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

УThis is where I was,Ф I said, pointing to the holes nearer the corner.
УAnd this?Ф said Jesse, kneeling in front of the other holes.
УI donТt remember,Ф I said automatically.
There was a silence. УCan we have an agreement, maybe,Ф said Pat. УThat you stop saying СI donТt rememberТ and do us the kindness of telling the truth, which is that youТre not going to say what you remember.Ф
There was a longer silence. Pat was looking at me. I met his eyes. He had held his breath till he turned blue last night. HeТd already made up his mind to trust me, even knowing that I was lying about what had happened. That made me feel pretty bad until it occurred to me that there was another angle on last nightТs demonstration: not only that Pat and Jesse and Theo were willing to trust me, but that they understood sometimes you had to lie.
УOkay,Ф I said.
УSo,Ф said Jesse. УThis second set of holes.Ф
I took a deep breath. УIТm not going to tell you.Ф
УOkay,Ф said Jesse. УI think these holes are from another shackle. If it had been empty while you were here, Rae, you wouldnТt mind telling us that. So, there must have been another prisoner, and itТs this other prisoner you arenТt going to tell us about.У
I didnТt say anything.
УInteresting,Ф said Jesse.
Pat stared out one of the windows, frowning. УShackles in a ballroom arenТt standard equipment, so the suckers will have put them in special. The thing is, the space cleared around this house has been done recently too. You have to assume they did that as well. Why?Ф
I could keep silent on this one a little more easily. It seemed pretty weird if you didnТt know. And this one they couldnТt guess. I hoped.
They went off to look at the rest of the house. I stayed in the ballroom. I sat on the windowsill nearest my shackle, the one on the long wallЧthe window IТd peed out of. The window IТd knelt in front of when IТd changed my knife to a key. The lake looked a lot like it had the day IТd been here: another blue, clear day. It was hotter today though, summer rather than spring. I leaned back against the side of the window and thought about cinnamon rolls and muffins and brownies and the cherry tarts IТd started experimenting with since Charlie had ordered an electric cherry pitter out of a catalog and gave it to me hopefully. CharlieТs idea of post-traumatic shock therapy: a new kitchen gadget. I thought about the pleasure of sitting in bright sunlight. With two humans in easy call. I might have opened my collar and let the sun shine there, but I had the gash taped up and I wasnТt going to risk Pat or Jesse seeing it.
I thought about the fact that Mel, easygoing, laid-back, mind-your-own-business Mel, kept nagging me to look for a doctor who could do something about it, and found my refusal inexplicable and dumb.
Jesse and Pat came back into the ballroom and hunkered down on the floor in front of me in my window. There was a silence. I didnТt like this. I wanted to leave. I wanted to get away from the lake, from what had happened here, from being reminded of what had happened here. IТd done what theyТd asked, IТd found them the house. I didnТt want to talk about this stuff any more. I wanted to go back to the car and make sure it was going to start, and get us out of here before sundown. I wanted to sit in the sun somewhere other than beside the lake.
УSo, last night,Ф said Jesse. УWhat happened?Ф
УI donТtЧФ I said. Pat looked at me and I smiled faintly. УI wasnТt going to say I donТt remember. I was going to say I donТt know. It wasЧit was like instinctive, except who has that kind of instinct? If it was an instinct, it was a really stupid instinct.Ф
УExcept that it worked,Ф Pat said dryly. УSo, you didnТt think, ah ha, thereТs a sucker a couple of streets over, I think IТll go stake the bastard? Never mind that I donТt know how I know itТs there or that IТm going to stake it with a goddam table knife?Ф
УNo,Ф I said. УI didnТt think at all. I didnТt think from the time IЧI stood up from where I was sitting at the counter to whenЧwhen Jesse had hold of me and was yelling that it was all over.Ф
УSo why did you stand upЧand pick up a table knifeЧand take off at a speed that wouldnТt have shamed an Olympic sprinter?Ф
УUm,Ф I said. УWell, I heard him. Um. And I didnТt like having himЕon my ground. I was, um, angry. I guess.Ф
УHeard him. Heard him what? Nobody else heard anything.Ф
УHeard him, um, giggle.Ф
Silence.
УWas this by any chance a sucker from two months ago?Ф Pat said gently. УFrom what happened here?Ф
УYes.Ф
УCan you tell us any more?Ф
HeТs the one that made this mark on me, I thought. This slice in my flesh that wonТt close. You could say I had a score to settle. That doesnТt explain why I managed to settle it though. УHe wasЧhe was the other one that had hold of me, coming here. I donТt know how many of them there were altogetherЧa dozen maybe.Ф I thought of the second evening, the twelve of them fanning out around me and the prisoner of the other shackle, coming closer. Slowly coming closer. How IТd been pressing myself against the wall so hard my spine hurt. УMost of them didnТt say anything. The one I think was the BreatherЧhe seemed to be giving the orders. I thought of him asЧas the lieutenant of the raiding party. He talked. And he held one of my arms, bringing me here. ThisЧthe one from last night, he held my other arm. He talked. He was the one with theЕsense of humor.У Her feet are already bleeding. If you like feet.
