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

When he was half-starved and all. I hadnТt seen him with his shirt off four nights ago. Well.
I could have sat there quite a while thinking ridiculous thoughtsЧanything was better than thinking about the prospective hacking and hewing: a two-and-a-half-inch blade is plenty big enough to do more damage than I wanted to be around forЧbut he said patiently, УOpen the blade.Ф
The knife seemed much heavier in my hand than usual, and the blade more reluctant to unfold. I snapped it open and the blade flared silver fire.
УYou said it would burn you.Ф
УAnd so it will. I would appreciate it if you made the cut quickly.Ф
УI canТt,Ф I said, panicky. УI canТtЧcut youЧat all.Ф
УVery well,Ф he said. УPlease set the tip of it, here,Ф and he touched a spot below his right collarbone.
I sat there, frozen and staring. I even raised my eyes and looked into his: green as grass, as my grandmotherТs ring, as my plaid socks from last night. He looked steadily back. I could feel my own bloodЧ my poisoned bloodЧseeping slowly down my breast, staining my nightgown, dripping on the sheet.
He reached out, and gently closed his own hand around mine holding the knife. He drew hand and knife toward him, set the point where he had indicated. I felt the slight give of his flesh under the blade. His hold tightened, and he gave a tiny, quick twist and jerk, and the knifepoint parted the skin; I felt the moment up the blade into my hand when the skin first divided under the glowing stainless-steel blade, when it sank into him. There was a sound, as if I could hear that sundering of flesh, or perhaps of the undead electricity that guarded that flesh, a minute fizz or hiss; then he drew the sharpЧthe burning sharpЧedge swiftly across his chest in a shallow arcЧjust like the wound on me. And pulled the knife away again. It was over in a moment.
The slash he had made was deeper, and the blood raged out.
I wasЧwhimpering, or moaning: УOh no, oh no,ФЧI dropped the knife and reached toward him as if I could close the awful gash with my hands. The blood was black in the moonlight, there was so much of it, too much of itЧit was hot, hot, running over my handsЕ
УGood,Ф he said. He took my bloody hands and turned them back toward me, wiped them down the front of my poor once-white nightgown, firmly, against the contours of my body; pulled my hands toward him again, smeared them across his chest, and back to press them against me: repeated this till my nightgown stuck to me, sopping, saturated, as if I had been swimming, except the wetness was his blood.
I was weeping.
УHush,Ф he said. УHush.Ф
УI donТt understand,Ф I said, weeping. УI donТt understand. This cannot beЧhealing.Ф
УIt can,Ф he said. УIt is. All is well. Lie back. Lie down,Ф he said. УYou will sleep soon now.Ф
I lay down, bumping my head against the headboard. My tears ran down my temples and into my hair. The smell of blood was thick and heavy and nauseating. I saw him leaning, looming over me, felt him lie down upon me, gently, so gently, till our bleeding skins met with one thin sodden layer of cotton partially between: till the new wound in him pressed down against the old wound in me. His hair brushed my face as he bowed his head; his breath stirred my hair.
УConstantine,Ф I cried, Уare you turning me?Ф
УNo,Ф he said. УI would not. And this is not that.Ф
УThen whatЧФ
УDo not talk. Not now. Later. We can talk later.Ф
УButЧbutЧI am so frightened,Ф I pleaded.
In the moonlight I could see his silhouette clearly. He raised his head away from me, arching his neck backward so our bodies remained touching. I saw him rip, quickly, neatly, his upper lip with his lower teeth, his lower lip and tongue with his upper. He bent his head to me again, and when he stopped my mouth with his, his blood ran across my tongue and down my throat.
It was still dark when I woke. I had turned on my sideЧI always sleep curled up on one side or the otherЧbut this time I was facing the room. My first thought was that I had had a terrible dream.
I was alone in the bed. I looked down, along my body. Gingerly I touched my white nightgown. It had been a dream. I had imagined it. I had imagined all of it. Although my nightgown felt curiouslyЧ tacky, as if I had worn it too long, although it had come fresh out of the dryer this morning. But it was white. The sheets were white too.
No bloodstains.
I had imagined it.
