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

УIТm not a goddam invalid!Ф I howled at Charlie. УI donТt need to be treated with gloves andЧand bedpans! Will you please tell me IТm being a miserable bitch and youТd like to upend a garbage bin over my head!Ф
There was a pause. СWell, the idea had crossed my mind,У said Charlie.
I stood there, buttery fists clenched, breathing hard. УThank you,Ф I said.
УAnything you want to talk about?Ф Charlie said in his best offhand manner.
I thought about it. Charlie ambled over and closed the bakery door. Doors donТt get closed much at the coffeehouse, so when one is, youТd better not open it for anything less than a coachload of tourists who didnТt book ahead, have forty-five minutes for lunch before they meet their guide at the Other Museum, which is a fifteen-minute coach ride away (itТs only seven minutes on foot, but try to convince a coachload of tourists of that), they all want burgers and fries and wonТt look at the menu, weТre not heavily into burgers so our grill is kind of small, and we donТt do fries at all, except on special, when theyТre not what burger eaters would call fries anyway.
This really happened once, and by the time Mom got through with that tour company the president was on his knees, offering her conciliatory free luxury cruises for two in the Caribbean, or at least all future meal bookings of his tour groups when they came to New Arcadia, made well in advance. She accepted the latter, and the Earth Trek Touring Company (the presidentТs name is Benjamin Sisko, but I bet that wasnТt the one he was born with, and you should see the logo on their coaches) was now one of our best customers. We could almost retire on what they brought us in August. And we taught his regular tour leaders how to find the Other Museum on foot. This made the coach drivers love us too.
This is not what the city council had in mind when they were drooling over the prospect of seeing New Arcadia on the new post-Wars map, but the Other Museum is why coachloads of the kind of tourists who sign up with a company called Earth Trek now come to New Arcadia. The public exhibits are still lowest common denominator, but there are more of them than there used to be, and the Ghoul Attack simulation is supposed to be especially good: yuck-o, I say. We do also have a few more prune-faced academics on teeny stipends renting rooms in Old Town, but itТs nowhere as bad as IТd feared. The proles win again. Ha.
Charlie ambled back from closing the door and sat on the stool in the corner. It wasnТt so hot a day that we were going to die of being in the bakery with the ovens on and the door closed tor at least ten minutes.
УBecause of the other night,Ф I said, Уthe SOF guys want me to be a kind ofЧunofficial SOF guy.Ф
Charlie said carefully, УI didnТt think a table knife wasЕusual.Ф
I sighed. УWhat did you think, when you followed me out there that night? Just that IТd lost my mind?Ф
Charlie considered this before he answered. УI thought something had snapped, yes. I didnТt think it was your mindЕBut I didnТt have much time to think. By the time I got there it was all over. And I guess I realized then that IТd, weТd, had the wrong end of theЕtable knife all along.Ф
УSince I disappeared for a couple of days.Ф
УYeah. It had to be the Others, one way or another. Sorry. It justЕthe way you wereЕ you didnТt want to talk to any cops, but you really didnТt want to talk to SOF.Ф
I hadnТt thought it was that noticeable.
УYou were okay with the rest of us at CharlieТs, us humans, not just us, strangers too. NervyЧlike something really bad had happened, which we already knewЧbut okay. Anyone, you know, pretty human.Ф
Except TV reporters. If they were human.
УIt wasnТt Weres, because you were here on full-moon nights like usual, after. And they donТt usually go around biting people except at the full moon.Ф
And however fidgety and whimsical IТd felt, I wouldnТt have driven out to the lake alone on a full-moon night. There are some Weres out there. Just like there are a few Weres in Old Town. More than a few. It doesnТt hurt to be nice to them; theyТll remember that you were, the other twenty-nine days of the month. Unlike suckers, who tend to prefer the urban scene, the Weres you really want to avoid mostly hang out in the wilderness.
УAndЧsorryЧsince you didnТt have any visible pieces missing it couldnТt be zombies or ghouls.Ф
I was the Other expert at CharlieТs. Most of the staff didnТt want to know, like most of the human population didnТt want to know, and our SOFs were just customers who wore too much khaki. Mel said stories about the Others made his tattoos restless.
УSadie and I thought it must be some kind of demon. Sadie well, Sadie talked to a couple of those specialist shrinks you wouldnТt talk to, and they said this stuff can be as traumatic as it gets, and to leave you alone about it if you didnТt want to talk.Ф
I wished that was the only reason for the charms and the uncharacteristic reserve. Maybe it was. Or maybe I could make it be all. I was my motherТs daughter, after all. Maybe I had hidden depths of Attila the Hun-ness. I said cautiously, УDid she tell them about my dad?Ф
Charlie shook his head. УIТd nearly forgotten about your dad myself, till the other night. It had never seriously occurred to me that what happened to you had anything to do with vampires. UhЧpeople donТt get away from vampires. Any more than people get rid of vampires with table knives.Ф
Even Charlie knew that much. УYeah. ThatТs what the SOFs say too.Ф
Charlie was silent a minute. I was thinking, if Charlie had forgotten about my dad then he must not be a part of the Bad Cross Watch. My mother had never told him about Great-Great-Aunt Margaret, who had a limp because her left foot was short, horny, and cloven. Or whoever Great-Aunt Margaret had been and whatever demon mark theyТd had. I mean Mom was keeping her fears to herself. I told you she was brave: sheТd let her parents cut her off to marry my dad, sheТd taken on the Blaises singlehanded when she left him. Any sensible woman who was not Attila the Hun in a previous existence would have been more than justified in leaving me behind for my dadТs family to cope with. And they would have: if I had gone bad they might have denied I was theirs, but theyТd have coped. And if I had gone bad, theyТdСve wanted to be there, performing damage control, for their sake if not mine. So sheТd been doubly brave, or foolhardy. And there may not have been very many Blaises left before the Wars but they were formidable.
