"Mckinley,.Robin.-.Sunshine" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinley Robin)
The vampire who had dropped me said, УHey, her feet are already bleedingЧif you like feet.Ф He giggled, a high-pitched goblin screech.
Then they were gone.
* * *
I think I must have fainted again. When I came to myself I was stiff all over, as if I had been lying on the floor for a long time. I both remembered and tried not to let myself quite remember what had happened. This lasted for maybe ten seconds. I was still alive, so I wasnТt dead yet. If it wanted me awake and struggling, to continue to appear to be unconscious was a good idea. I lay facing the door the gang had left by; which meant that the cross-legged vampire was behind meЕDonТt think about it.
I was up on my knees, halfway to my feet, and scrambling for the door before I finished thinking this, even though I knew you couldnТt run away from a vampire. I had forgotten that I was chained to the wall. I hit the end of my chain and fell again. I cried out, as much from fear as pain. I lay sprawled where I struck, waiting for it to be over.
Nothing happened.
Again I thought, Please, gods and angels, let it be over.
Nothing happened.
Despairingly I sat up, hitched myself around to face what was behind me.
It was looking at me. He was looking at me.
The chandelier was set with candles, not electric bulbs, so the light it shed was softer and less definite. Even so he looked bad. His eyes (no: donТt look in their eyes) were a kind of gray-green, like stagnant bog water, and his skin was the color of old mushroomsЧthe sort of mushrooms you find screwed up in a paper bag in the back of the fridge and try to decide if theyТre worth saving or if you should throw them out now and get it over with. His hair was black, but lank and dull. He would have been tall if he stood up. His shoulders were broad, and his hands and wrists, drooping over his knees, looked huge. He wore no shirt, and his feet, like mine, were bare. This seemed curiously indecent, that he should be half naked. I didnТt like itЕOh, right, I thought, good one. The train is roaring toward you and the villain is twirling his moustache and youТre fussing that heТs tied you to the track with the wrong kind of rope. There was a long angry weal across one of the vampireТs forearms. Overall he lookedЕspidery. Predatory. Alien. Nothing human except that he was more or less the right shape.
He was thin, thin to emaciated, the cheekbones and ribs looking like they were about to split the old-mushroom skin. It didnТt matter. The still-burning vitality in that body was visible even to my eyes. He would be fine again once heТd had dinner.
My teeth chattered. I pulled my knees up under my chin and wrapped my arms around them. We sat like this for several minutes, the vampire motionless, while I chattered and trembled and tried not to moan. Tried not to beg uselessly for my life. Watched him watching me. I didnТt look into his eyes again. At first I looked at his left ear, but that was too close to those eyesЧhow could something the color of swamp water be that compelling?Чso I looked at his bony left shoulder instead. I could still see him staring at me. Or feel him staring.
УSpeak,Ф he said at last. УRemind me that you are a rational creature.Ф The words had long pauses between them, as if he found it difficult to speak, or as if he had to recall the words one at a time; and his voice was rough, as if some time recently he had damaged it by prolonged shouting. Perhaps he found it awkward to speak to his dinner. If he wasnТt careful heТd go off me, like Alice after sheТd been introduced to the pudding. I should be so lucky.
I flinched at the first sound of his voice, both because he had spoken at all, and also because his voice sounded as alien as the rest of him looked, as if the chest that produced it was made out of some strange material that did not reflect sound the same way that ordinaryЧthat is to say, liveЧflesh did. His voice sounded much odderЧeerier, direrЧthan the voices of the vampires who had brought me here. You could half-imagine that BoТs gang had once been human. You couldnТt imagine that this one ever had.
As I flinched I squeakedЧa kind of unh? First I thought rather deliriously about Alice and her pudding, and then the meaning of his words began to penetrate. Remind him I was a rational creature! I wasnТt at all sure I still was one. I tried to pull my scattered wits together, come up with a topic other than Lewis CarrollЕУIЧohЧthey called you Connie,Ф I said at random, after I had been silent too long. УIs that your name?Ф
He made a noise like a cough or a growl, or something else I didnТt have a name for, some vampire thing. УYou know enough not to look in my eyes,Ф he said. УBut you do not know not to ask me my name?Ф The words came closer together this time, and there was definitely a question mark at the end. He was asking me.
