"Anthony, Piers- Incarnations of Immortality 1- On a Pale Horse" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anthony Piers)

The police had arrived, and an ambulance, and people were extracting the mangled remains of the victim from the wreckage of her car. Witnesses were being interviewed, but no one thought to question Zane. He was coming to understand how this operated; he was not invisible, but he was unnoticeable. Except when it counted.

He had collected his first soul. No one needed to tell him that he had pretty well bungled it. He had frightened the woman unnecessarily, extended her torment while he dallied, and ripped her soul forth most unkindly. This certainly was not an auspicious commencement of his new duties!

His watch was flashing again. The sweep hand was moving. He had seven minutes to make his next appointment.

"I'd rather die myself!" he muttered. But he wasn't quite sure of that. Life could be ugly, and his present office was also ugly, but dying was worse yet. What a torment the human condition could be!

What alternative did he have? Zane hurried to the Death mobile. He did not know what the normal frequency of clients was, but supposed a backlog had accumulated during the transition, if such a thing were possible. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe Fate had timed the changeover to occur during a lapse in other clients.

He oriented on the next case and drove toward it. As the green grid flashed, he touched the button on the dash panel-and launched toward the location on hyper drive. This one was far south, probably well below the equator. But as the car stabilized in the new city, the guide-gems functioned normally, and no one seemed to notice his sudden appearance on the street.

Zane was not at all sure he liked this business of collecting souls, but still was hesitant about balking. How long would the woman in the wrecked car have suffered if he, Death, had not been there to relieve her other soul? He didn't care to think about that.

The car ran smoothly, maneuvering through traffic expertly. It was a real pleasure to drive. He followed the arrow and eye and closed quickly on his destination.

Where was he? Maybe in Brazilia, in the bosom of the southern continent. But no-now he saw the Phoenix General Hospital. This was the Arizona of the country. He had not hyped south of the equator at all; he had severely misjudged his progress. Well, he would learn with experience.

He parked in the visitors' lot, drew his cloak about him, and proceeded to the appropriate ward, feeling nervous. He had never liked hospitals, especially since his mother had been confined to one. Yet he realized that Death would have a number of calls at hospitals, since many terminally ill people would expire in them.

No one challenged him, though he had not arrived during visiting hours. Evidently they took him for a doctor or hospital functionary. Perhaps he was; his function was the most basic of them all.

He found his client. It was an old man in a ward of four. All of them had tubes and apparatus connected to their bodies in awkward ways and all seemed to be terminally ill. Oh, he hated this! He wanted to flee, but could not.

Zane was concerned that his appearance would terrify the client, as it had before, but there was no way to sneak up on him anonymously. In addition. Death was early; two minutes remained on the countdown.

He decided to be forthright. After all, that couldn't be any worse than the previous case. He marched up to the bed. "Hello." His spoken word sounded strange; there seemed to be an echo from his pocket.

None of the four patients reacted at first. This gave Zane a moment to ferret out the mystery. He reached in the pocket and found the earring he had taken from Death. Had the echo come from it? Why?

"Hello," he repeated-and this time was sure the sound reacted with the gamete.

The client's eyes turned slowly on him. The sagging mouth formed words. "About time you got here. Death!"

The client was speaking in a foreign language-but Zane understood him, because a translation emanated from the gem he held. He realized that this was a magic translation device, another enchanted stone. Naturally Death had duties all over the world and had to be able to handle any language. He jammed the gem into his left ear; later he would get it attached in a more normal fashion.

The novelty of the language and the stone had distracted him from the business at hand; the client was looking at him expectantly. Zane was taken aback. "You were expecting me? You're not afraid?"

"Expecting you? I've been seeking you for six months! Afraid? I thought I'd never get out of this prison!"

"This hospital? It seems nice enough."

"This body."

Oh. And it seemed the translation worked both ways, for the man understood Zane's words, though there was no noise in his ear. "You want to-?"

The client squinted at him. "You're new at this job, aren't you?"

Zane choked. "How did you know?"