"Charles de Lint - Someplace To Be Flying" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Lint Charles)

know where I can find them."
He'd heard of them, but not as anything real. They were only
stories.
"Animal people," Hank repeated.
He was thinking now might be a real good time to get her out of the
cab and put all of this behind him. It was getting close to six when he
had to pick up Eddie anyway, so he had an excuse, but he couldn't let it
go. The whole thing was too intriguing. A good-looking, straight
citizen like this, out walking the streets of the Combat Zone looking for
animal people like Jack was always talking about. He knew what Moth
would say, what he'd do, but he wasn't Moth. Moth wouldn't have
stopped in the first place-not unless he'd known her. Then Moth would
have given his life for her, just as he almost had.
"What exactly are they supposed to be?" he asked.
"The first people-the ones that were there when the world began.
They were animals, but people, too."
"When the world began."
This was way too familiar, he thought as she nodded. At least Jack
knew they were only stories.
"That'd be a long time ago," Hank said, humoring her.
"I know. Lots of us have their blood in us-that's what gives us our
animal traits."
"Like the Chinese calendar?"
"I suppose," she said. "The thing is, there's been so much
intermarrying between species-you know, us and real animals-not to
mention us killing them off when they're in their animal shapes, that
there aren't many pure animal people left. But there are some, living on
the edges of the way we see the world, the way we divide it up. They're
like spiritual forces. Totems."
Hank didn't know what to say.
She sighed and looked out the windshield. "I told you. I know how
crazy it sounds."
Hank knew crazy, and this wasn't it. Crazy was Hazel standing out
in front of the Williamson Street Mall, trying to tell anybody who'd
listen about the video games going on inside her head, how right now,
Mario the Plumber was walking around inside her stomach. Or No
Hands Luke who was convinced that aliens had stolen his hands and
would only pick things up with his wrists held together. But he thought
he knew where she'd picked up this business with the animal people.
"Do you know a man named Jack Daw?" Hank asked.
She turned so that she was facing him. "Do you know him, too?"
Everybody on the street, or who worked it, knew Jack. The only
thing that surprised Hank was that a citizen would know him. Jack
didn't exactly fit into the cocktail hour/espresso bar set. He lived in an
abandoned school bus up on the edge of the Tombs near Moth's
junkyard, had the place all fixed up inside and out: potbellied cast-iron
woodstove, bed, table and chairs to eat at, big old sofa outside where
he'd sit in the summer when he wasn't out and about, cadging coins and
telling stories. There were always crows hanging around that old bus,
feeding off the scraps he fed them. He called them his cousins.