УOhЧnoЧohЧI donТt knowЧI donТt know that much about vamЧer,Ф I gabbled, remembering halfway through the word he had not himself used the word vampire. HeТd said УmeФ and Уmy.Ф Perhaps you didnТt say vampire like you didnТt ask oneТs name. I tried to think of everything Pat and Jesse and the others had told me over the years, and considered the likelihood that the SOF view of vampires was probably rather different from the vampiresТ own view and of limited use to me now. And that having Immortal Death very nearly memorized was no use at all. УPardon me,Ф I said, with as much dignity as I could pretend to, which wasnТt much. УIЧerЧwhat would you like me to talk about?Ф
There was another of his pauses, and then he said, УTell me who you are. You need not tell me your name. Names have powerЧeven human names. Tell me where you live and what you do with your living.Ф
My mouth dropped open. УTell youЧФ Who am I, Scheherazade? I felt a sudden hysterical rush of outrage. It was bad enough that I was going to be eaten (or rather, drunkЧmy mind would revert to Alice), but I had to talk first? УIЧI am the baker at CharlieТs Coffeehouse, in town. Charlie married my mom when I was ten, just before theЧer.Ф I managed not to say Уbefore the Voodoo Wars,Ф which I thought might be a sensitive subject. УThey have two sons, Kenny and Billy. TheyТre nice kids.Ф Well, Billy was still a nice kid. Kenny was a teenager. Oh, hell. I wasnТt supposed to be using names. Oh, too bad. There are more than one Charlie and Kenny and Billy in the world. УWe all work at the coffeehouse although my brothers are still in school. My boyfriend works there too. He rules the kitchen now that Charlie has kind of become the maitre dС and the wine steward, if you want to talk about a coffeehouse having a maitre dТ and a wine steward.Ф Okay, I thought, I remembered not to say MelТs name.
But it was hard to remember what my life was. It seemed a very long time ago, all of it, now, tonight, chained to a wall in a deserted ballroom on the far side of the lake, talking to a vampire. УI live in an apartment across town from the coffeehouse, upstairs from YЧfrom the old lady who owns the house. I love it there, there are all these trees, but my windows get a lot ofЧer.Ф This time what I wasnТt saying was Уsunlight,Ф which I thought might also be a touchy topic. УIТve always liked fooling around in the kitchen. One of my first memories is holding a wooden spoon and crying till my mom let me stir something. Before she married Charlie, my mom used to tease me, say I was going to grow up to be a cook, other kids played softball and joined the drama club, all I ever did was hang around the coffeehouse kitchen, so, she said, she might as well marry one, a cook, since he kept askingЧCharlie kept askingЧshe said she was finally saying yes, because she wanted to make it easy for me. That was our joke. She met him by working for him. She was a waitress. She likes feeding peopleЧlike Charlie and me and MЧlike Charlie and me and the cook. She thinks the answer to just about everything is a good nourishing meal, but she doesnТt much like cooking, and now she mostly manages the rest of us, works out the schedule so everyone gets enough hours and nobody gets too many very often, which is sort of the Olympic triathalon version of rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time, only she has to do it every week, and she also does the books and the ordering. Um. ItТs just as well sheТs back there because a lot of people donТt come to us for nourishing meals, they come for a slab of something chocolate and a glass of champagne, or MЧer, or our all-day breakfast which is eggs and bacon and sausages and baked beans and pancakes and hash browns and toast, and a cinnamon roll till they run out, which they usually do by about nine, but there are muffins all day, and then a free wheelbarrow ride to the bus stop after. Er. ThatТs a joke. A wheelbarrow ride over our cobblestones would be no favor anyway.
УI have to get up at four a.m. to start the cinnamon rollsЧcinnamon rolls as big as your head, itТs a CharlieТs specialtyЧbut I donТt mind. I love working with yeast and flour and sugar and I love the smell of bread baking. MЧI mean, my boyfriend, says he wanted to ask me out because he saw me the first time when I was up to my elbows in bread dough and covered with flour. He says that for most guys itТs supposed to be great legs or a girl being a great dancerЧI canТt dance at allЧor at least a good personality or something high-minded like that, but for him it was definitely watching me thump into that bread doughЕФ
I hadnТt realized IТd started crying. My long-ago, lost life. The tears were runningЧpouringЧdown my cheeks.
