"Allston, Aaron - Doc Sidhe 02 - Sidhe-Devil" - читать интересную книгу автора (Allston Aaron)

Harris said, “She’s projecting her mind into the Grid. Sort of like she had a direct brain-to-phone link to the fair world’s Ma Bell and entertainment networks.”
“Ah. You didn’t mention you’d also become superheroes.”
“Slipped my mind.” Harris kept his attention on Gaby. “Doing this from here is very hard for her, so let’s be quiet.”
After a minute of concentration, Gaby tilted her head. Static burst from the TV’s speaker. She frowned, concentrating, and the static began to ebb and flow, almost as though it were the voice of some roaring beast of the airwaves. Zeb saw her mouthing words she did not speak.
Then she stopped and switched the set off. “Bad connection,” she said. “But I got hold of Noriko. She and Alastair are coming to pick us up; he’ll trip the circle in two chimes. She says Doc is missing and Ish is beside herself. Let’s get ready.”
“Right.” Harris frowned. “Doc is missing. Gaby, if they were coming to grab us, why did they bring only one of those rubber grabby things?”
She shook her head. “Because they only wanted one of us?”
“Maybe. Or maybe they weren’t after us. Maybe they were after Doc, figuring that he’d be at the wedding. Maybe they had two groups, and one of them got him back home.”
Gaby’s expression suggested that she didn’t care for that idea.
Harris pulled out the contents of his pants pockets, set everything on the table. “Zeb, get rid of your wristwatch, put it here with my stuff. What’ve you got in your pockets?”
“Uh, loose change, keys, a pen, my wallet-”
“Dead weight, most of it. Dump it here. You can keep your pen if it’s a fountain pen, otherwise chuck it.”
Zeb obliged, then patted himself down. “I feel naked without my stuff. Why leave it?”
“We go through sort of a filter getting there. It mangles anything that’s too, well, technologically advanced for the fair world. Anything too mystically advanced gets wrecked on the way back.” He grinned. “You haven’t had a pacemaker installed recently? That would be bad.”
“Get real.” Zeb frowned. “Wait a second. If this filter wrecks mystical things, what about the rubber-sheet guy?”
Gaby said, “What Harris forgot to mention is that the filter is down for repairs.”
“Yeah, but it could come up again at any time.” Harris offered him an expression suggesting that one can’t count on anything. “A bad guy named Duncan Blackletter cut the bonds holding the two worlds together. That also cut the filter and made it even trickier to go from world to world-it takes the most expert of the experts to set up the transference circles now. But the bonds are growing back together, and presumably the filter-we just don’t know when it’ll start up again.”
Zeb gave him the sort of smile he normally reserved for small children. “Whether it’s true or not, you know how this sounds.”
“You can leave anytime.”
“Nope.”
“Then strip, soldier.”
They dressed from a chest full of clothes that, to Zeb’s eye, looked like well-preserved antiques. The men put on high-waisted suits with suspenders; Zeb’s was brown with a matching vest, while Harris’s was a two-piece green so dark it was almost black. Gaby returned in a painfully bright yellow skirt and blouse with a matching wide-brimmed felt hat.
“So, these museum pieces are what everyone’s wearing?”
“You got it,” Harris said. “How’s it fit?”
“A little loose. You’re gaining weight.”
“I’m just broadening in the chest. That’s what Gaby says.”
“Yeah, but she has to put up with you. Hey, is that a fedora?”
Harris handed the hat to him. “Yeah, but on the fair world it’s a merry, or merry-hat. Named after someone in a play.”
Zeb tried it on, cocked it at a rakish angle. “Always wanted one of these. How does it look?”
Gaby said, “Great. But you two need to stop playing dress-up. We don’t have much time.”
“Right,” Harris said. “Zeb, it’s not certain how long we’ll be gone. Do you need to make any arrangements?”
“Yeah, I’d better phone my partner. Ask him to deal with my apartment.”
“Pets?”
“No pets.”
A couple of minutes later, phone calls done, the three of them stood within the two white circles. Zeb looked at the other two, saw only a little concern, a little impatience. And for a moment the oddness of the situation got to him; he suddenly knew that his friends were playing him for a fool, that everything they’d said until now was part of an elaborate practical joke, that a roomful of people he knew would burst in through a side door with cameras and beer bottles.
He shoved those feelings aside. His gut told him otherwise, and when his gut and his brain disagreed, he tended to side with the former.
Then the world writhed around him.
It was as though the air outside the white circles had suddenly become a magnifying glass, distorting everything beyond, twisting the world into something huge and frightening. The twisting seemed to extend right into Zeb’s stomach, bending him over with nausea, and continued as Zeb lost his balance and awkwardly sat down. The room around them flowed, the hardwood floor dropping away, the furniture fading into nothingness, the window becoming a wall covered in paisley wallpaper, two giant silhouettes standing before them. Then it all twisted its way back to more reasonable proportions.
“Oh, God.” Zeb tried to control his stomach, which insisted that it needed to deposit his airplane meal on the floor.
On the tabletop, actually. Zeb found that he was lying atop a large, sturdy wooden dining table.
Harris said, “You get used to it.” He hopped down and helped Zeb to slide off to stand, then turned to help Gaby down.
The room had somehow changed, too. It was larger, with a much higher ceiling than Gaby’s and Harris’s study. The furniture consisted of hardwood chairs and a wooden bench against the window. The table where the three of them had appeared had a circular top painted with the identical twin of the circle design from the study. Beside it stood a man and a woman.
The man was of average height and a little overweight; his features were cheerful and appeared European, but his skin was a nut-brown that no tan, natural or artificial, could produce; together they suggested someone from India, but then Zeb saw his eyes, which were a startling green. The man’s trench coat gapped to reveal a stiff-starched white shirt and pants that reminded Zeb of old doctor movies.
The woman was short and very slender, with Asian coloration and features. She wore a black silk pantsuit with flowing sleeves and legs. In her hands she held a sheathed sword Zeb would have identified as a Japanese katana if it had been curved, but it was ruler-straight. She was beautiful as the statue of a goddess suddenly come to life, but also as expressionless. She stared at Zeb with no emotion on her face, but he saw tension, suspicion in the stiffness of her body language.
“Quick introductions,” Gaby said. “This is Zeb Watson; he manages fighters like Harris. This is Doctor Alastair Kornbock, the finest physician who ever slung a submachine gun, and Noriko Nomura Lamignac, princess-at least for the next few days-of the kingdom of Acadia.”
“Glad to meet you,” said Zeb. He leaned back against the table. His stomach still felt as though it were the midway point in a phantom Ping-Pong match. “Doctor, have you got a stomach powder?”
Alastair chuckled. “Yes. But wait a few ticks and the sensation will pass anyway, so I’d be out a stomach powder for nothing. Grace on you.” His accent was not Indian-to Zeb, it sounded more English than anything.
“Grace upon you,” Noriko echoed. “Harris, why have you brought him?”
“Some bullies came and I was scared, but Zeb came and beat them up, and now he’s my friend forever. No, it’s a long story. We’ll talk about it in the car.” He handed Alastair the rolled-up rubber thing. “See what you can make of this.”