"Simon R. Green - Nightside 1 - Drinking Midnight Wine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Green Simon R)

mortals, and took no hurt at all. Jimmy ducked one punch, and Angel's fist went on to shatter the
chimney stack behind him. It all but exploded, showering bricks and rubble down the sloping roof
and onto the platform below. The two fighters circled each other silently. They had nothing to
say. More slates cracked and shattered under their feet as they threw themselves forward again.
Jimmy made no attempt to block Angel's blow, taking it unflinchingly as he raised Mjolnir above
his head and brought it down with all his strength. But Angel was still too fast for him. She
leaped aside and the hammer came rushing down to strike the sloping roof, which broke open under
the impact. The entire roof collapsed, plunging down into the waiting room below, and Jimmy and
Angel went down with it, in a roar of disintegrating masonry.
Smoke and debris blew out the waiting room's windows, while the large oblong room filled with
rubble and dust. Jimmy and Angel hit the floor hard, but were immediately back on their feet
again, not even out of breath from their fall. They saw each other through the dust-choked air,
and surged forward once again. Angel caught Jimmy in the chest with a powerful blow, and he was
thrown backwards, knocking a hole through the wall behind him with his semi-divine body. It wasn't
enough to damage him, but it still hurt like hell. And in the moment it took him to shrug off the
hurt and rise out of the collapsed wall, Angel seized the advantage and went for his throat.
Mjolnir leaped to Jimmy's defence, and lashed out to strike Angel a vicious blow on the right
temple. Her head snapped right round under the impact, her neck bones squealing, but her neck held
and her skull didn't break. Jimmy was frankly astonished, but that didn't stop him lashing out
with his other hand, driving her back while she was still off
balance. He charged forward, broken masonry falling off him like raindrops, wound up and threw
Mjolnir at Angel with all his strength, sure that even a descended angel couldn't stand against
the power and momentum of the legendary hammer that had split mountains in its time. Perhaps Angel
wasn't sure either, and at the very last moment she ducked, and the hammer sailed harmlessly over
her head to punch a hole through the wall behind her. Jimmy yelled for the hammer to return to
him, but nothing happened. Bloody thing was getting senile. He lurched forward and Angel came to
meet him, and for a long time they stood toe to toe, giving and receiving blows of terrible force
that could normally shatter anything the mortal world had to offer. Neither of them would give an
inch, and they fought on remorselessly as the last of the waiting room collapsed around them.
Hob was still trying to keep his panicking refugees under control, barking orders now in a cold,
authoritative voice that as a rule would never be ignored, but no one was listening to him. They'd
pressed themselves into a tightly packed crowd before the narrow exit gate, and were all but
fighting each other in their need to get away. A few had made it out into the car park, and were
running wildly in all directions. Hob lost his temper.
He took his ancient aspect upon him, glorious and terrible, and glowed; bright as the sun,
brilliant and blinding. A wave of impossible heat blazed out from him, boiling along the platform,
and engulfed all the refugees in one moment, even those running in the car park. Men and women
burned alive and were gone, their bodies utterly consumed by an unbearable heat. They didn't even
have time to scream before they were nothing more than a few ashes drifting on the night air.


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Hob yelled to Angel, and she reluctantly turned away from the stunned thunder god, and vaulted
back across the tracks to join her partner. They both disappeared into the car park, and a slow,
sullen silence fell across what was left of the deserted railway station.
Jimmy Thunder kicked his way through the rubble of what had once been a waiting room, emerged out
onto the platform and looked about him. The Reality Express was gone, returned to whatever place
or state it called home. There was nothing left of the refugees but a few dark scorch marks on the