"Nightworld 8 - Black Dawn" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Lisa J)

Before Maggie quite knew she was doing it, she had reached out and grabbed the front of Sylvia's green Gore-Tex jacket with both hands.

Something sparked in Sylvia's eyes. For a moment, she looked startled and interested and grudgingly respectful. Then she sighed again, smiling faintly.

"And now you're going to kill me?"

"Listen, you . . ." Maggie leaned in. She stopped. "Listen to what?"

Maggie blinked. Her eyes were stinging suddenly. The smoke from the incense burner was rising directly into her face.

"You ..."

I feel strange, Maggie thought.

Very strange. Dizzy. It seemed to come over her all at once. There was a pattern of flashing gray spreading across her vision. Her stomach heaved and she felt a wave of queasiness.

"Having a problem?" Sylvia's voice seemed to come from far away.

The incense.

It was rising right in her face. And now ...

"What did you do to me?" Maggie gasped. She reeled backward, away from the smoke, but it was too late. Her knees were horribly rubbery. Her body seemed to be far away somehow, and the sparkling pattern blinded her completely.

She felt the back of her legs come up against a bed. Then they simply weren't supporting her anymore; she was slithering down, unable to catch herself with her useless arms. Her lips were numb.

"You know, for a moment there, I thought I might be in trouble," Sylvia's voice was saying calmly. `But I was wrong. The truth is that you're just an ordinary girl, after all. Weak and powerless and ordinary. How could you even think about going up against me? Against my people?"

Am I dying? Maggie wondered. I'm losing myself. I can't see and I can't move....

"How could you come here and attack me? How could you think you had a chance at winning?" Even Sylvia's voice seemed to be getting more and more distant. "You're pathetic. But now you'll find out what happens when you mess with real power. You'll learn...."

The voice was gone. There was only a rushing noise in an endless blackness.

Miles, Maggie thought. I'm sorry.... Then she stopped thinking at all.


CHAPTER
4


Maggie was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, and that was strange enough, but what was even stranger was the fact that she knew it wasn't an ordinary dream.

This was something ... that came from outside her, that was being ... sent. Some deep part of her mind fumbled for the proper words, seething with frustration, even while the normal part of her was busy staring around her and being afraid.

Mist. Mist everywhere, white tendrils that snaked gracefully across her vision and coiled around her like genii that had just been let out of lamps. She had the feeling that there were dark shapes out in the mist; she seemed to see them looming out of the corner of her eye, but as soon as she turned they were obscured again.

Gooseflesh rose on Maggie's arms. It wasn't just the touch of the mist. There was a noise that made the hairs on the back of her neck tingle. It was just at the threshold of hearing, distorted by distance or something else, and it seemed to be calling over and over again, "Who are you?"

Give me a break, Maggie thought. She shook her head hard to get rid of the prickly feeling on her neck. This is just way too . . . too Gothic. Do I always have corny dreams like this?