"Newman, Kim - Castle In The Desert-Anno Dracula 1977" - читать интересную книгу автора (Newman Kim)

"Thank you very much, but I'll pay for myself."

Her voice was soft and clear, with a long-ago ghost of an accent. Italian or Spanish or French.

"R.D., you know we don't accommodate vipers," said Mom. "No offense, ma'am, you look nice enough, but we've had bad ones through here. And out at the castle."

Mom nodded at the sign and the girl swivelled on her stool. She genuinely noticed it for the first time and the tiniest flush came to her cheeks.

Almost apologetically, she suggested, "You probably don't have the fare I need?"

"No, ma'am, we don't."

She slipped off her stool and stood up. Relief poured out of Mom like sweat.

R.D., the trucker, reached out for the viper's slender, bare arm, for a reason I doubt he could explain. He was a big man, not slow on the draw. However, when his fingers got to where the girl had been when his brain sparked the impulse to touch, she was somewhere else.

"Touchy," commented R.D.

"No offence," she said.

"I've got the fare you need," said the trucker, standing up. He scratched his throat through beard.

"I'm not that thirsty."

"A man might take that unkindly."

"If you know such a man, give him my condolences."

"R.D.," said Mom. "Take this outside. I don't want my place busted up."

"I'm leaving," said R.D., dropping dollars by his coffee cup and cleaned plate. "I'll be honored to see you in the parking lot, Missy Touchy."

"My name is Geneviшve," she said, "accent grave on the third e."

R.D. put on his cowboy hat. The viper darted close to him and lightning-touched his forehead. The effect was something like the Vulcan nerve pinch. The light in his eyes went out. She deftly sat him down at a table, like a floppy rag doll. A yellow toy duck squirted out of the top pocket of his denim jacket and thumped against a plastic ketchup tomato in an unheard-of mating ritual.

"I am sorry," she said to the room. "I have been driving for a long time and could not face having to cripple this man. I hope you will explain this to him when he wakes up. He'll ache for a few days, but an icepack will help."

Mom nodded. Pop had his hands out of sight, presumably on a shotgun or a baseball bat.

"For whatever offense my kind has given you in the past, you have my apologies. One thing, though: your signЧthe word 'viper." I hear it more and more as I travel west, and it strikes me as insulting. 'No Vampire Fare on Offer' will convey your message, without provoking less gentle vipers than myself." She looked mock-sternly at the couple, with a hint of fang. Pop pulled his hold-out pacifier and I tensed, expecting fireworks. He raised a gaudy Day of the Dead crucifix on a lamp-flex, a glowing-eyed Christ crowned by thorny lightbulbs.

"Hello, Jesus," said Geneviшve, then added, to Pop: "Sorry, sir, but I'm not that kind of girl."

She did the fast-flit thing again and was at the door.

"Aren't you going to take your trophy?" I asked.

She turned, looked at me for the first time, and lowered her glasses. Green-red eyes like neons. I could see why she kept on the lens caps. Otherwise, she'd pick up a train of mesmerised conquests.