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A Caress Of Twilight :: Гамильтон Лорел
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I don't think Frost was happy with the choice, but everyone else took it in stride, and Frost kept his mouth shut. Sometimes that's all you can ask of a man, or anyone else.
Chapter 35
I needed to be alone to prepare myself for the ritual. Doyle hadn't liked me being on my own for even a little while, but we'd extended the house wards across the back wall to the small neglected garden of the house behind us. Neglected was good in this case because it meant that no pesticides or herbicides had been used in a very long time. We'd put up a ritual circle earlier in the day. I opened a doorway in that circle, stepped through, and closed it behind me. Now I stood not just in the wards of the house but in a circle of protection. Nothing magical could cross this circle, nothing less than a deity or the Nameless itself. The hungry ones that were slaughtering people would have been stopped by it; they weren't deities yet.
The yard had been planted within an inch of its life like most yards in Southern California. It was an abandoned lemon tree grove, now. The small trees were covered in dark green leaves. It was too late in the season for blossoms. I mourned that. But the moment I walked between the close crowding trees and the dry, crumbling grass and leaves underfoot, I knew this was it. The trees whispered among themselves like elderly ladies talking of the past softly with their heads close together in the warm, warm sun. The eucalyptus that lined the street just outside the garden wall was a heavy spicy scent that rode the air to mingle with the smell of the warm lemon trees.
A large cotton blanket lay on the ground, waiting. Maeve had offered to bring silk sheets, but all we needed was something of the earth, animal or vegetable. Something thick enough to cover the unyielding ground but not thick enough to separate us from it. We still needed to be able to feel the earth under our bodies.
I lay down on the blanket as if I was going to sunbathe. I pressed myself to the blanket, arms and legs wide, letting myself sink into the soft fuzz of the blanket, then past it to the coverings of the grass, leaves, and sticks, a covering of small sharp things, and farther still to the hard-packed earth beneath. There was water here or the lemon trees would have withered and died, but the ground seemed bone dry as if it never felt the touch of rain.
Wind caressed my body, drew me back. The wind played against my skin, rustled the dry leaves and weeds outside the edge of the blanket. The leaves whispered and shushed together. The smell of eucalyptus coated everything with its warm, pine-wood scent.
I don't think Frost was happy with the choice, but everyone else took it in stride, and Frost kept his mouth shut. Sometimes that's all you can ask of a man, or anyone else.
Chapter 35
I needed to be alone to prepare myself for the ritual. Doyle hadn't liked me being on my own for even a little while, but we'd extended the house wards across the back wall to the small neglected garden of the house behind us. Neglected was good in this case because it meant that no pesticides or herbicides had been used in a very long time. We'd put up a ritual circle earlier in the day. I opened a doorway in that circle, stepped through, and closed it behind me. Now I stood not just in the wards of the house but in a circle of protection. Nothing magical could cross this circle, nothing less than a deity or the Nameless itself. The hungry ones that were slaughtering people would have been stopped by it; they weren't deities yet.
The yard had been planted within an inch of its life like most yards in Southern California. It was an abandoned lemon tree grove, now. The small trees were covered in dark green leaves. It was too late in the season for blossoms. I mourned that. But the moment I walked between the close crowding trees and the dry, crumbling grass and leaves underfoot, I knew this was it. The trees whispered among themselves like elderly ladies talking of the past softly with their heads close together in the warm, warm sun. The eucalyptus that lined the street just outside the garden wall was a heavy spicy scent that rode the air to mingle with the smell of the warm lemon trees.
A large cotton blanket lay on the ground, waiting. Maeve had offered to bring silk sheets, but all we needed was something of the earth, animal or vegetable. Something thick enough to cover the unyielding ground but not thick enough to separate us from it. We still needed to be able to feel the earth under our bodies.
I lay down on the blanket as if I was going to sunbathe. I pressed myself to the blanket, arms and legs wide, letting myself sink into the soft fuzz of the blanket, then past it to the coverings of the grass, leaves, and sticks, a covering of small sharp things, and farther still to the hard-packed earth beneath. There was water here or the lemon trees would have withered and died, but the ground seemed bone dry as if it never felt the touch of rain.
Wind caressed my body, drew me back. The wind played against my skin, rustled the dry leaves and weeds outside the edge of the blanket. The leaves whispered and shushed together. The smell of eucalyptus coated everything with its warm, pine-wood scent.