[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Dave's gut did a kind of backflip in revulsion as the boy briefly dissolved into a cloud of smoke, then faded back in again.Only it wasn't the boy standing there now.It was Jack.Dave staggered back as the familiar face grinned, and familiar hands flexed long, bony fingers."Beats the hell out of getting somebody new to learn the sets," Jack's voice said pleasantly.Darkness came down over Dave as the ground came up to meet his face.The darkness beat the ground by a fraction of a second.He came to in his bed—with the rays of the late afternoon sun streaking through the cracks in the blinds.He blinked—and chuckled."Shit, nightmares at my age," he said out loud, grabbing his shades off the nightstand, and reaching for the Coke he left there the night before—Only his hand met nothing.No Coke.Fear clenched his gut, and he scrambled out of bed."I forgot it, that's all," he told himself."I was stoned, and I forgot it—"And he almost had himself convinced—until he turned on the bathroom light.Scrawled across the bathroom mirror, written in what looked like dried blood, was a single word." Remember."The hunger rose, clawing at him, like a weasel trying to tear its way out of his stomach.He clutched the bathroom sink to hold himself up—and cried.***Di paced the space behind the counter, too restless to stand, too unhappy to really want to think.But the "activity" of pacing was doing nothing to stop her brain from working.She'd just hung up on Annie's husband, Bob; he'd been babbling, truth to tell.But then, you kind of expect the new daddy to babble.Little Heather Rhiannon is going to be spoiled rotten if he gets his way.I'm kind of glad he was so wrapped up in being New Daddy; if he had been his usual sharp self, he'd have picked up on bad vibes from my tone of voice before I'd gotten three words out.Then he'd have wanted to know what was wrong.I don't want any of them in the line of fire.It's bad enough having Lenny there.She turned, and stared out the window for a moment.Thank the gods Annie's going to be able to take over again soon.I can't take much more of this, maintaining protection on two places, dividing my attention like this.Her lips twitched.Two weeks at most.Bob at least remembered to tell me that.She registered a twinge, and her lips shaped an ironic grimace.I think I'm jealous.Because Bob was so supportive of Annie, and so happy about everything—and he'd been just as terminally mundane as Dave when he and Annie met.Her spirits sank another inch.That whole conversation just made me more depressed than I had been, if that's possible.If it were Annie in this mess— Bob would be right in there slugging away beside her.He adjusted— then he accepted— and now he joins in.Oh hell.The situation isn't the same.She leaned against the counter and buried her face in her hands.It was one thing to know intellectually that her peculiarly strong psychic talents put her into a class by herself, that she was always going to be forced into the front lines by the very strength of those gifts.Along with the rest of the fortunate souls who have the dubious pleasure of being Guardians.But to know it viscerally—that had to come very hard.Oh, very few fortunate souls, we are.I couldn't tell you if we're cursed, or blessed.All I know is that we're different.Annie's not in my league; why should she have had to make the same choices?I'm an F-15, a Sherman tank; Annie's a Piper Cub, a VW bug.But seeing Dave again—I thought I'd gotten over him.The wounds weren't healed, they were only scabbed over.Now they're bleeding again.All the little demons of loneliness she'd thought she'd been ignoring successfully were coming back for their revenge.And it sure didn't help that Dave had looked incredibly sexy.Leaner, his eyes dream-haunted and soulful, like the poet she had always known he was, even if he didn't believe it.It's probably drugs, she told herself savagely.I'm probably seeing only what I want to see.He's probably burned-out, not soulful.That's not the spirit of a poet looking out of those eyes, it's the fact that there's nobody home in his skull.She squared her shoulders and raised her head, staring at the tumble of books on the shelf opposite her, but not really seeing them.I've got to snap out of this.I've got more important things to do than moon about my lack of a love life.I still don't know who— or what— killed that gypsy boy.I still don't know whatkilled Keith's ex, or where it is.I don't know if the two deaths are related.I don't even know if it knows about me.She went back to pacing again, her mind going in circles, fruitlessly, until it was time for closing.As she began locking up, her eye fell on the display case of jewelry, and because of the way the light fell on some of the silver pieces, she suddenly noticed them, gleaming softly in the shadows.Bell, Book, and Candle catered to folk of a multiplicity of esoteric religions—and some of them were nominally Christian.There were at least three heavy silver crucifixes in that case.And legend swore to the efficacy of a crucifix against vampires.The gods knew she hadn't anything else to go on but legend.Before she could change her mind, she opened the display case and took the largest and heaviest of them, shoving it into her coat pocket.Gods, I feel like a fool—But that didn't stop her from walking out the door with it tucked into her pocket.