"Van Lustbader, Eric - Dark Homecoming(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

"He wants to take me hunting in Virginia."
Antonio sighed. "Wouldn't that be nice."
"The big firms in his state are beginning to make him understand the worth of our copper and lithium importing."
"Re-election," Antonio commented. "The American way, is it not?"
The twins stared at each other and grinned.
"I want to hunt in Virginia." There was an almost childlike wist-fulness in Heitor's voice.
"Not now . . . not yet." Seeing the look on Heitor's face-his face, Antonio took his twin's hand and squeezed it. "I know how you live for the hunt."
"Both of us, my dear." Heitor's eyes were half-closed. "But it's for a very different kind of hunt." Quite abruptly, they'd left the pedestrian subject of the Weimaraner far behind.
Antonio's amber eyes appeared to glow. "Yes, I know you're burning to plunge the scalpel in yourself."
"I hate him," Heitor admitted. "He's arrogant and spiteful."
"He has what we covet," Antonio said, cutting to the heart of the matter. "Paciencia." Have patience. "Soon now it will all be ours. You know the plan and it's a good one."
"If we were in Asuncion, my hands would be red with his blood."
"But you're not," Antonio admonished. "We have come up in the world. This is the big leagues. For the time being, our behavior is under a microscope."
"Civilization," Heitor grimaced. "It makes me chafe."
Antonio did not reply. Instead, he watched a blonde woman in her late sixties in wide red suspenders whiz by on in-line skates. All she wore under the suspenders was a pair of workout shorts and a tank top bathing suit. Just as she was passing the front window, they saw a small, dark-skinned man leap across her path. In one motion, he snatched her purse and pushed her violently off balance. Arms flailing, mouth opened wide in shock, she pin-wheeled awkwardly onto the sidewalk as the dark-skinned man began to run.
The twins were up and out the door in an instant. Communication between them was instantaneous. Heitor sprinted very fast after the dark-skinned man. Like a cheetah he could run a quarter mile in record-setting time without breaking a sweat. He raced around a corner, lunged forward, and slammed his open hand into the small of the thief's back.
In one more stride, Heitor had him firmly in tow. Without a word he spun him around. The thief saw two fingers outstretched toward him. For one agonizing second he stared full bore into Heitor's amber eyes. What he saw there was impossible to say, but he gasped and took an involuntary step backward. Heitor, seeming to change his mind, reached out and, almost nonchalantly, slammed the back of his hand into the side of the thief's head. He did this with such force that the thief was hurled off his feet. In the air, the man gave a little surprised yip like a dog whose paw has been stepped on. Then his head cracked sickeningly into a concrete-block wall, and he collapsed in a tangle. Heitor bent, retrieved the skater's purse, and lost total interest in the man.
When he returned to the scene of the mugging, he found Antonio kneeling beside the woman. He'd gotten her sitting up, her back against the plate glass of the club front. Her right leg, apparently uninjured, was stretched straight out in front of her, but her left leg was bent at the knee.
"All right, is it?" Heitor asked.
"The dark stones know," Antonio replied, and this alerted Heitor. The palms of Antonio's hands were carefully pressed against the skater's left calf, the fingers gripping the muscle. The woman had the back of her head resting against the glass, her eyes closed.
"I need you," Antonio mouthed.
Heitor reached out and with his left hand cupped the woman's raised knee. Thus engaged, the two brothers stared into each other's eyes. Something passed between them, some spark or energy, transient as a flame quickly and covertly snuffed out.
In a moment, the woman gave a little sigh and opened gray eyes, filled with the memories of her years.
"I have your purse," Heitor said when her gaze alit on him. "I don't think anything is missing." His smile seemed to compel her to do likewise.
"Feeling better, perhaps?" Antonio asked her.
"Yes, much better." She wanted to get up, and they helped her. She looked from one of their faces to the other, clearly stunned. "The pain is gone. Not even an ache. It's as if nothing had happened."
"We have a saying where we come from." Heitor handed her the purse. " 'At sinrise, the night is only a shadow of itself.'"
"That's'sunrise,' " Antonio corrected.
"Maybe it is." Heitor smiled.
As the skater looked from one twin to the other, Antonio lifted a beckoning arm. "Escuchame, se?ora. Come inside and have a drink. Sientase. Feel comfortable."
"That's extraordinarily kind of you." The woman allowed them to guide her into the Boneyard and onto a sofa. "You both have been so wonderful. Genuine Good Samaritans."
As Heitor went to order her a latte, he heard her say to Antonio, "People like you restore one's faith in humanity."
"Bueno, se?ora. Being in the right place at the right time, there is no substitute for that, yes?"
A moment later, Antonio joined him at the bar. They were surrounded by bright, polished copper and fragrant steam.
"Our sainted mother knows we could be like that all the time," Heitor said.
"If we chose to." Antonio rested his elbows on the bar. He seemed relaxed, almost somnolent, like a crocodile in the afternoon sun.
Heitor watched the waitress deliver the latte and some chocolate and almond biscotti to the skater. "Why would we choose to?" he asked.
"Our sainted mother could not imagine," Antonio said, "And neither can I."
In a cloud of milky steam, Heitor said, "This puts me in mind of the time I was run over."
"Don't exaggerate," Antonio admonished. "It was only your arm that went under the wheel."
"That didn't stop you from hauling the driver out of his car."
"Honor bound me. He was careless with my brother," Antonio said. "Besides, I felt your pain and I was moved to great anger."
"Great anger, yes." Heitor said this with an almost wistful tone. In a peculiar way, he seemed more animated now than when he was bouncing the petty thief's head against the alley wall. It was as if he was vibrating to some inner rhythm. "You held his face quite, quite still."
"While you stared into his eyes."
"That was the good part," Heitor acknowledged. "Summoning the dark stones."
Antonio dragged in a deep lungful of percolating espresso and cinnamon chocolate. "Until the blood fountained out of his nose and mouth."
"Sped from his ears like horses under the whip," Heitor recalled rapturously.
"You remember the best part," Antonio prodded.
"But of course." The burst of memory was like a delicious taste in Heitor's mouth. "We came home covered in blood and leaped in the pool."
"Holding hands."