"Simon R. Green - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

the chimney stack, which shifted slightly under his great weight. Stretched out before him lay
the sleeping town, still and quiet now, just an army of street lights pushing back the darkness.
There was the tower and spire of Trinity Church, and beyond it row upon row of terraced
houses and cottages, ascending the steep hills that enclosed the town - ordinary people
sleeping in their ordinary town, all's quiet, all's well. But that was just in Veritie.
In the magical world, every bit as clear to Jimmy Thunder's semi-divine eyes, the town was
never quiet. Bradford-on-Avon was an old, old locality, littered with all the remnants of the
past. The very old creature that lived Under the Hill stirred restlessly, as though it could feel
the thunder god's gaze, and deeper still, things and shapes and presences out of times past
slept and dreamed down among the bones of the town. On the last day, when the earth gives
up its dead for judgement, many of those buried in Bradford-on-Avon's cemeteries will be
surprised to find out who some of their neighbours have been.
Old buildings flickered in and out of sight, ghosts of the town that was. Pale figures sat
glumly at the base of the old gallows in the Bull Pit, swapping hard-luck stories and old, old
claims of innocence, while in the park next to Westbury House, old soldiers guarded the war
memorial, and made rude comments about the new pale green Millennium Statue in the
gardens opposite. From the River Avon came undine songs of unbearable melancholy,
sometimes drowned out by the terrible cry of the Howling Thing, still imprisoned in the
Chapel on the Bridge. Powers and Dominations sat at feast in the ghostly remembrance of
what had once been a seventeenth-century eating place, The Three Gables, sharing secrets in
loud, carrying voices and deciding men's fates with a laugh and a shrug and a careless quip.
King Mob still held sway in the town centre, as men and women long dead rioted over the
changing fortunes of the cloth trade. And all across the town there were flaring lights and
voices in the earth, and unnatural creatures flying on the night winds.
Business as usual, in Bradford-on-Avon, in Mysterie.
Jimmy Thunder looked up at the full moon, and nodded hello. He'd always been on good
terms with the Moon, unlike some of his predecessors, though her skittish ways made her
difficult to understand and dangerous to know. But you never knew when you might need a
friend. The town was jumping tonight, and the Reality Express was fast bearing down on the
station. Jimmy let his sight slip out of Mysterie and back into Veritie, as the big black train
came roaring in, right on time.
The Waking Beauty had hired Jimmy Thunder to investigate the matter of the Reality
Express, and Jimmy had nodded politely and said of course he would, no problem, because
no one said no to the Waking Beauty if they knew what was good for them; not even a god.
She hadn't offered to pay, and he'd known better than to ask. He was just building up credit
that he might some day need to redeem. The Waking Beauty was older than the town, and the
town was very old indeed. She hadn't volunteered why she was suddenly interested in the
Reality Express, or what he was supposed to be looking for. A lot of people disapproved of it,
for all kinds of reasons, but as yet no one had actually got around to doing anything about it.
The trade in refugees between the two worlds wasn't exactly illegal, but it did tend to
undermine the status quo. And a lot of people had a great deal invested in maintaining the
status quo. No one had any idea who owned or operated the Reality Express, and those
foolish enough to go looking for answers tended not to come back. So it was just there, a
service for those who needed it.
Jimmy didn't even know who drove the damned train.
It irked him that he was working for nothing. Normally he charged all that the traffic could
bear, on the grounds that, after all, even gods had to eat; and because he lived in horror of
some day being required to get a proper job. His few remaining worshippers would have been
only too happy to provide him with everything he might need or desire, but that was a
dangerous road to start down. He didn't want to become dependent on his worshippers. It