***Di slunk her way along the route between the subway station and her apartment building.Every nerve was alive to changes, movement.She felt like a sentient burglar alarm.If something doesn't break soon, I'm going to look like a Brillo pad made of nerve endings.It had been another overcast day; the sun had set about the time she closed the shop, and this was one of those nights when the air seemed to devour all available light, leaving the eyes confused by shadows that wouldn't resolve into substance.Shadows that could hide anything.Hunter, or hunted.For the first time in weeks, that line of thought did not bring a crippling surge of panic.She had been expecting one; braced for it.When it didn't come—the confusion made her stop dead about ten feet from the steps of the apartment building.The street lamp on the other side of the steps cast long, murky shadows, shadows that hid the side of the building and part of the sidewalk.Before she could shake herself out of her stupefaction, a man-shaped shadow solidified out of the murk and blocked her path to the steps.She didn't think—just acted.Street-smart instincts and a karate sensei far more interested in keeping his pupils alive than in perfect form had gotten her to the point that under a given set of conditions, her body took over, no matter what state her mind was in.In fact, she could hear her sensei even as she struck."You don't ever warn, you don't re-act.You act."She knew that—but more importantly, her body knew it.She was analyzing his stance without having to tell herself to do so; doing it as fast as her eyes could react to him being there; her ki was balanced and she was ready to strike as soon as he took that critical step that brought him within range.He did.She struck for the throat, not the (expected, and consequently, often guarded against) groin shot; she already knew as she was moving that she would follow that up with a kick to the knee, and once he was down she'd get past him and into the building—Except that it didn't happen that way.He didn't move out of the way; didn't pull a weapon.He just reached out and caught her wrist before she connected.And held it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Dave's gut did a kind of backflip in revulsion as the boy briefly dissolved into a cloud of smoke, then faded back in again.Only it wasn't the boy standing there now.It was Jack.Dave staggered back as the familiar face grinned, and familiar hands flexed long, bony fingers."Beats the hell out of getting somebody new to learn the sets," Jack's voice said pleasantly.Darkness came down over Dave as the ground came up to meet his face.The darkness beat the ground by a fraction of a second.He came to in his bed—with the rays of the late afternoon sun streaking through the cracks in the blinds.He blinked—and chuckled."Shit, nightmares at my age," he said out loud, grabbing his shades off the nightstand, and reaching for the Coke he left there the night before—Only his hand met nothing.No Coke.Fear clenched his gut, and he scrambled out of bed."I forgot it, that's all," he told himself."I was stoned, and I forgot it—"And he almost had himself convinced—until he turned on the bathroom light.Scrawled across the bathroom mirror, written in what looked like dried blood, was a single word." Remember."The hunger rose, clawing at him, like a weasel trying to tear its way out of his stomach.He clutched the bathroom sink to hold himself up—and cried.***Di paced the space behind the counter, too restless to stand, too unhappy to really want to think.But the "activity" of pacing was doing nothing to stop her brain from working.She'd just hung up on Annie's husband, Bob; he'd been babbling, truth to tell.But then, you kind of expect the new daddy to babble.Little Heather Rhiannon is going to be spoiled rotten if he gets his way.I'm kind of glad he was so wrapped up in being New Daddy; if he had been his usual sharp self, he'd have picked up on bad vibes from my tone of voice before I'd gotten three words out.Then he'd have wanted to know what was wrong.I don't want any of them in the line of fire.It's bad enough having Lenny there.She turned, and stared out the window for a moment.Thank the gods Annie's going to be able to take over again soon.I can't take much more of this, maintaining protection on two places, dividing my attention like this.Her lips twitched.Two weeks at most.Bob at least remembered to tell me that.She registered a twinge, and her lips shaped an ironic grimace.I think I'm jealous.Because Bob was so supportive of Annie, and so happy about everything—and he'd been just as terminally mundane as Dave when he and Annie met.Her spirits sank another inch.That whole conversation