"Vukcevich-CountOnMe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Vukcevich Ray)

She put her wine glass on the floor and leaned forward, her elbows on her knees,
to fix me with her flashing green eyes. "Mojave Desert. South of Death Valley.
I'll be going to Essex."

To Essex!

To Essex!

2 E 6!

Base 15.

Here was the demon, strong and calm, cool, toying with me. I might as well have
been a mouse quaking before the green eyes of a serpent. A short prayer: Lord,
spare me the indignity of wetting my pants. I dropped my glass and leaped to my
feet. Her eyes got big, and she jumped up, too.

Every time I tried to make the Sign of the Cross at her with my fingers, my mind
clouded. My first attempt looked like a T, my left first finger atop my right
first finger. My second attempt looked like an upside-down L. I remembered what
I wanted to do, but not how to do it. When I stopped in confusion to consider my
hands, Celia collapsed giggling back into her chair.

"You bozo, Palmer," she said and made a perfect cross with her slender white
fingers. A demon couldn't do that. Not a demon, which meant that she was a
woman, a real woman, a woman with a goofy grin now. "Oh, sit down, Palmer," she
said.

I slouched down onto the couch again.

"Maybe we'd better introduce ourselves again," she said. "I'm Sister Celia of
the Divine Order of Symmetry. We study the perfect forms of the Number." She
held out her hand for me to shake.

I next said what I had never said to another human being; I said, "I'm Brother
Palmer of the Secret Order of Morse." It felt so good to say it aloud. "Morse? "

There was not even a hint of mockery in her voice. I heard only genuine
interest. I explained the angle I took on the Number. I used some of my favorite
examples.

For example, I said, "The Number looks a lot more like a series of dots (those
holes in the sixes) than it does a series of dashes, and as a series of dots it
is dot dot dot or S, and S is the symbol for Sulfur, and S is the first letter
of the name of you know who."

"Okay," she said.

"And consider 6 spelled out," I said and took my notepad from my shirt pocket.