"Linda Evans - Time Scout 5 - License Invoked" - читать интересную книгу автора (Evans Linda)

underwear, Elizabeth told herself virtuously. She stripped off her
dress, and put on her most wrinkle-resistant suit, a very upper-class
skirt and blazer of a cream-colored fabric that looked like linen but
wore like iron. That was the way she must appear to those she
encountered: neat and approachable, but inwardly tough. There, she
thought, pleased at her reflection. Ready for anything.

With a last backward look at the photograph of her grandmother, who'd
taught her everything she knew about the unseen world, she locked up
her flat.

The limo driver hooted his horn when he saw her coming.

"Hurry up, miss!" he shouted.

"Did the courier come?" she asked.

"Not a sight of 'im," the man said, pinching out the cigarette he was
smoking. He got out of the car and opened her door for her. "Stuck
'alfway between here and Marble Arch, I'll bet. 'E'll catch up. Come
on, 'op in."

"Just one minute more," Elizabeth pleaded. She made for the bare bit of
garden between two forlorn London trees that stood before the building.

Undoubtedly the limo driver had thought her quite mad standing there
barefoot in the patch of earth with her arms to the sky, but she
couldn't take the trip entirely unprepared. Ignoring him, she
concentrated on reaching her mental roots deep into the earth and far
up into the sky, making herself a conduit to gather together the two
halves of energy that made up Earth power. It took a moment to ground
and center herself. The familiar, warm tingle rushed along her limbs,
feeling like the terror and pleasure of a steep roller coaster ride
where they collided in the middle of her belly. Elizabeth took a deep
breath as she joined the two elements together. She wound it into a
skein of power deep within her that she could unreel at will.

Unlike the driver, her neighbors were accustomed to seeing Miss
Mayfield in the garden patch recharging her magical batteries. While
she stood there, feeling mystic, the power of nature flowing into her
body from the earth and sky, one of the little old ladies who lived
next door tottered by with her arthritic Pekinese.

"Good afternoon, Miss Mayfield!"

Elizabeth replied without letting go of the strands of energy. "Good
morning, Mrs. Endicott. Lovely weather, isn't it?"

"Oh, it might be a little warmer, mightn't it, dear? Off somewhere?"