And suddenly the vampire moved toward me. I froze, thinking, Oh no, and at last, and okay, at least my last thoughts are about everybody at the coffeehouse, but all he did was hold one of his big hands under my chin, so the tears would fall into his palm. I cried now from fear and anticipation as well as loss and sorrow, and my tears had made quite a little pool before I stopped. I stopped because I was too tired to go on, and my whole head felt squashy. I suppose I should have been flipping out. He was right next to me. He hadnТt moved again. When I stopped crying he lowered his hand and said calmly, УMay I have your tears?Ф I nodded, bemused, and, very precisely and carefully, he touched my face with the forefinger of his other hand, wiping up the last drips. I was so braced for worse I barely noticed that this time a vampire really had touched me.
He wouldnТt have had to say anything. Maybe heТd liked the story of my life. УTears,Ф he said. УNot as good asЕФ a really ugly ominous pause here УЕbut better than nothing.Ф
УOh, gods,Ф I said, and buried my face in my knees once more. I had begun to shiver again too. I was exhausted past exhaustion, and I was also, it occurred to me, hungry and thirsty. And, of course, still waiting to die. Gruesomely.
I couldnТt bear not to keep an eye on him for long, however, and I raised my now sticky face from my knees soon enough. I wiped my face on a corner of my ridiculous dress. I hadnТt really noticed what I was wearingЧthere had been other things on my mind since I had been obliged to put it onЧin other circumstances I would have found it very beautiful, but an absurd thing for a coffeehouse baker to be wearing, even a coffeehouse baker in a ballroom with a ball going on in it. If I were attending a ball I would be there as one of the caterers, I certainly wouldnТt be there for the dancingЕIТm raving, I thought. The dress was a dark cranberry red. HeartТs-blood red, I thought. It was put together slyly, in panels cut on the bias, so it clung to me round the top and swung out into what felt like yards of skirt at the hem. It draped over my awkward knees in drifts like something out of a Renaissance painting. I supposed it was silk; I hadnТt had a lot of close-up experience with silk. It was soft like a clean babyТs skin. I knew quite a lot about babies, clean and otherwise.
I glanced at himЧat his left shoulder. He was still watching me. I let my gaze drift down, over his ragged black trousers, to his bare feet. He too had a shackle around one ankleЕ
What?
He was shackled and pinned to the wall just as I was.
He must have seen me working it out. УYes,Ф he said.
УWh-why?Ф
УNo honor among thieves, you are thinking? Indeed. Bo and I are old enemies.Ф
УButЧФ The reason for the wasteland around the house was suddenly apparent. No shelter from daylight except inside the house. Whoever it wasЧBoЧthought the shackle itself might not be enough. The chain that held him was many times heavier than mine, and both the shackle andЧI could see it, now that I was lookingЧthe plate in the wall that held the ring were stamped withЕwell, to start with, with the old, most basic ward symbol: a cross and a six-pointed star inside a circle. The standard warding against inhuman harm that ten percent of parents still had tattooed over their babiesТ hearts at birth, or so the current statistics said. It was illegal to tattoo a minor, because of the possible side effects, and you nearly had to have a dispensation from a god to be granted a license for a home birth since the Wars because the government assumed that the opportunity for an illegal tattoo was the only reason anyone would want a home birth. Warding tattoos didnТt happen in hospitals. Theoretically. Jesse and Pat said that no fiddling tattoo would stop a vampire, but the real reason for its being illegal is that the stiff fines levied against parents who had it done anyway was a nice little annual nest egg for the government.
There was some evidence that a tempered metal ward spelled by an accredited wardsmith and worn next to the skin would discourage a vampire that unexpectedly came in contact with it, long enough for you to make a run for itЧmaybe. The problem with that scenario is as I said, most suckers run in packs. One of the friends of the one that let go of you would grab you, and the second one would know where not to grab.
I didnТt want to peer too closely, but there were rather a lot of other symbols keeping the standard one company: the staked heart (I hated this one, however simple and coolly nonspecific the design), the perfect triangle, the oak tree, the unfallen angel, true grief, the singing lizard, the sun and moon. There were more too. Under other circumstances I might have thought the effect was a little frantic. As if whoever had planned it was throwing the book at a problem they didnТt know how to solve.
