"Joel Rosenberg - Omnibus 03 - To Home and Ehvenor" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rosenberg Joel C)

too quickly, and they're going to catch us.

And then I see him: Karl Cullinane, Jason's father, standing tall, face beaming, his hands, chest,
and beard streaked with blood and gore.

"We're going to have to hold the corridor," Karl says. "Who's with me?" He smiles, as though he's been
waiting his whole life for this, the fucking idiot.

Figures push out of the crowd, all of them bloodied, some of them bent. I guess I notice
Kosciuszko and Copernicus first, although both of them are shorter than I thought they'd be.

A buddha-faced Chinese steps forward, his face shiny with sweat that he doesn't seem to notice. "A
boddhisattva," he says, "is one who pledges not to attain heaven until the rest of humanity does."

Another man stands tall, lean as a sword, not seeming to notice that the right side of his chest is cut
open, slashed to the grayish liver. "Of course," he says, taking his place next to a slim, hawk-faced
woman in what looks like a burial robe. Her robe is burning so hard I can hear her flesh crackle, and she
winces in pain, but it doesn't stop her.

"Moi aussi," she says.

Two nondescript men push forward together. "Once more, Master Ridley," the first says, his accent
clipped and British.

The other shakes his head and smiles wearily. "I'd thoughtтАФbut no: once more, then."

A heavy-bearded, heavy-set man, still wearing his hangman's noose, his eyes wide in madness,
pushes forward, shoulder to shoulder with Georgie Patton himself.

Humanity streams by us, and it's all I can do not to be swept along with it.
 The corridor has always seemed tight, maybe twenty feet across, but the line of themтАФthousands
of them, arms linked tightlyтАФcan't quite stretch across it.

They need one more to close the ranks, or it's all for nothing, and the demons are fast
approaching.

One more. They always need one more.

Karl looks at meтАФthey all look at me: Brown, Ridley, Joan, Ahira, Horatius, all of themтАФhis
bloody face puzzled. "Walter? What are you waiting for?"
***

Then I wake up.



PART ONE
HOMEWORK
CHAPTER ONE
In Which I Spend