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

only then that he noticed he wasn't alone.
The woman with the most perfect mouth in the world was standing not ten feet away from
him, holding her folded paper above her head, and glaring about her as though the rain was a
personal affront. Her light blue suit was no match for a downpour, for all its expensive
elegance, and it was clear she'd be soaked through before she could even get out of the car
park. Toby could hardly believe his luck. It was raining, she was stranded, and he ... he had
an umbrella! All he had to do was walk over to her, casually offer to share his umbrella, and
they could just walk off together. It would be perfectly natural for them to get talking, and
maybe agree to meet later, so she could . . . thank him properly. He might even finally find
out her name. If he could just bring himself to cross the gaping abyss of the ten feet that
separated them.
Toby stepped forward into the rain, and then watched in utter amazement as the woman
glanced at the station house, not even seeing him, and snapped her fingers imperiously. The
sound seemed to hang on the air, impossibly loud and distinct against the din of the driving
rain, as she strode towards a door in the station-house wall that Toby was sure as hell hadn't
been there the moment before. He'd been buying his ticket here for years, on and off, and
there had only ever been the one door, and one way in. Only now there were two doors, side
by side. The woman pushed at the second door and it swung open before her, revealing only
darkness.
And all through the car park, and perhaps all through the world, everything stopped. The
noise of the town and the rain was suddenly gone, as though someone had just thrown a
switch. The silence was so complete that Toby could hear his breathing and his heartbeat. The
rain was stopped, every drop suspended in mid-air, glistening and shining with a strange inner
light. It seemed as though nothing was moving in the whole damned world but Toby and the
woman before him. The air was full of anticipation, of imminence, of something vitally
important balanced on the edge of becoming. There was a feeling deep in Toby's bones and in
his water that, perhaps for the first time in his life, what he did next mattered.
The woman walked through the door that shouldn't be there, disappearing into the darkness
beyond, and the door slowly began to close behind her. Toby ran forward, desperate not to
lose his chance with her, and plunged through the narrowing doorway. The door closed
behind him with a loud, definite sound, and in that moment, everything changed.
For ever.
Toby stepped through the door and found himself standing in the car park again, with the
station building behind him. He stopped dead, and blinked a few times. The feeling that the
world was holding its breath was gone, but something new and rather more frightening had
taken its place. The car park looked just as it had done before, and the distant sounds of the
town had returned, but it was no longer raining. It was bright and sunny, with a clear blue sky
and not even a trace of dampness on the ground. Everything looked just as it normally did,
but everything felt different. And the woman with the perfect mouth was standing right in
front of him, studying him silently with an unreadable expression on her face.
'You really shouldn't have done that,' she said finally, and her voice was everything he
could have hoped for: deep, warm, music to the ears.
'Done what?' said Toby. 'I mean . . . what just happened here? Where are we?'
'In the magical world. It's all around you, all the time, but most people choose not to see it,
for the sake of a sane and simple life. But sometimes people from the everyday world find
their way here by accident. Go where they shouldn't, follow someone they shouldn't . . . and
then nothing can ever be the same again.' She looked at him almost sadly. 'You now have a
foot in both worlds; in the real world of Veritie, and the magical world of Mysterie. And it's a
dangerous thing, to be a mortal man in a world of magic'
'OK,' said Toby. 'Hold everything. Let's start with some basics. I'm Toby Dexter. Who are