"Spoor,.Ryk.E.-.Digital.Knight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spoor Ryk E)

It was Sylvie, of course. "Hi, Jason!" she said, bouncing through the door. "Look at these, we just got the shipment in today! Aren't they great?" She dangled some crystal and silver earrings in front of me, continuing, "They're genuine Brazil crystal and the settings were handmade; the lady who makes them says she gets her directions from an Aztec she channelsЧ"
There was a tremendous bang from the rear and the windows shivered. "What the hell was that?" Sylvie demanded. "Sounded like a cannon!"
"I don't know," I answered. "But it wasn't a gun. Something hit the building." I thought of the photos I was enhancing. It wouldn't be the first time someone had decided to erase the evidence before I finished improving it. I yanked open the righthand drawer of the front desk, pulled out my .45, snicked the safety off.
"You're that worried, Jason?"
"Could be bad, Syl; working for cops has its drawbacks."
She nodded, her face serious now. To other people she comes across as a New Age bimbo, or a gypsy with long black hair and colored handkerchief clothes. I know better. She reached into her purse, yanked out a small .32 automatic, pulled the slide once. I heard a round chamber itself. "Ready."
I raised an eyebrow, Spocklike. "Why the gun?"
"This may be a fairly nice neighborhood, Jason, but some of the places I go aren't. And you get a lot of wierdos in the occult business." She started towards the back. "Let's go."
I cut in front of her. "You cover me."
I approached the door carefully, swinging to the hinge side. It opened inward, which could be trouble if someone slammed it open; I took the piece of pipe that I keep around and put it on the floor in the path of the door. Then I yanked the bolt and turned the handle.
I felt a slight pressure, but not anything like something trying to force the door. Sylvie had lined up opposite me. She glanced at me and I nodded. I let the door start to open, then let go and stood aside.
The metal fire door swung open and Lewis flopped down in front of us. Sylvie gasped and I grunted. Drunk like I thought. I reached out for him. That's when he finished his roll onto his back.
His eyes stared up, glassy and unseeing. There was no doubt in my mind that he was very dead.
I stepped over the body, to stand just inside the doorway. I peered up and down the alley. To the right I saw nothing but fogЧGod must be playing director with mood machines tonightЧbut to the left there was a tall, angular figure, silhouetted by a streetlamp. Pressing myself up against the doorframe in case bullets answered me, I called out, "Hey! You up there! We could use some help here!"
The figure neither answered nor came closer. He moved so fast that he just seemed to melt silently into the surrounding fog. I watched for a few seconds, but saw nothing else. I turned back to Lewis.
Fortunately, there wasn't any blood. I hate blood. "Aw Christ . . ." I muttered. I knelt and gingerly touched the body. It was cool for a spring evening, but the body was still warm. Shit. Lewis was probably dying all the time I was reading Phantoms.
"Jason, I have a bad feeling about this." Sylvie said quietly.
"No kidding!" I snapped. Then I grinned faintly. "Sorry, Syl. No call for sarcasm. But you're right, this is one heck of a mess."
She shook her head. "I don't mean it that way, Jason. The vibes are all wrong. There's something . . . unnatural about this."
That stopped me. Over the years I've come to rely on Sylvie's "feelings"; I don't really believe in ESP and all that crap, but she has a hell of an intuition that's saved my job and my life on occasion. "Oh. Well, we'll see about it. Now I'd better call the cops; we're going to be answering questions for a while."
Normally I might have asked her more about what she meant; but something about the way she'd said "unnatural" bothered me.
* * *
The sergeant on duty assured me that someone would be along shortly. I was just hanging up when I heard a muffled scream.
I had the gun out again and was around the corner instantly. Sylvie was kneeling over the body, one hand on Lewis' coat, the other over her mouth. "What's wrong? Jesus, Syl, you scared the daylights out of me!"
She pointed a finger. "Explain that, mister information man."
I looked.
On the side of Lewis' neck, where the coat collar had covered, were two red marks. Small red dots, right over the carotid artery.
Two puncture marks.
"So he got bit by a couple mosquitoes. Big deal. There are two very happy bugs flying high tonight."
Sylvie gave me a look she usually reserves for those who tell her that crystals are only good for radios and jewelry. "That is not what I meant, and you know that perfectly well. This man was obviously assaulted by a nosferatu."
"Say what? Sounds like a Mexican pastry."
"Jason, you are being deliberately obtuse. With all the darn horror novels you read, you know what nosferatu means."
I nodded and sighed. "Okay, yeah. Nosferatu. The Undead. A vampire. Gimme a break, Syl. I may read the novels but I don't live them. I think you've been reading too much Shirley MacLaine lately."
"And I think that you are doing what you always laugh at the characters in your books for doing: refusing to see the obvious."
I opened my mouth to answer, but at that moment the wail of sirens became obvious. Red and blue lights flashed at the alleywayЧjeez, it must be a quiet night out there. Besides the locals, I saw two New York State Troopers; they must've been cruising the I-90 spur from Albany and heard about Lewis over the radio. I felt more comfortable as I spotted a familiar figure in the unmistakable uniform of the Morgantown PD coming forward.
Lieutenant Renee Reisman knelt and did a cursory once-over, her brown hair brushing her shoulders. "Either of you touch anything?" she asked.
I was glad it was Renee. We'd gone to school together and that made things a little easier. "I touched his face, just to check if he was still warm, which he was. Sylvie moved his collar a bit to see if he'd had his throat cut or something. Other than that, the only thing I did was open the door; he was leaning up against the door and fell in."
"Okay." She was one of the more modern types; instead of scribbling it all down in a notebook, a little voice-activated recorder was noting every word. "You're both going to have to come down and make some statements."
"I know the routine, Renee. Oh, and I know you'll need to keep the door open a while during the picture taking and all; here's the key. Lock up when you're done."
I told the sergeant we'd be taking my car; he pulled the PD cruiser out and waited while I started up Mjolnir. It was true enough that I could afford a better car than a Dodge Dart, even a silver-and-black one, but I kinda like a car that doesn't crumple from a light breeze . . . and it wasn't as though Mjolnir was exactly a factory-standard car, either. But that's not important here.
Sylvie's statement didn't take that long. Mine took a couple hours since I had to explain about Lewis and why he might choose to die somewhere in my vicinity. A few years back I'd been in the area when two drug kingpins happened to get wiped. Then Elias got me involved in another case and a potential lead fell out a closed window. I was nearby. Cops don't like it when one person keeps turning up around bodies.
It was one-thirty when we finally got out. I took a left at Chisolm Street and pulled into Denny's. Sylvie was oddly quiet the whole time. Except for ordering, she didn't say anything until we were already eating. "Jason. We have to talk."
"Okay. Shoot."
"I know that you don't believe in a lot of the Powers. But you have to admit that my predictions and senses have proven useful before."
"I can't argue with that, Syl. But those were . . . ordinary occasions. Now you're talking about the late-night horror movies suddenly doing a walk-on in real life."
She nodded. "Maybe you can't feel it, Jase, but I am a true sensitive. I felt the Powers in the air about that poor man's body. And that noise, Jason. Big as Lewis was, even he wouldn't make that kind of noise just falling against the door. Something threw him, Jason, threw him hard enough to shake the windows." I nodded unwillingly. "Jase, it's about time you faced the fact that there are some things that you are not going to find classified on a database somewhere, comfortably cross-indexed and referenced. But I'm not going to argue about it. Just do me a favor and check into it, okay?"
I sighed. "Okay, I'll nose around and see what I can find out. No offense, but I hope this time your feelings are haywire."
Her blue eyes looked levelly into mine. "Believe me, Jason, I hope so too."