"Christopher Pike - The Last Vampire 03 - Red Dice" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pike Christopher)

drawn, have jumped out of their cars with whirling blue and red lights cutting paths in the night sky. More
vehicles appear, armored monstrosities with SWAT teams in-side. Searchlights flash on and light up the
house. We are surrounded. I do not do well in such situations, or else, one might say, I do very well--for
a vampire. What I mean is, being trapped brings out my most vicious side. I push aside my recently
acquired revul-sion for violence. Once, in the Middle Ages, sur-rounded by an angry mob, I killed over a
hundred men and women.

Of course, they didn't have guns.

A bullet in the head could probably kill me, I think.

"Am I really a vampire?" Joel asks, still trying to catch up with reality.

"You're not an FBI agent anymore," I mutter.

He shakes himself as he straightens up. "But I am. Or at least they think I am. Let me talk to them."

"Wait." I stop him, thinking. "I can't have them examine Eddie's remains. I don't trust what will happen to
his blood. I don't trust what his blood can still do. I must destroy it, and to do that I must burn down this
house."

Outside, through a bullhorn, a gruff-voiced man calls for us to come out with our hands in the air. Such
an unimaginative way of asking us to surrender.

Joel knew what Eddie had been capable of. "I waswondering why everything smelled like gasoline," he
remarks. "You light the place on fire--I have no problem with that. But then what are you going to do?
You can't fight this army."

"Can't I?" I peer out the front window and raise my eyes to the rhythmic thrumming in the sky. They
have a helicopter. Why? All to catch the feared serial killer? Yes, such a beast would demand heavy
forces. Yet I sense a curious undercurrent in the assembled men and women. It reminds me of when
Slim, Yalcsha's assassin, came looking for me. Slim's people had been warned that I was not normal. As
a result, I barely escaped. In the same way, these people know that there is something unusual about me.

I can almost read their thoughts.

This strikes me as strange.

I have always been able to sense emotions. Now, can I read thoughts, too?

What power has Yaksha's blood given me?

"Alisa," Joel says, calling me by my modern name. "Even you cannot break free of this circle." He
notices I'm lost in thought. "Alisa?"

"They think there is a monster in here," I whisper. "Ihear their minds." I grip Joel. "What did you tell
them about me?"
He shakes his head. "Some things."

"Did you tell them I was powerful? Fast?"