The wardings did seem to be having some effect. The ankle the shackle encircled was swollen and a funny color (although what counted as a funny color for a vampire I wasnТt sure) and looked pretty sore. The skin looked almostЕgrated. Ugh. But if the metal ward did protectЧor in this case debilitateЧwho had belled the catЧfixed the shackle? Leaving aside for the moment who had done the smith-work. I daresay a wardsmith wouldnТt argue if a gang of vampires showed up and put their case persuasively enough. Which is to say good wardsmiths canТt provide perfect protection, even for themselves.
ButЕdid Bo have nonvampires available also? That standard ward was supposed to prevent harm from the rest of the Others tooЕwhich would mean that this Bo creature had human servants. Not a nice thought.
Again he seemed to read my mind. УThey woreЕgloves.Ф
That had been another of those really nasty pauses. I stared at him. So, I thought, the wards do work, but a vampire can handle them so long as the vampire and, or possibly or, the wards are properly insulated? I wonder what the insulation is? No, IТm sure I donТt want to know. ThereТs a blow for all the wardcrafters if word gets out though. But then again maybe it would improve their business if it was known for certain that the wards worked at all. What a lot I am learning. Perhaps that was why BoТs gang had used gloves to touch meЧin case of hidden ward signs. Now that I knew their attitude toward their guest a little better I thought perhaps they were hoping I was wearing a good one. And since I was chained up, making a run for it while he blew on his burned fingers or whatever wasnТt an option for me.
Or maybe they just hadnТt wanted to leave fingerprints on me. Perhaps itТs not polite to handle another personТs food even when youТre a vampire.
There was a sputter and crackle behind me. I turned sharply around: one of the candles in the chandelier was guttering. They were all burning low, casting less light than they had. But the room seemed no darker; if anything the contrary. I looked out the nearest window. Grayness.
УDawn,Ф I said. I looked back at him. He was sitting as he had been sitting since I had come into that room, cross-legged, leaningЧno, not quite leaning, straight-backed, only his head a little bowedЧagainst the wall, arms on knees. The one time he had moved was when IТd wept. I looked at the windows in the big room. They were big too, and curtainless, and on three sides. I wondered about the weal on his arm.
Daylight increased. The sun was coming up over the lake, on my left. So we were on the north side of the lake; my familyТs old cabin was on the southeast, and the city on the south. Even in the desolation where I sat it was impossible for my heart not to lift at the coming of daylight. Dawn was usually my favorite time of day: end of darkness, beginning of light. I was kind of a light freak. I sighed. It occurred to me again that I was very hungry, and even thirstier than that. And so tired that if he didnТt eat me soon I might die anyway. Joke. I didnТt feel like laughing. I glanced at him. He looked even worse than he had by candlelight. How long has it been? BoТs lieutenant had said. So presumably heТd livedЧif lived was the wordЧthrough some days here already. Ugh.
As the light grew stronger I could see the room more clearly. Near the corner to my left there was a heap of something I hadnТt seen before. Too small to be another vampire. No comfort. It was something lumpy, in a cloth sack. For something to do I stood shakily upЧwatching him over my shoulder the whole timeЧand edged over toward it. I could just reach it, at the fullest extent of my chain, almost lying along the floor to do it. The vampire was tethered in the center of the wall of the room, while my staple was a little more toward this end. If our chains were the same length, then I could reach this corner, and he could not. More vampire humor? If it was me he wanted, of course, he could just pull on the chain. I stood up again. I opened the sack. A loaf of breadЧtwo loaves of breadЧa bottle of water, and a blanket. Without thinking I broke off an end of one of the loaves: standard store bread, fluffy, without real substance, spongy texture, dry crumb, almost no aroma. Not as good as what I made. It was Carthaginian pig swill compared to what I made. But it was bread. Food. I raised the end I had broken off, and sniffed it more carefully. Why would they leave me food? Was it poisoned? Was it drugged, would it sedate me, so I wouldnТt see him coming? Maybe I should want to be sedated.
I was so hungry that standing there with bread in my hands made my legs tremble, and I had to keep swallowing.
УIt is food for you,Ф he said. УThere is nothing wrong with it. It is just food.Ф
УWhy?Ф I said again. My continuing total-immersion course in vampire mores.
| © 2025 Библиотека RealLib.org (support [a t] reallib.org) |