"Dellamonica, A M - Nevada" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dellamonica A M)

Nevada
by A.M. Dellamonica


The desert stank of magic.

In decades of hunting sorcery, Kyte had never hit a trail so strong, so close to the real that it sang on his tastebuds. A toy on the dashboard pointed the way, a stuffed puppy that bumped its felt nose against the windshield. Magic in the dog hooked Kyte's rented Jeep like a fish, reeling, reeling. Even when he took his foot off the gas the Jeep drove on, into the heat illusions' shimmering promises ahead on the highway.

As an experiment, he tried taking an exit into Fallon. Massive grasshoppers spattered the car in a gory hail, and tumbleweeds leaped at his wheels. Kyte shut off the turn signal happily. As an afterthought he hit the windshield wipers, pushing juiced insects into a half-circle of limbs and carapaces.

Eventually he sped into Yerington, a yellow-white podunk with four casinos and a population of cane-wielding ancients. Plunging through town and down a dirt road to nowhere, the Jeep finally coughed. The engine died and all four tires went flat.

"Old whore." He grinned at the eager, shallow dunes.

Fields of sand stretched from the road. They were fenced with barbed-wire, as if the sagebrush and prickly pear were worth stealing. Town was miles back, and the only house was up the road, a low-slung brick edifice squatting behind a red stone wall.

The stuffed dog moved, one glass eye squeaking against the windshield. Kyte pulled it away, leaving a clean smear on the dusty black dashboard. The toy's fur had come off along the seams, revealing greenish burlap beneath. Red silk on the insides of its ears was faded and fraying. How old was it? Twenty years? Fifty?

It tugged him forward—scenting riches ahead.

He packed the dog into his bag of tricks. Magic called to magic like blood to blood—its hunger eased by the other chantments in the red satchel, the dog went limp. Perspiration tickling his scalp, Kyte plucked out the magic sunglasses and then zipped the bag shut. Hefting his tricks in one hand, he stepped out into a midsummer blast furnace.

Nothing to do but walk.

He was soaked in sweat when he reached the house, a flat, malevolent box with strange additions jutting from its brick body like prosthetic limbs. The surrounding wall was brick, too; chest height, it was nine inches wide and topped by flat concrete slabs.

Beyond the wall, the yard was an oasis of lush lawn and garden, shaded from the sun by massive poplars. Morning glory twined under the trees, each flower a white star amid tangled foliage. There were two front doors—the original enclosed within the porch, and the other a screen door built into one of the additions.

Kyte slid on the enchanted sunglasses. They showed a magical haze over the house, dark and mobile, like a cloud of mosquitoes. This was it, sure enough. He'd do a once-around, check the backyard …

… but then both front doors opened at once, and two women—sisters, from the look of them—stepped outside.

"Car trouble?" The woman who spoke from the shadows of the porch was cadaverously thin, with curly dark hair and a sallow complexion. Black circles smudged the skin under her eyes.

"Yeah," he said. "Use your phone?"

She nodded, and he wondered if that meant there was a man around. Kyte made women nervous—magic had tainted him somehow—but this one wasn't afraid. Instead, the sunglasses showed misery, blue bands of pain swirling around her head and heart. Maybe she was too unhappy to care if Kyte was dangerous.

The other one wasn't afraid, either. Bald and voluptuous, she folded suntanned arms under her tits as she appraised him. Black madness boiled from her—delusions twined around silver specks of clairvoyance.

A psychic. A crazy psychic. There was a chantment working here, all right, a big one. Kyte's mouth watered. With a big enough find, he could retire, sit pretty on a beach somewhere and pull in chantments himself. Caro had sworn that magic called its kind like blood kin to orphans.

Of course, Caro had plenty to say, much of it trash. Don't keep all your tricks in one place, take a month off between hunts, don't get hooked on collecting. Full of pointless advice, that man—afraid of his own power.

"Coming inside, rabbit?" Crazy sister derailed Kyte's memory train.

"Sure. Thanks."

"Use my door."