"Sizemore,.Susan.-.Forever.Knight.1.-.A.Stirring.of.Dust.e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sizemore Susan)

It didn't bother her that his skin gave off very little warmth. And for once she didn't nag him because she knew that wasn't red wine he was sipping out of a champagne flute. Sometimes it was more important for them just to relax and be together than to remember that she was a doctor trying to cure a homicide detective of a nearly eight hundred-year-old case of what she persisted in referring to as a genetic disorder.
"You on call?" he asked as the werewolf made kibble out of a couple of its tormentors.
'"Fraid so. You?"
'There aren't that many of us who volunteer for the night shift. Captain Reese seems to think my time is his, no matter what the schedule says."
"Let's hope for a quiet night." <жХ
"Amen."
Natalie did not point out the word he'd just used. She made a mental note of it, and smiled to herself. On the
night she'd met Nicholas Knight, he'd told her quite fervently that he was damned. She'd seen how he'd reacted to crosses, had seen burn marks on his hands from actually holding one. That he could casually say a simple word like "amen" was a breakthrough. At least for his self-image as a creature of irredeemable evil.
Natalie turned her attention back to the screen, but her thoughts remained on the perception of evil. What makes a monster? she wondered, as the werewolf in the movie looked at a beautiful woman. This was the point where the werewolf realized how different it was from the rest of humanity.
"I love this part."
"It's maudlin," Nick replied. He glanced at her suspiciously. "I thought you hadn't seen this."
Natalie feigned innocence. "Did I say that?" He frowned. "All right, I rented it the last time I had a night off." She gestured toward the screen. "I wanted you to see it."
His eyes narrowed. "Why?" Nick took his arm from around her shoulder and sat up straight. It was his turn to gesture toward the screen. "Is this an object lesson of some sort? Is your poor, misunderstood werewolf symbolic for us real monsters?"
Natalie was in too good a mood to let him get serious now. She kept her tone joking as she asked, "There's no such thing as werewolves?"
He stood. "Don't be ridiculous. Of course not."
She hit the pause button on the remote, then jumped up to face him. On the frozen screen, the werewolf was silently baying at the moon.
"Whoa. Wait a minute. If vampires are real, there's no reason werewolves shouldn't exist. Have you ever met one?"
"No." He hesitated a moment before he pointed a finger at her. "Just because I've never met one doesn't mean they're real."
She pointed a finger back. "But you have no proof that they aren't."
"You sound like some tabloid television show. Do you believe in UFOs? How about Bigfoot? Ghosts?" He looked thoughtful for a moment. "No, ghosts are real, I've met a few."
"If ghosts are real, why not all sorts ofЧthings?"
"You're trying to distract me from arguing, aren't you?"
Natalie did her best to look wide-eyed and innocent. "Me? I'm just trying to watch a movie."
She slipped her arm through his and drew him toward the couch. He laughed, and they sat down, her arm around his shoulders this time. Nick picked up the remote and started the tape again. The room reverberated with the werewolf's howling anguish. Natalie felt Nick shiver at the sound.
She made no comment, she just concentrated harder on the fictional troubles of the creature in the movie. Neither of them said anything through the rest of the tape. As the credits rolled at the end, Natalie let her curiosity get the better of her.
"Are there others, Nick?"
"Other what?"
There was a coldness in his voice that should have warned her. Natalie Lambert had long ago made the decision to face any truth about Nicholas Knight and his dark world squarely. It was the test of friendship, and the price of finding a cure.
She chose her words carefully. "Other supernatural beings. Are there any?"
He turned pain-stricken eyes on her. "Other cursed creatures, you mean?"
"You have a blood disease," she answered promptly. "Kindly get your mind out of the Middle Ages and remember what century you're in."
"A century where no one is required to take responsibility for their own damnation," he shot back.
"A century where people don't blame God or the Devil every time they catch a disease. Damnation doesn't show up under a microscope. The aberrations in your DNA do."
Nick gave a reluctant nod. He turned away from her for a moment. "I keep trying to be adaptable enough to believe that."
Natalie rubbed her hands up and down her arms. She hated when they got into this sort of discussion. She didn't back off, however. That was another of her rules for dealing with this vampire: never to let him withdraw emotionally from her.
"You didn't answer my question," she reminded him, "about other monsters." She hated the term, since he equated himself with it. She also knew he hated any attempt to be politically correct about his background.
Nick sat on the couch, hunched forward. He rested his hands between his knees, fingers laced tightly together. As pale as he was, Natalie noticed that his knuckles were whiter than the rest of his skin from the pressure.
"There are monsters," he said.
She could tell from the remote expression on his face that despite her efforts, he'd withdrawn.
"There are other monsters, Nat. And believe me, you don't want to know about them."
"Is the night not beautiful, Nicholas?" Nicholas didn't answer as he turned to help Janette
from the heavily curtained carriage. He hated the carriage. It was large and luxurious, but it was like traveling in a sarcophagus. No, he thought with a twisted, ironic smile, the pharaohs' stone tombs were no doubt better equipped for the journeys of the dead than this coach. Though they probably carried about the same amount of luggage.
Janette could travel with the speed of the wind if she chose, but she did not like to travel without her wardrobe if she could help it. Since they were on their way to visit an old comrade of LaCroix's, she had packed for a courtly occasion. So they traveled by day in the coach Prince Radu had sent.
"Ah, the night," LaCroix said as Nicholas helped Janette step down from the coach. "I never get tired of it."
'That's a good thing, isn't it?" Nicholas replied. "All things considered."
"Is that a tone of bitterness I hear?"
"Yes, I think it was," Janette said. She moved to LaCroix's side in a rustle of silk. The elder vampire took her hand and bestowed one of his rare smiles on her. She preened under his approving look.
"Our Nicholas is beginning one of his fits of conscience," LaCroix said. As usual, his tone was full of mockery.
"So it seems," Janette answered. She looked Nicholas over with a gaze that was anything but approving. "I think it is only because he did not want to come. Are you sulking, Nicholas?"
He could not tell if dear Janette was teasing or truly annoyed. He tried to be placating. "I hesitated at accompanying you only because I find the conversations in the salons of Paris interesting. This new philosophy. . . ."