"Kevin O'Donnel Jr. - The Journeys of McGill Feighan 01 - Caverns" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Jr Kevin)

father's paneled basement. He'd been shooting pool; mischievously, she'd
goosed the cue ball with her telekinesis. "Your eyes, mon, be blurred by all
the fogs you ever walked through. Your honds be rusty claws; your knees,
broken hinges. And when you make loveтАж" She'd shaken her head. "You
fall asleep right after."
He'd hooted, made his shot, and asked about the Sensitivity.
"A church burns in your head," she'd answered dolefully. "Every mon,
woman, and child be a tongue of flame, growling and crackling, and it hurts
like you'd never believe. The rum I drank to quiet itтАж inside it all, you can
hear the heat tolling the bellsтАж" She'd made the cue ball jump, then, winked
at him. "Die young, mon. Die young or ring your changes quick."
But he hadn't done either, and now was paying the price. He jiggled the
locked door. A broad, squat dishroom man approached and began to speak.
Though Schwedeker could see his thick lips move, he couldn't distinguish a
single syllable. The noise in his head garbled the connection between his
ears and his mind. It drowned the chiming of the bell, masked the
whereabouts of Tobbins.
With a disgusted wrinkle of his broken nose, the man unlocked the door,
leaned close to Schwedeker's head, and shouted, "No freebies! Get lost!"
A swimmer struggling in a riptide, he swayed erect and did his best to
enunciate: "If it is after midnight, there is money in my account. Lead me to
a bank."
"Whaddayou, nuts?" His hands started for Schwedeker's shoulders, but
stopped in midflight, as if their destination were too dirty even for them. A
tattooed rose budded inside his right wrist.
"No, IтАФ" It was much too difficult to explain, especially in his condition,
so he let his buttonless coat fall open and speak for him.
 The dishroom man stared at the shimmering tunic. A glitter in his
dark-brown eyes mirrored the woven patterns of coherent energy.
The tunic, once Schwedeker's pride, was now his pain. At fifteen, when
they'd implanted the activator cell keyed to his individual brainwave
pattern, he'd vowed never to cloak that marvelous meshwork. At sixty, he'd
learned that Sensitivity-sapped Flingers get mugged. Seemed all the street
creeps knew about the trust funds; too few understood that the interest, paid
daily, was spent before it could accumulate any of its own. So he wore the
coat, the gift of a horn-tooting Salvation Army Major, and sweltered in the
summer because it was the only way to keep safe.
"A Flinger?" the man asked, contempt melting out of his battered
features.
"Uh-huh." Between his ears a hyena howled. He stiffened, and clamped
his scraped palms to his temples. "Seven years retired. Getting more
Sensitive every day."
"Poor bastard." Indecisive, now, he stepped forward, then back. "It's after
midnightтАФyou sure you got money?"
"Pos. I. Tive." Three wordsтАФthat's how bad off he was.
"It's the Occleftian you want, right?"
"Please." It was halfway between a request and a shriek. He was rolling
his head around, as if the motion could dislodge the monsters, could bring
back the bell.
"All right, big boy." The man made up his mind. With an apology to his