"Sizemore, Susan - Laws of the Blood 2 - Partners" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sizemore Susan)

"His name is Daniel," Helene Bourbon told Char.

Char had gotten out the bottle of red wine she'd picked up for Thanksgiving and poured the nest leader a glass. Helene held her second glass between her hands. The first seemed to have helped her to relax a bit in an Enforcer's presence. Char didn't take any of the wine herself but enjoyed the dark, fruity scent the liquid gave off.

"Daniel what?" Char asked? "Who is his blood-parent?"

Helene's shrug was slight but eloquent. "I have no idea on either count. Word has gotten out that my nest is the place for the difficult ones. He's not the first that has been dropped off and left for me to cope with." She sounded sad and resigned and a little resentful.

It occurred to Char that Helene Bourbon had not deliberately set up her nest on the Oregon coast as a retreat and shelter. Sometimes the role you ended up with in life just happened. For example, Charlotte McCairn had never intended to become a policewoman. And no one, as far as she knew, ever intended to be a vampire. She hadn't intended to continue being an archivist after her change to a Nighthawk; inertia and shyness kept her at that task. Since she was a Nighthawk, it was obvious that she was meant to be a hero, even if she didn't feel like one.

She needed to start thinking like one. Or at least like a cop. "Who left Daniel with you? Did he know who made him? Where he came from?"

Helene rolled the wineglass between her hands, then set it down on the table. When she sat back on the couch, Char's cat picked that moment to come in through the window Char always left open for him and to leap on the nest leader's lap. The nervous woman jumped to her feet. The cat was flung. Fangs and claws came out on strigoi and feline alike.

"Lucien!" Char snatched up the hissing cat. "Helene!" she snapped at the woman. The command in Char's voice surprised everyone involved. Even the cat stopped trying to claw her and looked up with something resembling respect. Char cleared her throat. She opened her mouth to apologize to her guest.

"Apologies, Hunter." Helene Bourbon said, voice shaking. She ducked her head contritely. All evidence of change disappeared from Helene's features, and she slowly sat back down. "I was startled."

Char tried not to show how taken aback she was at the automatic respect her position garnered from the older vampire. Her mouth felt funny. Then she realized she was showing that face, the one that had scared her witless the one time she'd made herself look at it in the mirror. She made the hunter's mask fade away as quickly as possible. Once she was back to normal, Char tried to make her nod imperious, though Helene was deliberately not looking at her.

Char tried for gracious calm when she said, "Apology accepted." That sounded like the right sort of thing for an Enforcer to say. She kept a firm hold on the bad-tempered torn and sat back down. Lucien's sleek fur was pure white; Char ignored that it was also wet from the rain at the moment. She concentrated on Helene. "Tell me all you know about Daniel."

"I think he's from Seattle," was the first thing the nest leader told her.

Those few words held layers and layers of meaning. Char worked her fingers through Lucien's wet fur while she thought about the implications. The cat relaxed and seemed to grow heavier in her lap. He began to purr. "How old is your Daniel?" she asked after a while. "In mortal years."

Her guest answered reluctantly. "Late teens, I'd say. Young, but not as young as the ones - "

"Some of them were around sixteen or seventeen." Legends were growing up around the Seattle affair, but Char had the truth from the source - his version and as much as he'd been willing to tell her in one short phone call. As disturbing as it had all been, Char at least had the consolation that Jimmy Bluecorn hadn't been involved. Helene gave Char a curious look, which reminded Char that she wasn't the one who was supposed to be explaining things. "Go on," she said.

"My guess about Daniel from a few things he said is that he was one of the victims that were changed rather than destroyed. That is one of the rumors, that several of those abused children were salvaged to become strigoi."

"I've heard that rumor," Char answered, rather than confirm or deny. Istvan was not merciful; everyone knew that. He would never turn anyone into a vampire. "But baby strigoi don't generally say anything that makes sense."

Helene nodded. "Sex and blood. That's all the greedy little monsters can focus on. It's always so nice to get them beyond that stage and be able to treat them like people." Helene laughed, her expression softened with fondness. "As much like people as any teenager can be, that is. Getting them to realize that just because they're vampires doesn't mean they don't have to clean up their rooms and take out the garbage is quite another challenge. Then there's teaching the little monsters that the Laws aren't just words but survival tools and getting them to believe that the consequences are fatal if they don't obey them. Daniel was almost ready to - " Helene cut herself off and took a deep breath. "But you want to know about Daniel's disappearance, and here I am giving a demonstration of why everyone on the coast thinks I was made to adopt their unwanted brats."

Char was glad she didn't remember the infant stage of her transformation, at least not the first and most difficult change from mortal to strigoi. From strigoi to Nighthawk - that transition was terrifyingly memorable, but at least it didn't take as long. Depending on how long a person had been a companion, the period of adjustment for a newly made vampire took anywhere from several months to a couple of years.

"Daniel's adjustment has been difficult?"

Helene nodded. "He's very disoriented. He's restless. He's wandered off before. No one died that time," she added. "Thank the goddess for that."

"I see." Char didn't, but the words sounded both comforting and ominous, which seemed like a useful mixture for an Enforcer.

Lucien abruptly took it into his furry head to jump off Char's lap. The tomcat bounded across the coffee table, spilling a pile of books in his wake, and settled once more on Helene's lap. This time the nest leader reacted to his presumption by rubbing his head.

While the cat's loud purring filled the silence, Char gathered up the disturbed books, set them on the floor, and glanced at the clock on the VCR across the room. Plenty of time before dawn, but the night seemed like an unusually long one. First the Haven assignment and now someone coming to her rather than Marguerite for help. It never rained but it poured, as her great-grandmother used to say.