I knew he was sitting in the chair. After four nights he had returned after all. I couldnТt bear to look at himЧnot yetЧnot while the dream was so heavy on meЧso shamefully heavy. What a horrible thing to dream. Even about a vampire. At least he wouldnТt know that IТd dreamedЧat least he wouldnТt know. I didnТt have to tell him. I sat up, and as I sat up, I felt a small heavy something fall to a different position on top of the bedclothes.
My small shining knife. The blade still open.
No.
I looked at him. Although the chair was in shadow I saw him with strange clarity: the mushroomy-gray skin, the impassive face, the green eyes, black hair. I knew it was nighttimeЧI felt it on my own skinЧwhy could I see as if it were daylight?
It occurred to me that he wasnТt wearing his shirt.
No.
I had climbed out of bed and taken the two steps to the chair and laid my hands on his unmarked chest before I had a chance to thinkЧbefore I had a chance to tell myself not toЧlaid my hands as I had laid themЧan hour ago? A week? A century?Чwith the blood welling out, sluicing out, from the cut I had made with my knife. I touched his mouth, his untorn lips.
УPoor Sunshine,Ф he said, under my fingers. УI told you it would not be easy. I did not think how difficult the manner of it would be for you.У
УItЧit happened, then?Ф I said. My knees suddenly wouldnТt hold me, and I sank down beside his chair. I leaned my forehead against the arm of it. УWhat I rememberЕI thought it must be a bad dream. AЕshameful dream.Ф
УShameful?Ф he said. He bent over me, took my shoulders so I had to sit up, away from the support of the chair. The top two buttons of my nightgown were still undone, and the edges fell open as I moved. He put one hand on my breast just below the collarbones, so that it covered the width of my old wound. He left his hand there for two of my breaths, took it away again, held it, palm up, as if he might be catching my tears; but I was dry-eyed.
УYou are healed,Ф he said. УThere is no shame in healing.Ф
I looked down, touched the place he had touched. The skin was clear and smooth: I could see it plainly. I could see plainly too, a thin pale scar, where the wound had been, but this was a real scar. The wound was gone, and would not reopen.
УThe blood,Ф I said. УAll the blood.Ф
УIt was clean blood,Ф he said. УIt was for you.Ф
I was remembering the real dream I had had after I sleptЧthe blood dream. Daylight, sunshine, grass, trees, flowers, the warmth of life, gladness to be aliveЕ
Gladness to be alive. Gladness was the wrong word. It was much simpler than that, more direct. There was no translation of sensation into a word like gladness. It was the sensation itself. Smells, sounds, tastes, all perceptions so different from anything I knew in waking life, so unequivocal, unclutteredЕuncontaminated. The wide world around me seemed vast and open and immediate in a way I did not recognize. But my sense of self wasЧthere was no thought to it. There was a place where all those strange vivid sensations met, and there I was. A feeling, instinctive, responsive meЧbut no me.
On four legs. This life I dreamedЧthis life I borrowedЧthis life I knew so strangely from the insideЧthis life, I abruptly knew, that had been taken for meЧit was no human life. I was remembering life as some creatureЧshe, I knew her as she; I knew her as a grass-eater, a scenter of the breeze, and a listener with wide ears; I felt her long lithe muscles, rough brown fur, smelled the sweet gamy smell of her; I knew her as a runner and a leaper and a hider in dappled shadow. A deer.
I searched for the horror of her death, for the fear and the pain, the helpless awareness of coming final darkness. I remembered waking up, sick and dazed but with a kind of drugged tranquillity, after BoТs lieutenant had used the Breath on me. I looked for some equivalent in my doeТs last minutes. I could not find it.
УThe doe,Ф I said.
УYes. It would not have been right for you to remember the last day of a human woman.Ф
There was a laugh that stuck in my throat. УNo,Ф I said soberly. УIt would not have been right for me.Ф I sagged forward again, but this time I was leaning against his leg, my cheek just above his knee. УHow did she die?Ф I said dreamily, resting against the leg of the vampire who had cured my poisoned wound with the death of a doe.
УHow?Ф he repeated. There was a long pause while I remembered the wild grass against my slender legs, the way my four hoofs dug into the ground as they took my weight as I ran, how much more fleetly and steadily I ran on four two-toed hoofs than I would ever run on two queerly inflexible platterlike feet and thick clumsy legs.
He said: УThere are many myths about my kind. It is not true that we cannot feed unless we torment first. She died as any good hunter kills his prey: with one clean stroke.Ф