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Danse Macabre :: Гамильтон Лорел
Страница: 404 из 427«Fine» — and my voice was a little breathy — «you're afraid the Mother of All Darkness will show up again.»
Did the lights grow a shade less bright, or was it my imagination?
«She is lost to us, Ms. Blake. You know nothing of her.»
«She lies in a room that is underground, but high up. There are windows around the front of that room that look out upon a cave, or underground building. There's always firelight down below, as if whoever watches is afraid of the dark.»
«I am aware that Valentina has been inside the room you describe, and lived to tell the tale. Do not seek to impress me with secondhand stories.»
I was beginning to think that Merlin didn't know that I'd been in his head with her. Did he not know that I'd seen his memory of her coming out of the darkness? «Let's try another secondhand tale, then. I saw her in the shape of a great cat, maybe a type of extinct lion, bigger than anything that we have today. I watched her stalk you in a night where the world smelled of rain and jasmine, or something like jasmine. I mean, I don't know how long jasmine has existed as a plant; maybe my mind just calls it 'jasmine' because it's the closest smell I know.»
I thought he'd gone still before, but I had been wrong, because now he went so still that I had to concentrate on his chest to make sure he didn't just disappear. So still, more still than any snake, still in the way that live things don't get. Still, as if he were willing himself not to be there anymore.
His voice was as empty as his body when he said, «You shared her memory tonight.»
«Yeah,» I said.
«Then you know her secret.»
«She's got a lot of them, but if you mean that she's a shapeshifter and a vampire, simultaneously, then yeah, I know that secret.»
He drew a breath. A lot of them did that when they came back from that still-stillness. They drew a breath as if to remind themselves they aren't dead yet.
«But Ms. Blake, everyone knows that you cannot be both.»
«The strain of vampirism that we have today is destroyed by the lycanthropy virus, but maybe once it wasn't, or maybe it's a different kind of vampirism. Whatever. I know what I've seen.»
«Musette brought some of the Dark Lady's cats to visit us,» Asher said, «they were both, and neither.»
«Yes, Belle Morte says the sleeping cats of our mother have woken to her call,» Merlin said. «What do you think of that, Ms. Blake? Do you think Belle Morte has grown so powerful that the servants of the mother have woken to her call?»
«No,» I said.
«Why no?» he asked.
Did the lights grow a shade less bright, or was it my imagination?
«She is lost to us, Ms. Blake. You know nothing of her.»
«She lies in a room that is underground, but high up. There are windows around the front of that room that look out upon a cave, or underground building. There's always firelight down below, as if whoever watches is afraid of the dark.»
«I am aware that Valentina has been inside the room you describe, and lived to tell the tale. Do not seek to impress me with secondhand stories.»
I was beginning to think that Merlin didn't know that I'd been in his head with her. Did he not know that I'd seen his memory of her coming out of the darkness? «Let's try another secondhand tale, then. I saw her in the shape of a great cat, maybe a type of extinct lion, bigger than anything that we have today. I watched her stalk you in a night where the world smelled of rain and jasmine, or something like jasmine. I mean, I don't know how long jasmine has existed as a plant; maybe my mind just calls it 'jasmine' because it's the closest smell I know.»
I thought he'd gone still before, but I had been wrong, because now he went so still that I had to concentrate on his chest to make sure he didn't just disappear. So still, more still than any snake, still in the way that live things don't get. Still, as if he were willing himself not to be there anymore.
His voice was as empty as his body when he said, «You shared her memory tonight.»
«Yeah,» I said.
«Then you know her secret.»
«She's got a lot of them, but if you mean that she's a shapeshifter and a vampire, simultaneously, then yeah, I know that secret.»
He drew a breath. A lot of them did that when they came back from that still-stillness. They drew a breath as if to remind themselves they aren't dead yet.
«But Ms. Blake, everyone knows that you cannot be both.»
«The strain of vampirism that we have today is destroyed by the lycanthropy virus, but maybe once it wasn't, or maybe it's a different kind of vampirism. Whatever. I know what I've seen.»
«Musette brought some of the Dark Lady's cats to visit us,» Asher said, «they were both, and neither.»
«Yes, Belle Morte says the sleeping cats of our mother have woken to her call,» Merlin said. «What do you think of that, Ms. Blake? Do you think Belle Morte has grown so powerful that the servants of the mother have woken to her call?»
«No,» I said.
«Why no?» he asked.