"Shanna Swendson - Enchanted, Inc" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swendson Shanna)

I'd calmed down a lot by the time I crossed Houston Street. Now I could see the
spire of Grace Church ahead of me and I knew I was almost home. I cut across to
Fourth Avenue one street before the church because there was sometimes a gargoyle
on that church that really wigged me out. It wasn't the gargoyle itself that gave me the
creeps. It was the "sometimes" part that unnerved me. Gargoyles are carved of stone
and should be part of the building. If one is there, you should see it all the time, not
just on an occasional basis.

This church didn't usually have gargoyles at all, just carved faces. But every so often
there was a classic winged, clawed gargoyle sitting over a doorway or on a roof
ridge, and I always felt like it was looking at me. I knew that wasn't one of those
weird New York things that everyone talks about, so I preferred to avoid the
situation entirely.

A couple of blocks up Fourth, I noticed a costume shop next to a magic and fantasy
shop, and I had to laugh at myself. That explained the girl with the wings. She must
have been an employee, doing a little advertising by showing the wares around town.
It didn't explain why she seemed to know those two men on the train, but then again,
Mr. Right had got on at the same station, so maybe he lived in the neighborhood.
They must have been neighbors.

And the magic shop may have had something to do with the gargoyle. It was an
illusion, or maybe a prop, put on the church as a practical joke and removed before
anyone in authority caught on.

I felt much less like I was going crazy when I reached my building and unlocked the
front door. By the time I made it up the stairs to my apartment, I'd managed to put
both work and the weirdness of the day out of my mind. I'd barely had time to get
the windows open so the place could air out when my roommate Gemma came
home. She worked longer hours than I did, but she'd never do anything so crazy as
walk home from work. Not in the shoes she usually wore.

She kicked off her high-heeled sandals inside the front door and stretched out her
calves. "Is that what you're wearing?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"You must not have seen the e-mail I sent."

"Nope, sorry. Every time I tried to log on, Mimi stuck her head in my cube to
demand something." I used a Web-based e-mail service for personal mail at work,
since I knew getting personal e-mail on the company system would be asking for
trouble from Mimi. Better safe than give her an excuse to yell.

"You have got to get another job."

"I know," I moaned as she went into the kitchen and took a bottle of water out of the
refrigerator. For a moment I considered telling her about the e-mailed job offer, but I
knew she'd just laugh at me. "So, what's going on and what should I be wearing?"