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

station-house walls. For a moment it had been as though the sun itself had reached out and touched
the earth, but it was Hob's power, and it touched only what he chose to touch.

Jimmy looked back at the building he and Angel had destroyed during their fight, and swore briefly
in Old Norse. Early hour of the morning or not, someone had to have heard the noise. He'd better
leave before someone official turned up to investigate. Doubtless they'd come up with some real-
world explanation; a gas explosion, probably. He stared up the empty tracks, still and silent now.
He doubted there'd be any more runs on the Reality Express for the time being. No one would accept
Hob's promises of a new and better life in Veritie any more; not after he'd roasted his last lot
of customers.
Jimmy wondered briefly how he was going to explain all this to the Waking Beauty. It really hadn't
been one of his better showings. He sighed, and started searching through the rubble of the
destroyed waiting room for his lost hammer, calling to it as to a deaf and rather dim dog.

THREE
DEAD MAN WALKING
Leo Morn was having a quiet drink in the Dandy Lion when the dead man walked in. Leo put down his
glass and glanced quickly about him, but no one else seemed to have noticed. This was Veritie,
after all, and in the real world there was no magic, no enchantments, and definitely no walking
dead men.
It was ten thirty on a Saturday, a quiet morning in a quiet country town. Bradford-on-Avon's
narrow streets and lanes were full of shoppers and tourists and running children, making the most
of a warm summer's day. Steady traffic rolled up and down the steep hill of Market Street, while
harried motorists fought savagely over the limited parking space in adjoining Church Street. Just
another Saturday morning, really, and Leo Morn was taking his ease at his favourite watering hole.
The Dandy Lion was a very pleasant public house right in the centre of town, in an old, old
building that had been many things in its time, and known many names, but these days it was a warm
and cosy resting place, with wood-panelled walls, raftered ceilings, good booze and better food,
where the lighting was kept just dim enough to be easy on the eyes. It was a good place to put
your feet up, quench your thirst and soothe the inner man.
Leo was sitting with the arty set, local writers, musicians and artists who liked to get together
of a morning, to exchange hard-luck stories about how harshly today's commercial world treated the
suffering artist, steal each other's ideas and indulge in as much mean-spirited gossip as
possible. The company was always good, and the conversation could be sparkling and acerbic by
turns. Coffee was usually the order of the day, in all its more dramatic forms, dispensed by a
loud shuddering thing of steel and steam that squatted darkly at the end of the long wooden bar.
Leo didn't actually care much for coffee, with or without whipped foam or chocolate sprinkles. He
much preferred Dry Blackthorn, a locally produced cider that would bite your head right off if you
weren't careful.
Leo considered his half-empty glass, but he couldn't blame the booze this time. He knew a walking
dead man when he saw one. Not least because he'd been to this one's funeral only two weeks before.
Reed Smith had been one of his few friends. A fortnight underground hadn't affected Reed much. He
was still wearing the good suit he'd been buried in, and his slack face was pale under the last
remnants of the undertaker's make-up. He held his head at an angle, where the motorcycle crash had
broken his neck. His eyes were open, but barely focused, and his mouth was still held closed by
the tiny stitches the undertaker had put in, so that there wouldn't be any unfortunate expressions
on the dead man's face during the viewing. His hands hung limply at his sides, as though he'd
forgotten they were there. Leo had a brief vision of those hands scrabbling at the underside of a
closed coffin lid, and quickly pushed the thought aside. There was a lot to be said for cremation,
especially in a town like this. Reed stood very still, just inside the swing doors of the pub,