Some demons are very tough. Tougher than any human. Although the tough ones also tend to be the stupid ones.
Charlie said: УWhat do you want to do?Ф
УGo on making cinnamon rolls,Ф I said instantly.
Charlie smiled faintly. УThatТs what I want to hear, of courseЧФ
УIs it?Ф I said. УDo you want someone soЧso obviouslyЧnot just some kind of freak magic handler but someone whoЧsomeone whoЧ I mean with vampiresЧdo you want someone like thisЧlike meЧ making your cinnamon rolls?Ф
УYes,Ф said Charlie. УYes. You make the best cinnamon rolls, probably in the history of the world. Never mind all the rest of it. We pay taxes for SOF to take care of the Others. We need you here. If you want to be here. I donТt care who your dad is. Or what else you can do with a table knife.Ф
I looked at him. HeТd have every right to fire my assЧhumans donТt like weird magic handlers on the cooking staff of their restaurants. But I was a member of this family, this clan, a member of the bizarre community that was CharlieТs. A key member even. I owed it to these people not to go mad. With or without an axe.
And to stay alive.
CharlieТs Coffeehouse: Old TownТs peculiar little beacon in the encroaching darkness.
An interesting perspective on current events.
УThatТs all right then,Ф I said.
УGood.Ф Charlie opened the door again and ambled out.
I went to bed wearing jeans and a flannel shirt again that night. I woke at midnight and stumbled into the bathroom for a pee, tripping over the sill on the way. I went back to bed and fell asleep again immediately. The alarm went off at three-forty-five.
He hadnТt come.
The sense of outrage of the day beforeЧthe absurd sense of having been stood up like a teenager on her way to the promЧwas gone, as if it were a candle flame that had been blown out. I was worried.
The fact that the wound on my breast, for the past four days, since heТd told me it was poisoned, was burning like the Сfo had set a match to my skin, was almost by the way. It was as if now that I had the diagnosis I didnТt care what the diagnosis was: knowing was enough. For a few days. It was seeping so badly I not only had to keep it bandaged, I had to change the gauze pad at least once a day. I didnТt care. I did it and didnТt think about it. The heavy, permanent sense of tiredness made this easier than it might have been if IТd been sharp and alert. The only problem was finding places to put the adhesive tape that werenТt already sore from having adhesive tape there too often already. I could have bought the surgical tape that doesnТt take your skin off with it, but that would have been admitting there was a problem. I wasnТt admitting anything. So the area around the slash looked peeled.
The thing that really wasnТt all right was that heТd said heТd be back, and he wasnТt.
Things are getting bad if I was worried about a vampire. Well, they were bad, and I was worried. I didnТt see him as the stand-you-up kind. If you could apply human guidelines to a vampire, which you couldnТt.
But if heТd said heТd be back, heТd be back. I was sure. And he wasnТt.
I had the rest of the day off after I finished the morning baking. Paulie, still hoarse but no longer sneezing, came in and started on Lemon Lechery and marbled brown sugar cake, and I went home to comb every globenet account I could find on vampire activity. Because of my peculiar hobby I paid for a line into the cosworld better than most home users bothered with, so I didnТt have to go to the library every time I wanted the hottest new reportage on the Others. If there was anything to find I should be able to find it. When some big vampire feud came to a head there was usually more than enough mayhem to alert even the dimmest of the news media. And maybe this was only a tiny, local feud, but our media arenТt among the dimmest. I couldnТt believe that, this time, knowing what he knew, he wouldnТt sell himself dearly, if Bo had caught him again.
If, that is, he hadnТt come back because heТd been prevented. If I hadnТt been stood up like a teenager going to the prom with a known loser. One might almost say a deadbeat. Ha ha.
I couldnТt find anything. After I looked through all the local stuff I started on the national, and then the international. The nearest report of anything like what I thought I might be looking for was happening in Macedonia. I didnТt think it would happen in Macedonia.
I wanted to start looking up glyphs, to see if I could translate mine, but I couldnТt make myself be interested enough. I cleaned the apartment instead. I rearranged the piles of books to be read immediately. Altar of Darkness went on the bottom, although I dusted it first. I mopped floors. I scrubbed sinks. I baking-sodaТd the tea stains out of the teapot and my favorite mugs. I vacuumed. I folded laundry. I even cleaned a few windows. I hate cleaning windows. I was too tired to work this hard but I couldnТt sit still. And it was overcast outdoors: not a day that insisted I go out and lie in it.
By evening I was exhausted and slightly queasy.