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

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 you?'
'I'm Gayle. I should have noticed you were here, but I was... distracted. The weather was supposed
to be sunny all day. There wasn't even a chance of rain. And I am never wrong about these things.
But today something changed, in your world and in mine, and it worries me that I can't see how or
why such an impossible thing should happen. Why did you follow me, Toby Dexter?'
'I wanted to talk to you. Ask you if you'd like to go out, for dinner, or something...'
Gayle smiled and shook her head. 'I'm afraid that's quite impossible.'
'Oh,' said Toby, disappointed but not incredibly surprised. 'Well; I suppose I'll see you around.'
'Yes,' said Gayle. 'I'm rather afraid you will.'
She turned and walked off into the bright sunny evening, and didn't look back once. Toby stood
there, with his dripping umbrella, and there was no sign of rain anywhere at all.

TWO
THE REALITY EXPRESS
A ghost train is coming to Bradford-on-Avon, thundering down the tracks, puffing smoke and steam.
It is coming in the early hours of the morning, long before the dawn, in the hour of the wolf; the
hour when most babies are born and most people die, when no train is scheduled to run.
A great black iron train, with hot steam raging in its boiler, avatar of a different age, it fills