadЕhorrible stuff all over me. Did SOF vehicles automatically carry large absorbent towels forЕcleanup? This one had hung outdoors on a line. I tried to think about the smell of the towelЧlaundry soap, fresh air, sunlight. I was crying. Less messy than throwing up anyway. Easier to clean up after. I cried harder. IТd cried more in the last two months than I had done in my entire previous life.
I croaked something. I didnТt understand what I said either, and Jesse said, УDonТt talk now. WeТre going to get you some clean clothes and a cup of cofЧtea.Ф He knew me well enough to know I didnТt drink coffee. That should have been reassuring too, that I was with friendsЧbut I wasnТt with friends. I was with SOF. Who had seen me explode a sucker with a table knife. I wondered if they were getting me away so fast, before anyone from the coffeehouse had a chance to intervene. Mel. Charlie. Where were they taking me anyway? And why? I could make a guess and it didnТt make me feel any better.
JesseТs dark face was invisible in the darkness of the back seat. I was almost desperate enough to ask to turn the dome light on, just so I could see his face. That he had a face. A human face.
I croaked again. УWill she be all right?Ф
УWho?Ф said Jesse.
УThe girl. TheЕgirl who was screaming. The girl who wasЕunder the dark.Ф
Jesse said, УSheТll be okay.Ф
I was silent a minute. We were out of Old Town. I couldnТt figure what we were doing at first; I was used to the front door of the SOF county buildingЧnot that I made a habit of going thereЧof course there would be a back way. Where they parked their cars. Also perhaps where they brought people in they didnТt want to be seen. How soon before the TV van showed up in the alleyway and started panning over those blotchy walls, those gruesomely amorphous lumps on the pavement?
УYou donТt know, do you? You donТt know if sheТll be all right.Ф
Jesse sighed and sat back, leaving the towel in my lap. It didnТt smell like sunlight any more: it smelled like disintegrated vampire. The car smelled like disintegrated vampire. Jesse, because heТd been holding on to me, had disintegrated vampire all over him too. In the flickering light as we went from one streetlightТs aura to the next he looked rather too much like a pied demon. Pied demons are not among the nice ones. УNo. I donТt know. We donТt snatch people out from under the dark at the last minute like that very often. But IТm pretty sure sheТll be all right. I can tell you why, but you could tell us something too. Something for something.Ф
I grunted. I had been rolling my window down for some fresh air, and had discovered that it would only roll down halfway, and that the doorlock button was engaged, but not by me. No escapees from the back seat of a SOF car.
He almost laughed. УItТs not what you think. Hell, Sunshine, what do we have to do toЧФ
The car stopped. We were in a parking lot tucked in among a lot of big civic-looking buildings. It was nothing like empty, as you might expect it should be at this time of night, although all the cars were parked at one end of the lot, near one particular building. I didnТt recognize SOF HQ from the back, but I could guess that was what it was. Most municipal departments donТt run a big night shift, and the ordinary cop station was across town.
The doorlocks popped open. We got out of the car, first Theo and then Jesse again holding my arm, as if I either needed support or might run away. They took me up some stairs and down a long ugly windowless hallway with doors opening off on either side. Eventually Jesse tapped on a cracked-open door with a light behind it.
УAnnie,Ф said Jesse, Уcan you give us a hand?Ф Annie wasnТt reassuring either, but she was nice about trying to pretend that she didnТt think there was something extremely fishy about why I was there and in what condition and at this time of night. After all, she was right: there was something extremely fishy about it. She took me to the womenТs shower room and gave me fresh towels, soap, and this shapeless khaki jersey fuzzy-on-the-inside one-piece thing to put on that was like little kidsТ pajamas only without the feet.