just made me more depressed than I had been, if that's possible.If it were Annie in this mess— Bob would be right in there slugging away beside her.He adjusted— then he accepted— and now he joins in.Oh hell.The situation isn't the same.She leaned against the counter and buried her face in her hands.It was one thing to know intellectually that her peculiarly strong psychic talents put her into a class by herself, that she was always going to be forced into the front lines by the very strength of those gifts.Along with the rest of the fortunate souls who have the dubious pleasure of being Guardians.But to know it viscerally—that had to come very hard.Oh, very few fortunate souls, we are.I couldn't tell you if we're cursed, or blessed.All I know is that we're different.Annie's not in my league; why should she have had to make the same choices?I'm an F-15, a Sherman tank; Annie's a Piper Cub, a VW bug.But seeing Dave again—I thought I'd gotten over him.The wounds weren't healed, they were only scabbed over.Now they're bleeding again.All the little demons of loneliness she'd thought she'd been ignoring successfully were coming back for their revenge.And it sure didn't help that Dave had looked incredibly sexy.Leaner, his eyes dream-haunted and soulful, like the poet she had always known he was, even if he didn't believe it.It's probably drugs, she told herself savagely.I'm probably seeing only what I want to see.He's probably burned-out, not soulful.That's not the spirit of a poet looking out of those eyes, it's the fact that there's nobody home in his skull.She squared her shoulders and raised her head, staring at the tumble of books on the shelf opposite her, but not really seeing them.I've got to snap out of this.I've got more important things to do than moon about my lack of a love life.I still don't know who— or what— killed that gypsy boy.I still don't know whatkilled Keith's ex, or where it is.I don't know if the two deaths are related.I don't even know if it knows about me.She went back to pacing again, her mind going in circles, fruitlessly, until it was time for closing.As she began locking up, her eye fell on the display case of jewelry, and because of the way the light fell on some of the silver pieces, she suddenly noticed them, gleaming softly in the shadows.Bell, Book, and Candle catered to folk of a multiplicity of esoteric religions—and some of them were nominally Christian.There were at least three heavy silver crucifixes in that case.And legend swore to the efficacy of a crucifix against vampires.The gods knew she hadn't anything else to go on but legend.Before she could change her mind, she opened the display case and took the largest and heaviest of them, shoving it into her coat pocket.Gods, I feel like a fool—But that didn't stop her from walking out the door with it tucked into her pocket.***Di slunk her way along the route between the subway station and her apartment building.Every nerve was alive to changes, movement.She felt like a sentient burglar alarm.If something doesn't break soon, I'm going to look like a Brillo pad made of nerve endings.It had been another overcast day; the sun had set about the time she closed the shop, and this was one of those nights when the air seemed to devour all available light, leaving the eyes confused by shadows that wouldn't resolve into substance.Shadows that could hide anything.Hunter, or hunted.For the first time in weeks, that line of thought did not bring a crippling surge of panic.She had been expecting one; braced for it.When it didn't come—the confusion made her stop dead about ten feet from the steps of the apartment building.The street lamp on the other side of the steps cast long, murky shadows, shadows that hid the side of the building and part of the sidewalk.Before she could shake herself out of her stupefaction, a man-shaped shadow solidified out of the murk and blocked her path to the steps.She didn't think—just acted.Street-smart instincts and a karate sensei far more interested in keeping his pupils alive than in perfect form had gotten her to the point that under a given set of conditions, her body took over, no matter what state her mind was in.In fact, she could hear her sensei even as she struck."You don't ever warn, you don't re-act.You act."She knew that—but more importantly, her body knew it.She was analyzing his stance without having to tell herself to do so; doing it as fast as her eyes could react to him being there; her ki was balanced and she was ready to strike as soon as he took that critical step that brought him within range.He did.She struck for the throat, not the (expected, and consequently, often guarded against) groin shot; she already knew as she was moving that she would follow that up with a kick to the knee, and once he was down she'd get past him and into the building—Except that it didn't happen that way.He didn't move out of the way; didn't pull a weapon.He just reached out and caught her wrist before she connected.And held it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]