УThe lieutenant of the raiding party,Ф said Jesse thoughtfully. УThat sounds like there was a colonel back at headquarters.Ф
УYouТd expect that, a setup as elaborate as this one,Ф said Pat. УThis is a gang run by a master vampire.Ф
They both looked at me. УDo you know anything about the master?Ф said Jesse.
I could have said, IТm not going to tell you. I said, УNo.Ф
There was another silence. I tried not to squirm. This should be when the SOFs revert to type and start yelling at me for withholding important information and so on.
УWe have a problem, you see, Sunshine,Ф said Pat at last. УOkay, we know youТre not telling us everything. ButЕwell, I probably shouldnТt be telling you this, but that happens oftener than you might think, people not telling SOF everything. Hell, SOF not telling SOF everything. I mean aside from the nomad blood of guys like Jesse and me. We could probably live with that if that was all it was. We wouldnТt like it, maybe, but weТve had a lot of practice not being told everything, and if you get too pissed off at people then they really wonТt talk to you.
УBut youТve done something pretty well unprecedented. Twice. You got away from a bunch of vampiresЧalone, and out in the middle of nowhere. It happens occasionally that a sucker gang gets a little carried away, teasing some kid from a human gang that has been jiving in the wrong place, hoping to see vampires. The kid gets a little cut up, but we take him to the hospital and they stitch him up and give him his shots, and he goes home good as new if a little more prone to nightmares than he used to be. It doesnТt happen that a young woman alone in a wilderness gets away from a sucker gang so determined to keep her they have her chained to the wall. So far as I know it hasnТt ever happened before.Ф
I wished he would stop saying Уalone.Ф He hadnТt forgotten the second set of holes in the wall any more than I had. Thank the gods at least the telltale shackle itself was gone.
УAnd thatТs only the first thing. The second thing is that you sauntered up to a sucker last night that in the first place you had no way of knowing was there, in the second place he stood there while you staked him without any warning or any backup, and in the third place staked him with a stainless steel table knife. People have staked suckers without backup, but theyТve never done it by running up to one in full sight and they sure as suckers hate daylight donТt do it with a goddam table knife. I pulled the research on it that proves it canТt be done, last night. Stainless steel is a no-hoper even if youТve had the best wardcrafters and charm cutters in the business do their number on it first.
УI told you I donТt need much sleep. I spent the rest of last night going through the files for anything about sucker escapees and unusual stakings. There isnТt much. And nothing at all like you, Sunshine.
УWe ought to put all this in our report, and pass it on up the line, and then youТd get a horde of SOF experts down on you like nothing youТve ever imagined, and, speaking of shackles, youТd probably spend the rest of your life chained to the goddess of painТs desk. SheТd love you.
УBut we donТt want to. Because we need you. We need you in the field. Dear frigging gods and angels, do we ever need you in the field. We need anything we can get because, frankly, weТre losing. You didnТt know that, did you? At the moment we still got the news nailed shut. But it isnТt going to stay nailed shut. Another hundred years, tops, and the suckers are going to be running our show. The Wars were just a distraction. We think we won. Well, maybe we did, but we skegged our future doing it. It blows, but itТs the way it is. So little grubby guys like me and Jesse feel we need you in the field a hell of a lot more than we need you disappeared into some study program while they try to figure out how youТve done what youТve done and how they could make a lot of other people do it too. Which they wouldnТt be able to because itТs gonna turn out not to work that way. And we guess you donТt want to be disappeared either?Ф
I shook my head on a suddenly stiff neck.
УYeah. So, anyway, if you can off suckers with common household utensils, we want you out there doing it. WeТll even lie to the goddess of pain about you to keep you to ourselves, and babe, that takes balls.Ф
Would they still want me out there doing what I could do if they knew what else I could do? If they knew the truth about the second shackle?
Were the vampires really going to win within the next hundred years?
When we got back to the car it started the first time. There wasnТt much conversation. We were most of the way back to town when Pat said, УHey, Sunshine, talk to us. What are you thinking?Ф
УIТm trying not to think. IТmЧФ I stopped. I didnТt know if I could say it aloud, even to make my point. УIТm trying not to think about those stains on the walls in the alley, last night.Ф
There was a pause. УIТm sorry,Ф said Jesse. УWe do have some idea what weТre asking you. DonТt let PatТs pleasure in his own rhetoric get to you.Ф
УHey,Ф said Pat.
УI havenТt been your age in a long time,Ф Jesse went on, Уand I grew up wanting to join SOF. I knew it was going to be bad, what I was going to be doing, if I stayed a field agent, which I wanted to be. And it is bad, a lot of it, a lot of the time. You get used to it because you have to. And SOF doesnТt throw you in like youТve been thrown in. Last night was rough even for a grizzled old vet like me.