"(ellora) Mary Janice Davidson - Monster love" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Mary Janice)

MONSTER LOVE
(c) MaryJanice Davidson, 2002

Prologue

From the private papers of Richard Will, Ten Beacon Hill, Boston, Massachusetts.

"Becoming a vampire was the best thing that ever happened to me. The very,
very best. Which is why I don't understand all the literature, how the vampires are
usually these moody fellows who rue the day they ever got bitten, who pray for some
illiterate European to plant a stake through their ribs. Rue the day? If the mob hadn't torched my killer the next night, I'd have kissed his feet. I'd even have kissed his behind!

"After all, what else was there for me? Take over the farm when my father died?
No, thank you. Farming is back-breaking work for very little reward, and even less
respect. And I could hardly endure being in the same room with my father, much less
work for him the rest of my life. (Punch first and punch second, that was my dear
departed papa's motto.)

"Lie about my age to join the army, and get my head blown off? (All so sixty years
later we can ignore the Holocaust and pretend the Germans are good guys?) But back
then, if you didn't fight you were a coward. Of course, two wars later the young men
were encouraged to go to Canada, to avoid responsibilities to their country. If they
fought, and lived, their reward was to be spit upon at the airport. It just goes to prove, nothing changes faster than the mind of an American.

"No, life wasn't exactly a bowl of fresh peaches. I was in a box, and each side of
the box was equally insurmountable. I wasn't the only one, but I was the only one who
noticed the shape and size of the prison. I was always different from my chums. At
least, I think I was...it was a long time ago, and don't we always think we're different?

"So when Darak-that was his name, or at least the name he gave me-bought
me a drink, then two, then ten, I didn't turn him down. What did I care if a stranger
wanted to help me forget about the box? I was big-twenty-three years working on a
farm made for a big boy-and if he wanted to get inappropriate, I was sure I could
handle it.

"Yes, there was homosexuality in the forties. People like to pretend it's a
modern invention, which always makes me laugh. Anyway, I figured Darak wanted to
see what I had inside my drawers, but I had no intention of showing him-what men
did with other men was none of my concern. Of course, my drawers weren't what held
his interest at all.

"I'd been supremely confident I could toss Darak through a window if I needed
to, which just goes to show I was something of a naпve moron when I was a boy. Darak
took what he needed from me, and never mind pretty words or even asking permission.
He stopped my heart and left me on a filthy floor to breathe my last. The last thing I
remember was a rat scampering across my face, how the tail felt, dragging across my
mouth.

"I woke up two nights later. It was dark and close, but in a stroke of luck I
hadn't been buried yet. I didn't know it then, but the town's only mill had blown up,