sf_fantasyTuttleThe Dark 10 страница

“Are you telling me any of that?

“Perhaps yes, perhaps no. As you can imagine, the situation is rather too delicate for open discussion, even now.”let a moment pass. Then I shrugged to hide a deep breath. “You ought to do something about Oddling,” I said. “The walls are going to collapse any day now, leaning like that.”. Just a beat, but for that beat, the flies didn’t buzz and the carriage didn’t clatter and the world might as well have been shut behind a thick, tight door.wondered if Hisvin would speak or merely strike me down.

“You are a man of surprising resources, goodman Markhat,” said the corpse, without a hint of bubbling or slurring. “I congratulate you. Few have proven so amusing, or dared so much in my presence. I assume you have mentioned Oddling to your friends at Avalante?

“Perhaps yes. Perhaps no. It’s one of those delicate situations you mentioned. For both of us.”hadn’t said a word concerning my vision of Oddling to Evis really. But I hid my thoughts, forced a smile. Knowing the resting place of a thing like Hisvin was a secret whole Houses would fight to the death for.dead woman laughed, the sound of it wet and choking.

“I like you, goodman,” it said. “No one else dares speak so plain to me. I find it refreshing.”put her dead hand on my knee and squeezed.

“This time.”managed a nod.

“So we’re done. There won’t be any more new-moon vampire picnics. My clients got their sister back. I got my fee.”

“We are done. Peace and tranquility are restored. Good has triumphed, and evil has been, I am told, dismembered and then burned.”carriage clattered on.

“I trust Miss Tomas is recovered from her adventures?” asked the corpse.

“Stop the cab,” I said. “Stop it right now.”

“Of course,” said the corpse. The dead cab man cracked his whip at horses that weren’t there. At once, the carriage began to slow.

“I owe you. I owe you twice, from the War. But if you ever mention Darla’s name again I’ll make a little trip up to Oddling. I’ll come and I’ll break down your door, and I’ll gut you dead. You hear me? Dead. No coming back.”dead woman laughed. Her lips trailed black ropes of thick fluid and her withered black tongue writhed and worked.

“Oh well spoken,” she said. “I expected no less.”opened the door, and I was out.carriage glided away, flies and stench and screams in its wake.marched the opposite way, all the way to Darla’s door. She was there and safe, baking a pie, a spot of flour on the end of her nose. She took me in without a single questioning word.are “walking out”, as Mama calls it. Mama is always pestering me to buy Darla fireflowers on Sweetheart Days or take her shopping at lunch. Any day now I expect Mama will start pointing out houses in the neighborhood that would be just perfect for a nice young couple starting out.sighed, put my feet on my desk, laced my fingers behind my head. One thing at a time Mama. I won’t be walking any aisles until I can stop walking Rannit at night with my head halfway to the clouds and murder and flames in my heart.the huldra had showed me come back to me sometimes. I’ll look at the light streaming through the clouds, and I’ll briefly see a way to hurl lightning. A candle will flicker, just so, and I’ll see tiny, scurrying manikins, darting away from the wavering light, but each at my beck and call if I could just remember those long, strange words.leg Cat leaped suddenly into my lap, and I spilled hot tea. Three-leg scampered away hissing, and I rose cussing. Then Mama’s shadow fell over my door.

“Boy,” she said, turning my latch. “You in there?”mopped tea, took a deep breath, thought about Mama’s question. Am I? Was I? Will I be?shadow joined Mama’s. This one was tall and slender.

“Are you alone in there, Markhat?” asked Darla, and I could hear the impish grin she wore in her tone, though I could see only shadows through my cheap and bubbled glass.

“Time will tell,” I said. I drained the cup of its last sip of dark bitter tea. “Come on in, ladies,” I added, sitting up straight and hiding Mama’s cup in a drawer. The fancy chocolate cake Martha had dropped off earlier sat untouched on my desk. “I’ve baked us all a cake.”flung my door open, grinning, and all but dragged Darla inside.eyed Martha’s cake as though it might conceal Trolls or haunts.

“You did not,” she announced, “bake that cake.”

“I beg to differ, Miss Tomas,” I replied. “I have baked thousands of cakes in my day. In fact, I’m scraping the finder’s eye off my door and painting a baker’s rolling pin on it tomorrow.”laughed. Then she glided around my desk and dropped into my lap.

“Cakes and shirts,” she said. “Do I have reason to be jealous, Markhat?”

“Not at all,” I replied. I lifted an eyebrow, as if pondering. “Unless, of course, it’s an unusually good cake.”kissed.kissed again.

“Well I reckon I’ll be heading on,” gruffed Mama. She dropped a brown-wrapped parcel on my desk-more bitter tea leaves, no doubt-and waddled out my door.

“Alone at last,” said Darla. Her eyes twinkled. “And I know just what to-”, knock, knock. Not Mama’s knock, either.sighed and stood.

“I’ll wait for a while at Mama’s-” she began.pulled her back down. She giggled and kicked.

“Come back tomorrow,” I yelled, at the door. “I’m busy right now.”

“But-”

“I said come back tomorrow,” I yelled, putting some bellow into it. “No buts. No more knocking. Come. Back. Tomorrow.”.touched the Angel Malan I wore around my neck, the one she’d left for me, all those nights ago. I caught her searching my eyes, just for an instant, looking to see what might still be in there with me. I didn’t ask what she saw. I doubted the answer would please either of us.took my hand.

“It’s losing its grip, a little every day,” she said. How do women do that?just nodded. I wasn’t so sure. She didn’t see the things I dreamed of.

“Mama says you’ve already been through the worst.”

“Mama’s tea has been the most frightening part of the whole ordeal. I’m terrified she’s just feeding me her laundry water.”tweaked my nose.

“She spends hours brewing that…tea, Markhat, I was there when a package came all the way from that place she calls home-Pot Lock, something like that?”

“Pot Lockney. I hear they eat vampires whole there, dressed and snarling.”giggled. “Well, Mama is going to a lot of trouble and you, Mister Markhat, could be a little more appreciative.”

“Oh, I’m very appreciative of all my womenfolk. Why, I bought a middling expensive bottle of wine just for you this very day.”beamed. “I’m flattered. Does it have a cork, or do we twist something off the top?”sat Darla on the edge of my desk. She swung her long legs back and forth at the knees and watched expectantly as I rose, went to my bunkroom, and came back with a blood-red bottle of ten-year-old wine in my hand.

“Cork and a label,” I said. I offered Darla a pair of glasses-real glasses, not mugs, and clean.smiled.pulled corks and filled glasses. We resumed our preferred seating arrangement of my chair and my lap. I held my glass beneath my nose and made a show of sloshing it around in the glass and sniffing it.

“You have before you a slightly warm Rethmarch Red,” I said. “Bottled at the height of the summer in ninety-one, from grapes grown on the slopes of the famed Rethmarch Vineyard itself. I believe Madame will find it at once hearty and ethereal. Or is it fruity and redolent of oak? I can never keep my fancy wines straight.”

“You talk too much, Mister Markhat,” said Darla, making herself comfortable in my lap with an intriguing series of wiggles and twists. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were in love with the sound of your own voice.”

“It’s a good voice. At once throaty and redolent of tenor.”interrupted me with a kiss.if anything-anyone-ever lays the huldra left inside me to rest, I think it shall be Darla.

Дата добавления: 2015-09-29